A few buttons...

[OpenXTalkPaul]

You could use the thing with Russian hacker to tell your 15 year old about the facts of life.

I would just demonstrate my Scots, Presbyterian ancestry by asking why you wasted your hard-earned money on something with no lasting value for your 15 year old.

Valve Steam account . . . cliesh ma dowp (as we Scots are wont to say).

Oh for sure potentially loosing a few years worth of hard-earned (in his mind, we're talking mowing our lawn) chores / allowance purchased games is definitely a life-lesson opportunity for him, lol. I don't think he'll fall for it again, to be fair one his best friends account was hacked first and that helped snag him too.

It also served as excellent example of the thing I've been ranting at my kids about for well over a decade now, and that is what is bad about 'the cloud' is really means 'someone else's computer', and society is wrong to give up physical ownership of purchased media for the deliver convenience of not actually owning anything but a download ticket. But he can't even play his purchased games he already has installed on his drive, without his Steam account logged in!

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Valve Steam account . . . cliesh ma dowp (as we Scots are wont to say).

Help a yank out here? No results googling for that expression, I did learn 'dowp' means 'bottom' so I have a guess.

[tperry2x]

Help a yank out here? No results googling for that expression..

"Slap my bottom", or very similar.
Or, around here: "ding over oi gret ol ahind"

Anyway, thanks for those tips on the tsv file. I'm sure you mentioned it before, but I can't find it now. If you do get a chance to have a look at producing the accompanying bits for it, that would be great.
On the 'cloud thing', yes - As soon as they tried to make me part with physical media, I was always going to be against it. (I do moan about fully cloud-hosted stuff a lot)

My 11 year old was absolutely horrified when she realised a game on her iPad that she paid £12 for was no longer available (has been pulled from the App store), so she has no way to redownload it on her replacement iPad as her previous one bit the dust. I'd have backed it up, except that I don't get involved with it. It's up to her to manage. (I just put the web filtering in place in the background)

But that's my point - if you have purchased something, it should be there, available for you to use again. Not to be taken away at some undetermined date on someone's whim with no explanation. This is why I tend to hang on-to and archive things that could be handy after they disappear online, because you never know when someone might just delete something or make something completely unavailable. (or end up compromising your cloud-service login, so much so that it gets blocked - and you are stymied that way).

... he says, logging into a fully cloud-hosted forum on a remote computer somewhere.

[richmond62]

Interestingly enough, the LC 8.1.10 Dictionary has no mention of "oval":
-

Screen Shot 2024-09-16 at 1.45.15 pm.png (27.88 KiB) Viewed 375 times

-
BUT:
-

Screen Shot 2024-09-16 at 1.45.26 pm.png (40.19 KiB) Viewed 375 times

-
I wonder what other styles are lurking, undocumented . . .

[FourthWorld]

The funny thing about this is that the Properties Palette DOES HAVE a Style menu: BUT not all of the styles are there to choose from:

The oval style may be omitted from the UI because it's an incomplete implementation.

It seems to be drawn using the old pre-Skia routines, lacking the smooth antialising of the same shape in graphic objects.

And hit testing occurs on the full bounding rect, not limited to the oval shape as with graphics.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

The funny thing about this is that the Properties Palette DOES HAVE a Style menu: BUT not all of the styles are there to choose from:

The oval style may be omitted from the UI because it's an incomplete implementation.

It seems to be drawn using the old pre-Skia routines, lacking the smooth antialising of the same shape in graphic objects.

And hit testing occurs on the full bounding rect, not limited to the oval shape as with graphics.

I thought that all of the classic controls (besides the graphics controls, which as you mention do have the nicer anti-aliased edges) use Cairo and not the newer Skia.

I'm not sure when this became neglected / left out of the IDE, but I know 'oval buttons' were in MetaCard (that's how I noticed it, I was using MC's 'Tools' in web playground stack). If it wasn't an incomplete implementation back then, it definitely is incomplete / broken now. There appears to be two borders, an inner border and an outer border, with no way to to set the thickness of the outer border and no way to set the color of the inner border (which seems like it inherits the card's effective backgroundColor).

I'm not real concerned with the hit test thing since the oval size is always based on the controls rect most times I would want the whole rect to be hit-area, but I could see that being problematic in some situations.

The thing with Graphic Controls is that they are not like buttons. you can't assign an icon, a hoverIcon, and 'clicked' icon, etc. Grphic controls only allows images to be used via fill patterns.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Anyway, thanks for those tips on the tsv file. I'm sure you mentioned it before, but I can't find it now. If you do get a chance to have a look at producing the accompanying bits for it, that would be great.
On the 'cloud thing', yes - As soon as they tried to make me part with physical media, I was always going to be against it. (I do moan about fully cloud-hosted stuff a lot)

... he says, logging into a fully cloud-hosted forum on a remote computer somewhere.

'The cloud' I think is OK for redundant back-up storage, or for collaborative file sharing, that sort of thing.
Anyway trying to never use 'the cloud' is a bit like people saying they'll never use AI stuff or X-whatever popular new technology, you're going to swimming against the tide in perpetuity.

Having rescued my Son's account with all of his game purchases still there (I think they did steal his $1 of Steam-Points-Cash he had in there), and having been invigorated by seeing live performance by my favorite octegenarian rock star last night ( Jon Anderson, ex-YES ), I did squeeze in a little time to look at adding 'oval button' back in (since you can't use an icon with a "graphic control"). You have to edit that line in the .tsv files for ALL of the Button controls, so that the item appears in the Property Inspector no matter what the button's 'style' currently is (I was think of doing this for the 'menu' button style too).
I also made a new properties file for '...OvalButton.tsv'. The problem is no matter what I do with that file, new instances of buttons with style 'oval' ALWAYS defaults to opaque = false. I'm thinking there's somewhere else in the revIDELibraries that needs changed to set up the 'templateButton' for this particular style.

[FourthWorld]

'The cloud' I think is OK for redundant back-up storage, or for collaborative file sharing, that sort of thing.

Best of both: my hard drive I control locally, and my hard drive I control on my cloud:
https://nextcloud.com/

Free, open, installable in one click on most shared hosts, runs even better on a VPS, great for automatic file sync with a couple hundred other apps built by the community as well.

Yes, I'm a fan. . Been running my office with it for years, and colleagues and clients as well.

[richmond62]

I'm not sure when this became neglected / left out of the IDE, but I know 'oval buttons' were in MetaCard (that's how I noticed it, I was using MC's 'Tools' in web playground stack). If it wasn't an incomplete implementation back then, it definitely is incomplete / broken now. There appears to be two borders, an inner border and an outer border, with no way to to set the thickness of the outer border and no way to set the color of the inner border (which seems like it inherits the card's effective backgroundColor).

Yes, setting a button's style to "Oval" wipes out all the other settings such as Opaque and so on, so one then has to 'put them all back'.

[richmond62]

Hey-Ho:
-

Screenshot 2024-09-17 at 19.38.28.png (17.13 KiB) Viewed 274 times

-

Screenshot 2024-09-17 at 19.43.21.png (252.88 KiB) Viewed 274 times

-
'oval' shows up in the STYLE menu:
-

Screenshot 2024-09-17 at 19.43.41.png (247.06 KiB) Viewed 274 times

-
However the result is a load of old cobblers as all other properties are destroyed:

1. The button is now transparent.

2. The font alignment has reverted to defult.

3. and so on.

This:

So we need to create a file named something like: com.livecode.interface.classic.OvalButton.tsv

I shall attempt to hack this file: com.livecode.interface.classic.RectangleButton.tsv

[OpenXTalkPaul]

This:

So we need to create a file named something like: com.livecode.interface.classic.OvalButton.tsv

I shall attempt to hack this file: com.livecode.interface.classic.RectangleButton.tsv

I did that already, but there's actually a few lines in the revIDELibrary script that should be changed as well, which I also did, but these oval button seems a bit stubborn about being dragged back into existence.

I think there will need to be lines of script added specifically to set up the templateButton / new control in order for new instances to have appropriate default properties when they're created. There is already some code in there that is specific to DataGrids. I attempted to do this as well, and as a result I somehow broke drag-drop-to-place for all controls (widgets too) in my OXTToolsRedo as a result. of something I changed along the way. Reverting Tools back to the old OXTTools (which is was more closely on the old LC 9.63 Tools), then drag-drop works for controls except for OvalButton, double-click to create Oval Buttons works but I haven't tried to fixed the problem with default properties yet.

Also the control can be added to the file named (IIRC) ClassicToolsOrder.tsv (something like that), which is line-delimited list that effects the order in which classic controls appear in the Tools palette (currently doesn't work with my OXTToolsRedo).

[richmond62]

Owing to the exigencies of my teaching schedule this coming "hackademic" year I will be in my school 4 days a week with a 4-hour lunch break.

I have, therefore, moved my Intel Mac Mini MacOS15 (Sequoia) back down to my school so I can fiddle around with .tsv files and so on.

Parenthetically: does anyone know why LibreOffice opens .tsv files, but on performing a 'Save As' offers .csv, but not .tsv (even if the original document was TAB delimited) and one has to edit the suffix to .tsv?

[richmond62]

Yesterday I copied com.livecode.interface.classic.RectangleButton.tsv

renamed it com.livecode.interface.classic.OvalButton.tsv

and mucked around with it, to no avail: although an 'invisible' button (with the tooltip 'Oval Button') did appear on the Tools palette.

[richmond62]

Ooooh: and while I am 'here' how about an ability to apply bevel edges to buttons?
-

Butt.png (1 KiB) Viewed 255 times

[richmond62]

Right: set up the Mac Mini:
-

SShot 2024-09-18 at 12.38.32.png (81.98 KiB) Viewed 252 times

-
That made me feel a bit queer.

In fact, having to go through 5 update cycles made me feel very queer.

Is there some way when someone opens an OXT Lite version after some time, for ALL updates cannot be applied in one go?

[richmond62]

As we CAN set the style of a button to "oval" (even if the result is a half-cock job), am I right in assuming the 'seed' of an oval button
resides somewhere in the engine? AND, if NOT, where can I hack stuff so I can start faffing around with polygonal buttons and polygonal star buttons?
-

SShot 2024-09-18 at 14.09.31.png (28.09 KiB) Viewed 249 times

[tperry2x]

Is there some way when someone opens an OXT Lite version after some time, for ALL updates cannot be applied in one go?

Yes, by downloading version 1.08 [beta].
Otherwise, waiting until I do the full version of 1.08 - but I'm still not convinced I want to put the stuff about Sonoma into the 1.08 build, as it's a cludge - it needs fixing in-engine, so I was waiting to see if there was going to be any progress on compiled versions of the engine before I could move on. Plus I'm also busy with work at the moment.

[richmond62]

Will 1.08 beta upgrade to 1.08 final vinyl, or will we have to download 1.08 final vinyl separately?

[tperry2x]

Well, either is an option.
It's perfectly possible for me to make 1.08 beta into a final version via the update - BUT - I'm not entirely sure I like the sonoma options being 'tacked on'. As I say, it would be better for them to be properly fixed in a recompiled engine (and more specifically, recompiled standalones - so that I didn't need them patched in this manner).

However, I don't know [when / if] a new compiled version of the standalones for MacOS will surface - but that's where it needs fixing to do it properly.

An alternative approach I have in mind was to release 1.08 without the sonoma patches, but incorporating all the 1.07 incremental updates. So the 1.08 beta stays as it is, and the 1.08 (final) version carries onward, without the Sonoma bits tacked on.

I'm also wondering about a third option - where I solely target OXT Lite for Windows and Linux, and Paul's [RCx/Don't Panic/Full Fat/Heavy] edition can be the mac version - as that's far further ahead in some respects, but contains lots of mac-specific and mac-only stuff. This is also partly because I'm cheesed off with MacOS and developing for it is increasingly unworkable for me. (what with codesigning, plist errors, no arm processor support, ever tightening gatekeeper restrictions, and Apple's current scare tactics of trying to enforce app-store only apps on users). Who knows what else is going to break in the next MacOS release - it feels like trying to support OXT Lite on MacOS is like trying to chase after an ever-accelerating car: there's no chance of catching up to it.

I was also thinking about this today, regarding Mac users and OXT Lite - or OXT for that matter.
Given that Livecode Community is fairly niche anyway when compared to C++, Rust, Python, Swift etc. To compound this niche-ness - given that most Mac users will also soon not just expect an Arm version - but require one, also increasing it's niche status would be the hoops a mac user has to jump through to actually get the thing running - turning off Apple's restrictions (not being able to download from the app store because OXT is not going to be sandboxed in the way Apple are ever likely to approve), limits it to such a degree that it's extremely niche in my opinion. Does that also ring true with anyone else, or is it just me?

[TerryL]

I suggest carrying on without multiple (beta) versions until you can't (ARM compatible required). Your frustration keeping current with MacOS is noted. I take it Richmond's contact decided not to attempt a Mac engine recompile. No one has magically appeared to champion a solution.

o Crazy thought, consider contacting the author of RocketCake (web page editor) who maintains paid and feature-reduced free 64-bit ARM-Mac & Windows versions. I use his product to promote OXT Lite. He may be willing to compile or assist compile for a fee. Invite him to download Mac OXT Lite.

o How many individual OXT Lite 1.07 auto-updates have been pushed, by platform? Just how many active Mac users are there really?