OpenXTalk RC4 testing...

[tperry2x]

Here's a 'bug' that has been around in LC for yonks [just checked LC 8.1.10], and it would be lovely if it could be 'wented' [this is a verb I really want to encourage] in OXT:
When grid spacing is set to 1 pixel the size field becomes empty.

"Wented" sounds a bit like a word that people want to try and sneak into common parlance. A bit like "Yeet"
https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/yeet/

Getting myself back on topic, do you have a list of longstanding bugs that we can check for and see if they are squashed or still exist in RC4? From your days on the LC forums 'over on the other-side'?

[richmond62]

As far as I am concerned the most longstanding bug is the one where most of the forum contributors assume that everyone has squidulicks of money and time to spend on the latest hardware and software, and if they are running, say, a 2007 iMac running MacOS 10.7 with LC 8.1.10 they are an inferior species beneath their contempt.

I would hope that over here everyone realises that some of the main reasons we are here are:

1. We do not have the cash to stump up yearly payouts for LiveCode.

2. We do not have the cash to buy new hardware and/or software every six months and chuck our 2022 M1 Mac out with last year's iPhone, but are normally running things on older hardware [personally the oldest hardware I deploy LC-soon-to-be-OXT on are 32-bit PCs from about 1998 running types of light Linux] and crossing our fingers that that doesn't go 'pop' as we do not have the wherewithall to replace it with something newer, or, unlike Richmond, the cheek to ask people to donate for him to buy some relatively new hardware.

Certainly the attitude of several of the main contributors (and one in particular) to those forums has always come across as extremely patrician and condescending: it should NOT be like that round these parts.

[tperry2x]

Yes, that's definitely the case with me. I'm running MacOS on what most would consider 'legacy'' hardware.
The only reason my main computer is relatively current is that Linux 'just keeps going' on whatever I tend to throw at it.

personally the oldest hardware I deploy LC-soon-to-be-OXT on are 32-bit PCs from about 1998 running types of light Linux

I note that the RC4 build of OpenXTalk cannot seem to create 32bit standalones for MacOS. I assume that this is because Livecode 9.x on which it is based, requires a 64-bit Mac OS?

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However, it seems to have no qualms about producing 32bit Windows and Linux standalones:

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Even at my work, our school are still on Windows 10, on 8 year old hardware. When you are talking scale, hardware does not get updated. With over 480+ computers, it's understandable when things are left to get old, as replacing them in one go becomes prohibitive.

2 years ago, we only just moved to Windows 10 over from 7 (a 32-bit OS), so it's not surprising there are plenty of 32bit systems still out there and being used daily. (And being depended on I might add)
That is the reality when you are dealing with the education sector, or any industries that haven't seen recent investment pumped in, of which there are many. (The NHS is still using Windows XP for certain applications)

So to shun anyone for using older hardware does not make sense as far as I'm concerned.

[richmond62]

This is mainly because "some people we know" suck the tit that they imagine feeds them: the "ever upward, ever onward" tit.

As a very large part of the world [significantly bigger than half] cannot even get hooked onto that tit, even if they'd like to (as they are also fooled by the linear theory of evolution: when evolution is more like a whole lot of people fooling around in a twisty corridor), those people do not cater to the rest of us.

Now Microsoft (for all its many and obvious faults) and the Linux Hydra (a many-headed beast) do provide far, far more backwards compatibility than either "some people we know" or Apple,

Because I like Apple I pay for that addiction by having a room full of perfectly good Macs representing the last 20-odd years of Apple "evolution" to cope with my other addiction: backwards compatibility.

It would be "faffing" fantastic if one could develop with an OS equivalent to LC 963 and deploy standalones to MacOS 10.4 PPC.

[richmond62]

Give me 5 minutes while I turn my 2018 Mac Mini running the latest beta of MacOS 14 on, and I'll see what happens.

Not many people realise that in the Balkans "5 minutes" normally means about 2 hours.

OK, OK: having sanded down 2 wooden bed frames, moved them up 3 floors, bolted them together, fed the cats, changed my clothes, and about 1,765 other things if I bother to stop and think . . .

No: OXT RC 4 does NOT get off the ground with MacOS 14 beta 7/5 . . . but no-one should either panic or try some fancy coding just yet as MacOS 13 'Ventura' behaved the same way; at the last beta before the 'official' release LC 963 started working . . . so, let's just wait and see.

[tperry2x]

Okay, thanks for testing Richmond.
Yes - let's do as the name suggests and "don't panic". I guess there's no point trying to patch for a moving target if Sonoma is still in beta. Best to wait for it to be finished before we see if we have to adjust anything to get it to work.

[richmond62]

From "the other place":

LC requested that dictionary edits go through support.

Pause for deep belly-laugh.
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[tperry2x]

LC requested that dictionary edits go through support

Unless I'm interpreting this incorrectly, I take that to mean - if their user-base find anything wrong with the Livecode / Xavvi (or whatever it's going to be called), they probably have to raise a "support ticket" which will be looked at.....whenever.

meanwhile, over here - we are free to edit the dictionary as we please, without needing permission from LC Central?

[tperry2x]

It would be "faffing" fantastic if one could develop with an OS equivalent to LC 963 and deploy standalones to MacOS 10.4 PPC.

Unfortunately, this might not be easily doable. The reason I say that, not meaning to sound negative, is that I think the minimum requirements for Livecode 9.x (and therefore OpenXTalk) are Mac OS X 10.9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCode#Compatibility
To support MacOS 10.4 (and PPC), you'd have to take legacy code from version 4.6 - 6.5 of Livecode and work out what makes it run.

It's going to be a battle at some point, trying to get OpenXTalk to run under different architecture. It's something that is going to have to happen. As daunting a process as it would seem including PPC support, at least it already exists. Supporting Apple's ARM architecture in the other direction in a couple of years (when it's the only option for the ever-upgrading-crowd, or those who want to target a Mac-ARM-based audience) will be a harder task, as we don't have access to that readily available.

I see over in LC-land, they "backported" a bug fix into Livecode 9.6.9 to allow it to run under Sonoma
https://livecode.com/mac-sonoma-initial-beta-support/



Not wanting to be hypocritical here. When I once said that maybe they might read these forums and take some good ideas from it, I'm guilty of reading their page and taking ideas from them - although, to be fair, Sonoma compatibility issues were on the horizon and plain for anyone to experience for themselves.

According to Apple's developer page:
https://developer.apple.com/documentati ... le-silicon
And it goes on from there, into a list of things you'll need to check/change. It does not seem a straightforward process.

You need xCode 12, which means you can only develop for Arm processors under Mac OS 10.15 (and above). This will mean the minimum system requirements for OpenXTalk when it goes ARM, will be Mac OS 10.15 - we won't be able to run it under 10.9.x or lower. At that point we might have an "OpenXTalk Legacy" version and a regular "OpenXTalk" - for the new-and-shiny crowd who I suppose will one day transition to ARM processors even on Linux.

The only other way I can think of doing it, is OpenXTalk remains a universal binary (on the mac side at least), so it opens in Intel (10.9 all the way up to MacOS 14 and beyond). With warnings about which version it'll deploy to... a bit like if you build for Android in Livecode:

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[richmond62]

I'm guilty of reading their page and taking ideas from them

Oh, my sainted aunt, I hope you are not wrestling with your morals.

Open Office / LibreOffice, presumably, got about 99% of their ideas from Microsoft Office.

Ideas, even if nothing else, are up for grabs.

I got the idea for using graphic objects for xTalk animation from watching a TV programme in 1969 (!) about Walt Disney's multi-plane camera
(thereby sidestepping the need to shell out $500 for an animation engine) . . . OK, OK, I light candles in front of a statue of Ganesh for Walt Disney's soul from time to time [something I am 100% sure Walt Disney's "shade" is grateful for . . . LOL . . . him being a BIGTIME Hindu . . . ROFL], but I am not sending $$$ to the Disney Corp.

If LiveCode come up with something new AND interesting [not since they implemented total Unicode compliance as far as I am concerned], I will TRY to imitate that functionality 100%, and my morals will be free as a bird.

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One of my hobbies is to download one of those fairly stupid free games available on the internet: fool around with it for, say, 20 minutes, and then to try to recreate the whole functionality in LC/OXT . . . seminal to say the least as I have NO access to the underlying code.

After Kev's rude and unfeeling dumping of the Open Source version (which I invested), they have set themselves up for this, and I have no fekking qualms whatsoever about nicking ideas (I will NOT try to reverse engineer their code, or steal stacks out of their IDE package) of theirs'.
------

GOD [take that to mean whatever suits you] has equipped us with brains, and, unlike most organised religions, I am quite sure he/she/it would be happy if we use them: and if that means taking someone else's idea and running with it in a new direction [pace William Shakespeare, who ripped off absolutely everything and made FAR, FAR BETTER confections than the originals (and he is, by the way, a saint in the Church of Richmond)], then "Good On You!"

Heaven is NOT some daft, nebulous place, it is the ability to be creative in a positive way on our wee planet.

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This message was 'informed' by large amounts of Bulgarian white wine, and so should be taken with . . .

. . . large amounts of your local white wine.
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Trick question (and I do not know the answer, but it does make me feel a bit odd):
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Is 'Arnie' really advertising Power Drills in Bulgaria, or is this a really BAD case of A.I. Deep Fake?

[richmond62]

Livecode / Xavvi (or whatever it's going to be called)

Oh, you naughty person: Kev will be right over to lash you with his whip: don't you know it's:
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Where have you been?
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[tperry2x]

Where have you been?

I've obviously been hiding under my rock for too long
Seriously though, it keeps changing it's name. I had no idea what they actually decided on

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[tperry2x]

Is 'Arnie' really advertising Power Drills in Bulgaria, or is this a really BAD case of A.I. Deep Fake?

Yes... yes he really is
https://twitter.com/lidl_ireland/status ... 8360225267

[richmond62]

Poor Arnie, you can't sink much lower.

[tperry2x]

Quoting myself again here, but:

I wondered if we could have the option of the Grey50 available on the backdrop too

Is it as simple as this?
https://github.com/OpenXTalk-org/OpenXt ... 1879104875

[richmond62]

This is purely a subjective choice: BUT I do prefer the LC icons (but greyscale):
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Of course it is a 2 minute exercise in exchanging icons . . . here:

/Contents/Tools/Toolset/resources/supporting_files/themes/org.openxtalk.theme
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Oh, and while I am here, is there a way to change "that purple" to something else; say, dark green ?

[richmond62]

Wow! There's a queer thing: having finally got my brain in gear and finding the Dark/non-Dark mode button, I find it doesn't seem to work.
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[richmond62]

Ouch:
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[richmond62]

Cripes, at an incredibly tedious party with a load of people I dislike:

"Richmond as a social creep." Discuss.

Anyway, I find that purple horrible.

Would

Code: Select all

set the global hiliteColor to dark green

make me happy?

Difficult to test with just my Android phone.

[tperry2x]

"Richmond as a social creep." Discuss.

What is a "Social Creep"? I usually hate meeting people face-to-face, as people are generally shit until proven otherwise.
And even if not initially shit, they often become shit at a later stage.

If the word 'shit' offends anyone, please feel free to perform a find and replace on this html element, and substitute with the phrase of your choice.