Comments on 0.95

[tperry2x]

I may have forgotten to mention these in 0.94:

• Home/toolbar (first launch) opens on a monitor that is not my default monitor, and my preferred placement is not retained between sessions.

...is it consistent as to what screen it appears on, or is the behaviour sometimes reversed with the toolbar and rest of the palettes swapping location?

Quoting myself and you here, but I've been doing some testing

I'm investigating weirdness with multiple screens.
I don't think that weirdness is just confined to a mac.

Just plugged in a secondary monitor that I found in the loft.
Initial findings are:

1. You can see I have 'Backdrop' turned on, but there's no background colour.

01.jpg (141.8 KiB) Viewed 1771 times

2. That's because it's showing only on screen 2.

02.jpg (11.79 KiB) Viewed 1771 times

3. So I created a new stack, which opened on screen 2 for some reason - even though the revMenubar stack and the tools palette is on screen 1. I then did the shortcut for the message box, and it popped onto screen 2.

03.jpg (15.03 KiB) Viewed 1771 times

4. Dragged the message box back over to screen 1, and tried to find out the supposed topleft of the new stack. It reports 289x210 which is obviously wrong. The 'background' is now randomly appearing on Screen 1 and no longer on Screen 2.

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5. Back over to Screen 2 and clicking on the stack moved my message box and tools palette over from screen 1 to screen 2 without asking. It also moved the "Backdrop" from screen 1 to screen 2 again.

05.jpg (21 KiB) Viewed 1771 times

6. Tried to ctrl-s and save the stack, and the save dialog popped open on screen 1, not on screen 2 where the stack is, but my message box and tools jumped back to screen 1.

06.jpg (34.11 KiB) Viewed 1771 times

After saving, my tool palette disappeared 'behind' the background stack, and the only way to get it back was to turn off the background again.

It all seems very random and very broken.

[richmond62]

Is that on a Linux distro? (and if so, which one?) or Windoze?

[tperry2x]

Yes, on Linux.
MX Linux, xfce window manager. Compositing on (default), NVIDIA Gtx 2080ti.

(Should have more than enough memory in this 'rig', with 32gb, so don't think it's that or lack of graphics memory) - was just trying to rule things out.

I also tried messaging around with multiple lower resolutions, but that made no difference. Same weird behaviour.

[richmond62]

OK: I am resurrecting my 64-bit Linux laptop (old, 32-bit one grinds to a halt when an external monitor is connected) at the mo', so should be able to fool around with this tomorrow.

Xubuntu 22.04 LTS "Autistic Armadillo", "Cretinous Crayfish", "Maladjusted Moose", or some equally daft name.

[tperry2x]

Think I may be stuck with these issues on multiple monitors. It's just too inconsistent, and I think it was never designed with multiple monitor use in mind.

Back over to my normal machine this morning, also Linux (but of course ). I've also found under certain situations, it's possible to spawn multiple project inspectors. If this occurs, there is no guarantee that values shown in the inspectors are necessarily correct.

multiple-inspectors.png (647.99 KiB) Viewed 1737 times

The IDE can easily be confused.

[richmond62]

Well, with both Windows ( admittedly my last experience of any value was with Windows 2000), and Linux, unlike Mac, one can have multiple instances of a process.

I don't know how these things work, because I thought the properties palettes were 'just' stacks that popped up as palettes that were substacks of the 'home' stack or some such, and as such, should NOT be independent processes.

However, a couple of years back I did notice something a bit odd with palettes on a pupil's laptop running Windows 8.

[tperry2x]

I should clarify, these are not seen as processes. The Project Inspector contains code to generate new copies of itself (it creates a temporary instance as a new stack) as needed, however it should simply update the project inspector if one is already open.

Edit: think our posts have crossed there. You are absolutely right, I've seen this back a long time ago in Windows too (think it would have been Livecode 7 back then), so this is probably another long-overdue bug to squish.

I found sometimes this will seemingly occur randomly, but you can make it happen by right-clicking a stack's name in the "Project Browser" and inspecting the same stack multiple times.

[richmond62]

I am currently on our balcony having some beer after shifting 350 shovel-fulls of soil into our second raised vegetable bed, so nowhere near a computer. In about 45 mins after starting the yeast off for some bread, I shall try to demonstrate some props palette inconsistency on MacOS 12 that was pissing me off on Friday.

Some people go to church: I prefer to 'worship' by buggering around with God's creation in the garden.

[tperry2x]

...I shall try to demonstrate some props palette inconsistency on MacOS 12 that was pissing me off on Friday.

haha, no problem. No rush, but would be good to know so I can see if it's something I can look into before 0.96

[richmond62]

Now have shovelled 450 loads of soil and made bread, so currently doing the 'old man thing' and having an afternoon snooze.

[richmond62]

So: rested and encaffeinated . . . to work.

Let us start by considering a single card stack with 3 images distributed across it:
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x1.png (130.84 KiB) Viewed 1717 times

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Nothing to get too worked up about.

There are 3 ways of 'getting' the Property Inspector of any object on that card:
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PI1.png (81.68 KiB) Viewed 1717 times

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1. By performing a 'right click' with a mouse.
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PI2.png (158.48 KiB) Viewed 1717 times

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2. Via the menu bar.

3. By performing a 'double click' over the object.

[richmond62]

The interesting point is how that Properties Palette subsequently behaves:
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PI3.png (130.46 KiB) Viewed 1715 times

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If I perform a simple mouse click (i.e. select) on another object, the details of that new object automatically appear in the Properties Palette:
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PI4.png (245.21 KiB) Viewed 1714 times

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And that seems fairly intuitive.

[richmond62]

If, however, I look for information about another object via the menu 'blob' in the Property Palette I end up with 2 instances of the Property Palette:
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PI5.png (309.04 KiB) Viewed 1713 times

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PI6.png (365.25 KiB) Viewed 1712 times

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Which seems inconsistent.
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blob.png (105.51 KiB) Viewed 1712 times

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And, just to make things 'more fun', I have found that using the 'blob', sometimes I get a new instance of the Property Palette, and sometimes the information is displayed inwith a Property Palette already open.

[tperry2x]

This is all to do with the spawning multiple copies of itself issue. You can get the same thing inspecting via the"project browser" too.
I'll look into this one, but can't promise I'll be able to fix it.

[tperry2x]

Think I've kind of squished that bug with the multiple inspectors.
If the "revinspector.livecodescript" file is silly enough to create multiple inspectors, it now sorts itself out when two inspectors are shown.

Annoyingly, it's to do with there being no sanity checking on whether a stack called "revPropertyInspector" already exists. That and coupled with the fact that it is allowed to create as many duplicate instances of itself as the engine mistakenly sees fit.

I've sorted out the blob problem, although sometimes I can still get 2 copies under certain circumstances. Clicking something else though always now clears up the redundant inspector.

using-the-blob.gif (541.72 KiB) Viewed 1689 times

(doesn't update the selection handle when you choose an object with the 'blob' either)

That seems to have been the case for you in your screenshot you posted above.
Your Inspector on the left, focused on image "w2" shows the selection handles around it. The "w3" inspector (the topmost inspector, so logically the one it should pay attention to), has not set the selection handles to the "w3" image.

I can limit this error to a minimum, but cannot solve it entirely. (it's 50% better than it was!)

PI6.png (126.62 KiB) Viewed 1685 times

Now, if I do manage to confuse the IDE by having multiple inspectors, it generally realises this and sorts itself out:

simplescreenrecorder-2023-12-04_15.gif (621.74 KiB) Viewed 1684 times

In an ideal world, I'd just like to stop the creation of the 2nd inspector window, so this is a definitely an 'in progress' issue. I may have to come back at this for round 2.

[tperry2x]

Round 2. Have tightened my grip on the "multiple inspector" thing. (It now produces 2 instances in only rare occasions, but sorts itself out upon the next inspector click if it does)