Comments on 0.96

[tperry2x]

Not entirely sure if I understand the point of this, as xTALK [err: the people "over there"] keeps mixing up 'coding' and 'scripting'.

Yes, it was to try and get away from mixed terms. We have the script editor, "edit script of...", etc mentioned everywhere. It did not say "edit code of button" and there was no 'Code Editor' window, it was always script editor - so I'm just trying to not give mixed definitions and keep it to "script / scripting" everywhere.

[tperry2x]

Lovely, but I'm like Oliver Twist - wanting more: can we have a short cut for #1 Object Inspector?

We certainly can. What would you like the shortcut to be?

[tperry2x]

The dictionary now looks slightly worse than it did, but I'll revamp this in future. It's just to create a version that's a stack rather than a web object/widget (whatever).

Don't run yourself down: it does look different, and, a bit like what Parmenides said, it does look like its in a state of becoming

It looks a bit ugly when compared to the previous dictionary, but it insists on making those vertical blue and white stripes. The script for this is in a group, and if I commented it out, it seemed to find a way of generating it back.

If I was a bit more heavy-handed with the existing code, I could force remove it, but then I broke the tiny dictionary!
I'd also like to move the search field to the top of the screen, get rid of some of the needless buttons in the middle, and make it a bit more evenly spaced out so that controls are not as cramped.

I thought it would also be nice to have a recent search history on the side, as I know there's been times I've looked up something, only to come back a few hours later looking for it again if I got interrupted.

[richmond62]

What would you like the shortcut to be?

Cripes: I don't know: everything that springs to mind seems to have been already used somewhere else.

[tperry2x]

How about ctrl shift I - Would that be okay?

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[richmond62]

Yes, BUT (the inevitable 'but'): remember that on MacOS it will be the COMMAND key rather than the CTRL key, unless, like me, you have switched them round.
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[richmond62]

So: here I am "at work" (dirty trick of the week: give your pupils an end-of-term exam so you can fool around with OXT) in front of my MacOS 14 Sonoma box, and:

Wow: opened on MacOS 14 Sonoma: no fiddles, no diddles, lovely.

[richmond62]

reportBuilder - suggestion by TerryL to increase the preview window scaling. (tperry: I've added a slider so it can be adjusted 11-12-23)

Using the slider does 2 things:

1. increases the font size inwith the reportBuilder: very good indeed.

2. increases the window size of the reportBuilder: a real pain in the bum as it fills up the screen to such an extent that you cannot see things you may need to see to write your report.

[tperry2x]

reportBuilder - suggestion by TerryL to increase the preview window scaling. (tperry: I've added a slider so it can be adjusted 11-12-23)

Using the slider does 2 things:

1. increases the font size inwith the reportBuilder: very good indeed.

2. increases the window size of the reportBuilder: a real pain in the bum as it fills up the screen to such an extent that you cannot see things you may need to see to write your report.

That is a pain if you are on a small screen. I'll do some testing now with a lower resolution...

edit:
This is on a 1024 x 768 resolution screen. Seems to fit and be legible in my opinion.

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[richmond62]

I think the best thing is to make the textSize and the stackSize 2 independent things:

1. Let the slider increase the textSize ONLY.

2. Let the stack be resizable.

[tperry2x]

I think the best thing is to make the textSize and the stackSize 2 independent things:
1. Let the slider increase the textSize ONLY.

That would be an idea - the issue is how the report builder has been constructed. Perhaps as a shortcut, the original report builder just has it's view scale of the entire wd set to 0.6, so they just increase the view scale of the entire wd to get around the scaling issue.

I did think it would be possible just to change the font size with the options on the left. (Is that not what the font size option here is supposed to do anyway?) but this only seems to change certain elements of it. As you can see, didn't change the line "* Tab-Delimited Data", only seems to change the mTitle and Date lines.

This is because it's got formatting already pasted in.

Is there any issue with making that initial content of the report stack 'plain text', so that it then respects the formatting of whatever options are chosen on the 'Report Builder' window?

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2. Let the stack be resizable.

This has me a bit puzzled (easily done)
Is it not resizeable? It resizes here fine (see screenshot above where I've resized it) - testing on a really old, low-end 10.9 iMac.

[richmond62]

It resizes here fine

I expect it does, but as fruity old Donald Norman says, "Where are the affordances?" Meaning that there ain't no visual cues to peasants like me to indicate that the stack is aksherlly resizable.
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[tperry2x]

..there ain't no visual cues to peasants like me to indicate that the stack is resizable.

Hmmm, how about something like this?
A small visual change, but do you think this works?

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[richmond62]

Silly as it may seem; that makes all the difference.
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[tperry2x]

Good, being the Linux zealot that I am, this also is now displayed properly if your system is in dark mode too:
(can't do much about the text labels on the scroll bars - they are incorrectly themed from the engine).

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[richmond62]

I wonder if anyone, ever has actually used that report stack?

Why not just use your word-processor of choice?

I notice that while our friends in Scotland have fixated on American spelling that didn't stop them from spelling 'Veggie' wrongly.

[tperry2x]

I wonder if anyone, ever has actually used that report stack?

This will no doubt make you laugh, having done work on that stack today, but what's it actually for?
No doubt it's mentioned in the 'all guides' somewhere, but I've not got to that point yet.

I notice that while our friends in Scotland have fixated on American spelling that didn't stop them from spelling 'Veggie' wrongly.

I think that just needs changing to 'Veg'. (edit: done)

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Also, as I mention above - seems to have text formatting pasted into the result field already. Not sure if that's intentional or not. Either way, it stops whatever text formatting you choose on the left from actually working.

There's lots of Americanisms throughout - and that's fine, but I never really understood it. As this was developed in Edinburgh, unless they had American developers, why use American spelling. (Colour instead of Colour), or perhaps this was purely done for compatibility with Hypercard American spelling & continuity between Supercard.

Does not explain why they always used US dollars either when calculating pricing. That's always been a mystery to me too.

Oh, and just worth mentioning, before someone gets the wrong end of the stick and accuses me of being a racist, anti-american or anything... This is a genuine question: I have no problem with these Americanisms, but I would love to know the reasoning behind it when LC aren't an American company.

Either way, I would have thought that these things should not be fixed in stone. The xtalk language should support localisation, so should change color to colour if your system language is set to English UK.

[TerryL]

Lovely, but I'm like Oliver Twist - wanting more: can we have a short cut for #1 Object Inspector?

I thought object inspector shortcut was select object/returnKey or double click.

[tperry2x]

It is indeed. I knew about the double-click method, but never tried the returnkey method.
I've added that shortcut anyway. Would have liked to have used cmd-i (mac) ctrl-i (anything else), but this is already taken for italicise when editing text in a field.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

It is indeed. I knew about the double-click method, but never tried the returnkey method.
I've added that shortcut anyway. Would have liked to have used cmd-i (mac) ctrl-i (anything else), but this is already taken for italicise when editing text in a field.

I've also changed some of the key combinations in the IDE to make text editing a little bit more like Page Layout Programs (QuarkXPress/Adobe InDesign) (just an FYI)