Comments on 0.98

[richmond62]

laws to ALLOW us to repair the computer we bought and we paid for?

Never stood in my way: after all I cannot see any policeman bothering to stick their nose in my house and ask what I am doing hoicking stuff around in that Apple computer I have in bits all over the kitchen table: after all:

1. In Britain they are too busy trying to catch real criminals who are doing real harm (sorry, but sticking a few screwdrivers inside an iMac is NOT on a par with sticking a screwdriver into someone's chest cavity).

2. In Bulgaria they are too busy working out how to get bribes or slope off to the cafe to get sloshed.

All the people I know who run MacOS here in Bulgaria think I am daft (and they are probably right) as, unlike me who runs MacOS on Apple hardware, they are running MacOS on the cheapest generic hardware they can lay their paws on.

I own some books printed in the 1600s: and, unfortunately, the binding on one of them from 1630 is, frankly NBG, so it is currently in the sweaty paws of a binder who will carefully remove the 17th century quarter calf and redo the thing in red rexine: and the decision and the right to do that is mine and mine alone: as is the right to bugger around with any Apple hardware I own (and that is quite a bit): I paid for it, and as such I own it 100% and if I want to use it, say, to trap antelopes in the mountains, fry fish in the plains, run Linux on it, yank out the processor and replace it with another one: well, frankly Mr Cook and that man with the awful haircut can take a running jump: and it is extremely hard to see how they could block me doing whatever I want in any court of law anywhere.

I sold an old PC with Xubuntu installed to a kid in my class: and, "how disgusting," she spray-painted the thing pink, and when she said, "I hope you don't mind" I explained that whether I minded or not (and I did: I nearly puked) was neither here nor there as it was HER computer now, NOT mine.

So; the idea of selling something while setting preconditions about what one can then subsequently do with it stinks to high heaven, and I certainly will not listen to anything like that. The funny thing is that the USA has always struck me (and I did live and work there for 3 years) as the country above all others that respects people's rights re property: unlike, for instance in Britain where, as the owner of a house in Scotland, I get endless crap sent to me about WHO and HOW I can rent it to people: when, frankly, it should be none of anyone's business except mine and a tenant's: "Your property MUST be fitted with a Carbon Monoxide detector": why, FFS, when it already is fitted with a smoke detector; the back door has a cat flap that leaks fresh air, the kitchen window has an extractor fan that leaks fresh air, and so on and so forth? Oh, wait a minute: the carbon monoxide detectors have to be bought from Fife Council's APPROVED dealer (kickbacks) and fitted by Fife Council's APPROVED carbon monoxide detector fitter (kickbacks) . . .

I arrived in Bulgaria in 1990 and have direct experience of what all that Communist/Marxist/Control-freak stuff does: and 33 years later this country is still burdened by the legacy of an awful lots of stinking nonsense.

So Tim Cook and his EULA rubbish can go to hell in a handcart, and I for one, am not going to lose any sleep or worry my pretty little head (getting smaller by the day) over any of those unenforceable laws.

I know what real laws are, and while I may have the occasional twinge that tells me to stick a screwdriver in someone's chest cavity I won't: mind you, NOT because it is illegal, but because it is, plain and simply, morally wrong.

--

So, your hatred of Apples 'LAWS' is because you haven't really thought things through and worked out the difference between:

1. Where laws and morality coincide.

2. Where laws that do not coincide with morality are unenforceable.

Now, go and open up a Macintosh, twiddle around with its insides, pour a glass of your favourite tipple, and relax.

[richmond62]

I just had a "quickie" with my lawyer who told me that, technically speaking, it is illegal to sell Apple hardware second-hand.

This is being typed on a second-hand Mac.

I have only bought 4 new Macs, and I have bought about 15 second hand ones.

What should I do?

1. Commit Hari-Kiri?

2. Fly over to repent at Tim Cook's feet?

3. Crack open a second can of beer?

Well, it would be number 3 were I not already well into my 3rd one.

[overclockedmind]

Gonna admit, in my heart, and in my own mind, I essentially agree with all of this in the areas that we both overlapped upon. When, and before I was ACMT, during the interview they told me they did NO "board-level repair."

I just about shat myself. This policy was all-encompassing, regardless of OS, system architecture, and so on.

I'm like, "What if it's a MFing fuse?" I'm an amateur radio operator too, or was, and if it WAS (only) a fuse, the customer was getting a fuse, a minimal charge, and I would take the aft-end chewing-upon later. Period, and they knew it.

laws to ALLOW us to repair the computer we bought and we paid for?

Never stood in my way: after all I cannot see any policeman bothering to stick their nose in my house and ask what I am doing hoicking stuff around in that Apple computer I have in bits all over the kitchen table: after all:

1. In Britain they are too busy trying to catch real criminals who are doing real harm (sorry, but sticking a few screwdrivers inside an iMac is NOT on a par with sticking a screwdriver into someone's chest cavity).

2. In Bulgaria they are too busy working out how to get bribes or slope off to the cafe to get sloshed.

All the people I know who run MacOS here in Bulgaria think I am daft (and they are probably right) as, unlike me who runs MacOS on Apple hardware, they are running MacOS on the cheapest generic hardware they can lay their paws on.

I own some books printed in the 1600s: and, unfortunately, the binding on one of them from 1630 is, frankly NBG, so it is currently in the sweaty paws of a binder who will carefully remove the 17th century quarter calf and redo the thing in red rexine: and the decision and the right to do that is mine and mine alone: as is the right to bugger around with any Apple hardware I own (and that is quite a bit): I paid for it, and as such I own it 100% and if I want to use it, say, to trap antelopes in the mountains, fry fish in the plains, run Linux on it, yank out the processor and replace it with another one: well, frankly Mr Cook and that man with the awful haircut can take a running jump: and it is extremely hard to see how they could block me doing whatever I want in any court of law anywhere.

I sold an old PC with Xubuntu installed to a kid in my class: and, "how disgusting," she spray-painted the thing pink, and when she said, "I hope you don't mind" I explained that whether I minded or not (and I did: I nearly puked) was neither here nor there as it was HER computer now, NOT mine.

So; the idea of selling something while setting preconditions about what one can then subsequently do with it stinks to high heaven, and I certainly will not listen to anything like that. The funny thing is that the USA has always struck me (and I did live and work there for 3 years) as the country above all others that respects people's rights re property: unlike, for instance in Britain where, as the owner of a house in Scotland, I get endless crap sent to me about WHO and HOW I can rent it to people: when, frankly, it should be none of anyone's business except mine and a tenant's: "Your property MUST be fitted with a Carbon Monoxide detector": why, FFS, when it already is fitted with a smoke detector; the back door has a cat flap that leaks fresh air, the kitchen window has an extractor fan that leaks fresh air, and so on and so forth? Oh, wait a minute: the carbon monoxide detectors have to be bought from Fife Council's APPROVED dealer (kickbacks) and fitted by Fife Council's APPROVED carbon monoxide detector fitter (kickbacks) . . .

I arrived in Bulgaria in 1990 and have direct experience of what all that Communist/Marxist/Control-freak stuff does: and 33 years later this country is still burdened by the legacy of an awful lots of stinking nonsense.

So Tim Cook and his EULA rubbish can go to hell in a handcart, and I for one, am not going to lose any sleep or worry my pretty little head (getting smaller by the day) over any of those unenforceable laws.

I know what real laws are, and while I may have the occasional twinge that tells me to stick a screwdriver in someone's chest cavity I won't: mind you, NOT because it is illegal, but because it is, plain and simply, morally wrong.

--

So, your hatred of Apples 'LAWS' is because you haven't really thought things through and worked out the difference between:

1. Where laws and morality coincide.

2. Where laws that do not coincide with morality are unenforceable.

Now, go and open up a Macintosh, twiddle around with its insides, pour a glass of your favourite tipple, and relax.

[overclockedmind]

I just had a "quickie" with my lawyer who told me that, technically speaking, it is illegal to sell Apple hardware second-hand.

This is being typed on a second-hand Mac.

I have only bought 4 new Macs, and I have bought about 15 second hand ones.

What should I do?

1. Commit Hari-Kiri?

2. Fly over to repent at Tim Cook's feet?

3. Crack open a second can of beer?

Well, it would be number 3 were I not already well into my 3rd one.

LOL, every Apple system I OWN is second-hand. I have bought a few brand-new, too; either way they can take a long walk right off of a short pier, there.

[tperry2x]

I can shed some light on this if anyone is interested, having worked in Apple retail.

Apple have always been about preventing self-repair.
Going back as early as I can remember, by using non-standard, in house components where they could. (they had their own series of RAM that meant you couldn't just put PC RAM in) - that goes back as far as the Performas and iicx 680x0 macs.
In fact, it was PC ram, but with a custom eprom soldered on that made it non-standard.

They never wanted it to be repairable in the hands of the customer.
This is why there were so many lawsuits around the Mac Compatibles that were eventually squashed. - Looked like a Mac, but used PC equivalent hardware with custom firmware patches.

Then up to iBooks where Apple started using Apple-only patterns on the screw heads to deter anyone from trying to get into it. Quickly the tools to open them became available to anyone who could be bothered to purchase them. It was only supposed to be a visual deterrent. iPhones (or any iDevices) where Apple actually glue the components in. Same story with iMacs - where they have positioned several cables along the release mechanisms of the screen, so unless you know where to look for them, you'd ruin your graphics chipset when attempting a repair. These days, macfixit has you covered on those gotchas.

Now we have the T-series chips in macs, so that if you tried to replace internal components with non-apple-certified ones, it detects this and refuses to boot. (won't even get past EFI boot stage). This is done in hardware and is physically soldered in, just like the memory and storage.

Then you have the non-standard nvram storage that only apple use, and nobody else does. Just to be difficult, so you have to pay the Apple tax.

I used to be a huge fan of Apple, but having worked in their repair area (in back of house) as they used to call it. (I probably can't say too much about that as Apple have an NDA). I'd never experienced an NDA before. It's entirely a US concept, but working in sleepy old Norfolk (UK), it was news to me. I was prevented from speaking about their repair goings-on behind the scenes.

Suffice to say, that 90% of the time, they'd just swap out hardware rather than attempt a repair. Of course the customer was delighted they were getting a new device, but in reality it was because the old one is designed unrepairable - more and more so now. Lots of it went to landfill and they made a big publicity push about how their phones were recycled and shredded for rare-earth materials. That's not the case for their desktops, laptops, cables, power adapters, etc. All that ends up in landfill of developing countries with people scavenging through it to scratch out a living, while being exposed to mercury and who-knows-what inside.

When Apple hardware costs what it did (and it's even worse now), against what it costs them to make, it is easy to see why they have the money in the bank that they do. They also rake in an unbelievable amount from subscriptions (Applecare, iCloud, AppleTV... the list goes on).

I feel I don't owe them any brand loyalty and they of course don't care what I do to my machine personally. If I made a modification to anything I'd just bought though, and took it in for repair, they'd flatly refuse to look at it. Also, if your device is more than 2 years old, it's deemed 'legacy'. When you've spent over £2k on it - Apple stuff is great when it works, but expensive when it doesn't.

But just like anyone with money to burn, like a millionaire buying a bugatti - Apple reckon that if you can afford their products, then you likely don't care about the cost. If you do - go buy a PC. That was, and essentially still is (as far as I've been well informed by those who still work within Apple retail), the general feeling.

As far as what you do to your mac on your kitchen table - again, up to you.
But, if you are repairing macs at scale and making a business from it - then advertising the fact, it would be a different story. Expect a snotty letter, knocks at the door, and a court summons.

Compare that to if you take a newly purchased Lenovo PC apart for example. Nobody gives a rat's A***. Yes, Lenovo would say your warranty is null and void, but they don't act like d***s about it. You can go and buy whatever graphics card you want, run linux on it, do what you want. It's up to you. It's yours. There's nothing built in to stop you modifying it as to how you see fit. At least you can repair it and keep it going without being forced to buy new.

The analogy with Richmond and the book binding: if the book was made by apple, and you had it rebinded and worked on, you'd get it back - go to open it up, and find it was glued shut. You'd try to open it and the first page would say "Non certificated hardware detected. This book will now close".

This is the same approach now being applied in software with their codesigning and gatekeeper. They'd paint it that codesigning is to protect people from running dangerous apps. In reality it's all about wanting to earn as much as they can from developers via the App Store. Apple take a huge profit from anything on the App Store compared to what developers earn.
If that were the case about keeping the customer safe, you'd have a warning - sure. But have a warning that allows you to 'open anyway'. This used to be the case by right-clicking and choosing 'Open', but that's been done away with too. Increasingly their software is following the locked-down route that their hardware has always been doing.

When the likes of https://ravynos.com/ say:
"We love macOS, but we’re not a fan of the ever-closing hardware and ecosystem." It's not just me that feels this way.

It's not just Apple spouting this schtick though. Microsoft are doing it with Windows 11, saying that hardware must support a TPM to allow windows 11 to install. At least you can bypass that with a registry edit, but you shouldn't have to. It's all about selling new hardware at scale, when ultimately they are seeing a drop in users running Windows. About 6 years ago, Microsoft used to have about 90% of the userbase, now it's closer to just about 80% with macs taking about 15% and linux (or other OSs) the other 5%. But that does not tell the true story. In reality, all Chromebooks are running linux (albeit a google flavour of Debian), and server infrastructure used all over the world does not factor in those figures. Where servers have to be reliable and up 100% of the time, it's no coincidence that anything vital that has to keep running is increasingly linux based. All IOT devices (internet-of-things) - smart fridges and the like, use Linux (not that I want any of that, as security is very much an afterthought, but that's beyond the point and doesn't need to be the case). Even Apple carplay is a linux variant underneath. Think of any car you can imagine manufactured in the last 5 years - the engine management diagnostics use an embedded linux. If those figures were taken into account, you'd see that Linux tips the scales in use globally and is actually the most used OS. We all use linux everywhere daily without even realising it. You are using it now as you write this - your router runs Linux, as probably does your ISP.
Got a streaming box? a nintendo switch? a playstation? an Android device? Seen an ad on a changing billboard? A smart TV? - all forms of Linux, and that's only scratching the Surface (pun intended)

Anyway, with Apple's hardware and software approach - that's the reason I'm so against the Apple mentality - for all their talk about being more and more environmentally conscious, behind the scenes it's quite a different story. They may talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.

This is why they are so upset about being forced into having to use USB-C as their phone charging plug, rather than lightning connectors and the cables that are made of cheese. (these cost only a couple of $ to make, but were selling for over £20 when I worked there). Plus there's a small verification chip inside the lightning cable that the phones used to detect, so if you bought a cheap cable from eBay, the phone would pop up a message saying "Charging with this accessory is unsupported"). Again, there was nothing wrong with this cable and if the phone's software wasn't looking for that chip, then it would charge. It was put in place purely to make Apple more money.

There's lots of examples of that, and some I probably still can't mention.

If I come across as perhaps being negative about Macs, or Apple in general - it's only because I have this (and more) in mind.
I'm a bit despondent about the state of desktop-OS anyway - if you ask most kids to point to a computer, they'll pull out a phone or a tablet. Only rarely a laptop, and some phones can rival what was a dedicated gaming tower of a few years ago.
Perhaps I yearn for the days when we all had greater control over our hardware, and maybe this is why I favour Linux and keep going on about why we should be supporting that as a priority and Windows over anything else.
Yes, it's nice to be able to say we also support Macs - but there will come a point where we can't support new ones. Does that mean I want to wash my hands of Mac support? I honestly don't know how I feel about it. I'd like to keep support for it going, but it'll have to come with a note that says "This will not run on Arm-only apple hardware" - and I'm sure Rosetta 2 will only be around for as long as Apple see fit. As I've mentioned countless times, they could pull support for it in their next major OS update and I would not be at all surprised. Same as they did with Rosetta 1 all of a sudden. (Although developers were warned of this for a year beforehand). Plus, if Apple keep making it harder and harder for non-app-store developers to actually develop for the platform, that will force my hand and I'll have no choice. At that point OpenXTalk will only run on MacOS 10.9 to MacOS 15/16 say. Anyone who's purchased a new mac, or one that Apple have axed Rosetta2 from, would then find they are unable to run OpenXTalk and would look for alternatives. (Commercial Livecode if they wanted a comprehensive xTalk IDE). That is, and continues to be the only viable option.

When I bang on about wanting to develop alternatives, that's exactly why. Competition is always good, and there's so much legacy cruft in the IDE (as proved by openxion which can weigh in under 15MB and is capable of understanding a basic subset of the language). Granted, it's only a basic subset, but if you doubled it to 30MB, you are still well under the 100s of MB that the current LCC engine takes. There's bindings built in that are unneccessarily included into the Mac build if you are running on Windows, and vice-versa.

This is why, tonight, I've just created a GUI with zig. I cross-compiled it on Linux, and have just built for PPC Mac, MacOS 8.6, MacOS intel x64, MacOS Arm aarch64, Linux x32 + x64, Windows x32 and x64 all on the same machine, and all with a code project that weighs in under 2.5MB.
All it does it make a blank window with the following:

Code: Select all

on mouseup
   beep
end mouseup

That's all it does - but it incorporates wxWidgets as a proof-of-concept and also draws a native button on all those targets above, just to illustrate how it can be done.
If I tell it to do anything else, it currently locks up on Windows, unexpectedly quits on MacOS 8.6, quits without a message on Linux (and obviously I can't even begin to test the Arm MacOS version).
That's not surprising as I've only programmed it to understand on mouseup and beep. That's all it has, and there's not even any error collection - hence the crash. But, this is my focus when I'm not OpenXTalk Lite scripting. Zig language is already a damn sight easier than C++ and the cross-compiling is so easy I think my 10 year old daughter could do it (in fact I know she can as she already knows some Python). I'll get screenshots and a demo video of something put together if anyone is interested in seeing it in action when time allows. It's not very impressive at the moment quite frankly, but it can be done.

(edit) for anyone who cares:
https://tsites.co.uk/otherstuff/mac-os-9-test.mp4
https://tsites.co.uk/otherstuff/mac-os-x-10.4-test.mp4

[overclockedmind]

The truest words ever spoken. I don't remember an NDA, so I can tell you that a new-generation of Aluminum iMac that looked NO DIFFERENT to its predecessor in terms of "getting in..." was the one time I damaged a customer machine, and I stated that to Apple, that ONE TIME I didn't RTFM step-by-step on the way in, and demanded therefore that they send me a new logic board at no charge to my store. They did.

I had the only repair location in SE Iowa that wasn't Des Moines (don't recall the store name, but it was 3+ hours away) and I repaired Macs, warranty or not. I had also been doing PCs; I think I've been inside more than a thousand Macs.

That's the ONLY nice thing I can say about them.

I've gotten replacement G5 logic boards because of bad caps, as brand new stock from them, with the same issue overnight.

That's the WORST thing I can say about them.

Thanks for your post, by the by. I learned the "gaps" where I wasn't an ACMT (we lost it when they required $1 million/yr in Apple hardware sales a year from a repair location, we weren't even selling new Macs.) And a 2009 MacBook, white, brand new for $400 because of our exit that need its top (the keyboard) replaced...way the hell many too times, until the replacement parts became metal, and I went through one of those. I got to pick and prepare the machines though, being "the only guy that can do that;" I picked the one Mac that had NEVER been out of its box.

I also bought a PowerBook G4 that had been through a plane crash, like Cessna, and we got it for some insurance purposes (I did all the paperwork... I'm not kidding that I was the only guy that could "use Macs." They needed data recovery; I put a new IDE drive in it after a successful recovery (ikr) bought it for $1, and replaced the back panel from eBay for like nothing. Loved that thing.

I was done at about 2011. Core 2 Duo Macs, about the last thing I saw. But thanks for completing your story. I hope mine sheds some light on the same topic.

EDIT1: The store at "was in Des Moines" was Jordan Creek, thus I always called it that. "Jordan Creek."

[overclockedmind]

Ran past the time I should've gone to bed, I wanted to state:

To note: I downloaded the whole thing, ran fine, no issues, hit the updater and Terminal output was thus:

Code: Select all

Saving session...
...copying shared history...
...saving history...truncating history files...
...completed.

[Process completed]

I'll admit I had chmod +x 'ed the script just because, well Linux experiences.

Which looks right to me. Extra docs? OOH YES, PLEASE!

This was performed on the MBA running Monterey.

[tperry2x]

I'll admit I had chmod +x 'ed the script just because, well Linux experiences.

To be fair, the update process could be smoother. I was just concerned with getting something that worked first though. It can always be polished further in the future.

I should explain, you don't actually run the sh file, just copy the contents of it into a terminal. This is all about needing raised permissions. I could probably make the sh file double-clickable, however that in itself would need elevated permissions in the first place (and there seems no way to do authentication from within the LCC engine), so I'd have to pass this to an applescript in the background and it might get a bit messy.

Anyway, I digress. Here's a demo video of me running the updates on Catalina. It should be practically the same process for every MacOS X version:

https://tsites.co.uk/otherstuff/macosx-updates.m4v

I hope that helps a bit.

[overclockedmind]

Totally grokked that. Thank you for the video!

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Going through the documentation, here's a list of shortcuts spoken-for. I didn't know ctrl-shift-= was equalise height of selected objects (and it actually works). Does this conflict with your text scaling shortcut used in OXT RCx Paul?
Screenshot 2024-01-06 at 07-12-22 Guides.png

I don't think I realized that (I may have stumbled on it once a long time ago) when I changed the command key.

I'm not at all worried about maintaining the preexisting keyboard shortcuts, I want to make them consistent with widely accepted standards, by that I mean (control-or-)command-shift-S is "Save As..." in most programs so if LC used it for something else it's getting changed to the standard, and I'll change LC's keycombo to something else (hopefully something similar like control/command-alt/option-S in the case of "edit tack script").

That said, I think "-/+" (-/=) might be better to changed it to cmd/ctr-shift-"</>" since that's what is used in InDesign and similar layout apps. I was a bit undecided on that, but when with "-/+" because that's what the equivalent is in WebBrowsers.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

v0.99 (which might be the last version I create based on the LCC engine)

a few people began making noises about a continuation open source version, and there was no mention of a lot of (frankly) cruft that has actually served to slow down the realisation of this subsequently.

one man's "cruft" is another man's usability improvement.
I'm not just guy working on the IDE I'm also the main user that my work is targeted for.

A version 1.0 that is 99% solid (ever heard of 100% solid software?) would be what was initially discussed, running with the current engines.

Did we discussed this? My first 'final" release was always going to be 1.963.1 (debranded with bug fixes and usability improvements), and 2.0 would be a release with recompiled engines (hopefully to include AppleSilicon and other ARM64 builds). I'm sure I could find the threads where I stated that. Of course the GPL license means other people are free to do something different with it.

we'd have an OXT that ran on Haiku OS, Morphos, RISC 5, and "Uncle Charlie's Personal Seriously Wonky OS".

There are several open-source xTalks that should run on whatever obscure OS as long as there's a JAVA VM (openXION), HTML5 Web JS Engine available for that OS (OXT Emscripten Engine, HyperSim). Not as good as having a OXT elaborate IDE running on such OSes, but better than nothing.

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for LC Ltd. to donate an Apple Silicon version that's GPLv3 open-source to us.
I still intend to attempt to build Apple Silicon binaries once I get an Apple Silicon Mac to build and test it on.
When that happens it may well be the last Apple computer that I ever purchase.

large number of developers use either Windows or Linux unless they are specifically developing for Macintosh, while it would be all very jolly indeed to have a Mac Silicon engine, this really should not be anywhere near the top of anyone's shopping list.

An Apple Silicon mac (and Apple Silicon OXT engine) it's not at the top of my shopping list, but I will eventually go for Apple's completely-locked-down-proprietary-isolated-system nonsense one more time, if for no other reason than to see if I can make that build happen.

The recent stuff about using other engines to run OXT on is just ANOTHER distraction that detracts from getting a version of OXT "out"

No it doesn't. if you're forced to operate in a locked-down sandboxed web environment like people increasingly are, then having an desktop app labeled v1.0 that people can't install (and with the exception of Sonoma compatibility patch, is no more usable than a rebranded LC Community Edition) does nothing for the future of OpenSource xTalk. In addition, I don't want my xTalk stacks and scripts or the xTalk language to remained tied to one remaining engine until that disappears (could happen 10 or 20 years, who knows).

When I talke usability what I mean is a IDE that works without the message-box losing focus on certain platforms, a functional syntax Dictionary on all platforms, and without bunches of missing documentation, with standard key-combos, shell() that is aware of package manager installed binaries in standard locations, a Tools palette I don't have to squint at on High-DPI monitors, etc. etc. It doesn't necessarily have to fulfill the "Modern UI" stretch goal (that IMO was never achieved), but It does have to be better for me as user than LC Community Edition's (which I don't even like using over OXT at this point) or there's no point to doing any of it.

It seems a bit bi-polar to me, to go on about how 'we need to stamp this as 1.0 before X can happen", and then go into the whole changing the revMenuBar to make it a floating window, or adding a clear message box memory button to the revPreferencesUI, and that sort of thing. There's nothing wrong with doing that work (as long as it doesn't screw up something else) IMO, if it adds usability value to the IDE for someone then I think it's worth doing.

On Friday I started making videos to introduce OpenXTalk.org and OXT IDEs, targeted to complete newbies, and also to show existing LC CE users some of the improvements over using LC Community 9.6.3. Then I got into making some fixes I noticed while recording. So I wound up spending much of the weekend adding better error checking to OXT libSVGIcons library (which can load thousands of useful UI glyphs) and working some more on my palette widget meant to be use for building a screen-resolution independent scalable, darkMode compatible, vertical or landscape (and all rectangles in-between) layout, Tools palette that has tabbed sections... the intention of building a lot more like a 'modern' Adobe-style palettes. This palette widget will be generally useful for making any sort of palette, it will be in the spirit of the Palette Builder that came with HyperCard (it was part of the 'PowerTools' stack) but with SVG Glyphs (I may eventually add support for using Pixel Image Data too).

Now it's Monday and I'm sandboxed again, and so I can only spend an hour or two per-week-day working on OXT IDE for DESKTOP related stuff again.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120

[richmond62]

It seems a bit bi-polar to me

I would say that quite a few things round these parts are a bit bi-polar (or even "multi-polar") insofar as we have various contributors pulling in a variety of directions, and no obvious lead from a centre.

However, whatever else, I do belive that the sooner an "RC" of OXT Lite is available and some one is delegated to set up something a bit 'fancier' that the present landing page, an attempt to attract more than the handful of adherents and transients we have at the moment can crank up a bit.

[tperry2x]

The recent stuff about using other engines to run OXT on is just ANOTHER distraction that detracts from getting a version of OXT "out"

I have voiced my opinion on this previously, but I will say it again.
We need an alternative engine so that when the current LCC engine no longer works and is broken beyond repair, we need something we can port everything over to.

You all know I favour having a traditional non-browser-based program (even if it were local). I'm old-skool - sorry. I'm more than happy for everyone to create an engine. The more the merrier. We can all learn from eachother. Having choice is good. Having no options on the horizon is just a bad situation to be in.

As far as that distracting from any other work on OXT Lite / OXT, anyone is free to contribute and add code. I'd be more than happy to incorporate anyone's fixes into OXT Lite. It is supposed to be a collaborative project after all, is it not?

So what I'm trying to delicately put across is that if there's a concern that things aren't moving 'fast enough' (to who's schedule?), it's not just myself, Paul and TerryL who should be contributing to script edits.
I would love to see some more suggestions with working code come this way. That's not a snide remark or anything, but if anyone feels the project isn't moving along as quick as they'd like, feel free to contribute some working code in key areas they see that need improvement.

I've almost finished the 'allguides' stack for OXT Lite.
I have added all the livecode builder stuff earlier today, and I also dug up a load of articles from the old resources stack on producing externals (and all the xcode / vscode projects to make new ones). I'd like to include this too, as I remember the days when XCMDs were everywhere for hypercard. I'd love it if we were at a point again where there were XCMDs to accomplish pretty much anything, like 'back-in-the-day'.

Once I've finished doing this, then yes - I will have more time for more fixes. Just one thing at a time. Otherwise I'll end up with multiple bits unfinished and won't know what I'm doing or still have left to do.

I'm going to work my way through the https://quality.livecode.com bug section, seeing if there's anything that's unfixed that applies to OXT Lite, as I'm sure we can gather a load of issues that have NEVER been fixed from there.

My goal was always about getting OXT[whatever version] as bug-fixed and de-branded as I could. That has not changed.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Inspired by a post on "that other forum" I thought I'd check something out in the OXT Dictionary:

I actually think I saw where the mechanism goes or where to insert a different password protection encryption scheme, at some point trudging through the IDE code, but I'm not doing anything with that anyway because community source should be readable by the general public if you're releasing stacks publicly.

That syntax should probably be deleted from the dictionary. I've taken out some other Indy-only things.

[Kdjanz]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120

If I was a politician in India or someone in Palestine or Israel right now I sure as H___ would be running with Lockdown turned on!

There are places for it, as long as the on and off buttons are under my - and ONLY MY - control.

[Kdjanz]

You all know I favour having a traditional non-browser-based program (even if it were local). I'm old-skool - sorry. I'm more than happy for everyone to create an engine. The more the merrier. We can all learn from eachother. Having choice is good. Having no options on the horizon is just a bad situation to be in.

I'm very interested in your Zip stuff - enough that I lost 2 hours on the Zig site learning about the language, syntax and reason for being. I know that it is beyond my skills, but using a tool like that to create a modern work alike engine that would read and run legacy stacks across all sorts of platforms would be a huge win. If you start with the premise that you are going to be multi platform, then you do the UI as something that is OXT specific and does not try to be native on any platform or flavour of Linux or Pi or whatever. This should allow you to strip the engine to essentials and let the user decide what their UI and stack should look like as well. Why chase Apple as a moving UI target or this months flavour desktop manager? Go back to retro Hypercard and make your own to suit your project.

By all means wrap up the rebranding. But long term, I think we have to get out from under the legacy engine. One example that is worth looking at is the Processing language. It has underlying engines for Java, Javascript, R, Python and I think Pi. The Processing Language floats above all that and runs on the desktop, browser, or whatever you give it. That would be awesome for OXT if we had a small, modern engine that could ported all over the place.

Keep on with the Zig!

Kelly

[richmond62]

So: here I am fiddling around with Pauls Stack Resource stack on OXT Lite 0.98 on MacOS 14 when the IDE goes
non-responsive as previously described.

[tperry2x]

So: here I am fiddling around with Pauls Stack Resource stack on OXT Lite 0.98 on MacOS 14 when the IDE goes
non-responsive as previously described.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there

...on MacOS 14...

Emphasis mine. I bet you could happily tinker with this on MacOS 12 Monterey all day without an issue.

We need an alternative engine so that when the current LCC engine no longer works and is broken beyond repair...

Are we at that point for MacOS now? The LCC 9.6.3 engine was never designed with Sonoma in mind. Coupled with Apple's OS changes, it's no wonder it's unstable.

I've been using OXT Lite 0.98 all day sometimes on Linux and Windows, without so much as a single freeze or crash - and that's with me pulling the IDE about at the same time. I'm not using Paul's stack, but I wonder if there's some specific function that relies on something in Paul's RCx version that OXT Lite does not have?

[overclockedmind]

So: here I am fiddling around with Pauls Stack Resource stack on OXT Lite 0.98 on MacOS 14 when the IDE goes
non-responsive as previously described.

I can attempt to try to replicate that in Monterey with a linkie to Paul's stack? Are we finding some issue with the IDE, and thirdly, is Paul's stack built for Paul's version of OXT? (gah, it was a requirement to ask but a PITA to write. LOL)