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Hi,

tperry2x wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2025 5:04 pm My future plans are to continue with a completely alternative IDE - (this is using no ".rev" and no ".livecode"/".livecodescript") files. I plan to have absolutely no association with LCC in the IDE.

One, suffixes are interchangeable. "Go stack myStack.mySuffix in new window" already works fine.

Two, when thinking about rebuilding the IDE I'd recommend to grab a LC Comm. v6.7.10/ 11 and have a look at it - it's WAYS less convoluted compared to the current versions, and, in my opinion at least, by far faster and by far less buggy. This may be a good starting point - after all, the IDE is basically stacks-only, right?

You may start to compare some basic things. Make sure you don't suppress anything in the message watcher, then have it record something simple like "move mouse from cd window into a button". Do it with v6, and then with v9/OXT. You'll see what I mean.

May be your OS doesn't allow you to run 32bit programs. In Linux this should be curable (adding required packets). Anyways, Win XP (dunno about 95/98) - latest Win11-64 will happily run any LC 6.7.10/11.

Porting a known working IDE to the new engine, or using it as a template, may make your job a bit easier. Maybe.

May ... bah, whatever, choose your "personal best wishes" ;-)

LC did start to go off on an odd sort of tangent at the start of version 7 . . .

Probably because the powers that be (or, should we say 'the powers that WERE'?) got some obsessed with pumping out the next 'thang' they forgot that while installing solar panels on the roof you STILL have to sort out the blocked sinks, clean the toilets, and repoint the brickwork from time to time.

a completely alternative IDE

Well, at least you won't be making Dr Frankenstein's mistake: trying to build a man out of bits of a dead body: rather growing your won cells in your own agar! After all we all know what happened to Dr Frankenstein, and the beast he created.

Yes, I mean - it'll probably use a heavily LCC inspired engine underneath. Although not a copy of - the plan there (as I crunch through the code) will be to look at how it's all put together, and see if I can get my head around it. I don't plan to owe LC anything for the engine as it won't be their work. The same way someone might look at a garden - appreciate it for what it is, then go and design their own.

This will also help with the Mac compiling process I'm sure. The first step is to work out the order it's doing (or trying to do) everything - then go from there.

A major piece of the puzzle fell into place this evening, as my newer mac arrived. So this means I can actually test on a newer version - something like Sonoma - and try and fix the menus in C++ while also adding any fixes along the way.

The new IDE won't be aware of revAnything or MetacardAnything - and I'm wondering just how much I try and provide a similar set of messages, or do I completely reimagine it so that it's a different animal altogether. I looked at the example Axwald pointed me towards, and the difference in the message watcher is quite drastic. (Why so many messages constantly for v9 compared to v7?) - No wonder v7 is so much more responsive.

These messages are all being fired constantly not by the engine, but by various frontscripts, backscripts and the revIDELibrary. I won't be including those (my rudimentary engine doesn't currently have any concept of frontscripts or backscripts) but I added the ability for it to save substacks of stacks yesterday. (small steps).

But then I'm only an extremely novice C++ coder, not at all up to speed like the pros. I only started learning C++ this time last year, and progress is slow because I've also got work and family commitments (blah, blah, blah - I know; boring) - but this is why I don't have as much time to spend in front of a computer as I otherwise could have, trying to backpedal and untangle things.

Having said that, I did find a real gem in that the C++ code can be cross-compiled into assembly - making the whole thing a lot faster. (I'm using the zig cross compiler for that bit, that I was going on about a long time ago). So although it's written in C++, the end result is a program/binary that is compiled in assembly - and it's fast. (The IDE can launch itself and load a stack - all in under 1 second) - but then it's a very stripped down, minimal form of itself.
I mean, we are talking going from an entire OXT Lite install which is almost 1.3GB uncompressed, down to something that's about 12MB in size. (adjust your expectations of what it's capable of relative to this)

I'm sure load time will increase as more is loaded into memory as the IDE loads. That's the bloat. Unavoidable bloat though. I don't see this being a quick process by the way, just to make that clear.

That's the long term goal - to recreate the engine, in the meantime, I'll continue tweaking OXT Lite I'm sure. Just that I hope to learn more about the inherited engine by going through this process.

Tom, did you get an ARM Mac?

Mic

micmac wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 1:41 pm Tom, did you get an ARM Mac?
Mic

No, I was very kindly donated an intel one - just paid postage.
The intel one is handy because I can use it to compile the engine source, but xCode should also allow me to compile the arm version - I just would have to compile as a "Universal 2" binary - which is what I'd probably want to do anyway (as I'm also interested in supporting as far back as is possible too). It actually fits my needs better than an Arm one, as I would not be able to test most of the stuff I need to - there's always the option of running QEMU on there and emulating an arm mac too - although there's quite a bit of setup required for that.

What a wonderful gift.

richmond62 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 3:52 pm What a wonderful gift.

Yes, I'm hugely appreciative of it. It will no doubt help no end. I now just need to find time to sit down and install over 15GB of xCode-related shenanegans and all the dependencies for the compiling.... all over a 10MB/Sec connection...

Of course if you have a faster internet service at work . . . I don't know if it would be possible or permitted to take your new machine into school AND . . . might be worth asking your boss.

I do not think for a second that would even be an option. Unfortunately. However I'm probably able to get most of what I need off external drives. About half way setting things up so far.

I forget the shitty situation of working for a state institution (21 years ago, in Scotland) (particularly in over-regulated Britain), and all I can recommend is that, some how or other, you find a way to be your own boss before the rot really sets in.