OpenXTalk Forums

Somethiing WRONG with the Dictionary re Visual Effect:
- -
On the inherited legacy LC 963 the visual effects are listed:
-

richmond62 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2024 11:57 am Somethiing WRONG with the Dictionary re Visual Effect:
-
SShot 2024-12-20 at 13.55.29.png
-
On the inherited legacy LC 963 the visual effects are listed:
-
SShot 2024-12-20 at 13.56.10.png

If anyone is going to update the dictionary entry for the missing parameters info, you should TEST the visual effects on various platforms, because I know that some of these effects no longer work on certain platforms.

Any of the visual effects that used Apple's now defunct Quicktime are going to be broken (although some of CoreImage filter effects still work independently of Quicktime on Apple platforms). There's CoreImage transitions demo stack included in the IDE and at least 'PageCurl' transition still worked last time I checked. Obviously anything that relied on Quicktime never worked on Linux since Apple never produced a 'Quicktime for Linux'.

I don't think transitions work correctly or at all on the Emscripten engine. I never really tested them on the two mobile platforms.

There's only really a few which do their transitioning using the engines rendering that seem to work consistently across platforms.... wipe-left/right/up/down and 'dissolve' seems to be reliable.

This is what currently works on MacOS 10.15 (Catalina).
Off to test in Linux (I expect lots less will work).

I know that the curls have gone, otherwise I would not have spent 2 days farting around working my own tarot card flipping routine.

The slides are intact (but perhaps I should ask Phil Schiller or Craig Hairstyle for how long).

This does rather confirm my view that home-baked bread is best.

Well, that's a surprise. The same things (not using quicktime effects) work on Linux. Don't know why I suspected things not to work (probably me just being pessimistic). Made me think you could do your card animation using one of these.

-

Visual Effects

I wonder why 'Barn Door' is NOT mentioned in the Dictionary?
- -
Actually, come to think of things 'Visual Effect' the OXT Lite dictionary is not much good at all, as it does NOT even list the visual effects
listed in the LC 963 Dictionary.

OK. OK: let's clarify that:

While this document inside the IDE: /Documentation/html_viewer/resources/data/api/exports/xtalk/resaved/visual effect command.txt DOES
list the visual effects listed in the LC 963 Dictionary that does NOT show up in the OXT Lite 1.10 Dictionary (which probably means 2 things:

1. The OXT Lite Dictionary is NOT reading the documents in /Documentation/html_viewer/resources/data/api/exports/xtalk/resaved

2. All my edits to the Dictionary were a complete WASTE OF EFFORT as the OXT Lite Dictionary is NOT reading them. )
- -
Point #1 is merely annoying.

Point #2 really gets my goat as I spent hours editing those things!

I have edited the relevant file:
- -
So it would "be jolly nice" if something could be done so that it and ALL the other files I edited could show up in the OXT Lite Dictionary.

edit [tperry2x]: I moved a few things and continue the fix for this issue here.

I have moved this discussion over here as it is getting away slightly from the HyperCard emulator-thing.

ANYWAY: I have just been fooling around with HyperStudio 4.5 (i.e. just before HyperStudio went codeless) on MacOS 9.2.2 and found that HS offered a whole slew of 'Transitions':
- - - -

AND I wonder:

1. How many of these were leveraging capabilities in the Operating System?

2. How many of them were 'home grown' (i.e. whether it was HS that was doing the work)?

3. How many of these that are NOT in the HyperCard list are 'nickable' for OXT?

This was a real pox as, for some reason my G3 iMac now running MacOS 9.2.2 will NOT connect to the internet (via a LAN cable), and running back and forth between the Intel iMac running MacOS 12 and the G3 with a flash drive got a bit @#$% at one stage.

BUT I could NOT find any documentation, anywhere, re 'Transitions' in HyperStudio . . .

Digging out my Danny Goodman . . . cripes 1144 pages.

HC Visual Effects NOT mentioned in the LC 963 Dictionary:

barn door open
barn door close

BUT these are possible: so just another 'inaccuracy' in the LC Dictionary.

Visual Effects provided in HyperStudio that are neither in HC or LC/OXT:

Bars
Rain
Mouth open
Mouth close
Razor left
Razor right
Bow ties
Diamond dissolve
Fade to Button color
Cross fade
Explode
Gradient wipe
Implode
Matrix wipe

How many of these are similar effects to those offered to those in HC but with other names, I am just not sure.

I have been playing around with the button 'transitions' in HyperStudio . . .

Unfortunately I can work out no way to catch them 'in midstream' on MacOS 9.2.2

But some of them are really lovely (especially like 'Rain').

Blast from the past:

https://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?t=15451

'visual effects on objects' isn't that well defined...

Oooooo:

https://livecode.byu.edu/scripts/Scripts.php

visual effect dissolve
visual iris close to black
visual effect scroll right
visual effect scroll left
visual effect wipe up
visual effect wipe down
visual effect checkerboard
visual effect venetian blinds
visual effect dissolve to white
visual effect reveal up to inverse

emphasis is mine.

Added these to the stack to test.
I found a couple more (just by guessing that it should work)...
Also discovered that "stretch to right" or "stretch to left" = spontaneous engine crash.
Same for "shrink to right" or "shrink to left"
edit 2: Also just discovered that "Shrink to center" works too. (unfortunately only vertically it seems)

Also just discovered that "Shrink to center" works too. (unfortunately only vertically it seems)

Personally I have reached an age and a weight where I can just about manage a vertical shrink to centre, but a horizontal one: FAT chance (pun intended)!
-

MacOS 12.
- -
NONE of those cause a crash in LC 963.

NOR with OXT Lite 110.

BUT they don't do "what is advertised".

All those lefts and rights end up being vertical.

richmond62 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 12, 2025 6:33 pm NONE of those cause a crash in LC 963.
NOR with OXT Lite 110.

Perhaps not on MacOS, but they crash the engine on Linux.
On Windows, they do nothing - as if you'd just not used a visual effect.
On MacOS, as you say:

richmond62 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 12, 2025 6:33 pm BUT they don't do "what is advertised.
All those lefts and rights end up being vertical.

I'd expect the correct behaviour to be the Windows one, as: Top, Centre, and Bottom are mentioned. If I pass "right" as a direction from xTalk - you'd expect the effect to show nothing (no transition) - so don't know why MacOS assumes the transition is "TOP". Definitely better than spontaneously quitting, but all three platforms handle an invalid effect differently. (but they don't all handle an invalid effect consistently - even on the same platform). What I mean by that is if I use "dissolve to right" - then I just get a dissolve effect because no direction is specified on that function - but no spontaneous quitting either.

Now, in theory I could edit "stacke.cpp" and add in horizontal transitions, or even new effects called "visual effect squash to center" - which would help with your card flipping I was thinking, however - that would only be any good on Windows and Linux currently as compiling for Mac is on hold.

For inspiration if there's an interest in more transitions:
https://gradienty.codes/animations

I dunno what programming language that:

I'd expect the correct behaviour to be the Windows one, as:

is written in, but it doth not speak to me at all.