OpenXTalk Lite 0.91 Windows ...nearly

[tperry2x]

Hmm, interesting...
(No, I don't mean the high heels)

I'm wondering, because the menu bar stack is likely to change size (or at least so a size change doesn't break anything), I'm wondering if this shape graphic can be generated from a rounded rectangle).

What I'm currently thinking of is getting it to create a rounded rectangle which is always the size of whatever the stack width & height is set to.

Either exporting that via script as a PNG, reimporting it, and setting it in script as the custom window shape? (Would this be slow), or...

I wonder if it's possible to set a custom window shape based on a rounded-rectangle card graphic (no image resave required) - faster?

When I'm back in front of a computer with OXT on, I'll have a look and do some experimenting.

[richmond62]

Here's a fairly silly stack that illustrates a point.

As you resize the stack, the graphic "rr" with rounded corners also resizes to fill your stack.

The button will import a snapshot of the graphic which you can use as an on-the-fly windowShape image.
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Screen Shot 2023-10-11 at 20.25.07.png (116.73 KiB) Viewed 1931 times

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Here's the stack script:

Code: Select all

on openStack
   set the width of grc "rr" to the width of me
   set the height of grc "rr" to the height of me
   set the topleft of grc "rr" to 0,0
end openStack

on resizeStack
   set the width of grc "rr" to the width of me
   set the height of grc "rr" to the height of me
   set the topleft of grc "rr" to 0,0
end resizeStack

[tperry2x]

Haha, seems I was creating the same thing as you at the same time!

customwindow.oxtstack

(60.79 KiB) Downloaded 61 times

customwindow-dynamic.oxtstack

(1.32 KiB) Downloaded 71 times

[tperry2x]

So, we can prove it works. I'll see about incorporating this into the revMenubar stack.

[richmond62]

As my grandfather was wont to say at times like this; "Great behinds stink alike."

Bring it on.

Code: Select all

put the platform into OSSSSS
if OSSSSS contains "MacOS" then
set the windowShape of stack "revMenuBar" to the id of img "WOT-EVER"
end if

[tperry2x]

Will have a look a bit later.
(Dad duties)
Edit: have put it together, hopefully as per your screenshot, and will test on a mac tomorrow.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

which IMHO is the preferred method, rather than continuously making duplicate entries.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I'm usually tested it only on a clean install of (whichever) Linux.

Anyway, it's probably actually good that you go over this stuff again, more sets of eyes on / different perspectives is good.

I've merged a bunch of the OXT changes and pushed them up to GitHub this afternoon.

I did not use your UI stacks though, at least not yet, because they don't look quite right with macOS 'native' darkMode (which has some unusual qualities like 'dynamic colors' that come from the OS). The 'dark mode' script colorizing set and related Prefs menu item I did add, however, I will need to edit message box too because the colorization sets is used there too.

The script editor background color really should be linked to the colorization set choice. if you have pick 'dark mode' and have the back color choice as a light color then the white text will be hard / impossible to read.

Does anyone know where (if anywhere) the 'documentation highlight color', as seen in the preferences, is used? I think that must be a remnant of some old version of the dictionary.

BTW, in the revPrefUI I also added the ability to click on the color swatches to envoke editing custom color with color picker.


There are two repos (Engines + Docs repo, and the IDE repo), and they are a bit of a mess, particularly the IDE repo, which is where most of the changes have been worked. It contains a bunch of work in progress files (like Photoshop layered files) and some unused things and some incomplete ideas for future work... I do need to clean it up.

But I have a good explanation for rest of the 'maze'. I rearranged the IDE repo to mirror a 'merged IDE' directory set, which I've use for all three IDE platforms (Mac/win/linux) from a shared FAT formatted volume (pretty sure every OS can read that). This layout matches the macOS .app bundle's internal directory layout. From the 'tools' directory on down the subdirectories should (mostly) be the same layout for all three platforms. There are a few differences (macOS doesn't use Chromium CEF since v.7) and also some >100mb files (parts of the Chromium CEF files) had to be zip compressed due to GitHub individual files size limit. But the point is, all of the files that make up the IDE on all three platforms are in there, including binary files.

If you 'Show package contents' on the Mac IDE it should look a lot like this repo directory:
https://github.com/OpenXTalk-org/OpenXt ... E%20Bundle

And so digging down a directory lower from that, you will find the Mac app's info.plist that I used:
https://github.com/OpenXTalk-org/OpenXt ... e/Contents
(Along with a zipped copy of the original LCC version, I assume, which I should delete now I guess)

The reasoning was that I could then do diff comparisons in bulk or search the entire directory with coding tools (such as Atom, VSCode, etc.). The IDE's scripts are cross-platform, so there's no sense in making some change that is common to all platforms to three different versions of the same IDE file.

Perhaps it is time to make time to clean up these forums and make some stickies posts, because I did explain everything I was doing, when I was doing it, but 'when' was a long time ago now and those posts are probably buried in multi-page comment threads.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

As my grandfather was wont to say at times like this; "Great behinds stink alike."

As my dad used to say, in context where 'smart fellow' might be used, you're one fart smeller ( trust me it was funny when he said it, when I was a child).

[OpenXTalkPaul]

I only mention this as I'm aiming for platform consistency.
@Paul, I'll have a look at your RC versions, but can you point me in the right direction as to where you added dark mode support for Mac OS? Which file do I need to edit to begin getting the Mac to support dark mode please?

This might not seem like a big thing, but I'm staring at a lot of code recently, so to have dark mode on the mac would be a real eye-saver.

If you look through this forum there's threads about OXT macOS native darkmode.
tl;dr .. on Mac (10.13/14 - 14.x +) dark mode is an OS API and it's the only way to get those dark window frames and inherited theme base colors (without rolling your own look alike window frames entirely from scratch).

So I tapped into that Mac API with Extension Builder library module that I've called 'Mac OS Native App Tools'. It has four handlers for doing dark/light mode switching. Two that effect the shared NSApplication object which applies to every window in an app, and two that do it on a per-NSWindow basis meaning you could have some stack windows in Dark mode and others in light mode. I included this library (which has a bunch of other tricks too) in OXT DPE and added a few lines of script to the Home stack's startup so that it sets the dark mode trick (if 'cDarkMode' in revPrefs is set to true) before any windows get opened. If you wanted to support Mac native dark mode in a standalone app, you would need to include this Library Extension in the SB settings.

I actually started work on that library years before adding it to OXT. It can do a few other neat tricks like 'Unified Titlebar", set the dockTile Image and badge text, and it can even set a file's type and creator 4char codes (in case you still use macOS 9 like I sometimes do).

The repo with the Extension Builder source code is still under my personal GitHub repos:
https://github.com/PaulMcClernan/OpenXT ... -App-Tools

[richmond62]

Bloody silly really, but it does prove the point. On reshaping the window the window reshapes [No, no alcohol this time. ]:
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Screen Shot 2023-10-12 at 10.50.06 am.png (42.5 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

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'Tis all in the button scripts.

[tperry2x]

Anyway, it's probably actually good that you go over this stuff again, more sets of eyes on / different perspectives is good.

Well, not meaning to offend or step on your toes here.

I've merged a bunch of the OXT changes and pushed them up to GitHub this afternoon.

Cool. Thank you - do you think we are any closer to a Linux appimage and a Windows build for the new RC?

I did not use your UI stacks though, at least not yet, because they don't look quite right with macOS 'native' darkMode (which has some unusual qualities like 'dynamic colors' that come from the OS). The 'dark mode' script colorizing set and related Prefs menu item I did add, however, I will need to edit message box too because the colorization sets is used there too.

I've been having a play, and again – I didn't really understand the info about changing the Bundle (?) or anything. I'm afraid I'm only able to muddle along in xtalk - so that's pretty much my limit. I can see you've given this a lot of time and consideration though. Is my attached stack helpful at all?

appearance-experiment.zip

(1.97 MiB) Downloaded 80 times

Does anyone know where (if anywhere) the 'documentation highlight color', as seen in the preferences, is used? I think that must be a remnant of some old version of the dictionary.

I think this describes the link colour (? maybe)

BTW, in the revPrefUI I also added the ability to click on the color swatches to envoke editing custom color with color picker.

Brill – I did that as Richmond requested it in the Lite version.

Perhaps it is time to make time to clean up these forums and make some stickies posts, because I did explain everything I was doing, when I was doing it, but 'when' was a long time ago now and those posts are probably buried in multi-page comment threads.

Yes, it may well have been lost amongst the other posts here.

[micmac]

tperry2x, your appearance stack did not work here.

No window, but an empty tool palette.

Skærmbillede 2023-10-13 kl. 12.55.32.jpg (22.7 KiB) Viewed 1860 times

[tperry2x]

tperry2x, your appearance stack did not work here.
No window, but an empty tool palette.

Hi Mic, was this when you tried my dark mode experiment or the rounded window thing?
It looks like the rounded window thing, and this was really only intended for the revMenubar – I don't know how it'd work on any other windows (well, I guess I do now!)

I assume quitting and reopening restores everything?

I wasn't happy with the way it jumped about when the corners were rounded off, so I've commented out the rounded window function. It's there if people want to toggle it, but I don't recommend it.

[micmac]

Just downloading and opening your stack...

Mic

[tperry2x]

Hi Mic,
I can't replicate what you are seeing, so I don't know what's going on with your tools palette.

[tperry2x]

On reshaping the window the window reshapes [No, no alcohol this time. ]:

Please see attached. If you replace your revMenubar with this one, you can then always activate the rounded window by using:
send tMakeRoundWd to stack "revMenubar"

(I'm using your code above for this mostly). Some part of it is mine, because the graphic has to be generated by script, but it works much better. Thank you.

I may make this a preference so you don't have to run it manually. I've not tested it on MacOS yet (purely on Linux where it doesn't fit with the rest of the OS, but it does work as expected).

revmenubar.livecodescript

(123.35 KiB) Downloaded 69 times

I also attach the original in case you want to revert back a step.

revmenubar_original.livecodescript

(123.73 KiB) Downloaded 79 times

[TerryL]

Q. Mark Wieder re-compiled the Linux 9.6.3 engine. Has this been tested with Linux OXT Lite? It may be on github.
Q. Dumb question. Is MacOS 13 compatible with the 963 Engine or is MacOS 12 the top limit?

Thanks to tperry for his very detailed Lite install answers for me. I tried to distill down to a short set of instructions for new users. Along with his excellent install videos, I think that's all the hand-holding needed. Please review my web page to see if I have it correct. Terry
https://tlittle72.neocities.org/openxtalk.html

[tperry2x]

I like it, it should hopefully make sense to a beginner and it's nice that there are some examples too.
The only thing is the mac version, I'm trying to simplify it after people had trouble installing it.
If you want to write new instructions. I'd say something like:
Download 7z archive. Double click to uncompress. Uncompress the .zip . You'll be left with the app, drag this to your desktop..
Optional: feel free to delete the downloaded 7z file and zip files, unless you want to back this up

Why two zip files?
I needed to get the size down and 7z offers by far the best compression. Though. It might be doing something to sensitive Mac files and permissions...

So. If you then uncompress the .zip you are left with, using the default zip expander on macOs - the act of uncompressing this should set up the file associations properly.

You can then move the uncompressed "OpenXtalk Lite 0.9.app" to your application folder.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Q. Mark Wieder re-compiled the Linux 9.6.3 engine. Has this been tested with Linux OXT Lite? It may be on github.

That's what he told me in an email a few months back. I don't know if he took out that embedded registration stack or not, but if so that change alone would be worth using his build of the IDE binary

Q. Dumb question. Is MacOS 13 compatible with the 963 Engine or is MacOS 12 the top limit?

I've had no problems at all running the IDE on MacOS 13, but changes in Apple's AppKit in macOS 14 apparently broke custom menus/ so the IDE fails to launch. Stand alone apps built with the IDE do work in macOS 14 as long as no custom menubar is used (thanks to Richmond for finding that clue).
Eventually (this weekend?) I'm going to update one (or more Macs in my house, so that I'll be able to do some testing of my on.

Please don't worry about 'stepping on my toes', I'm not at all sensitive about it, I just don't want to see time get wasted fixing something that was already fixed (unless of course you took a different approach that may be a better approach, I'm super glad you guys are working on this stuff too. Like I said I've already merged some of these changes from OXT Lite. I wish I had much more time to work it myself but I just don't... maybe in 15 years or so(?) when I'm retired I'll work on it all day everyday.

Perhaps we should have some sub-threads in the 'Workshop' area to coordinate our work.
There's not too many parts of the IDE to have a section for each. A list:
Home stack / revPrefernces / revPrefs UI
Message Box
IDE MenuBar/toolbar
Tools palette
Dictionary
Extension Builder / Manager
'OXT Online'
'Resources' stack
... everything else?

As far as releasing another Linux AppImage and a Windows package (I wanted to build an .exe installer), probably not until later this month at the soonest, but definitely by the end of winter holidays at the latest.

I also want to publicly release a few apps that I've built with it (like my Virtual MIDI Bass guitar thing), and maybe release them on Itch.io I think if more people see bunches of cool apps that are built with OXT then maybe they get interested in our OXT project(s) as result? If I make some donation money from any of it, I'll re invest it in OXT, probably on a paid Apple dev account for code-signing).

[TerryL]

Thanks tperry and Paul for comments. I'll update my web page. I've been looking closely at gofundme.com, may be the way to go when the time comes. They host campaign page and handle donation transactions for 2.9%, no close or end clock, we must drive traffic to their site. I'd be willing to set it up to fund a C++ programmer for MacOS14 and M processor update to mac engine. First we need to find one. Terry