OpenXTalk Forums

Here's an update on the progress of OpenXTalk Lite v1.0 for everyone.
I don't normally do this before a release, but I figured because 1.0 is a bit of a milestone release, I wanted to do extensive testing of everything I'd recently added.

I'll detail everything in the release notes nearer the time, but at the moment I'm just testing on various platforms to make sure I've squashed any bugs.

This is going to be a bit image-heavy, but here goes:

Dark and Light mode testing (linux) MacOS Catalina test: Windows 10 dark and light mode testing Overlapping window tests
(OpenXTalk Lite in the background, checking that other windows can overlap) Incidentally, I think after 1.0, I'll make the preferences window look more like the preferences window you see in the above screenshot.

Switching IDE appearance themes:
(please note the tool icons also change)

I've got a few extra changes I want to make, but I don't think I'll have a chance to incorporate all of TerryL's lesson stacks in time for v1.0. Next week, my progress on it will slow down due to extra commitments.

If everyone testing my 0.99 releases could let me know of any bugs they find, so I can patch anything in 1.0.

This isn't a dig at anyone: it's up to you if you have multiple versions of OXT Lite installed (I do, so I include myself in this comment), please ensure you are using v0.99 if reporting any bugs. That's because there's known menu bugs that specifically affect MacOS in v0.98. (windows and Linux are unaffected).

Because there's talk of this release being publicised elsewhere, (although I've not been told of specifics), I'd like to ensure 1.0 is as complete as it can be.

I'm in no way whatsoever pressuring Paul on this next point. It would have been great to include his player plugin in OXTLite v1.0, but with so many previous comments on here, all seemingly wanting to get to v1.0, I can't see these being included.
(I've not even asked Paul for his permission to cherry-pick bits out of his RCx version) - I'm hoping you don't mind, Paul. You are of course more than welcome to lift anything from the lite version into you RCx version that you like.

(I personally don't see why we should release 1.0 of OXT Lite until it's more complete, but I've said that before, many times).

I don't want to rush v1.0 out the door, but most of my changes in 1.0 are just tying up loose ends with the looks of the IDE. I've got a change to the MacOS installation process, but I want to do extensive testing with that. (and Yes, that needs the codesigning checking on it too).

tperry2x wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 8:14 pm If everyone testing my 0.99 releases could let me know of any bugs they find, so I can patch anything in 1.0.

This isn't a dig at anyone: it's up to you if you have multiple versions of OXT Lite installed (I do, so I include myself in this comment), please ensure you are using v0.99 if reporting any bugs. That's because there's known menu bugs that specifically affect MacOS in v0.98. (windows and Linux are unaffected).

Got it, boss. My move is a week delayed and I ... I dunno. But got the links down pat, and we're good to go. This MBA is gonna get a different external mouse, keyboard, and monitor once it's where it goes.

That's not a dig at you either overclockedmind - I mean, if you'd not been using 0.98 and shown me that crash screen, I'd not have been able to confirm the bug was squashed in 0.99 (so thank you for finding that is what I mean).
I will add a note in the guides stack > menu section, with that MacOS screenshot. The idea being as a caution for users to not choose shortcuts that are already taken (as it'll cause these spectacular IDE errors on MacOS).

I'll credit you in the bugs section for finding that too.
https://www.openxtalk.org/forum/viewtop ... 4796#p4796

Cool. Seriously. That's gracious of you.

That cramped-you-know-what built-in KB and mouse are giving me fits. Especially with (five days now, lol) a nearly endless streak of frost-bitten (I think they got frost-frozen mildly) fingers.

Don't ask about frost-burnt feet. Taught me a valuable lesson... and I'm well and truly fine, completely OK, so don't let this be all scary. I'm good; backup people for my people I've got now. (The Great Midwestern Winter of 2024, it was...)

I'm so glad I came here, just to do a status-check. I'll hang out; I need a distraction. Might as well be this very project!

richmond62 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 9:19 am

Who is Brian Milby?

Is that:

1. A real question?
2. A rhetorical question?
3. A rude statement?

Brian Milby is a person who works with LiveCode and contributed a fair bit when LC Open Source was a 'living thing', and his efforts should not be denigrated.

I have just sent him a private message on 'another forum' inviting him to join us over here.
-
Screenshot 2023-12-10 at 11.18.58.png

Yes, Brian Milby has made some nice open-source contributions, and host an online copy of the Dictionary (which I've found very convenient on several occasions). In fact some time ago he had suggested to me that we use his LCDocs Editor stack with our efforts, but I wound up mostly using Atom (now called Pulsar) because I was doing bulk Find/Replace and stuff like that.
He generally seems like a real nice person too, would be great to have him onboard.

It would be nice if Bn (Bernd Niggemann) would stop by sometime as well. Bernd helped me a bunch when I was building that Piano Widget, enough that I credited him on it (though he said it wasn't necessary).

I think Bernd also did one of those replacement dictionary stacks I'd tried with OXT Lite.
The one I have in place now is OKAY, but it does miss out several words occasionally when it reads from the database. Richmond has encountered this as well.

It would be brilliant if Bernd was able to create us a new OXT dictionary stack which uses the sqlite database, but has a few things revised.

(Such as the dictionay script being shown in whatever script editor colours you have chosen): Failing that, I'll have a go at creating something afresh - but I've never much played with accessing mysql databases, and would rather leave this to someone who knows the structure of the dictionary sqlite database inside-out, like Bernd. I do know that I can cause errors or easily corrupt it if I try and reference an SQL table that doesn't exist.

Back in OXT Lite again (....so much here I take for granted).
Working on a replacement inspector (you'll be able to orientate this horizontally too).
This is in realtime on a mere i3 processor - so much faster and the standard 'inspector' and no jittery behaviour where it resizes and jumps around everywhere.

I seem only limited by how fast I can manage to click the various objects, which is fine by me.

I'm going to use this in my IDE when it's done, and also in OXT Lite to ultimately replace the LCC one.
https://www.tsites.co.uk/otherstuff/pro ... r-test.mp4
edit: removed thumbnail preview of video.
edit 2: removed some spurious posts, where I was going off topic - and removing them so that these 'what I'm planning next' posts are easier to follow for new visitors.

edit 3: added a gif (sorry about quality), as well as the MP4, showing my new inspector (properties stack) in progress:

What I'm adding / planning next?
Lots of things - and to keep track of them all, I'll detail them here.
Thing is, they are all kind of inter-related, so some things have to happen first to allow others to happen.

Listed in no particular order:
Extension builder / uwidget? additions.
Revised inspector (as above).
Replacement browser widget for Linux (while retaining stack compatibility for Win and Mac)
Replacement video 'player' classic control for Linux (replaces the broken one in the linux build only) - while again, trying to retain stack compatibility for Win and Mac. This will hook into my new inspector (above), so that all platforms know how to deal with it (It'll use the 'regular' player classic control on Mac and Win, but Linux will use a revised version).

Also want to revamp the script editor. This started as a side project as an alternative way to colour xtalk syntax, but I wanted to develop this so we can add things like xtalk autocomplete, and at the very least - a script editor as a standalone stack, that is aware of xtalk formatting, rather than having to rely on a bbedit plugin / pulsar (was atom) - (xtalk syntax package for it detailed here by the way). - not that there's anything wrong with those text editors, and it's great they exist - just that it would be cool to make a standalone script editor in my opinion.

This also leads me onto the next point, of wanting to make a version of python idle - but xTalk Idle. So that you have a bare-bones window which you can write xtalk script in, which is coloured and indented automatically - then it can be run. (I'm thinking of a classroom implementation / edu tool here) - I know that at my secondary level school I work in, the teachers are teaching more advanced python programming techniques, but they predominantly use python idle to accomplish this. I can't help wondering if we had an xIdle version, it would be a lot simpler language for them to get their heads around, would introduce the fundamental thinking of functions, handlers etc - but in an xTalk way. You never know - it might boost uptake and interest of the xTalk scripting language (which is why I'm here after all - to see that hopefully expand and get updated with new feature set).

It would be fairly simple to create something like this, once the script editor stack is created, by simply exporting as a standalone for each and every target platform. The xIdle scripts need only be simple text files after all - they don't really need to be anything overly complex.

All that, while also trying to fix the bugs listed here.

So there's plenty to do

Plus, there is the engine compile to do for Windows and Mac. (Linux one already done, fixing registration screen error). Progress is being made on this, but again - other things need to happen first. Hopefully next week (beginning 15/4/2024 with any luck). I want to remove the reg screen for Win and Mac, but once this is building successfully, the Mac engine needs some urgent fixes to remain compatible with various OS updates:
Fix the menubar properly, without having to use a patch - would want to correct this in the engine source.
Fix the date and time format returned on MacOS Sonoma properly.
Fix the SystemVersion function properly within the engine (MacOS 11+).

^ I could really do with a Mac-specific helper here, to take over maintaining the mac version - as it's such a moving target compared to Win and Linux

Fix the revCopyFile so it's not flagged by antivirus programs and blocked by UAC elevation (elevated permissions dialog doesn't trigger) in windows 11.

(oh, and feel free to try out OXT Lite 1.03 if you like too). Comments welcome (do I mean that? - depends on how much work it involves )
Seriously though, always looking for input and more people to contribute with their fixes too.

Could GLX2 be used as a model for the script editor?

TAK1974 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 1:38 am Could GLX2 be used as a model for the script editor?

Hi Tak.
Ah, do you mean https://github.com/mwieder/glx2ScriptEditor and https://github.com/mwieder/glx2ScriptEd ... umentation ?
I didn't know these existed. It certainly looks very good.
Do we have MWieder's permission, before we can even think about using it?
It mentions it's on the MIT license (so ... meh? - your guess is as good as mine as to what that actually means) - can we use it and bundle it with OXT or not? I honestly don't know.

Yes that would be the one. Since discovering it, I’ve had a hard time going back to the built in LC script editor.

We have progress on this, and I'll hopefully have more information to follow in the next week or two.

TAK1974 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 7:58 am Yes that would be the one. Since discovering it, I’ve had a hard time going back to the built in LC script editor.

It does look very impressive.
Can I ask a silly question - how did you install this? - Did you have a chance to try it in OXT and were there any weird side-effects? (sorry for all the questions!)

Mark Wieder is

1. a subscriber to these forums.

2. an extremely decent person.

3. askable and approachable.

richmond62 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 9:12 am Mark Wieder is
1. a subscriber to these forums.
2. an extremely decent person.
3. askable and approachable.

I'm aware of the above. I wasn't questioning who he was, just if we could use his work. I'd already sent him a PM, asking if we can use his script editor in OXT / OXT lite.

I have not tried installing it in OXT yet. There are 2 files that get installed in the plugins folder (glx2Plugins.txt and glx2ScriptEditor.rev). It is really the only reason I continue to use LC at all. I’m finding it very difficult to go back to using the default script editor. I think it would a great addition to OXT, or create a new one modeled after it?

I know some people use external script editors. What features do the external editors have that the OXT or GLX2 script editors lack?

Hmmmm... doesn't seem to want to play. Seems to load, but the preferences don't 'stick' between launches - doesn't remember what I'd previously chosen, and the script editor remains the same, so that's a bit disappointing.

TAK1974 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 1:06 pm I have not tried installing it in OXT yet. There are 2 files that get installed in the plugins folder (glx2Plugins.txt and glx2ScriptEditor.rev). It is really the only reason I continue to use LC at all. I’m finding it very difficult to go back to using the default script editor. I think it would a great addition to OXT, or create a new one modeled after it?

I know some people use external script editors. What features do the external editors have that the OXT or GLX2 script editors lack?

glx2ScriptEditor is open-source GPL compatible so we can indeed use it. IIRC, it's maintained by Mark Wielder but he's not the original author. I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem. Personally I could not get 'into' using it, but I could see borrowing code from it to improve the standard script editor.

I use Pulsar as my external editor. IMO it has great text completion, it has xTalk support (an add-on, which I just recently updated to recognize OXT filename conventions), along with support for MANY other languages, it can quickly search and replace for text strings in a folder full of files and sub-folders of files, and there are a massive amount of add-ons for it to give it all sorts of features like live previewing images, mark-down (.md files), HTML, converting to PDFs, running code directly, DIFF for comparing files, removing unused white space (minified) or putting it back (prettifying), colorizing RGB/Color hex / color-name references, etc.