Plugins, fonts

[Robert Brenstein]

>I was hoping to post the B5 build you sent, but it crashes my 
>Stuffit Expander:
>
>I double-checked my Stuffit installation by downloading a fresh copy 
>of B4, which decompressed without error.  While I haven't had issues 
>with other attachments I can't rule out a Mozilla email issue (I'm 
>testing last night's build of Mozilla 1.7b).

This was actually a zip archive produced by DropStuff. My Stuffit 
Expander unzips it without problems. But I vaguely recall some zip 
issues on OSX.

>I was going to ask you to resend but it seemed simpler to just add 
>you to the moderator list so I did.  You can post b5 directly.  You 
>may want to double-check the Stuffit file before posting to make 
>sure the issue I encountered was just a Mozilla issue.  Also, a 
>housekeeping favor if you don't mind:  when I post a new build into 
>the "Latest Test Version" folder I move the last one into 
>"Archives/Non-Release Builds/".  There's a handy Cut and Paste 
>feature for moving files easily.

Okay, I can post it myself. But I need to update the documentation first.

>While I see no harm in the new IDE message you've added, in the 
>future please post feature requests to the list for discussion 
>before posting a build that contains them. Staying away from IDE 
>messages flying around is one of the reasons we use the MC IDE, and 
>while I'm confident your dilligent style will avoid the pitfalls of 
>other designs, some folks here have strong opinions about such 
>matters and I feel their arguments have merit.

The new message will be sent explicitely to a specific stack, only 
once when starting, and only when the stack was marked accordingly. 
So there is no danger of messages flying around.

Yes, the matter of plugins should have been discussed more on the 
list. I gather they are very few people truly interested in this, 
though. B1 through B4 were just minor incremental improvements. The 
B5 changes a number of things, and thus I brought this up on the list.

>Above all else this is a community project.  The crew here chose the 
>X11 license specifically because it has the fewest hindrances of any 
>GPL-compatible license.  Among other things this means there's 
>nothing stopping anyone interested in more adventurous exploration 
>from making their own forked project from any version of the MC IDE 
>from v2.5.1 forward.  As Scott Raney says, "Let a thousand flowers 
>bloom."  But this specific implementation has a narrow mandate from 
>the community:  make the fewest changes necessary.

Well, yes, I could produce my own version of IDE but I am not sure 
whether does would be truly beneficial to the MC community. I have 
may be more vested interested in MC as it is and will for quite a 
while still be my primary production tool.

>Please review the credit for your contributions that I added in B4 
>and let me know if you feel it's appropriate (Help->Licensing, 
>Version History tab).  Also, please consider updating the Read Me to 
>include a descriptions of this new "active plugin" feature.

Will do.

>And as discussed here a couple weeks ago in response to the leftover 
>script editor windows, please send the message "mcStripAndShip" to 
>the mctools mainstack before posting; that strips any leftover 
>script editors and saves the IDE.

Ok.

Robert