Issues of MC IDE version 2.6b11

[Richard Gaskin]

Wilhelm Sanke wrote:
> First, I assume that 2.6b11 is the latest version. At least I could not 
> find a later version in the files section of the MC_IDE Yahoo group.
> 
> A number of the following issues were already discussed or mentioned in 
> earlier posts of this list, but they are still relevant for 2.6b11.
> 
> 1. When the MC IDE is started, stack "mctools" appears to have been be 
> loaded twice. This was mentioned by Tariel Gogoberidze <tariel at mac.com> 
> on Sept 1, 2005:
> 
>> Also, one kind of strange thing I just noticed in my copy of IDE.
>>
>> In freshly launched MC if I type in msg box "put the stacks", it puts
>> mctools.mc twice
> 
> 
> 
> I see this this happening here, too. Maybe the double-loaded stack is 
> the cause underlying the nex item:
> 
> 2. Launching the IDE from a CD you get a warning "Cannot build a Plugins 
> folder" - or the like. If you press the "skip" button, the same warning 
> is repeated. Only after after the second "skip" the IDE is started.
> Could it be that both "mctools" stacks are involved here?
> 
> And maybe we could let detect the script from where the IDE is started, 
> then in case of a CD we could skip the warnings altogether.
> 
> What is the cause of the double-loaded mctools stack? I think we can 
> rule out that the stack may launch itself another time (as that could 
> lead to an infinite loading of mctools stacks). Has the "home" stack 
> been changed or is the cause the new Metacard/Revolution engine? (for 
> another engine-related bug see below).
> 
> Two minor, but somewhat annoying issues:
> 
> 3. The "Find" tool comes up with "bwidth"; the "replace" tools comes up 
> with "bwidth" for the find string and "4wDev" for the replace string. 
> They should come up blank.
> 
> 4. The Standalone Builder displays "4W WebMerge Folder/WebMerge24.mc" 
> for the stack name and "/Area 51/4W/WebMerge/wm24/dev..." for the 
> standalone file name. They should come up without any preset entries.
> 
> 5. The Standalone Builder builds standalones according to the 
> look-and-feel for  "OS native" even if "Windows 95" has been set in the 
> preferences.
> I noticed this when I build the splash stack for my "Colorpattern 
> Toolkit" (<http://www.sanke.org/Software/PatternToolkitWin.zip>) and 
> tested it with other stacks.
> I tried to find out whether version 2.6 of the two embedded (in mctools) 
> standalone builders was the cause, but it wasn't. Even using an older 
> standalone builder (of MC 2.5) , but with the 2.6.6 engine, made no 
> difference. But changing to an older engine, namely that of MC 2.5, 
> produced a standalone with Windows look-and-feel even when the new 
> standalone builder was being used.
> 
> Which means that the culprit must the new engine! I built a standalone 
> of the same stack in the Rev IDE with "Windows emulated" checked: Same 
> result, the produced standalone displays MacOS native features (like 
> they appear on Windows).
> 
> 6. Width of answer dialogs
> 
> Also on Sept 1 Tariel Gogoberidze  had written:
> 
>> Great, especially because I recently noticed that  in my copy of B11
>> IDE answer dialog can't expand it's width dynamically more than about
>> 460 pixels, trims my forth button in half.
> 
> 
> 
> I myself noticed that one button was cut in half in the longer dialogs 
> of my Colorpattern Toolkit (when six button were displayed), but only 
> when OS native was checked. With "Windows" set, all buttons appear in 
> full length, but - see item above - when the standalone had been built, 
> it was transformed to "OS native" and the last button cut in half.
> 
> The Revolution answer dialogs display all 6 buttons in full length 
> irrespective of the chosen look-and-feel. However, I do not like the 
> overall length of the Revolution dialogs.
> 
> 7. The case of the "placed" answer and ask dialogs
> 
> One thread of the discussion had ended Sept 5 with statements from Scott 
> Rossi and Richard Gaskin:
> 
> Scott:
> 
>> >> You can of course use the available IDE dialogs: Just add the two 
>> script
>> >> lines I have proposed (at the right place) to them, this is what I
>> >> normally do when a new version appears.
>>
>> Not when I'm delivering tools to other developers, no.  I have no problem
>> messing around with my own development environment but I don't want to
>> modify other developers' IDEs.
> 
> 
> 
> and Richard:
> 
>> I'm a bit skittish about using properties -- how about a global named
>> gMCAlertLoc?  When empty it uses the proposed defaults I outlined, and
>> when set it becomes the default location.
> 
> 
> 
> I can only stress again that my proposal to add two scriptlines to the 
> answer and aks dialogs is absolutely harmless, the "NewLoc" property is 
> just *dormant* when not invoked and reset at once even if used. But the 
> gained flexibiltiy is enormous on the other hand.
> 
> See the majority of the dialogs of the already mentioned-above 
> "Colorpattern" stack.
> 
> Aren't we just discussing how to "mess around" with the IDE, to really 
> improve it in such a way that "other developers" can benefit from it?
> 
> The two lines to be added are at the end of the preopenstack handlers:
> Line 1: "if the NewLoc of this stack is not empty then set the loc of 
> this stack to the NewLoc of this stack"
> Line 2: "set the NewLoc of this stack to empty ".
> 
> There is no need to be "skittish" here, because the two lines are 
> encapsulated in a way, they do not interfere with any other parts of the 
> script when no "newLoc" has been set in the calling script.-
> 
> Two issues concerning the relationship between the MC and Rev IDEs:
> 
> 8. We cannot display ".rev" files in the dialog for loading stacks, we 
> have to switch to "all files" to find them finally among all other file 
> types in the directory. The Rev IDE displays both Metacard and Rev files 
> in the open dialog.
> 
> A couple of months ago I had made such a proposal for the MC IDE and had 
> shown how to script this.
> 
> 9. I found out that it is impossible to build standalones from Metacard 
> stacks (when maintaining their extension "mc") with the Rev standalone 
> builder. Up to now I had assumed that it has something to do with 
> embedded dialogs or other substacks, but that is apparently not the case.
> The other way round, building standalones in the MC IDE from rev stacks 
> is possible even with maintaining the extension. But when selecting the 
> file in the dialog, Rev files are not displayed (see the related issue 
> 8. above), but you can type the stack name into the dialog, which is 
> however less comfortable than selecting the file directly.---
> 
> Could these issues possibly be addressed in a next version of the MC IDE?
> 
> Best regards to all Metacardians,
> 
Most have been, the rest will.  Thanks for the summary list.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com