Metacard 4

[Richard Gaskin]

Wilhelm Sanke wrote:
> This may have been already noticed here, I just want to make sure:
> 
> The Rev "Standalone" files - necessary to build standalones - of 
> versions 4 dp3 and dp4 do not work with the Metacard Standalone Builder. 
> Version 3.5 does.
> 
> I experience this on Windows, but did not test on MacOS.
> 
> We need to make sure (Klaus?) that the final version 4.0 *will* be 
> compatible with our Standalone Builder.

This is discussed in the v4 engine change log:

--------------------------------------

Standalone Building
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The method by which standalone building is done has changed in this 
release. Standalones are now built in such a way that they behave much 
better as executable files on all three platforms. In particular, 
Revolution standalone executables can now:
   - be digitally signed using the various OS tools on Windows and Mac OS X
   - have arbitrarily sized document and application ICO files used on 
Windows
   - have their resources edited on Windows
   - be used with various third-party executable processing tools (such 
as compressors, trial run makers, network key wrappers etc.)

In order to achieve this, it has been necessary to implement the core 
operation of standalone building in the (ide) engine. This means that 
the standalone engine provided in the distribution is no longer 
generally useful as anything other than the shell which is used to form 
the standalone. In particular, it cannot be used to build standalones 
using the method previously used nor can it be used as a generic command 
line engine.

The new method of standalone building also improves on the previous 
method by implicitly compressing and masking the main stackfile that is 
being built. This reduces standalone size, and also makes it harder for 
individuals to attempt to reverse-engineer a built standalone.

----------------------------------------

I'll be talking with Kevin next week and will remind him that we'll need 
the API.


> Concerning Richmond's assessment of Metacard:
> 
>> Metacard is not going forwards; it is now just an old, passé user 
>> interface
>>     jammed
>>     onto an engine that deserves and requires something a lot better; 
>> and that
>>     something is already well developed: Runtime Revolution.
> 
> Please, take look at my two contributions to the recent thread 
> "Practical limits on object counts" on the use-revolution list.
> 
> For a number of - maybe very personal - reasons I do roughly 95 % 
> percent of my development in the Metacard IDE.

Me too. :)  It's been very valuable for the community in a number of 
ways, even for those who don't use it:  as a lean with-the-grain way of 
working it helps isolate problems that can be more difficult to track 
down if there were only one IDE.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com
  revJournal blog: http://revjournal.com/blog.irv