[ANN] MetaCard IDE 4.1

[Ken Ray]

On the heels of Jacque's announcement, I'm pleased to announce that the
newest release of the MetaCard IDE, Version 4.1, is now available for
download.

This release has *a lot* of changes and additions to it, and a list of these
changs/additions is included at the bottom of this post and as part of the
download.

If you already downloaded a copy using Jacque's MC Setup stack right after
she made her announcement, you should download a new copy... the IDE changed
slightly and the MC Setup stack did not download a copy of Richard's
standalone builder stack; this is all included in the MC IDE download.

You can get it from the Yahoo Group's "Files" area, or you can download it
directly from this url:

  http://metcard.livejournal.com/files/mc_ide_4.1.zip

If you have any issues with the new IDE, please post them to the list or
send me an email, whichever you feel is most appropriate.

Enjoy!

Ken
=======================
Version 4.1 - June 2011

General
-------
  - Added support for a new 'mcomponents' folder with the first component
being Richard's new Standalone Builder. This folder will be used for other
components later on down the line.
  - Added "mcGetPref", "mcSetPref", and "mcPrefsList" handlers to the
backscript to work with new preferences model (see Preferences for more
info).
  - Added "mcStackPath" function to backscript to help developers deal with
the multiple MC/Rev/LC extensions. (To use, pass it a path to a stack file
minus any extension; it will check for .mc, .rev, or .livecode versions of
that stack path and return the path, including extension, or "not found" if
there isn't a stack file with any of those extensions.)
  - Added "mcLoadStack" and "mcPurgeStack" handlers to backscript to help
developers manage memory.
  - Added Richard's "mcStandaloneBuilder.rev" stack which is currently IN
BETA - so if you run into any issues or have any suggested changes, please
send a message to the MetaCard List or contact him directly at
"ambassador at fourthworld.com".

Menus
-----
  - [File] Added support for listing .livecode files in the Open dialog
  - [File] Modified "New Stack" to set the following properties on by
default: destroyWindow, destroyStack, liveResizing, alwaysBuffer, width=640,
height=480, loc=screenLoc. NOTE: This does not change the current state of
the templatestack.
  - [Edit] Added support for pasting image data; it creates a new image
object with the image data in it
  - [Text] Added "Gray", "Orange" and "Purple" to text colors menu (we
already had the secondary color "Green", but we didn't have the other two
secondary ones)
  - [Window] Fixed bug in Window menu creation where button reference was
inaccurate under certain circumstances
  - [Window] Supercharged the "Window" menu:
      (a) Shows hidden windows with surrounding brackets
      (b) Puts a diamond in front of the menu item for the topmost window
      (c) If you pick a hidden (bracketed) window from the menu, you have an
option to show it (shows a confirmation dialog unless you hold down Option
when making the selection)
      (d) Added a "Center Offscreen Windows" menu item
      (e) If you hold down Option when invoking the menu, the windows in the
menu are not sorted (i.e. they are listed in stacking order)
      (f) If you hold down the Shift key when invoking the menu, the
substacks of the main stacks in the menu are listed in a submenu that you
can select from (if you want to open the substack) or just view.

Message Box
-----------
  - Removed 4W-specific code from card script
  - Fixed bug where you couldn't use parentheses to execute a command in the
Message Box (i.e. "DoMyThing (the short name of this stack)" would think you
were trying to execute a function)
  - Fixed bug where message box wouldn't work under Windows without
tinkering with the Message Box Field script to exclude "(x86)" globals

Preferences
-----------
  - Modified layout of Preferences window; made upper/lower case labels
consistent across all tabs
  - [Look and Feel] Added option to turn off message box scrollbars in
Preferences window
  - [Look and Feel] Added option to completely hide the Home stack on launch
if you don't want to see it
  - [Look and Feel] Added checkboxes for setting the default value of
destroyStack, destroyWindow, and alwaysBuffer for new stacks
  - [Script Editor] Added "Cmd-option edits scripts in browse mode" option
(defaults to false for backwards compatibility)
  - [Script Editor] Added "Preserve script-local Variables" option (defaults
to false for backwards compatibility)
  - Added "LiveCode" tab to the Preferences window that allows you to store
the location of your LiveCode app bundle or folder to aid with standalone
building, etc.
  - Converted preferences throughout IDE to use a separate preferences file
on disk through the use of the "mcGetPref", "mcSetPref", and "mcPrefsList"
handlers in the backscript (thank you, Richard!).

Properties Palette
------------------
  - [All] Added "Visible" property to all properties palette cards
  - [Button/Appearance] Added "Margins" field
  - [Stack] Fixed bug where password/passkey could not be set properly with
LC Engine 4.0 or later
  - [Custom Properties] Added ability to create custom property sets in the
Custom Properties dialog.
  - [Custom Properties] Fixed bug that prevented the use of a reserved token
for a property name of a custom property set (e.g. trying to set the
uRIP["name"] would fail because "name" is a reserved token).

Tools Palette
-------------
  - Added "line" tool to MC Tools palette so it and the MC Toolbar (that
displays in Windows/Linux) would be in sync
  - Modernized look of Tools Palette and MC Toolbar
  - Fixed bug in Tools palette where selecting a graphic tool would
highlight the wrong tool on mouseUp
  - Fixed bug where adding a datagrid to a new stack would cause an error
dialog

Object Browser
--------------
  - Fixed bug where "Script Lines" column was displaying empty, even if
objects had a script. (This was due to the change in passkey/password.)

Script Editor/Debugger/Variable Watcher
---------------------------------------
  - Modified "Script Find" window:
     (a) Adjusted layout
     (b) It is now resizable (turned on liveResizing)
     (c) Added toggle triangle to Script Find palette to switch between Find
and Replace without having to close Find and open Replace
  - Fixed bugs in script editor formatting so it wouldn't wrap improperly
when it hits a "\" red herring; also indented "case" inside "switch";
support block comments by keeping the indented format
  - Fixed debugging of behaviors in Variable Watcher.
  - Fixed bug in VW where manipulating multidimensional arrays would cause
the array values field to scroll back to the top after each menu pick.

Plugins Manager
---------------
  - Added "Reload Library" button to MC Plugins Manager window;
checking/unchecking library loads/unloads the library
  - Added support for using .livecode files as plugins (it already had
support for .mc and .rev)
  - Fixed McPluginsManager so that all stacks that don't have a "revMode"
open in their natural mode (not always palette if .rev)

Other Stacks
------------
  - [Home] Modified stack to take up less screen space but still remain
useful.
  - [Find] Minor cosmetic changes
  - [Script Error] Enlarged the size of the window, and provided extra room
for the error object description
  - Made significant cosmetic adjustments to the UI of the Metacard Menu Bar
stack and the Tools palette

Optimization
------------
  - Centralized call to opening Custom Properties window
  - IDE now passes the selectedObjectChanged message (don't understand why
it didn't before...)
  - Fixed font support for Home stack and Metacard Menu Bar stack to include
text size.