[MC_IDE] Quick Poll

[Richard Gaskin]

On 3/29/11 11:24 AM, Wilhelm Sanke wrote:
> Could you possibly point out where we could find this "necessary info"
> from Oliver Canyon, if it was available it surely escaped me?. This and
> the difficulties of Klaus - there are other reasons as I understand and
> deplore on the side of Klaus - led me to assume that there unfortunately
> had *not* been sufficient information from the RunRev side to build a
> new MC-compatible standalone builder

In all fairness to RunRev, it's not an easy change.  And I would even go 
so far as to say it was a useful change, actually necessary as far as 
RevWeb is concerned and also UAC, and also helpful for both RunRev's 
license protection and for the MC IDE, since now the engine does all the 
bit-level stuff (binding the engine, embedding icons, embedding UAC 
info, etc.).

It took a few back-and-forth emails with Oliver to get this down, and a 
fair bit of trial-and-error on my part.  Actually, a lot of trial and 
error since any error messages that come back from the engine are rather 
sparse.

It's not a task I'd wish on anyone who has other things to do, but I do 
feel it's fair to say that RunRev, and particularly Kevin, Mark 
Waddingham and Oliver, made themselves available to help with my 
understanding of the initial example that Oliver had sent to Klaus and 
I, and ultimately it was their willingness to help that made the new SB 
possible.

I know that the rate of change in engine features sometimes makes it 
seems like RunRev is going out of their way to break the MC IDE, but 
having had more than a few discussions with Kevin about this I can 
confidently say that the opposite is true.  I think Kevin now feels good 
enough about the RR IDE that he's no longer at all concerned about 
potential bifurcation of his user base, and has gone from being merely 
comfortable with MC to actively helping us improve it.

In addition to the team's effort to bring our SB up to date, RR has 
helped with at least two other significant improvements that make our MC 
work easier:

- MessageBoxRedirect:  this property was added specifically to address a 
problem that used to occur if you tried to swap out the Rev IDE for MC 
within the Rev session.    I had at one time explored making a tool for 
this I called "FlipsIDE" (long since abandoned because it's just easier 
to make a fresh install), and Kevin gave this issue priority and had the 
team address it as soon as it was brought to his attention.

- Engine-based licensing:  in versions prior to v2.7, the Rev license 
handling was done outside the engine, which meant that we had to have 
separate license keys for MC and they had to maintain them; extra work 
for everyone.  With v2.7 the engine now handles registration itself, so 
any stack at all can be used as a Home stack, which can in turn launch 
any stacks for any IDE, as long as you first have a working licensed Rev 
install.  Easy to comply with, it's also much easier for us (or anyone 
else wishing to make an IDE) since the Home stack is now just 
effectively a launcher, no longer saddled with license enforcement. 
When launched the engine will first sort out its license stuff, then 
look for a stack named "mchome.mc" at the same level as the engine.  If 
not found, it will then proceed to look for home.rev, but if found it 
will open the file, where you can use any scripts you want to open any 
tools you want.

True, both of these moves also have benefits for RunRev.  But that's a 
good thing:  mutually supportive goals that maximize flexibility for all.

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