Where do I find Revonline?

[Richard Gaskin]

Richmond Mathewson wrote:
> I suppose Runtime Revolution would "jump all over"
> anybody who produced a file-format converter? i.e. new
> RR format -> legacy format.
> 
> Heather, Richard; would be grateful if you could give
> feedback on this point.

"Richard"?  If you mean me, I don't work for RunRev, am not an investor, 
and haven't even done contract work for them in more than half a decade. 
I have no influence with them any more than any other customer, and with 
my persistence about BZ#623 and #624 sometimes less so. ;)

But as someone who spends a great deal of every workday with the Rev 
engine I can offer at little technical background and my opinion on this:

There already is a format converter built into Rev 2.7 and later, the 
only versions that understand the new format.  This is supported in two 
ways:

- GUI: The "Save As" feature allows the user to select the current 
format or the older legacy format.

- API: There's a global property which determines the file format of any 
stack being saved, the stackFileVersion, whose value is the version 
number of the engine in which the file format was first supported. 
Acceptable values are "2.7" (the current format) and "2.4" (the older 
format).  A plugin can be written which sets the stackFileVersion to 
"2.4" at startup to all saves are in the legacy format, if desired. 
Until recently I did this with one of my projects to maintain 
compatibility with an older standalone we had in circulation.

Given how easy it is to save in the older legacy format, we have to 
trust that if a developer chooses to use the current format it may be 
for a reason.

Please keep in mind that the file format change was neither arbitrary 
nor trivial.  Anti-aliasing is but one of many new properties the new 
file format can support, and the old file format was fast on its way to 
having used up all available property slots.  The new format paves a 
fresh path to the future which better supports growth and flexibility in 
the engine.

So in brief, working in v2,7 or later and saving in the older format can 
mean losing features. At a minimum this means anti-aliasing, and with 
each new version it will mean more.

With the general strength of the v2.8.1 release, most concerns which had 
kept 2.6 users from upgrading to v2.7 have been addressed.  So at this 
point the number of customers still using the two-year-old 2.6 version 
is relatively small, and dropping weekly.

I still share most of my tools in the older format, but even that will 
change soon.

HyperCard 2.0 never offered any option for saving in its 1.0 format, so 
that Rev has made a more graceful transition process than Apple provided 
is laudible, but not to be expected to continue forever.  Sometimes life 
just moves forward....

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com