[Enhancement Request] Open and BackUp in LiveCode DP and RC

[Ben Rubinstein]

FYI, since it touches on both the original post and where this thread has got 
to:  I have an extension to the standard IDE toolbar (i.e. a stack in the 
plugins folder); on launch it glues itself to the end of the Rev toolbar.

It's got various things on it, but the main ones are a big backup+save button, 
and a display of the rev version - actually, the buildnumber(), version() and 
revAppVersion() - so just by glancing at the top-right corner of my screen I 
can check what I'm running.

The backup+save button is what I almost invariably use to save stacks - I very 
rarely use the IDE's save.  It ensures that there is a folder "(bups)" in the 
same folder as the stack; moves the existing stack file into that, renaming it 
with a version number, then saves the stack.  Before it saves the stack it 
updates a stack property with the version number and date.

Consequently for some stacks I have literally over a thousand copies (called 
eg "mystack;1234.rev") .  Occassionally if I feel like it I might go and 
delete the oldest files in the "(bups)" folder, but mostly I don't bother - 
disk bytes are cheap.   I suppose if I cared about it I might modify the 
backup+save button to also purge backups older than a certain date or more 
than some number.

Over the years the system has been extended; the first time the stack format 
changed, I added a stack property that could be used to force the save into 
the legacy format (before that became a standard IDE feature).  If there is a 
particular stack property, using the backup+save button also writes a sidecar 
xml file (typically of all the scripts in the stack, but configured by the 
property sometimes fields and user properties also), so that for stacks that 
are subject to shared development and stored in Subversion, the stack and the 
sidecar file are always committed together, to facilitate version differencing.

At one point I did implement auto-save, but I found it really annoying and 
deleted it.

I prefer backup on save to backup on open; sometimes I open a stack and don't 
wish to save changes to it, and would find backups created with no difference 
psychologically disturbing; more often, I save frequently during development, 
and don't want to only backup at the start of a new session.  (I actually 
added this back in the days of Rev 1.0, when I quite frequently encountered 
nasty crashes, and sometimes found stacks corrupted.)

FWIW: my second favourite button on the toolbar is a one-click builder; it 
tweaks the standalone settings, saves the stack, and then builds standalone 
apps into a pre-set folder.

My third favourite button - because I work on a laptop and plug/unplug it from 
a big monitor many times a day, which messes up the IDE's window placement and 
sometimes places them inaccessibly underneath the toolbar, is the one which 
resizes and moves windows - especially the script editor - back into the 
workable screen area.)

Once upon a million years ago, I think I put in a feature request for a 
standard way to add controls to the IDE's toolbar, rather than my clumsy extra 
toolbar glued on - I still think it would be a useful idea.

I'd love to know: what do other people do to customise their environment? What 
custom functionality have you added, and how?


On 24/04/2014 17:25, J. Landman Gay wrote:
> On Mac the stack name is in the title bar. So we have choice.  Just run the OS for the info you want to see.  :-)
>
> On April 24, 2014 8:33:19 AM CDT, Ralph DiMola <rdimola at evergreeninfo.net> wrote:
>> In Windows the LC version is in the title bar. It would be nice to have
>> the
>> currently focused stack name there also so you don't have to open the
>> code
>> window to verify the stack name/version.
>>
>> Ralph DiMola
>> IT Director
>> Evergreen Information Services
>> rdimola at evergreeninfo.net
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: use-livecode [mailto:use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On
>> Behalf
>> Of J. Landman Gay
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 10:13 PM
>> To: How to use LiveCode
>> Subject: Re: [Enhancement Request] Open and BackUp in LiveCode DP and
>> RC
>>
>> I got tired of that so now I just type "the version" into the message
>> box.
>>
>> On April 23, 2014 8:20:56 PM CDT, Kay C Lan <lan.kc.macmail at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The problem I have is I occasionally accidentally start the wrong
>>> version so I'm constantly needing to visit the About LiveCode to
>>> confirm which version is open
>