Hello + question

[jbv]

Hello list,

I'm new to this list. I have been developping with
HyperCard from 1987 to 93, and have also developped
several applications in OMO.

I'm presently working with Metacard, and have been asked
to work on a application project in which the user will have
to manipulate 3D objects on the screen. These objects will
be rendered in some 3D graphics software, and ideally should
be QTVR files that the user can manipulate freely with the
mouse, and eventually could be manipulated by script (for
demonstration purpose).

As it looks like Metacard doesn't support any 3D graphics
nor QTVR, I was wondering if there is any external / DLL
to achieve this.
Last but not least : the project must run under Windows.

Thanks.

JB




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Re: QTVR (was : Hello + question)

[jbv]

Richard Gaskin :

>
>
> MetaCard's support of QuickTime does include QTVR.  It's a great
> implementation too:  you can control the pan, tilt, and other QTVR.
>

Thanks for the tip.
That's pretty good news, although I didn't find any info on that
matter in the MC help stacks (I've downloaded the 2.3.1 for Mac)...
For instance, the Player object properties doesn't mention any
property associated with pan or tilt of a QTVR movie...

I will run some experiments with a player and QTVR files, but
where can I find complete doc about QT implementation in MC ?

Thanks.

JB




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Re: Import of vector drawings

[jbv]

>
>
> As I recall from the last time this discussion was raised, the main
> challenge here is this one:
>
>Find a multi-platform vector graphics standard that everyone
>will be happy with.
>

What about PDF ? Does it imply licensing from (and negociating with)
Adobe ? Or use the PDF plug-in for browsers ?

Just asking...

JB




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Re: Import of vector drawings

[jbv]

Philip wrote :

> I appreciate the comments by Chris Condit regarding vector graphics.  I have
> a commercial program im MetaCard (www.biblemaps.com) where I have several
> hundred maps that have to be converted to bitmap to be imported into MC.
> Yet, in order to print cleanly, I still have to include all the maps on the
> CD in vector format (in this case, I use PDF format).



I'm new to this list, and I'm quite happy to see that it's also a
"feature request list".

For quite some time, there's a feature I've had in mind (which was
also missing in OMO), and in some ways it echoes the above remark.

I've always found printing features (in HC, SC & OMO) quite limited
(to achieve sophisticated print outputs, one has to simulate the layout
with various fields, etc  on a special card/bkgnd, and "hide" that card
to the user with a lock screen, etc - it works, but it's not very elegant).

The ideal feature would be to download to a laser printer the content of
a field or variable or external text file... This content could be Postscript
of PDF. Building a Postscript file with a script is an incredibly powerful
way to achieve great prints.
With HC & OMO I used to use an external called SendPS (from the
Rinaldi collection AFAIR). But it didn't work on Windoze.

Adding that feature to both Mac & PC versions of MC (AFAIK it already
exists on the Unix version) would be great.

Thanks.

JB




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Re: Valentina 1.8.7 Introduces Java, MacOS X REALbasic, Shockwave Versions

[jbv]

Hello list,

I just spent some time checking Valentina for Metacard
and must confess that I'm quite impressed. This thing
could fit very well for a couple of projects I have pending
right now...

But I have a couple of questions, especially regarding
memory management. When saving a Metacard stack
as a standalone, about 2.5 Mb (basically the Metatalk
interpreter) are added to the stack.
Valentina for Metacard is an XCMD, so I guess that to
be fully operational it has to be added to the ressource
fork of the stack, which should add another 600 Kb (the
exact figure skips my mind right now) to the stack, right ?
And is it the same for the Windoze version ?

And what about the Valentina files (data, indexes...) ?
Does the XCMD access them on the HD, or is there
any benefit / possibility to upload them in RAM ?

Last but not least : is there somewhere any exhaustive
list of all XCMDs available for Metacard (I'm especially
interested in those running on Mac AND Win) ?

Thanks.

JB




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Re: MC on Windows and the same stack opened several times

[jbv]

Kevin Miller  :

>
>
> One way you could do it (any platform) is to create a "lock file" that
> prevents multiple copies being run.  The idea is simple: on loading, create
> a text file in a specific place (e.g. the same directory as the stack).  On
> closing, delete the file.  On startUp, if the file exists, put up an error
> message that the program is already running, and exit.
>



But if your mc app runs from a CD-ROM, this solution might get a bit
tricky...

Why not use a global variable for each stack ? At startup you declare the
variable and test its value. If the value is empty, that means the stack opens

for the 1st time. Then put "1" (or any other value) in the global.
If global isn't empty, prompt an error message then exit.
Further attempts to launch the same stack will result in error & exit.

I don't have much programming experience with MC, but that's what I'd
do in HC or OMO, so I guess it should work with MC too...

Of course, the above solution implies that the MC stack remains open from
the beginning to the end of a work session. If several different stacks will
open & close during a work session, and if you still want to prevent multiple
copies of each stck to run at the same time, then you'll have to set the value

of each global back to empty when closing each stack. This can be achieved
with a "closestack" handler in which the global is set to empty.
To prevent additional copies to set the global back to empty when closing,
then you'll have to inhibit the closestack message for other copies of the
same
stack. This is easily done by putting a "set lockmessages to true" after the
error
message.

on openstack
global stackA
if stackA is not empty then
--prompt error message
set lockmessages to true
closestack
end if
...

on closestack
global stackA
put "" into stackA
...



Hope that helps.

JB




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Re: OOOPS !!! MC on Windows and the same stack opened several times

[jbv]

Ooops ! Just realized that I made a mistake in the code
sent with my previous post...
The explanations were OK, but the following should work
better :

on openstack
global stackA
if stackA is not empty then
--prompt error message
set lockmessages to true
-- exit stack
else
put 1 into stackA
end if
...


on closestack
global stackA
put "" into stackA
...


Again sorry.

JB




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Re: HTML Formatted Mail (Off topic ?)

[jbv]

andu  :

> MetaCard can send any data using sockets but the html formatting with
> images and all that must be done by other app.
>

You can also generate HTML pages "on the fly" through MC scripts and
send those pages using sockets...

JB





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Fwd: [Re: HTML Formatted Mail (Off topic ?)]

[jbv]

> andu  :
>
> > MetaCard can send any data using sockets but the html formatting with
> > images and all that must be done by other app.
> >
>
> You can also generate HTML pages "on the fly" through MC scripts and
> send those pages using sockets...
>
> JB
>



Still on the subject of generating code "on the fly" through MC scripts,
I'd like to insist on a feature I'd really like to see in further versions
of
MC (I already mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, but surprisingly
nobody reacted to it) : the possibility to download the content of a
handler (textfield, script, custom property, variable...) to any PS
printer
available on the network (just like you send data to a "socket").
The idea is to generate "on the fly" PostScript or PDF files and send the
data to a PS printer, and thus increase MC printing capabilities by
several
orders of magnitude. Of course, this feature should be available on all
platforms (AFAIR it's already available on the Unix version of MC).

I'm not sure how many other MC users would be interested in that
feature, but believe me : you can achieve wonderful printings.
And you don't even have to master PostScript programing : this feature
also allows you to download ready-made PDF or PS files (from Illustrator,
Photoshop...).

JB




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Re: Fwd: [Re: HTML Formatted Mail (Off topic ?)]

[jbv]

andu  :

>
>
> Talking to the printer is the easy part, generating "on the fly" PS or
> PDF would imply MC has a built-in interpreter for that language. On UNIX
> platforms there is Ghostscript which is a "free" PS interpreter (and it
> sucks) and the only way to print more then text, but licensing anything
> from Adobe must be a fortune.
>

Sorry, but there's a misunderstanding here : the only thing I need is a MC
feature that allows me to talk to the printer.
As for generating PostScript on the fly, I will take care of that myself when
coding my scripts (as I master both PS and MetaTalk).

But this feature isn't reserved to ppl who master PostScript : as I wrote
before,
you can imagine to have various ready-made PS of PDF files (made in other
applications) that you can read and then download to the printer for great
printings...

Hope things are more clear now...

JB





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Re: Fwd: [Re: HTML Formatted Mail (Off topic ?)]

[jbv]

Monte Goulding :

> Hi
>
> Have you been reading the thread about generating pdf files?

Yes, more or less...

>
>
> Would you be prepared to share your knowledge of pdf to create a script that
> could export
> text and images to create a pdf file?
>
> Thanks for any help.
>

Well, this option actuall never crossed my mind, but after all, why not ?

I can see only 2 problems :

- I'm not sure I'll have the time for that in a very near future

- as for images, the problem will be that it is necessary to have access
to the core pixel values (and not only a link to the image file ) to build
the PDF file...

Of course, a more accurate description of what the script is supposed to
do will be much apreciated...

JB




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Re: Fwd: [Re: HTML Formatted Mail (Off topic ?)] Pretty long

[jbv]

Scott Raney  :

> OK, now *I'm* confused.  The UNIX versions of MetaCard can generate
> PostScript and it wouldn't be hard to add this ability to the other
> engines, but I guess I don't really see the point: only a very small
> fraction of printers out there even support PostScript, so why would
> you want to use that instead of MetaCard's built-in printing
> capabilities, which work with all printers on Windows and MacOS
> systems?

Well, I have a different experience : most of my clients are also involvedin
various DTP / multimedia activities, and there are ALWAYS at least 1
or 2 PostScript printers on their LAN.

Furthermore, using PS or PDF files has some benefits :
- total & ultrafine control of the data downloaded to the printer
- lighter apps (no need to build a special card with layout of various
text fiels & images to emulate what you want to have on paper)
- faster download time (and less risk to clutter trafic on the LAN)
- much faster printing time...

Here are a couple of examples (again I'm rather new in MC development
and those examples are from my experience with HC & OMO, but I think
the issues they adress are equivalent).

1) for one of the last OMO app I did, I was asked to include a print
function for various documents (invoices...), and the client's wish was
that his company logo (an EPS file) appears at the top left corner of each
document. I was only able to import the PICT ressource into an image
object, and when printed, it featured lots of ugly jaggies...
Being able to import the PS code would give 100% perfect result...

2) way back in the early 90's I was chief editor for a technical mag
published by Apple France. The mag was available in 2 formats :
a regular mag printed on paper, and a floppy disk (750 Kb) with a HC stack
containing all articles & illustrations of the mag, plus various search
& index functions. End users could subscribe to the mag alone, or the
mag + the floppy, or the floppy alone. For those on got the HC version
only, we thought it would be nice to be able to print articles with the same
layout as the mag. So I built a script that was able to generate PostScript
files on the fly (from the data contained in the HC stack and
displayed on screen) and download it to a PS printer using the SendPS
XCMD (from the Rinaldi collection). I also included in the prologue of the
PS file an hyphenation algorithm (that weighted only 6 Kb !!!).
The mag itself was made with QuarkXPress, and at first we thought we
could use the PostScript outputs, treat them and generate the content of
the HC stack. But (until version 3.1) the PostScript generated by XPress
was complete crap (it didn't follow any Adobe guidelines), and therefore
was generating incredibly huge files that used to take forever to download
and to print, while my own PS files were slim and used to print at lightspeed.

In conclusion, the SendPS XCMD worked very fine, but on Mac only.
As most of the developments I have to do these days must run on Windows,
I can't use that solution...
For instance, right now I have 6 pending (and roughly similar) projects :
small data bases containing specs & infos about various products, and the
user can access those DB through search functions, and display individual
products datasheets and eventually print them.
What I want to do is build a script that sends requests to the DB and then
builds on the fly  a PS or PDF file around the found infos and download
it to the printer (in the same way as you can build HTML on the fly and
send the data to a client via a socket)...

> Then why not just print them from a PDF viewer or something?  You
> can't print PDF files directly to a PS printer anyway.  As I recall
> there's even a command-line option to these programs on Win32(\p, I
> think it was) so that you could do this from "shell()" or "open
> process".  It's pretty straightforward to do this on the Mac with
> AppleEvents too.  It's not straightforward at all on UNIX, however,
> but that's because nothing to do with printing is ;-)

You know, most of clients who pay for a CD-ROM app developpment(as well as all
potential end users for that app) already found rather
cumbersome to have to install QT before using the app. So I can't
imagine telling them they'll have to use another piece of software
just to print their documents. A simple "print" function available as a
button or a menu item is what they ask for.
It is such silly little details that makes the difference between me and
some of my competitors (on some projects) who try to convince the
client to develop under Director instead...

>
>
> > Hope things are more clear now...
>
> Another interpretation of your original question I think would be that
> you're asking for some script-based equivalent to "answer printer"
> that you could be used to find out what printers are available on the
> network and what capabilities they have and to open one of your
> choice so that you could write raw data to it.

Exactly

MC, PCI & MIDI

[jbv]

Hi,

Is there any possibility to send / receive data
to / from a board on a PCI slot through a
MC script ?

Same question about receiving / sending MIDI
via the printer or modem ports ?

Thanks & Regards,

JB




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Re: Fwd: [Re: HTML Formatted Mail (Off topic ?)]

[jbv]

Monte :

> >
> > Of course, a more accurate description of what the script is supposed to
> > do will be much apreciated...
>
> I've done some reading on the format and it seems you can include jpeg and
> png images into the pdf file. As mc can save images to these formats then it
> would be relatively easy to save an image to a file. Read it back in then
> incorporate it into the pdf.

Sure, but including images as raw ASCII or binary is a much better option,
especially because of the wonderful machinery (in PDF as well as in PS) to
raster huge chunks of such code at lightspeed...

>
>
> My plan is to store reports from a program in a relatively portable and
> printable format. I was thinking of HTML but as there are images involved I
> didn't want to have multiple files lying around.
>
> The script needs to take text and format it with style & layout and embed
> jpeg or png image data into the file. When the file is built it will be
> saved.
>

That's what I understood, although there's a few more things I'd like
to know; for instance : as for layout, does it concern only text in fields,
or does it also concern buttons names, lines around fields & buttons
(to simulate spreadsheets for instance) ? Shall the script care about
card objects only or also backgrounds ? etc etc...

May be could you send me an example, like a simple stack with various
elements that are likely to appear on your final project and have to be
considered, as well as a simulation of the final print you want to get...

JB





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Re: MC, PCI & MIDI

[jbv]

Sjoerd Op 't Land a écrit:

> > Same question about receiving / sending MIDI
> > via the printer or modem ports ?
> Well, I'm still searching for a neat external which controls MIDI via OMS,

Have you tried those :

http://www.earlevel.com/HyperMIDI/
http://members.aol.com/MidiToolz/midi/MidiTools.html


> but for the moment you can write bytes to the modem/ printerport with the
> read and write commands:
>
>   open modem:
>   write numtochar(199) to modem: -- to write 199 to it
>   close modem:
>

Mmmh... Just tried the above on the 2.3.2 for Mac and it doesn't work
(MC doesn't seem to recognize "modem:" - and it doesn't appear in the
Help index)...

What did I do wrong ?

Thanks and regards,

JB




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Re: PostScript printers

[jbv]

Scott Raney  :

>
>
> News to me.  AFAIK, nearly all home printers are inkjets and there
> aren't any printers of that type that support PostScript.  Even the
> majority of laser printers don't support PS but instead use PCL or
> some other proprietary language (PS being too expensive to license and
> requiring a lot more RAM and CPU power than the alternatives).  Even
> that minority of laser printers that do support PS also have the
> proprietary language and are frequently set up such that they default
> to using the proprietary language unless you make some changes at the
> control panel.  Or am I misinformed somehow?
>   Regards,
> Scott
>

Actually, I think we're all right, simply because we're talking about
different things. It's true that most personal home printers aren't PS
(indeed it would be too expensive to license PS from Adobe).
But on the other hand, hundreds of small companies with a few networked
Macs & PCs, that are somehow involved in DTP / multimedia / production /
education / whatever have (at least) 1 or 2 PS printers on their network
(because it's one of their activity's requests). And THOSE companies
are my clients who pay for apps development on MC. And they're very
touchy about printing quality, and would NEVER accept prints of their logo
(for instance) with "jaggies"...

I'm wondering if it's not a mistake to focuse on this printing discussion,
and if it is not wiser to approach the subject from a more general viewpoint :
the request for a general purpose MC function to send / receive raw data
through the printer & modem ports (with various settings, to adapt to
different situations). Of course, that would include download of PS code...

Regards,

JB




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Re: Sockets vs. POST

[jbv]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] :

> I recommend you duke it out with the CGI protocol some more before giving up on this 
>relatively easy protocol. Unless, of course, you have some very special protocol 
>needs that CGI is not designed to handle or to handle-well. IOW, with sockets, you 
>could create your own custom communication protocol. A protocol that doesn't have all 
>of the un-necessary overhead of CGI, for example. You could conceivably create a 
>protocol custom-made for MetaCard stacks to communicate via the Internet in their own 
>native-tongue.
>

Very interesting remark IMHO.

Actually, that's what I'm planing to do. I have a few pending
projects for which the clients want a CD-ROM version + an
online version. My idea is (basically) to develop only 1 app,
on which I'll discociate the interface from the rest (core scripts
and data structures). On the CD-ROM version the interface will
be regular MC btns & flds, while the online version will
require HTML pages. The idea is to setup the small custom
protocol for communication between the core of the app and
the interface. On the CD-ROM version, this will be done by
sending messages with parameters to various handlers, and
in the online version, the same syntax will be used for
communication between the client PC (featuring the HTML
pages) and the MC app on the server.

Any thought / previous experience & comments on this ?

Thanks.

JB




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MC as CGI app

[jbv]

Hi list,

This might sound like a silly newbie question, but I was
wondering : in case a MC app is used on a Linux / Unix
server as a CGI app, how is it done exactly ?
Is it a stack run by the Unix version of MC, or can one
built a standalone and launch it as any other app on the server ?

And in case several different MC apps need to run on a server
(and communicate with clients through HTML forms or
local MC apps), how is it done ? Different stacks opened
under the same Unix MC app, or as many standalones as apps ?

I don't need lengthy explanations, just the general frame, or
a couple of pointers to more detailed explanations.

Thanks.

JB




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Re: MC as CGI app

[jbv]

Gary,

> I guess there are a couple of ways to do this. However, we use a standalone
> on a LINUX system and it works fine.
>
> If you wish I can email you a specific example/tutorial that I've put
> together. Either in windows or mac format.
>
> If you would like a copy please email me off list. All I ask back, is
> constructive criticism.
>

Thanks for the offer. Yes, I'd be really interested in your
example / tutorial. I'm a Mac user.

Best regards,

JB




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Re: XCMD's Rinaldi

[jbv]

> We see a number of threads where Mac users have some non-cross platform
> needs which would be easily address by some of Rinaldi's tools.
>
> I thought *every* xTalker on the planet knew about
> this but apparently not. For what it's worth:
>
> http://perso.wanadoo.fr/frederic.rinaldi/
>

Yes, the Rinaldi XCMDs are high quality tools, but
one should kept in mind that their use in commercial
products are subject to a license, which (AFAIR) is
pretty expensive...

JB





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Moving files with MC

[jbv]

Hello again,

For a project I'm working on, I need to store
on a CD-ROM a collection of photos.
The user can browse through thumbnails, and
by double-clicking on a thumbnail a larger
view of that foto is displayed.
The CD-ROM also features a high-resolution
version of each foto (for DTP & print purposes).

According to the client's demand, if the user is
interested by a foto, he must be able to select it,
which means automatically copying the corresponding
hi-res file from the CD-ROM to a destination directory.

Is there any built-in function of MC that allows
copy / move of files between directories, or is
an XCMD / DLL necessary ? And if yes, which
one would you advise ?

Thanks.

JB




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Printing with MC

[jbv]

Hi list,

Ahem... It's me again, and I'm going to talk about printing
facilities in MC...
This week only I've got three demands from clients for
development of products in which online + CD-ROM
versions with high quality printing features (PS & pdf) are
on top of the request list...

>From  a more general point of view, I'm more & more
convinced of the need of a development tool that
allows to approach the application domain (that goes
from pure online apps to pure print apps) as a single
entity without any gap inbetween.
In other words, I see more & more clients asking
for apps that request high quality features at both
ends of the chain...

I don't mean to start another endless thread about
printing; I just wanted to stress out the importance
of including in MC a function that allows downloading
of a handler's content (PS, pdf, MIDI...) to the
modem & printer ports.

For the moment, the only options I can offer to
my clients are weird procedures to generate a pdf file
and then download it with another app, or develop
under Director...

JB

P.S.  could someone tell me if the following :

  open modem:
  write numtochar(199) to modem: -- to write 199 to it
  close modem:

works in the Win version of MC only, or if it's
also available on Mac ?

Thanks.



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Re: XCMD's Rinaldi

[jbv]

> Frederic is still alive???

Well, at least he was still alive 2 days ago,
as the latest update of his web page is dated
march 7th...;-)

JB




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Re: Moving files with MC

[jbv]

Dave,

> At 2:23 PM + 8/3/01, jbv wrote:
>
> >Is there any built-in function of MC that allows
> >copy / move of files between directories, or is
> >an XCMD / DLL necessary ? And if yes, which
> >one would you advise ?
>
> put url ("binfile:" & sourcefile) into url ("binfile:" & destfile)
>

Thanks a lot, it works perfectly.

The only drawback is that the new file is created as a text file
by default.
In case of jpg or eps or whatever, I'll have to find a way to
set the file type as well. I guess under Windoze, adding .jpg
or .eps to the file name is enough (I haven't made any test on
PC yet).
As for Mac, I think there was a discussion about setting file
type & creator lately on this list... That should be in the archives,
right ?

Thanks again.

JB





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Re: XCMD's Rinaldi

[jbv]

Richard Gaskin :

> > We see a number of threads where Mac users have some non-cross platform
> > needs which would be easily address by some of Rinaldi's tools.
> >
> > I thought *every* xTalker on the planet knew about
> > this but apparently not. For what it's worth:
> >
> > http://perso.wanadoo.fr/frederic.rinaldi/
>
> Rinaldi does indeed have some great Mac-specific externals, but last time I
> checked he has the highest prices in the industry by an order of magnitude:
> $500 per external for each products it's used in.  Please let me know if
> this is no longer the case.
>

This is not 100% true. The last time I checked the above figures
were the rule, but ONLY for using those external in commercial products.
AFAIR, for personal use, as well as non-profit products (and perhaps
also educational, but I'm not sure), the use was free.

There were also discount available for use of several externals.

JB




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Screen saver

[jbv]

Hi guys,

For a current project, I'm asked by a client to develop
a customed screen saver.

I was wondering if this could be done with MC...

If not, could someone be kind enough to point me
to some (simple) development tools for (simple)
screen savers (Mac AND PC) ?

Thanks in advance.

JB




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OT : Javascript

[jbv]

Hi,

Is there any javascript specialist on this list ?

I have a couple of questions regarding specific
programing issues (mostly related to frame sets).

Please contact me off-list...

Thanks.

JB




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Re: HyperCard & Price

[jbv]

andu a écrit:

>
>
> Or license metaTalk as the default script language of OS X. Now, that
> would make a killer OS. It can do shell too.
> But Jobs is not *that* good.
>

IMHO it's not a matter of being good or bad; it's just that
Apple always refused to rely on third parties for any part
of the Mac OS. This has been Apple's politics for years.
That's the main (and only) reason why they dropped Display
Postscript when they decided to port NextStep...

JB



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Re: HyperCard & Price

[jbv]

Richard MacLemale a écrit:

> MetaCard is expensive, but there's no real competition for what it does
> (card-based design that's cross platform and powerful.)  The problem is that
> it is priced out of reach of general hobbyists, and those are the people who
> would really benefit from starting on MetaCard.  So the pricing is aimed
> squarely at people who can make money with MetaCard (ie programmers), but
> who are not already schooled in a different language such as C++.  This is,
> to my mind, a small market.



Another possible target would be Director users (at least those writing
lengthy scripts and using tons of Xtras), although other multimedia software
companies already tried to grab that market (mTropolis...) but failed...

The only difference this time is that MC has the potentialities for that...

JB





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Reading raw data

[jbv]

Hi folks,

Has anyone already tried to read raw data
on the Mac modem / printer port ?

Does the following script work :

  open modem:
  read from modem:
  close modem:

Thanks.

JB





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Fonts in MC

[jbv]

Hi again,

Yes, it's question day...;-)

I have a few questions regarding font display
quality (aliasing, etc) in MC & Revolution...
Does anyone have a strong experience on
this topic ?

Thanks.

JB





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Revolution 1.0 and vector graphics

[jbv]

Perhaps is it not the right place to ask, but...

I spent a few minutes on the Revolution
website, and it says it imports vector
graphics (a feature that MC seems to lack)...

Where can I find more details about the
graphic formats it accepts ?

Thanks.

JB





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Librairies & standalones

[jbv]

Hi again & again...

Yes, question day continues...

Actually it's more a suggestion / request / whatever...

When building a standalone, about 3 Mb (at least
on Mac) are added to the file, which I guess is the
complete MT interpreter...

Could it be possible (in future MC versions for
instance) to add only parts of the interpreter (just
like you include specific librairies before compiling
a C program).
I doubt that in an app all scripts use every available
function. So it could be wise to break the whole set
of functions into librairies : network, graphics, etc.
and load / use only those used in scripts.

Of course, if MC itself could analyze the scripts and
decide which librairies are needed, that would be even
better...

The main idea behind this suggestion is to lower the
amount of Mb added to a standalone, which would be
very nice for web apps for instance : some of them
(at least among my projects) are very task specific and
only use a limited number of MT functions.
Therefore, getting slimmer standalones would make them
easier for end users to download...

Thanks.

JB




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Re: Reading raw data

[jbv]

Sjoerd Op 't Land a écrit:

> jbv wrote/ schreef:
>
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > Has anyone already tried to read raw data
> > on the Mac modem / printer port ?
> >
> > Does the following script work :
> >
> > open modem:
> > read from modem:
> > close modem:
> Guess it should be "file modem:" instead of "modem:", but then, it should
> work.
>

Thanks for the tip, but I already found the info in the Revolution
help...

Actually, since I downloaded the Revolution beta a week ago,
I'm always using the Rev help when I script with MC...
I must confess that the Revolution environnement and help are
much much better done & attractive (with more details and more
examples) than the MC ones...

At the risk of being considered as rude & abrasive, I'd like to
report a small anecdote : we have a few students / trainees at the
office right now and these youngsters are very deep into Linux,
C, C++, PHP etc. I spent the last few days trying to introduce
them to MC but was unable to keep them more than 30 secs on
the MC website (and I won't mention that after downloading MC,
running the demo and opening a couple of scripts they threw the
whole package to the trashcan). They just considered that "it's just
another scripting language"...
The main reason is that the whole environment (and especially
the demo) really s*ck !!! (again I apologize for the comments,
but they weren't mine).
Revolution looks slicker & more attractive, and I was able to
have those students spend more time on it.

I'm not sure I fully understand the connection between MC and
Revolution... Is it an attempt to re-furbish the MC environment in
order to make it more attractive for Hypercard users ?
I must confess that I don't fully understand the reason of having
2 separate products with almost the same fonctionalities, the
same licensing price, etc...

Just a couple of naive questions from a dumb end-user...

JB





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Sockets again

[jbv]

Hi boys & girls,

Here comes the sockets thread again.

I actually spent the afternoon scripting a small chat
program under MC and it works very well between
the various machines of our LAN (Macs, Win98 &
Linux).

Now I want to move to larger scale prof. projects :
basically a MC app running on a server, and several
copies of a client app (on CD-ROM or downloaded
straight from a website) opening sockets with the
server.

Here's how I see the whole thing :
- at startup, the server app would run the following
script :
accept connexions on port 8080 (sorry if the syntax
isn't the right one, but you get the idea)
then it periodically checks the opensockets property to
know how many users are connected

- then, each client would open a socket at the IP adress
of the server, using the 8080 port.
This is the technique I used for the above mentioned
chat pgm, and it works perfectly.

But 1 question remains in my mind :
if a client quits (ie; closes the socket), the only way for
the scripts of the server app to know it is to read from
that socket until empty, and then the IP address & port #
of that socket is automatically removed from the opensockets
list (but if the script doesn't read from that socket - which
I guess clears some buffer - the IP & # of that socket remains
in the list). In other words, if you don't read from a socket,
there's apparently no other way to know if the client has quit
or not.
I tried to check the peerAddress (naively thinking that it would
return empty if the client has quit), but it just freezed the app,
and I had to restart...

Any more tip / suggestion regarding a more flexible sockets
management ?

Thanks.

JB

P.S. in the above described project, several dozens of connections
might be opened by clients apps. Isn't it a risk to see the server
app slowed down dramatically, and even choke ?
Would it be wise to split the task between different servers ?
But it that case, how to manage sockets between clients apps &
the servers (especially on the matter of choosing port numbers) ?





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Re: Sockets again

[jbv]

andu,

>
>
> Reading from the socket until empty is *not* the way to go. Try to
> device a protocol (say like http) where you give the server a more
> reliable parameter for its read, like the size of the message or some
> character that would mark the end of it.
> Also you can make use of "socketClosed()" to find out when the other
> side disconnected (it returns the ip address as parameter).
>

Well, thanks for the info, but actually "socketClosed()" isn't
documented
anywhere (MC or Rev), and furthermore it doesn't work (at least on MC
2.3.2 for Mac)...

Any other idea ?

JB



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Externals / DLLs

[jbv]

Does it require a licensed version of MC
to test / debug externals & DLLs ?

Thanks.

JB




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Re: chat

[jbv]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit:

> Anyone have a functional stack that allows two people to chat
> back and forth?
>

I do. I managed to program it in a half day last week,
and we're using it at work both with local clients and
external IPs.

The only problem is that it works with a little server program
written in C++, so it's more on the IRC model than ICQ...
However, modifying the scripts to chat between 2 ppl
without using the server should be straightforward...

JB




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Re: chat

[jbv]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] :

> Anyone have a functional stack that allows two people to chat
> back and forth?
>

Here we go. The little chat stack has been re-shaped by one of our
students / trainees.

The stack (and its tutorial) can be downloaded at :

   http://www.netchampagne.com/MetaCard/Direct_Chat.zip
   http://www.netchampagne.com/MetaCard/direct_chat.mc
   http://www.netchampagne.com/MetaCard/Tutorial.txt
http://www.netchampagne.com/MetaCard/Direct_Chat.zip


It will stay there until the end of the week.

For use on Mac, you have to set the right file type & creator first.

Comments & questions welcome.

JB




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Re: chat

[jbv]

Hi,

> http://www.netchampagne.com/MetaCard/Direct_Chat.zip  seems to be a wrong adress.
> ("The requested URL /MetaCard/Direct_Chat.zip was not found on this server.")
>

Indeed. Looks like someone removed those files from the server.
I can't do anything until monday morning though...

Anyway, you can still download the 2 un-zipped files :

http://www.netchampagne.com/MetaCard/direct_chat.mc
http://www.netchampagne.com/MetaCard/Tutorial.txt

contents are identical.

Thanks.

JB



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Re: Installing MC at your ISP, a "How-To"

[jbv]

 

[EMAIL PROTECTED] :
 

If it's *not* your own server, wait until mchttpd has a proper wrapper
before installing it yourself.
 
[snip]
 

Play safe, we consider mchttpd experimental until it's *wrapped*.
 


Any idea of when a proper wrapper should be available ?

just asking...

JB
 

MChttp and stdin buffer size

[jbv]

Hi list,

We have MChttp installed on our local mail server
running Apache, and I've been doing various
client / server tests and scripts.

Everything works fine & fast, except that I noticed
that long cgi requests using POST method from a
browser get truncated...
My script use the following command :
read from stdin until empty

I asked the sysop, and indeed there seems to be
a buffer of 1024 chars under Unix for the use
of stdin in the command shell...

Could this be a limitation of MChttp ?
And, if yes, is there a way to bypass it for long
cig requests featuring a large number of parameters
and uploading files ?

Thanks.

JB




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MChttp and stdin buffer size

[jbv]

Hi list,

We have MChttp installed on our local mail server
running Apache, and I've been doing various
client / server tests and scripts.

Everything works fine & fast, except that I noticed
that long cgi requests using POST method from a
browser get truncated...
My script use the following command :
read from stdin until empty

I asked the sysop, and indeed there seems to be
a buffer of 1024 chars under Unix for the use
of stdin in the command shell...

Could this be a limitation of MChttp ?
And, if yes, is there a way to bypass it for long
cig requests featuring a large number of parameters
and uploading files ?

Thanks.

JB




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Hardware key protection

[jbv]

Hi,

Has anyone already tried to implement a hardware key
protection (dongle) with a MC standalone ?

Thanks.

JB




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Re: MC vs. Panorama

[jbv]

Robert Brenstein :

> >I just read that Panorama recently released v4.0 (see
> >).
> >
> >Given that both MC and Panorama are RAM-based, anyone have insights into why
> >building databases in native MC is discouraged?
> >
>
> I am not an expert but you are looking at apples and oranges. You can
> build small databases in MC with no problems, but I think that the
> card paradigm does not work well for large databases (like millions
> of records).

Indeed. But if you consider using external txt files for storing
the database records, with sophisticated indexing, it may be
possible.

According to some experiments I did lately, using lineoffset,
itemoffset and some (rather sophisticated) indexing, I found
that elements can be retrieved quite fast (0.5 to 1.5 second)
among a list of 2000 to 1 records.
Actually performances & limits vary according to the type
& complexity of the data... And 1 being the upper
limit.Most likely 5000 records is an acceptable compromise.

One problem is the native MC "sort" command which is
rather slow. But I guess that using an external could make
things easier...

JB




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Groups

[jbv]

Hi guys,

can an object (btn, fld, image, etc) be part of different
groups simultaneously ?

Thanks.

JB





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Transparency

[jbv]

Hi again,

I'm trying to find a graphic format to import in
an image object in MC that doesn't mess up with
transparency (in 8 bits on the alpha channel).

I tried PNG and GIF, but it seems that those
formats include transparency on 1 bit only.

The ideal thing would be to import Photoshop
files, like in Director...

Any idea and / or experience on that topic ?

Thanks.

JB





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Re: MC vs. Panorama

[jbv]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] :

> Some years ago I developped a relational database that was faster than
> Filemaker.
> There were about 70 records... FMP just chocked on it. HC stacks choked
> after
> 12 MBs of data where in...
>
> The trick was to split the interface/engine from the records which were in
> turn split
> into categories/levels, where any category was another stack.
>
> This keeps the searches real fast. The smaller the file, the better...
>
> Secondly, I knew already where the categories to be searched were so I had a
> table
> of doubly linked references between records. This allowed to browse the
> database at
> any point in seconds (Filemaker too over 15 minutes PER search)... This is
> basic
> computer science... Search for binary trees, etc... doubly-linked records...
>
> It's all in how you design your database... Access times were all under 2
> seconds
> even from the cd media!
>
> The reverse of the medal was that importing the records and linking the
> records took
> over 3 days of work non-stop on a Mac 8500 with HC 241. But it doesn't mean
> that
> a real time program couldn't do it real fast. MC being much faster will also
> help.

Yes, this is exactly the kind of trick I used in my recent experiments :
splitting the data into numerous text files, multiple indexing, etc...

The only problem is when you offer this kind of solution to a client :
if you mention Access and ASP (for instance), most ppl in the internet /
CD-ROM biz will take you seriously.
But if you start the kind of above description, you'll just look like a
weird hacker and will probably loose the client...

JB



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Re: MC vs. Panorama

[jbv]

Geoff Canyon :

> At 8:57 PM + 7/13/01, jbv wrote:
> >But if you start the kind of above description, you'll just look like a
> >weird hacker and will probably loose the client...
>
> So you don't describe it like that. Instead you say, "We use a binary tree database 
>with doubly-linked records." If they ask for clarification, describe the effect of 
>those aspects, not the underlying technique/technology. "A binary tree speeds 
>searches by minimizing..." etc.
>
> gc
> --

I see your point, however there are some magic words that make
you "look professional" : for instance Access, Java, asp, Director
(oooh I'm gonna get flamed for that one), etc etc.

On the other hand, sentences like the ones you mention above will
make everybody fall asleep, or say "yuck, who's that creep  "
Sorry folks, but I'm talking about real life... Lots of ppl / companies /
agencies / whatever who pay for a CD-ROM or a website don't have
the slightest idea of what's going on behind the screen, and they need
the magic words to feel in confidence.

Besides, there are also economic & logistic considerations : in case
you get a terrible accident shortly before the whole project is finished
or decide to give up any software development activity and hide out
in a tibetan monastery for the rest of your life, who's gonna help
your client with that "binary tree database with doubly-linked
records" ?

JB




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Groups again

[jbv]

Today I've been playing with groups in MC and found
it quite frustrating, for 2 main reasons (if I missed
anything please MC gurus enlighten me) :

- the only way to group controls is to select them first,
which makes grouping/ungrouping on the fly via script
quite cumbersome : you need to set the selected of each
control to true, then group, then set the selected of all
controls back to false. And if you don't wznt your controls
to be selected on screen during the process, you have to
perform a lock screen / unlock screen...
Frankly, I miss the groups in OMO where you could group
any number of objects by simply listing them in a variable
(the same kind of list that you get with the selectedobjects)...
The good side of it was that the same object could be part
of different groups at the same time...

- it looks like grouping controls changes the numbering of
those controls : for instance I have 50 images on screen and
the user can select any of them (like image 12 to 25 and 37
to 42) and they're supposed to get automatically grouped.
What happens is that all images being in a group are
re-numbered ! Therefore I had no choice but to change
my scripts and use the id instead...
Is there any *good* reason for that kind of behavior ?

Thanks. JB




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Re: Groups again

[jbv]

Scott Raney a écrit:

> Frankly I'm a little mystified that it's possible to consider the
> concept of a group in OMO to be anything other than an ugly hack.  You
> get none of the benefits of groups in MetaCard (e.g., clipping,
> scrolling, nesting, handler and attribute inheritance, and the ability
> to place them on different cards like backgrounds), they're also
> purely extent-based both for selection and manupulation, and not even
> really objects at all, just (as you've pointed out) some sort of
> disembodied list of objects that should be moved together.

Yes, I was already convinced of the huge superiority of MC groupsversus
OMO groups, but what I need right now is just a "disembodied
list of objects that should be moved together"...

>
>
> Nevertheless, being able to specify a list of controls to group (as in
> "group button 1 and field 2") is a useful feature, which is why it was
> implemented in MetaCard years ago.  Why it wasn't documented at that
> time I'm not as sure about, but I'll bug report this so it will be for
> the 2.4 doc.

Does it mean that this feature still exists ? I'm gonna try it right away
!

> Yes: groups are real objects in MetaCard, so the controls have to be
> children of the group, which of course means they also have to be
> contiguous.  This also helps with setting up keyboard navigation so
> you don't have to worry about creating a situation where you tab into
> a group and then back out when navigating a set of radio buttons.

I see, but I think this should be documented (neither MC nor Rev docs
mention it)...

Thanks. JB



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Re: Groups again

[jbv]

Scott Raney :

>
>
> Nevertheless, being able to specify a list of controls to group (as in
> "group button 1 and field 2") is a useful feature, which is why it was
> implemented in MetaCard years ago.  Why it wasn't documented at that
> time I'm not as sure about, but I'll bug report this so it will be for
> the 2.4 doc.
>

I tried it and it works wonderfully. This is a very nice way of grouping
/
ungrouping controls on the fly without having to select them first...
Needless to say that my script runs much faster !
A lock / unlock screen is still necessary, because once controls have
been grouped, MC selects the group automatically and you need to set
the selected of group x to false if you don't want it.
Same when ungrouping : individual controls get selected...

Unless I missed something else...

Thanks again for the tip.

JB




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Set bordercolor

[jbv]

I'm also having problems changing bordercolor
of images...

I don't have my scripts with me right now (I'm sending
this message from home) but AFAIR I used the following
scripting :
set bordercolor of image id 1349 to "red"

but it remained black.

Even trying to set this property in the Properties window
didn't help : image border remains black.

Problem was the same under Mac OS or Windoze with 2.3.2

Thanks.  JB




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Groups again & again... bug report ?

[jbv]

Hi again,

I've kept experimenting with on-the-fly grouping /
ungrouping of controls via script, and ran into some
problems...

I have 50 images (10 rows of 5, equally spaced & sized).
Users are supposed to choose some of these images.
When choosen, each image appears with borderwidth=3,
while others remain with borderwidth=1.
Then I want to group choosen images into group "sel" and
others into group "ima" for moving them around faster, or
for easier scrolling up & down.

As for grouping, I used 2 techniques :

1)
repeat with i=1349 to 1398  -- id #s of my images
if borderwidth of image id i = 3 then
set the selected of image id i to true
end if
group

2) inside a repeat loop I accumulate strings in a variable
to finally get something like :
"group image id 1349 and image id 1350" etc.
and then :
do My_variable

BTW I checked the content of My_variable and it's correct.


As for ungrouping, I also used 2 techniques :

1) select group "ima"
ungroup

2) ungroup group "ima"

and each time, after the controls are ungrouped, I carefully
set the selected of each one back to false.
All operations are done within lock screen / unlock screen
for speed and display cleanness purposes.


Now here's the problem : my script quits MC app, or whenthe
stack runs as a standalone it crashes or even freezes the Mac OS.
What makes me think it might be a MC engine bug is that the
script never crashes at the same time : it can run 2 to 7 times
before crashing...
And when only 1 group is created (all images are choosen, or
none is choosen), it runs perfectly...

I even tried without lock screen (as I had several problems with
lock screen in OMO in the past), but problem remains...

I'm using 2.3.2 on Mac Os, and have tried on various Macs
running OS 8.1 , 8.5 and 9. And the results are the same with
MC app or as a standalone...
Haven't got the time to try under Windoze though...

Thanks. JB




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Re: Set bordercolor

[jbv]

> At 12:55 AM -0700 7/20/2001, jbv wrote:
> >I'm also having problems changing bordercolor
> >of images...
>
> The color of image borders is inherited. (The bordercolor of an image does
> something else, it's determined by the image's palette data.) So you need
> to set the borderColor of the card/stack/group the image is part of.
>

Fine. But what if I want a different borderColor for each image
on a card ?

JB




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Re: Type 2 Errors and Crashed

[jbv]

> I've been build a database, on a Mac, and the number of crashes has been
> increasing. Anytime I do any editing of the group which makes up the basic
> record card a crash is imminent. This 'group" business seems abnormally
> temperamental. This evening the stack became fatally poisoned and I'd like
> to attempt some kind of recovery rather than build forward from the last
> save.  Then there is the data entered in the records.
>
> Any suggestions? Everything not on a record card seems alright if I tiptoe
> carefully.
>

Yes, Type 2 Error & crash.
That's exactly what I get with the group problem I described this morning...

JB



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Re: Set bordercolor

[jbv]

> At 12:41 PM -0700 7/20/2001, jbv wrote:
> >> The color of image borders is inherited. (The bordercolor of an image does
> >> something else, it's determined by the image's palette data.) So you need
> >> to set the borderColor of the card/stack/group the image is part of.
> >>
> >Fine. But what if I want a different borderColor for each image
> >on a card ?
>
> In that case I'd suggest grouping each image (that is, making it into a
> group that owns only the image). Then you can set the color properties on
> each group, and the image will inherit them,
>

Great. In theory this should work, although I don't really feel like creating
as many groups as images on a card, with only 1 image per group...

Furthermore, as stated in some of my other recent posts, when I create
more than 1 group via script, MC crashes and freezes my Mac...

JB (just wondering if this property inheritance is really a good idea...)



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Re: Crash report

[jbv]

Scott ,

> On Fri, 20 Jul 2001 jbv <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> > Now here's the problem : my script quits MC app, or whenthe
> > stack runs as a standalone it crashes or even freezes the Mac OS.
> > What makes me think it might be a MC engine bug is that the
> > script never crashes at the same time : it can run 2 to 7 times
> > before crashing...
> > And when only 1 group is created (all images are choosen, or
> > none is choosen), it runs perfectly...
>
> My first guess would be that you're just running out of memory, though
> you'll usually get a script error when this happens.  But if you're
> sure that that isn't it (check system and application free memory
> using "about this computer" from the Finder), please send a copy of
> the stack along with whatever images are required to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> (which is what you should do in general when you get a crash, because
> it's unlikely that anyone on this list would be able to help you
> anyway and the bug might not even get fixed if no one here reads your
> message and puts it on the list).

Finally, I did some more investigations & fine tuning with my script,
and I think I finally tracked down the bug that caused the crash :
under certain circumstances (actually hard to predict), my script
attempted to create a group with a name that already existed for
another group, and with certain images that already belonged to
another group.
I was able to reproduce the situation several times in a row and on
different MacOS environments, so I'm pretty sure it's the cause of the
crash.

The only thing is that one would expect an execution error message
under such circumstances, instead of an application crash...

Hope that helps.

JB





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Re: Crash report - pt 2

[jbv]

Hi guys,

Sorry to bother you again with the same thread, but I made
some more discoveries on the topic of on-the-fly grouping /
ungrouping.

As described before, I have 50 images that can be grouped /
ungrouped in various ways.

If I run the following script :
group image id 1430
set name of grp 1 to "sel"
ungroup group "sel"

I end up with an empty list in the groupnames, which is 100%
normal.

But then, when I run the following line :
group image id 1450

I get a new version of group 1 (which is what I expect), but
if I check the content of the groupnames, surprise : the name of
group 1 is automatically set to "sel", without running the line :
set name of grp 1 to "sel"

Needless to say that it's a bit disturbing...

So if you adress groups by # instead of id, you can get several
groups with the same name, and in certain conditions it might
cause MC to crash.



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Re: CrossPlatform

[jbv]

Nelson,

> I've created a stack on my Mac to keep track of the editions of my wife's
> bronze sculpture. Cross town the gallery is PC, is there any way to get my
> stack to run on their PC without creating a standalone?
>
> Nelson Zink

In theory (and in practice), if they download the right version of the MC
Starter Kit, they'll be able to run your stack.
This trick works for Linux too.

JB



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cookie info & libURL

[jbv]

Hi,

I'm trying to find a way to get the info relative to cookies
passed by a cgi server in the header of an HTML document.

for instance :

Set-Cookie: CUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTE; path=/; expires=Wednesday, 09-Nov-99

23:12:40 GMT

As far as I understand, when I run
get URL "www.whatever.com"
in MC 2.3.2 I can't intercept the content of the header.

But MC 2.4 allows that, with the help of libURL. Right ?

Anyway, I still don't understand everything relative to
the handlers in libURL, especially getFormat, which seems
to be able to do what I want.

Could anyone give me a hint on how exactly use that handler
to get the header in a variable ?

Thanks

JB



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Mousestilldown & palette

[jbv]

Hi,

I have a problem with preventing Mousestilldown message
to be passed from a palette to the stack.
Whatever I do (like putting "on Mousestilldown / end
Mousestilldown" handlers in the buttons, cards & stack scripts
of the palette) the message is always passed to the stack (the one
calling the palette).The strange thing is that message blocking
works for other messages (mousedown, mouseup, etc.)...

Any idea ?

And BTW, when saving a stack as a standalone, how should
palettes be saved : as substacks of the main stack within the same
standalone, or as standalones of their own ?

Thanks, as usual.

JB



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Sending emails

[jbv]

Hi List (2),

I'm finishing an app with 2.3.2 that will ship on CD-ROM
and is supposed to send emails (among other things).

I was thinking of using the POST command to send request
to a script somewhere on one of our servers (Perl or MChttpd)
that would forward the email to the right addresses...
AFAIR, MC2.3.2 doesn't support SMTP.

Any better idea ?

Thanks.
JB




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MC 2.4 final release - when ?

[jbv]

Hi list,

Any idea of when final release for MC 2.4 will be available ?

I'm asking because I have a project that will require heavy use of
images with full transparency, and only 2.4 supports this.
Due to tight production schedule, if I have to simulate this on
2.3.2, I need to start the work right now, due to the huge amount
of work...
If 2.4 gets available sometimes in september, that will save me
quite a lot of work...

Thanks.
JB




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Flickering problem with a stack

[jbv]

Hi List (3),

I have a problem with a stack I'm finishing on 2.3.2 (Mac) :

I have a jpeg image on layer 1, and on top of that
(layer 2) a group made of various images & transparent
buttons performing rollovers & card selections.

The problem is : when the mouse rolls over the
transp. btns, rollovers & clicks run OK, but random portions
of the image on layer 1 flicker. Problem remains when the app
runs as a standalone.
The strange part is that in MC, when I select the edit tool and
select 1 element of the card (any element actually) without
editing it, and then select browse tool, problem disapears.

Is it a known problem, or a bug, or is my stack corrupted ?

Thanks.
JB



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Re: Sending emails

[jbv]

Ken,

> Sure - use the computer's native email client, as in:

Thanks for the idea, but it crossed my mind already, and
it doesn't really suits my needs : in that case the end user needs to write
emails by himself...
The app is a kind of catalog in which the user chooses various
items and then his choice is automatically emailed to the right
person and in the right format, according to the user's location...
The less the user has to write, the better...

Thanks.
JB


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Re: Flickering problem with a stack

[jbv]

Brian,

Yes, I forgot to tell : all images are imported into the stack and the
"always buffer" property is set for all images.

The only thing I don't understand is the fact that when I select any
control
just once with the select tool and then go back to browse tool, problem
disapears... The bas side of the story is that I can't do that when the
stack runs
as a standalone...

JB


> Have you tried setting the "always buffer" property of your stack? That
> should reduce flickering.
>
> HTH,
> Brian
>
> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
> Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
> Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.




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Re: Flickering problem with a stack

[jbv]

Ken ,

Yes, I've tried that already and it doesn't help much...

Actually, IMHO it doesn't look like a simple redraw issue.
As I wrote before, random portions of the image on layer 1
flicker...
Replacing & re-importing that image didn't change anything...

I'm starting to think seriously that my stack is corrupted...

> JB,
>
> That sounds like a redraw issue. Have you tried doing a lock screen/unlock
> screen combo? That usually forces a redraw and it might do the trick.
>
> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
> - Original Message -
> From: "jbv" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 4:48 PM
> Subject: Flickering problem with a stack
>
> > Hi List (3),
> >
> > I have a problem with a stack I'm finishing on 2.3.2 (Mac) :
> >
> > I have a jpeg image on layer 1, and on top of that
> > (layer 2) a group made of various images & transparent
> > buttons performing rollovers & card selections.
> >
> > The problem is : when the mouse rolls over the
> > transp. btns, rollovers & clicks run OK, but random portions
> > of the image on layer 1 flicker. Problem remains when the app
> > runs as a standalone.
> > The strange part is that in MC, when I select the edit tool and
> > select 1 element of the card (any element actually) without
> > editing it, and then select browse tool, problem disapears.
> >
> > Is it a known problem, or a bug, or is my stack corrupted ?
> >
> > Thanks.
> > JB
> >
> >
> >
> > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
> > Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
> > Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
> >
> >
>
> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
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> Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.




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A few URGENT questions - Thanks

[jbv]

Hi people,

I have a few VERY URGENT questions - sorry for being so
demanding...

I am finishing an MC app (2.3.2) that will run on Mac & Win
and will be distributed on a CD-ROM.


QUESTION 1 :

At the some point, the app will need to launch the default browser
to open an HTML file located on one of the local volumes (CD-ROM
or HD).

On Windows, I can get the default browser by checking :

get queryRegistry("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command\")


and on Mac, I can launch the defaut browser with the following line :

send "http:" & "www.yahoo.com" to program "Finder" with "GURLGURL"


BUT how can I open the HTML file on a local volume ? In other words,
how can I get the filepath of the browser app that has just been
launched ?
Or the list of the currently opened apps (without using an external...)
?



QUESTION 2 :

On Mac, when launching the local defaut mail client with the line :

send "mailto:"; & "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" to program "Finder" with "GURLGURL"

how can I fill other fields (like CC: or body) within the same command ?

Same question for Windows.


QUESTION 3 :

how can I get the mail server name / IP used by the local defaut email
client ?


Thank you so much for your time.
JB

P.S. : I know that some (if not all) of the above issues could be
adressed /
bypassed by using MC 2.4, but I'm running out of time to switch to the
new
version...

P.S. 2 : thanks a lot to all people who offered solutions to my "sending
emails"
request of last week...


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Opening substacks as invisible

[jbv]

Hi,

How can I open a substack, rearrange (by script) various controls
on it, and then print it, without ever disokaying it on screen ?

Is there any special parameter associated with the "open stack"
command that I missed ?

Thanks.
JB



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Well, just another URGENT question

[jbv]

And hopefully the last one, as the CD-ROM I'm working on
is planed to go to duplication plant on monday...

Here's the problem :
I have 2 standalones, actually the french & english versions of the
same app (FR.EXE and UK.EXE), both in the same directory
(at top level of the CD-ROM).

I want the end user to be able to switch between both with 1 single
click. In other words, both apps should never run simultaneously.

So I'm using the following script :

on mouseUp
get pathname & "UK.EXE"
open process it
close this stack

The pathname is OK. This works on Mac, but on Windows I'm
meeting some problems.
When I run the app as an MC stack (from the MC application),
it works (I mean : if I open FR.MC in MC and run the script
open process "F:/UK.EXE"
it works OK.

But as soon as FR.MC is converted into a standalone (FR.EXE),
it doesn't work : "open process..." doesn't work, but "close this stack"

works OK.
All .MC and .EXE are in the same directory, so I don't think it's a
directory problem...

I'm sure I missed something, but what ?

Thank you all.

JB



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More Quicktime problems

[jbv]

Hi people,

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who offered
solutions to my previous questions.

Now I'm meeting a problem with QT movies in 2.4 :
players get shrinked in height. Here's what I mean :
if I have a player of 320 (w) x 240 (h)
with the filename set by script to a .MOV file,
as soon as the "start player 1" command runs, player
runs OK, but its size becomes 320 x 225.
And height gets 15 pixels smaller every time player
starts, unless I put the comand line :
"set height of player 1 to 240"
before starting it. In that case, size is 320 x 225 every
time it starts.
This happens on Mac OS9 and Win98.

This is quite embarassing, because I'm working on a
project with lots of videos and graphic transparencies
(with PNG).
If I can't use MC 2.4 because of the player problem,
I'll have to go back to 2.3 and forget all the transparencies...
And then deliver a final product of lower quality...

Any idea / suggestion ?

Thanks.
JB


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Re: More Quicktime problems

[jbv]

Ken Ray a écrit:

> Did you set the lockLocationi of the player object to true?
>

I tried both options (true & false), among many other things
(like setting the filename of the player, as well as its height &
width every time I want to start it), but problem remains...

BTW I forgot to mention that problem occurs not only with
.mov files, but also with .swf...

Thanks.
JB


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(surprising) memory management

[jbv]

Hi folks,

I completed yesterday (evening late)  a big project with
several stacks featuring lots of imported graphics etc on 2.3.

The whole thing weights 30 Mb as a standalone.
It features several stacks (only 1 opened at a time, "destroy
stack on close" selected on each stack etc...).

Everything runs OK on Win with 64 Mb.
But on Mac I end up with a standalone that requires 30 Mb
(which is normal), but also a suggested maximum RAM space of
70 Mb !!!

Furthermore, once launched, it occupies 70 Mb of RAM space
(only 40 Mb if I reduce the max RAM space, and still works OK);
but the RAM space used by the Mac system itself is increased by
30 Mb 

For that reason, the app launches ONLY on Macs with MORE
than 128 Mb of RAM !!!

Any explanation for this ?

Thanks
JB




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open process & quit

[jbv]

Hi again folks,

Some of you might remember the question I asked
about 12 days ago about opening processes under
Windoze.

I made some more investigations on this topic, and
it looks like on Mac, processes can be opened (and
apps launched) by a MC standalone, and when it
quits, all apps & processes remain open.

OTOH on Win, things are different : a MC standalone
kills all processes it opened (and all apps it launched)
when quiting (or closing).
For instance, if your standalone opens a browser or
another standalone, everything will quit when your
standalone quits or is closed.

Fortunately, there's a workaround for this problem.
Actually, I needed to detect the presence of QT during
a preopenstack, then launch QTinstaller if no QT and
quit the stack. Of course, QTinstaller would quit shortly
after launching, when the calling MC app would quit.

Here's what I did : I built another (small) standalone
that just launches QTinstaller on openstack.
This new standalone is launched by the main MC app
on preopenstack.
The idea looks like this :
App1 -->  App2  -->  QTinstall

And the script in App1 :
on preopenstack
get QTversion()
if = 0 then launch App2
wait 500
quit

When App1 quits, it also quits App2, but NOT the
process opened by App2 (QTinstaller in that case).

Finally, when QT installation is over, App1 & App2
have quit long time ago (and in a very clean manner).

I would apreciate is anyone has comments and/or
similar experience to share on this topic...

Thanks
JB



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Drawing lines

[jbv]

Hi list,

I need to draw a line 'on the fly' between 2 points whose
coordinates x,y will appear at random on a card.

At first I thought I could use a graphic control : it works
very well except for graphic quality : aliasing produces ugly
lines that don't fit with the rest of the graphics on the card.

Could anyone be kind enough to point me at an alternative
solution ?

Thanks.
JB


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Re: Decouple a Launched App (was Autoplay a CD)

[jbv]

>
>
> If your software/delivery package can accommodate an extra 1.3MB or so,
> there is indeed a workaround.  The concept is to create a standalone
> launcher app which handles your launching and then shuts down.  The launch
> process looks something like this:
>
> Your App --> Launcher App --> Browser (or other application)
>
> Using this technique it is possible to decouple the launched application
> from your stack.
>
> This behavior has bugged me ever since I started MC to launch external
> applications.  Thanks to list member JBV (sorry, I don't know this person's
> name) I've built out a workaround over the last few weeks that seems to be
> flexible and reliable.  This also handles a number of "real world" problems
> that occur when faced with browsers other than IE and NC.

Just a couple of remarks :

1) this problem (an app being shut down with the app that launched it)
occurs under Windows only : on Mac (and AFAIK on Linux) too, the
launcher quits but the launched app keeps running.

2) the workaround works with all sorts of apps (not only browsers).
For instance, I'm using it for a few months to launch the QT installer.

3) in your app script (after launching the launcher app), I strongly
recommend to add the following line :
wait 1000
before quitting. Indeed, you need to make sure that the launcher app
has the time to start and launch the other app (I've met some problems
a couple of times).

> The only drawback
> is the additional 1+ MB file required, which can be a lot in the case of
> downloadable stacks/apps.
>

Yep, it's a bit of a waste to have to built a 1.3 Mb standalone just
to run a few lines of script.
IMHO this shows that the suggestion I posted a couple of months
ago made some sense... That suggestion was that MC, when building
the standalone, would add to the file only those parts of the MC engine
actually used by the app. I guess it requires the MC engine to be split
into some kind of librairies, and to be smart enough to analyze the
scripts & the app structure to decide what's useful and what's not...
I don't know if that's feasable (or if it requires MC to be re-written
from scratch), but in the case of web applications (in which you often
make heavy use of only a small set of functions - like in chat apps), it's
quite difficult to ask ppl to download 1+ Mb (even if it can be reduced
to 700 Kb when zipped). The extra Kb could be better used for sophisticated
artwork, etc.

JB



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Problem when moving files

[jbv]

Hi list,

I've just met a strange problem (on Mac 9.1) when moving files
(ie: when actually installing files by copying them from a CD-ROM
to a HD) : I'm using the script :

put URL original_file into URL destination_file

and everything works fine, except when files are executable apps
(MC or Director standalones). In such cases, destination files get
truncated
by several Kb and can't be launched...
Of course, I don't forget to set the right creator & file type for each
copied file.
The problem is just that a part of the file is missing (roughly 10% of
the
original file).

Seems to work fine on Windoze though, and haven't tried it yet on other
MacOS.

Any idea ? Thanks.

JB

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Screen saver

[jbv]

Hi list,

I already posted that question a few months ago, but am
wondering if anyone has done any new experiments in
that field : I'm working on the idea of a web app made of
a MC standalone, but because of the content & purpose
of that app, re-shaping it as a screen saver would be
much cooler...

I know there are several utilities (like screentime) to make
screensavers from QT, Flash or Director files. But what
about MC ?

The main idea behind my project would be to have the
app download the latest version of a data file somewhere
on the web everytime it launches, and have the display
contents automatically modified accordingly...

Thanks for any suggestion...

JB

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Re: save

[jbv]

Phil Davis :

> (To test it, you could add a "beep" or 'put "CLOSING" ' statement in the handler and 
>see if anything new happens upon close.)

Although it's a clever suggestion, I find it quite funny (and refreshing) that ppl
use statements as simple as "beep" to check if anything happens...
Jus like in good old & early days of Hypercard...

JB

P.S. : I do that myself quite often, and it's one of the best debugging tool I know...

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Restart a Mac

[jbv]

How can I restart a Mac from within a MC script ?

Should I use applevents, and send "quit" to the Finder
or something similar ?

Thanks.
JB

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Re: Window Shape/Style

[jbv]

Check this :

http://www.mcbeen.com/wdefs/

JB

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Suggestions please...

[jbv]

Hi folks,

I'm presently working on a project for which I'd like to
get some suggestions (at least for 1 part of it)...

Emails will be received several times a day at a specific
address. Each email will feature an attached file (actually
a tab-return set of data).
What I need to do is : every time a new email arrives,
AUTOMATICALLY save the attached file in a specific directory
(always the same) as a binary file, and then trigger a MChttpd
CGI script that will process that file and update several HTML
files according to the data received by email.
The whole thing will be installed on a server running Apache.

I have already investigated the problem and have found a couple
of solutions, although I'm open to your best suggestions...

Thanks in advance.
JB


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Alias on desktop

[jbv]

Hi,

I am writing for a client an installation procedure
to install a MC standalone + the data folder from
a CDROM to the end user HD (on Windows).
The client also wants an alias to be automatically
installed on the desktop.
How can this be done from a MC script ?

Thanks
JB


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Re: Alias on desktop

[jbv]

andu :

> create alias x to file y
>

Well, I tried that already, but sadly it doesn't work...
Actually, it does create a file on the desktop, but the
"target" of the alias / shortcut is missing, and when
I doubleclick on it nothing happens (at least on Win98).
What am I doing wrong ?

Thanks
JB



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metacard & cgi - example

[jbv]

Sorry if I'm late on this thread.

Shortly, here's what I'm presently doing with mc cgi.

There's a rally going on in the desert of south Marocco
(for more detail : http://www.tropheeaichadesgazelles.com/)

Each vehicle features a GPS system. GPS data are sent via
satellite, then via email (as attached data files) to 1 of our
servers. When an email is received, it triggers a mc cgi script.
That script decodes the GPS data (longitude / latitude / time)
into x/y values, and updates the content of one of the HTML
files of the website. GPS data are updated every 30 minutes,
and they accumulate in the file.

in french :
http://www.tropheeaichadesgazelles.com/LIVE/FR/index.htm

in english :
http://www.tropheeaichadesgazelles.com/LIVE/FR/index.htm

best with IE5+


On the other hand, one of the crew members (in charge of security),
is in the desert in a 4WD with a laptop and a satellite cellular
phone. Since he needs to keep track of the position of each vehicule in
real time, and since connecting to the web would be too slow & too
expensive, we have set up the following system : his laptop HD
features a duplicate of the website. The mc script on our server,
when receiving GPS positions via email, also generates a small txt
file (about 500 bytes) featuring the latest positions (X/Y pixels
values). On the laptop HD I have also installed a small app (made
with MC of course) that :
- opens the connection through the cellular phone
- downloads the small txt file (with a simple get URL)
- updates the HTML file on the HD (just like the script does on
the server)
- launches the default browser
- opens the updated file in the browser window,
- converts the XY pixel values into longitude / latitude format
and saves it on the HD as a separate HTML table file that can be
openened
in a pop-up window inside the page automatically opened in the
browser.

In other words, with nothing more than a double-click and a few
seconds of waiting, the guy gets the latest positions of all
vehicles on a graphic interface in the middle of the desert.

of course, this small app uses a very similar script as the one
on the server, and it didn't take more than a few hrs to make it.
Needless to say that being able to use the same code for both
purposes was really apreciated !!!

Cheers
JB



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Re: Memory usage

[jbv]

> Shari,
>
> Please, don't speak or think like that. There are no differences, betwin
> boys and girls, in the logical abilities scope. Don't listen for the
> ones that says or think otherwise ;-)

Agreed : quite often, boys can get as stupid as girls...;-)

JB


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MC & openGL

[jbv]

Hi list,

Has anyone tried to build a DLL/external to link
MC with openGL ?
The idea is pretty straightforward : one should be
able to call openGL functions and have the result
displayed in the standard mc window.

I really need this feature for a project I'm working
on at the moment, so any link / pointer / suggestion
is welcome.

BTW, since MC & openGL are both multi-platforms
compatible, could it be a feature request to have basic
openGL compatibility in future mc releases, just like
we already have QT compatibility ?

Thanks.
JB

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Question to Scott (was : MC & openGL)

[jbv]

Hi,

After the enthusiasm triggered by my suggestion to have
built-in access to openGL, I am wondering :
is there any chance to see that feature added to MC in a
near future, or is it wiser to start working on a DLL /
external ?

Thanks.
JB


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Re: Comparing big lists

[jbv]

I'm wondering : what is the most expensive ?

Is it lineoffset, or is it :
put j & tab & line thisLine of bigList  & return after mergedList

I vaguely recall some discussion about adding new lines at the end of
a variable inside a loop, and the loop getting slower & slower...
I'm even pretty sure it was already a problem in HC and/or in OMO...

Anyone ?

JB



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Re: Embedded mt scripts [WAS Re: Text editors]

[jbv]

J. Landman Gay a écrit:

> But I was only looking for a way to generate
> dynamic content within an existing html page without re-generating the
> entire page. I did try an mt script that re-created entire html
> documents, but ran into permission problems on the server; cgis run as
> "nobody" and "nobody" didn't have permission to write to my web
> directory. I suppose there are ways around that, but I wasn't able to do it.
>
> What I really wanted was just a way to insert either text or html code
> into an existing document so that a small part of it was dynamic. The
> "object" and "iframe" tags do that. I think you are right that it only
> works within the contraints of html, but for simple dynamic content that
> can be enough. It also has the advantage that it doesn't require that
> the browser have java or javascript enabled. I often turn off both those
> capabilities, for security or privacy reasons.

yes, iframe tag allows  to have dynamic contents in an HTML page and to
modify it on-the-fly, even with a cgi request, and it's supported by most
recent browsers.

For smaller chunks of data, you can also try innerText (within a table) or
innerHTML (when using CSS).
Of course, javascript has to be turned on to use these options.

IMHO turning Javascript off is not a really good idea, because it also
turns off a wide range of possibilities for dynamic content in HTML
pages. The combination of javascript + CSS and cgi requests can produce
mindblowing web pages.
Trying to find an HTML-only solution might lead to severe headaches
(and no satisfying solution) : I know coz I already tried...

JB



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Re: script limits

[jbv]

>
>
> Nice to know you're thinking ahead, Scott -- I can hardly wait to get started 
>writing systems with multiple gigabyte-plus scripts! ;-)
> --

I was wondering : when compared to my projects made with
HC and OMO between 1987 and 96, the size of my current
projects under MC has increased (mainly due to all the pix,
sounds & QT movies).
But does the size of scripts increase as well ? With all the
build-in functions, it's often possible to use 1 single line
of code for what took a whole handler several years ago...
I remember writing scripts 32 kbytes long in OMO, when
a few kbytes are enough today, and for projects of similar
(and even greater) complexity...
Do you folks share the same experience ?

One last question (from the devil's advocate) : does MC
really features the right tools to write (and debug) several
GB of script ?

Cheers,
JB


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Re: Remove HTML function

[jbv]

> > Does anyone have a script to removing HTML from a string/chunk/whole file?
>

I think the following is safer, coz I've often seen javascript code
after the body :

function html2text htmlRaw
  # trim all html tag
  put offset(" 0 then
delete char 1 to (bodyStart -1) of htmlRaw
  end if

  put offset(" 0 then
put char 1 to (bodyEnd -1) of htmlRaw into htmlRaw
  end if

  replace "" with cr in htmlRaw
  replace "" with cr in htmlRaw
  repeat
put offset("<",htmlRaw) into sTag
if sTag = 0 then exit repeat
put offset(">",htmlRaw) into eTag
delete char sTag to eTag of htmlRaw
  end repeat
  return htmlRaw
end html2text


JB


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Re: converting EPS to MetaCard poligons

[jbv]

Very interesting & promising attempt.

The problem however seems to be aliasing
of the rendered graphics.
Is there any way to improve that ?
I didn't have much time to spend on this,
so I simply tried to increase the number
of steps in the Bezier computation, but
the final graphic gets all messed up when
the # of steps is different from 100.

Anyway to improve that ?

JB


> Hello, to every member in the list.
>
> This time, I've experiment a bit with
> math and beziers and the result is a rough
> importer of eps graphics to metacard:
>
> http://ffc.virtualave.net/EPStoMetaCard.zip
> http://ffc.virtualave.net/EPStoMetaCard.sit
>
> These poligonal objects could be useful in
> some cases. There is wide room for improvement
> in these trial, so feel free to add your own
> math and programming skills to this first intent.
>
> Alejandro
>
> __
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> Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
> http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
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Feature request (was: converting EPS to MetaCard poligons)

[jbv]

I made a couple of small improvements to the
"bezier" handler (see code below) :

1) the number of steps for the bezier curve
is stored in a variable Nsteps

2) successive duplicates in the list of points
for the graphic are removed



Anyway, I tried to modify / increase the # of
steps for the bezier, but it doesn't change much :
the design is only slightly smoothed when going
from 50 to 200 steps !!!

So here's the request : in a future MC version,
could we have antialiasing on graphics, that also
works when graphics are resized ?

Thanks
JB


-


on bezier
  global variablezxc,a,b,c,d
  put the first item of a into x1
  put the first item of d into x2
  put the first item of b into xa
  put the first item of c into xb
  put the second item of a into y1
  put the second item of d into y2
  put the second item of b into ya
  put the second item of c into yb

  put 100 into Nsteps
  put 0 into v1
  Repeat with i = 1 TO Nsteps
put i*(1/Nsteps)into v1
put 1-v1 into v2
put (x1*(v2^3)+(3*xa*v1*v2*v2)+(3*xb*v1*v1*v2)+(x2*(v1^3)))into x
put (y1*(v2^3)+(3*ya*v1*v2*v2)+(3*yb*v1*v1*v2)+(y2*(v1^3)))into y
put x div 1,y div 1 & return after variablezxc
  end repeat

  repeat with i=(number of lines of variablezxc) down to 2
if line i of variablezxc is not "" then
  if line i of variablezxc = line i-1 of variablezxc then
delete line i of variablezxc
  end if
end if
  end repeat

  put variablezxc into msg
  -- set the points of grc "bezier1" to variablezxc
end bezier


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mouse tracking blues

[jbv]

Hi list,

First I want to point out that I've read the archives
and am aware of Scott's advice to not use a repeat
loop inside a mousedown handler, but to use
mousemove / mouserelease instead.

However, I'm facing a problem for which using
a repeat loop inside a mousedown seems to be the
only solution, and of course I met the problem of
the mouseup event not being trapped by my script.

In a few words, when the mouse is down on an image
(very large one, like a panoramic) the image is supposed
to scroll back & forth horizontally according to the position
of the mouse relative to the loc of that image, the scroll speed
being proportional to the distance between the mouseloc and
the loc of the image (actually like in a QTVR).
So I used the following script :

on mousedown
  repeat until the mouse is up
  show img 1 at max(-633,min(1432,(item 1 of loc of img
1)-(trunc(((item
1 of the mouseloc)-400)/10,300
  end repeat
end mousedown

It works great (very smooth scrolling), except that the up
position of the mouse isn't recognized about 15% of the
time, and the img keeps scrolling even when the mouse btn
has been released.
It is obvious that I can't use mousemove, since the image must
keep scrolling even when the mouse isn't moving, as long
as it is down.

I tried to use mousestilldown (which is a loop by itself) :

on mousestilldown
  show img 1 at max(-633,min(1432,(item 1 of loc of img
1)-(trunc(((item
1 of the mouseloc)-400)/10,300
end mousestilldown

It works (the release of the mouse btn is always detected),
although the scrolling effect isn't smooth at all...

If anyone has a brilliant idea for a possible solution,
I thank him / her in advance...

JB


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Re: mouse tracking blues

[jbv]

I already tried that : problem was the same.

JB
 
 
I used
a procedure similar to this once but instead of:

  repeat until the mouse
is up

I used:

  repeat while the mouse
is down

I do not recall ever experiencing
a problem with it not stopping to scroll.  You might try that just
to see if it makes a difference.

Philip Chumbley
 
 

Still on the subject of emails

[jbv]

Hi all,

Is there a way, from within a MC script, to open the
default email client (I know how to do that) AND to
have a "new email" window automatically opened
WITH a certain file automatically attached to that
message ?

Or may be is there a way to do that with the SMPT
protocol with libURL (I've been too busy lately to
check the latest developments of libURL)...

Thanks.
JB


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Re: mouse tracking blues

[jbv]

thanks to everyone who suggested solutions
to my problem.

The "send" solution associated to a mousedown /
mousemove works great (although I had to rewrite
parts of my scripts).
It's a shame it didn't cross my mind before I asked...

Thanks again.
JB



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Re: MC and openGL

[jbv]

> Well hot soup, that sounds like some good stuff.
>
> Screenshots, examples, anything would be interesting to see.  Is the
> speed really acceptable, and is it drawing this directly in a
> MetaCard window?

I'm somewhat more than busy right now finishing a couple of
CD-ROMs, and the guy with whom I'm working on this external
thingie is off for 2 weeks of vacation... So the project is on the shelf

right now, but we are planing to post a basic example in early sept.

In a few words : speed is really acceptable (at least with the simple
openGL code we've used in our tests so far), and if you get a 3D
accelerator board, it's openGL at its best...
What we are planing to do as soon as we can get back to the project,
is to optimize initializations so that it doesn't slow down execution.
The external is actually drawing inside a MC image, but of course
it is possible to resize the stack full screen, and the img as well...

>
>
> >  Hi JB (Jim Beam James Brown Jim Bo ? ;-)
>
> I'm guessing it's a girl, a very beautiful one at that, who is this
> JB, since she's being such a tease  ;-)

Well, I'm actually a bolding guy in his 40's - but everybody
(friends, colleagues, ex-girfriends...) have been calling me JB
for the last 30 years, so why change anything ?

JB (grin)



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