Icon id conflicts?
I am moving a project I created in LC 5.5 to LC 10.0rc1. Some buttons have their icon set to the id of an image found in a stack “in use.” In some cases, this still works, but several buttons no longer look right in LC10, I assume because the icon number exists somewhere else in LC10. How can I go about finding and imposing an id number for my image that will not encounter this conflict? Alternatively, the dictionary says I can use an image name as a button’s icon, but the LC property inspector doesn’t let me enter non-numbers as an icon, and setting the icon to an image name from the message box has no effect (the image named is in a stack “in use”). David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Making controls less subtle
On my Mac, some LiveCode (10.0rc1) controls seem to me much too subtle, light gray where I would like there to be a distinct black line. The “slider” control looks to me as if it is disabled (although if I actually disable it, it gets even dimmer). And the circle of the radio button, the rounded rectangle of a check box button, and the edges of an option button have this same light gray color. Is there some way to change this? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
PDF widget print quality
I want to use the PDF widget to print a PDF with additional markings added in LiveCode. Showing a simple PDF tax form in Widget 1 at 100% scale, I tried this script: on p1 get the pageRect of widget 1 open printing with dialog print card from (item 1 to 2 of it) to (item 3 to 4 of it) into it close printing end p1 This prints a full page at the proper size, but not with acceptable print quality; everything is slightly blurred and pixellated. How can I get a good quality printout? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: LockLoc and grab
Let me try to clarify the problem I stated. I am not trying to remove the button, I am trying to use the “grab” command to let a user move the button around the window by dragging it. If I use a script to “set the loc” of a button to somewhere outside that group’s rectangle - the group will resize if its lockLoc property is false (thus keeping the relocated button visible); - but the button will disappear if the group’s lockLoc property is true. But when I use the “grab” command to relocate the button outside the group’s current rectangle the group does not resize even if its lockLoc property is false. > A group with lockLoc set to false does not resize itself when an object in it > is moved by a ?grab? command. Is this a bug? Is there a simple workaround? > > Recipe using 10.0.0 dp6 on an intel Mac: > > Create a button with this script: > on mouseDown; grab me; end mouseDown. > Group the button. Confirm that the group?s lockLoc property is false. Then > with the browse tool, drag the button past the edge of the group. The button > disappears. > ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
LockLoc and grab
A group with lockLoc set to false does not resize itself when an object in it is moved by a “grab” command. Is this a bug? Is there a simple workaround? Recipe using 10.0.0 dp6 on an intel Mac: Create a button with this script: on mouseDown; grab me; end mouseDown. Group the button. Confirm that the group’s lockLoc property is false. Then with the browse tool, drag the button past the edge of the group. The button disappears. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Comparative speed in switching among groups
Many thanks to Richard, for his interesting results and for the reminder that speed testing is pretty easy. I ran a similar test on a slightly different task--flipping among 50 different groups, or 50 different cards--and got similar results. Adding a “lock messages” sped up the card option by a factor of 4, but the group option was much, much faster even then. I’m trying to make it possible to scan quickly through a long document. The remarks of Richard and Alex raise these questions for me: 1. Is LC recalculating the line wraps of all fields every time we go to a card? Is it not doing that when a hidden field on a card is shown (or is the field somehow “ready to go” even when the field is hidden)? 2. On the question of resizing: One possibility is to adjust groups when (i.e., just before) they are shown. But would it be speedier to do this in advance, when nothing else is happening? The User Guide says “timer based messaging [is] ideal where you want your user interface to remain responsive.” I’m not sure exactly how to do this, but it seems like on a resize event one could make a list of the hidden groups that need to be adjusted, and call them one at a time with something like send “upDateGroupLayout oneGroupID” to me in 10 milliseconds. Is that right? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Comparative speed in switching among groups
Does anyone have practical experience or an understanding of the engine that would cast light on the relative speed of some alternative ways of doing things? I want to switch among a number of different groups, each of which may contain its own fields, graphics, buttons, and images. Possible approaches: - Have many different cards, each with a group peculiar to it, and GO TO each card as desired, or - Have one card, with many different groups, and SHOW/HIDE the groups as desired, or - Have many different cards, each with a group peculiar to it, and COPY a group from an unseen card to a single card that is always seen (and DELETE the unwanted group on that single card). There are other considerations that affect a choice among these methods, but my concern here is the speed with which I can switch from displaying one group to displaying another. I am wondering whether at some level these methods all amount to the same thing from the engine’s point of view (since everything is in RAM in any case). Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Pasting text and images together
I do not know how my problems accessing the rawClipboardData were overcome,
but I succeeded in reading the array values there. So I was able to address my
original question of how to reconstruct in LiveCode a combination of text and
image copied from another program. Conclusion thus far: no success. If
anyone is interested in this and might have some further suggestions, read on.
When I use the control key to invoke from the contextual menu “copy image” on a
web page, the fullClipboardData[“image”] gets a string of humanly
unintelligible characters that, when used as the text of a LiveCode image
object, shows the copied image. I did this for the picture of Robert Cailliau
on webpage https://livecode.com/core-benefits-of-livecode/. Call this String A.
To see how this information might be stored when I have copied both text and
image, I selected from the word before to the word after that same picture,
chose “Copy,” and then inspected the rawClipboardData["com.apple.flat-rtfd”],
which seemed the most promising candidate of the various clipboardData array
values. Call this String B.
Something that looks kind of like String A appears in String B, but it is not
the same.
At char 4097 of String B I see the first few characters of the beginning of
String A, and think this might define the PNG data to follow. But what follows
is not the same as String A.
Here’s the start of string A:
âPNG
IHDR,,y}éusRGBÆŒÈDeXIfMM*ái††,†,ÿ`ÇÁ@IDATxÏΩ
And here’s char 4097ff of String B;
âPNG
IHDR,,y}éu IDATxúÏΩ{¨mYv÷˜sƵˆ„ÏÛ∏˜ú{Îvuuwuπ‹.€Ìˆ«!,d«2$qä¯a«9éCj,d°!dÅ"EâàB
So my hope that String A could somehow be extracted from String B and used to
“paste” the included image was disappointed.
David Epstein
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Re: Pasting text and images together
Paul, getting the keys of the rawClipboardData worked for me too. What didn’t work was trying to read the values. See this part of my script, I hope shown this time without the asterisks gMail added before: lock clipboard … put the keys of the rawClipboardData into myK3 ## THIS WORKS … repeat for each line k in myK3 try put the rawClipboardData[k] into temp[n] ## DOESN’T WORK catch myError put myError into e4[n] ## ERROR IS TRIGGERED end try add 1 to n end repeat unlock clipboard > From: Paul Dupuis > To: use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Subject: Re: Pasting text and images together? > Message-ID: <3814cd2a-0f20-2bbb-8783-42fc57e68...@researchware.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > Since my method didn't work, I'd try Marks, namely to put the keys of > the clipboard array into a variable to look at > > on mouseUp > ? lock clipboard > ? put the keys of the clipboarddata into tKeys1 > ? put the keys of the fullclipboarddata into tKeys2 > ? put the keys of the rawclipboarddata into tkeys3 > ? breakpoint > ? unlock clipboard > end mouseUp > > I tested this in LC 10dp6 and it works. Once you see what keys are > present with your mixed text and images copied to the clipboard, you can > choose which clipboard array and keys to work with to get the data. > > -- Paul > > >> On 9/2/2023 10:36 AM, David Epstein via use-livecode wrote: >> Many thanks to Paul Dupuis and Mark Waddingham. The script below tries to >> test their suggestions. Using 10.0.0 dp5 on an Intel Mac, and watching >> execution after the breakpoint, I get errors at each "try" in the script. >> So it does not seem that I can write the fullClipboardData >> or rawClipboardData to an array variable; and it does not seem that I can >> access any element of the rawClipboardData array. Further advice is >> welcome. >> >> Best wishes, >> David Epstein >> >> *on* a2 >> >> *lock* clipboard >> >> *put* the keys of the clipboardData into myK1 >> >> *put* the keys of the fullClipboardData into myK2 >> >> *put* the keys of the rawClipboardData into myK3 >> >> *breakpoint* >> >> *try* >> >> *put* the fullClipboardData into ta2 >> >> *catch* myError >> >> *put* myError into e2 >> >> *end* *try* >> >> *try* >> >> *put* the rawClipboardData into ta3 >> >> *catch* myError >> >> *put* myError into e3 >> >> *end* *try* >> >> *put* 1 into n >> >> *repeat* for each line k in myK3 >> >> *try* >> >> *put* the rawClipboardData[k] into temp[n] >> >> *catch* myError >> >> *put* myError into e4[n] >> >> *end* *try* >> >> *add* 1 to n >> >> *end* *repeat* >> >> *unlock* clipboard >> >> *end* a2 ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Pasting text and images together?
Many thanks to Paul Dupuis and Mark Waddingham. The script below tries to test their suggestions. Using 10.0.0 dp5 on an Intel Mac, and watching execution after the breakpoint, I get errors at each "try" in the script. So it does not seem that I can write the fullClipboardData or rawClipboardData to an array variable; and it does not seem that I can access any element of the rawClipboardData array. Further advice is welcome. Best wishes, David Epstein *on* a2 *lock* clipboard *put* the keys of the clipboardData into myK1 *put* the keys of the fullClipboardData into myK2 *put* the keys of the rawClipboardData into myK3 *breakpoint* *try* *put* the fullClipboardData into ta2 *catch* myError *put* myError into e2 *end* *try* *try* *put* the rawClipboardData into ta3 *catch* myError *put* myError into e3 *end* *try* *put* 1 into n *repeat* for each line k in myK3 *try* *put* the rawClipboardData[k] into temp[n] *catch* myError *put* myError into e4[n] *end* *try* *add* 1 to n *end* *repeat* *unlock* clipboard *end* a2 ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Pasting text and images together?
To clarify my original question: I'm not expecting the built-in paste command to handle this task; I'm wondering if I can script my own paste command to handle it. Richmond, I can write a script to "paste" an image by itself (by creating an image and setting its text to clipboardData["image"]). But is there some way I can access both the text and the image that are on the clipboard after I have copied a combination of those from, e.g., a web browser? (Pasting to Apple Notes confirms that the clipboard contains both text and image.) ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Pasting text and images together?
From a web browser, or from programs like Word or (Apple) Notes, it is possible to copy to the clipboard a single selection that includes both text and images. Is there any way to paste all of this information to LiveCode—for example, placing the text in fields and the imageData in image objects, or showing everything in one field by setting the imageSource of some characters in that field? After having copied such a collection of text and image information, the keys to the fullClipboardData seem only to include text and styled text options, with no indication of the images that are included on the clipboard. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Detecting when resizeStack is completed
How can I redraw objects after the user has resized the stack, but not continuously during the resize? Releasing the mouse at the end of a resize does not appear to send a mouseUp message. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Remote debugger error message
panagiotis m asked: @david How do you trigger this error? Could you provide a recipe? With the stacks that trigger the error it is hard to troubleshoot them without triggering the error. So I’m starting with an entirely new stack, and will report if I encounter the problem. I suspect the problem has something to do with a message that calls a handler in a stack-in-use. Best wishes, David > > > On Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 8:40?PM David Epstein via use-livecode > mailto:use-livecode@lists.runrev.com>> wrote: >> >> I?ve just started using LiveCode 9.6.9 and 10.0.0 DP 5 on two Intel > Macs, and can do very little without getting this error message: >> >> ?There was an error executing a script in stack > com.livecode.library.remotedebugger. No more information is available > because the stack is password protected.? ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Remote debugger error message
I’ve just started using LiveCode 9.6.9 and 10.0.0 DP 5 on two Intel Macs, and can do very little without getting this error message: “There was an error executing a script in stack com.livecode.library.remotedebugger. No more information is available because the stack is password protected.” I can click OK, but the error message soon returns. Any suggestions? Best wishes, David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
PDF widget and XPDFviewer
What is the relation between the widget “PDF” and the external “XPDFViewer” (both in Pro Features)? The latter offers more direct access to a few properties (e.g., totalCharacterCount), while the widget syntax is a little simpler. It does not appear that a PDF widget is a PDF Viewer, at least the widget’s name is not recognized as the name of a viewer when I try to call a function like XPDFViewer_Get(viewerName,property). So do I need either to create a widget or create a viewer? And are there non-obvious reasons to do one or the other? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Maximum field size
My testing attempts, like Bernd’s, show that the important “limits” are not just what LC can display in a field but what it can display without making things too slow. I am also wondering if the new polyGrid has different characteristics, either its absolute limits or its performance when heavily populated. Richard Gaskin asks “Why?” I have developed a set of routines to analyze tabular data. For KB or MB-sized files, it is convenient to display them in a field. It would be simplest if I could also load GB-sized files and use my routines unchanged, but I accept that this is impractical. But in order to design workarounds I’d like to get as much clarity as possible on what limits I am working around. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Maximum field size
Thanks to Bernd for this: > Maximum length of a line in a field: > 65,536 characters storage > No more than 32,786 pixels wide for display This seems to mean we can have a 65k long line only if each character’s width is around half a pixel. And that if the character width is 10 pixels the maximum line is 6,553 characters. Or does “for display” mean something else? And, if we respect the line length limit, is the number of lines in a field limited only by however much of minimum(RAM, LC’s 4GB “total addressable space”) is not being used by something else? So for example would trying to load a 2.1 GB variable in a field surpass the 4GB limit, because the variable and the field would each need 2.1 GB? Best wishes, David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Maximum field size
How many rows or columns or characters can reasonably be displayed in a LiveCode field? A 1.39 GB text file seems pretty clearly to surpass the limit, but how much do I need to subdivide it? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Livecode performance problem
I didn’t text the speed, but why not put fld A into x[1] put fld B into x[2] put fld C into x[3] put fld D into x[4] combine x by column return x > > I have a set of fields, call them A, B, C, and D. Each has the same > number of lines. Each field has different text (per line) > > I need to combine the data - frequently - into a form that look like: > > C> ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Chart widget question
Using LC 10 dp2, I am trying to script the creation of a chart widget. My command “create widget myName as chart in group myMain” creates only a small gray box. The LC command “New Widget/Chart” creates a line chart, ready to be modified. What is the LC command doing that I am not? Or: how do I find the script that LC runs when the “New Widget/Chart” command is chosen? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Is there a way to create a generic setprop handler?
Control “A” has many custom properties that are set by a variety of other controls. If Control “A” has a "setProp property1” handler, it can react when property1 gets set. But is there a way to give Control “A” a general handler that will be triggered whenever any of its custom properties is set? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Using LiveCode with Mac Photos App
I want to allow selection of some images from my Mac Photos library and show them as “referenced” images in a LiveCode stack. Is there an efficient way to do this? What would be great is to open Photos, drag images from there to my LiveCode stack, and record in LiveCode the file location of the original image. But this seems not to work from within Photos, only with images that have been exported (e.g., I can drag exported images from my desktop to a LiveCode stack and get the dragData[“files”]). Is there any way from within Photos to gain access to the file locations for convenient use by LiveCode? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Shaping an image to fit in a polygon
Jacqueline Gay’s suggestion is excellent, and by exactly aligning the rect of the polygon with the rect of the image being “trimmed”, I can avoid having the image centered or repeated. See script below. I am still wondering what goes wrong with my alphaChannel approach to showing irregularly shaped images. Is there some imprecision in the “within” function? This would be important to know for other uses of it. David Epstein on imageToGrc gID # fills graphic id gID with image it is positioned on; works for polygon, oval, regular, or rectangle set the linesize of grc id gID to 0 set the filled of grc id gID to false wait 1 ticks # seems needed so that linesize of 0 is respected hide grc id gID import snapshot from rectangle globalRect(the rect of control id gID) put the short id of image (the number of images) into imID set the rect of image id imID to the rect of grc id gID set the filled of grc id gID to true set the backgroundPattern of grc id gID to imID show grc id gID set the loc of grc id gID to the bottomRight of grc id gID ## to make it visible hide image id imID ## note: don’t delete, or polygon loses the image choose browse tool end imageToGrc function globalRect theRect return globalLoc(item 1 to 2 of theRect),globalLoc(item 3 to 4 of theRect) end globalRect ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Shaping an image to fit in a polygon
I am trying to create an image that will appear to have the shape of some arbitrary polygon. The idea is to set the image's alphaData so that pixels within the polygon are opaque, and those outside the polygon are transparent. The scripts below create a rectangular image of whatever is under the polygon's enclosing rectangle, and then adjust the alphaData of that new image. But while the new image gets trimmed a bit, the result does not match the shape of the designated polygon. Any thoughts? David Epstein on action gID ## gID is the short id of the polygon import snapshot from rectangle globalRect(the rect of control id gID) put the short id of image (the number of images) into imID set the width of image id imID to the width of grc id gID set the height of image id imID to the height of grc id gID set the loc of image id imID to the loc of grc id gID set the polyCrop of image id imID to gID end action function globalRect theRect return globalLoc(item 1 to 2 of theRect),globalLoc(item 3 to 4 of theRect) end globalRect setProp polyCrop polyID -- crop target image's alphadata to show only points within grc id polyID put the filled of grc id polyID into fillState set the filled of grc id polyID to true put the rect of the target into r put numToChar(255) into P ## opaque put numToChar(0) into T ## transparent repeat with y = 1+item 2 of r to item 4 of r ## SEE NOTE* repeat with x = 1+item 1 of r to item 3 of r put x,y into myPoint if within(grc id polyID,myPoint) then put P after hold else put T after hold end repeat end repeat set the filled of grc id polyID to fillState set the alphaData of the target to hold end polyCrop * NOTE: the "1+" is these statements is my effort to step through the exact number of pixels in the width and height of the image. The number of values in the series (item 1 of the rect of the image) to (item 3 of the rect of the image), inclusive, is 1+ the width of the image. (But I am not really sure whether to add 1 to the first value or subtract 1 from the last value). ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Implementing UNDO
LC’s built in undo does not appear to undo anything done by something I have
scripted.
My approach is to use a global array variable “u” to store information needed
to undo the most recent action. On each action, an “undoInit” puts empty into
u, after (if necessary) cleaning up anything u’s values indicate is left over
from the prior action (e.g., actually deleting an object that had been only
“pseudo-deleted” (hidden) so as to make the user’s choice of deletion
undoable). Then the appropriate new values are loaded into u. The main
elements I use are
# u["cardID"] = short id of the card where the undoable action was taken
# u["stackName"] = short name of the stack where the undoable action was taken
# u["changed"], list of objects being changed, each line has: propName,objectID
# u[propName,objectID] holds prior value of that property of that object (one
key/value for each line of u["changed"]
# u["removed"], list of objectID,cardID,stackName for objects being
pseudo-removed
# u["added"], list of objectID,cardID,stackName for objects being added
# u["cardsRemoved"], list of cards being pseudo-removed, each line has:
cardID,cardNumber
# u["cardsAdded"], list of cards being added, each line has: cardID,cardNumber
The “Undo” command makes sure we’re on card id u[“cardID”] of stack
u[“stackName”}, then checks for non-empty values of
u[“changed”],u[“removed”],u[“added”],u{“cardsRemoved”], and u[“cardsAdded”],
and uses values stored in u to restore the prior state of things, while
reloading u with values reporting the state of things now being reversed.
For text, I load u[“changed”] with “htmlText”,, and load
u[“htmlText”,] with the htmlText of that field before the latest
editing.
David Epstein
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Smooth scrolling
My impression is that a LiveCode field scrolls less smoothly than a comparable field in some other programs, such as MS Word and Scrivener. If I paste about 25,000 words into a word wrapped scrolling field, and then drag the scrolling thumb up and down there is much more jumpiness than I see when I do the same thing to the same text in those other programs. (LC 9.6 on Mac OS 10.12.6). Do others see the same thing? Does anyone know the underlying cause of this, or a remedy? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Updating a menubar button on Mac
I can use a “mouseEnter” handler to update a menu button’s contents just before the user displays that menu. But if that menu button is part of the stack’s menubar group on a Mac, the Mac menu does not seem to receive the mouseEnter message and the menu is not updated. Is there a workaround? Thank you! David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Saving stacks before closing
I want to give the user a choice of whether to save changes before closing a stack. To script this, I will handle the closeStackRequest message, and find a way to keep track of whether the stack in question has been changed since it was last saved. What I am trying to figure out is under what circumstances LiveCode takes care of this without my scripting it. In the LiveCode IDE, trying to close an unsaved stack seems automatically to ask me whether I want to save changes (but I have not found a handler in the backscripts that implements this). This is true of stacks I have created with the IDE “new stack” tool and then try to close. Is it also true of stacks I have created by script? And what happens in a standalone? Does this feature still work there? In short, do I need to script an option to save changed stacks before closing, or can I rely on LiveCode to take care of this? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: DataGrid question...
This is more or less Jacqueline Gay’s suggestion, but with a couple of wrinkles. You do need to adjust for the horizontal scroll of the field (I’m not sure about borders or margin). And if I am not mistaken sometimes “the tabStops” will not have an entry for each tab, if the column width stays constant. My approach is to keep a global called gColGuide, which gets reloaded when column widths change. It has one line per column, with leftEdge,0,rightEdge,0 in each line. The function used to load gColGuide is shown below. put word 1 of the clickLoc into x put word 2 of the clickLine into L — line number put the hScroll of fld “table” into hs put colGuide() into gColGuide function mCol x,hs — returns column number for horizontal pixel x, consulting gColGuide. hs is the field’s hScroll. global gColGuide add hs to x put 1 into c repeat for each line k in gColGuide if x > item 1 of k and x < item 3 of k then return c add 1 to c end repeat return empty end mCol-- Any need to adjust for borders and margins? function colGuide — used to load gColGuide with one line per column; each line has left,0,right,0 set itemDelimiter to tab put the number of items in fld "headers" of into cz set itemDelimiter to comma get the tabStops of fld “table” put "0," before it put the left of fld “table” into fL repeat with n = 1 to min(cz,(-1 + the number of items in it)) -- so that colGuide will only cover the used columns. put fL+8 + item n of it,0,fL+8 + item n+1 of it,0 & return after hold end repeat if cz > n then put item 3 of line -1 of hold - item 1 of line -1 of hold into w repeat with m = n+1 to cz get item 3 of line -1 of hold put it,0,w + it,0 & return after hold end repeat end if put fL into item 1 of hold return hold end colGuide David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Reading and writing globals by script
I want to write a function that will read and write to any named global. What I have below seems to work, but I’m not sure quite why. Usually, “put gName into oldVal” for a global named gName would put the value, not the name, of that global into oldVal. But here it does not. function globalSwap gName,gVal -- Return the existing value of global gName and load gVal into that same global do "global" && gName do "put" && gName && "into oldVal" # "put gName into oldVal" doesn't work here. do "put gVal into" && gName return oldVal end globalSwap Is there some way to write this with fewer or no uses of “do”? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: script for redo/undo text?
I cannot help with the project of "unlimited" undo/redo, but a simple one-layer undo for fields is not hard to implement. Sean Cole's suggestion that we should record the field state whenever a key is pressed I think does more than is wanted; if you type 10 characters, you don't want to choose Undo 10 times to get rid of them. My approach is to record the field state on keypresses ONLY if there is a text selection (about to be lost when the key is pressed) rather than an insertion point. If text has been added but no text has been lost, you don’t need an Undo command to remove what was added. If you also record the field's state before anything is typed in it, and before the Undo command itself is executed, and before any scripted handlers change the field, I think this will resemble ordinary Word Processor behavior. on keyDown if the selectedText is not empty then uStoreFieldState the short id of the selectedField pass keyDown end keyDown -- and a similar handler for the other keys Sean mentions, although I don't think for arrow keys. on uStoreFieldState fID -- fID is the short id of the field global u put the selectedChunk into myChunk put fID into u["fieldModified"] put the htmlText of fld id fID into u[fID] put word 2 of myChunk into u["chunkA"] put word 4 of myChunk into u["chunkB"] end uStoreFieldState Then on undo, you read the values of u to revise the field, and reload u with the state of the field just before undoing. I store the chunk information so that undo can restore the selection as well as the text to its prior state. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: A question about openCard
Jacqueline is correct: if I’m not debugging, the execution contexts is not in the list of recentCards. But my palette still does not appear in the list of recentCards. Further testing reveals: although activating a palette triggers a resumeStack message, and leaving a palette triggers a resumeStack message in the stack activated, palettes do not get listed in “the recentCards”. So I think I will resort to a global. In my main stacks, a resumeStack handler should — compare the name of this stack with a global “gActiveStack” — if they are not the same, carry out init actions, and put the name of this stack into gActiveStack. David Epstein Jacqueline Gay wrote: I wouldn't expect the execution contexts to be in the list but it sounds like that's a result of the debugging process itself. Is it different if you just log it to the message box without the debugger? get the recentCards put it ... etc Does the palette not appear anywhere in the list at all? > On Jun 8, 2019, at 9:13 AM, David Epstein wrote: > > Several people gave helpful replies to my question, including pointing out > that this is a case of “resumeStack”, not “openCard”: > > Is there some simple way that an openCard handler can branch based on what > card it is coming from? > > When a user goes to a different card in a stack, or to a different stack, I > use an “openCard” handler to set things up. But I do not want those actions > taken if the user is merely “returning” to a card after using a palette tool, > or after a palette tool has been opened. > > Jacqueline Gay suggested using the “recentCards” to determine what card the > user is coming from. So I wrote this handler: > > function resumedTheSameCard > -- call this in a "resumeStack" handler. > -- returns true if palette "tTools" has just been active and the > resumeStack message was received by the same card that had been active when > that palette was activated. > -- returns false if we are coming from a different card, either directly or > with a palette activation in between. > get the recentCards > if the long id of stack "tTools" is not in line 2 of it then return false > -- nb should work even if palette "tTools" stack has several cards > return line 1 of it = line 3 of it > end resumedTheSameCard > > But this does not work. When I debug, I see that line 2 of the recentCards > does not refer to a card on my palette stack (“tTools”); it refers instead to > a card in the stack “Execution Contexts”. > > Why is that LiveCode system stack appearing in the recentCards, and why is my > palette not appearing there? > > Many thanks. > > David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: A question about openCard
Several people gave helpful replies to my question, including pointing out that this is a case of “resumeStack”, not “openCard”: Is there some simple way that an openCard handler can branch based on what card it is coming from? When a user goes to a different card in a stack, or to a different stack, I use an “openCard” handler to set things up. But I do not want those actions taken if the user is merely “returning” to a card after using a palette tool, or after a palette tool has been opened. Jacqueline Gay suggested using the “recentCards” to determine what card the user is coming from. So I wrote this handler: function resumedTheSameCard -- call this in a "resumeStack" handler. -- returns true if palette "tTools" has just been active and the resumeStack message was received by the same card that had been active when that palette was activated. -- returns false if we are coming from a different card, either directly or with a palette activation in between. get the recentCards if the long id of stack "tTools" is not in line 2 of it then return false -- nb should work even if palette "tTools" stack has several cards return line 1 of it = line 3 of it end resumedTheSameCard But this does not work. When I debug, I see that line 2 of the recentCards does not refer to a card on my palette stack (“tTools”); it refers instead to a card in the stack “Execution Contexts”. Why is that LiveCode system stack appearing in the recentCards, and why is my palette not appearing there? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
A question about openCard
Is there some simple way that an openCard handler can branch based on what card it is coming from? When a user goes to a different card in a stack, or to a different stack, I use an “openCard” handler to set things up. But I do not want those actions taken if the user is merely “returning” to a card after using a palette tool, or after a palette tool has been opened. I’m not sure I understand the full range of events that “close” a card so that returning to it triggers “openCard.” Does this happen if I set an insertion point or select text in an unlocked field in a palette, or the user types there? Does it happen if I open a palette, or move a palette, or if the user clicks on the palette? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Multiple regression in LiveCode?
Has anyone written a LiveCode function that will take a table of 2 or more independent variables and 1 dependent variable, and return coefficients, intercept, and standard errors for a multiple regression? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Repeat for each line of a variable or field?
I've done a little bit of speed testing showing extremely slight differences, but wonder if anyone who understands the "engine" can advise on this: Is there a difference between these two approaches? (1) put fld 1 into txt; repeat for each line k in txt; etc. and (2) repeat for each line k in fld 1; etc. For no very good reason, I tend to do (1), but have begun to wonder: for a very lengthy field 1, does my writing to a variable use up more RAM, and so perhaps injure performance? Or is the engine in effect writing to a variable either way? Is a variable read more quickly than a field? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Large files crash on Windows 10
Does anyone else have problems dealing with large files on Windows 10? My main LiveCode tool is a stack of about 1.5 MB, and I use it to create, save, and open LiveCode stacks that store text and graphics. These "content" stacks can be anywhere from a few kilobytes to 50 MB or more. On an iMac, these all run smoothly. On Windows 10, my larger content stacks (>10 MB) will sometimes close unexpectedly, or crash LiveCode entirely. The typical trigger is either executing a save command, or clicking on a list of cards to navigate to a card that contains a large table of text. Does anyone have relevant experiences or suggested remedies or ways of better diagnosing the problem? Perhaps relevant is that on the Mac I mostly use LC 5.5, on Windows 10 I am using LC Community 9.0 (dp4). Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Area of regular polygon triangles
While trying Mike Bonner's suggestion of "manual" measuring, I learned the answer: a regular polygon whose official length is L and width is W is inscribed in the oval whose length is L and width is W. So for an equilateral triangle the area will be 3/4 * 3^.5 * R^2 (where R = L = W). David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Area of regular polygon triangles
If a regular polygon has 4 or 8 sides it seems to be inscribed so that all points touch the square defined by the object’s height and width, which means that it should be fairly easy to deduce the polygon’s area. But with 3 sides, the triangle appears slightly smaller than the maximum size that could fit into that square. Is there some math that would give me the area of that triangle from the height and width of the square (i.e., the official height and width of the polygon object)? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Text with accented characters
I am importing some text where certain characters do not look right. When I test their charToNum values I get, for example, 226 and 232. 226 is shown as a comma, but should be a lower case a with a circumflex, and 232 is shown as an upper case e with an umlaut but should be a lower case e with accent grave. Is there some font I can choose, or some other action I should take, to get these (and others) to display properly? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
HilitedLine of list field lost when unlocked field selected
This seems like a problem that I’ve solved before, but I can’t recall how. With a line hilited in a locked list-behavior-true field, I can use the mouse to select text in any of a number of unlocked fields without disturbing my list’s hilite. But if I use the tabKey to move the insertion point or selection from one unlocked field to the next, the list hilite is lost. How can I preserve it? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: FormattedHeight of a field and its contents
Thanks for the responses on this. I used Bernd’s tool and did some more tests, and found some things that may be helpful to others. While the left and right margins of a field are meant literally (a 5 pixel left margin leaves 5 white pixels to the left of the text), the top margin is more complicated, no doubt owing to the variety of textHeights that need to be accommodated. For example, a margin of "0" will often clip the top of the text--as if "0" meant a "negative margin". 6 seems to be a magic default value for a field's top margin, which avoids clipping the content. With horizontal gridlines visible, a 6 pixel buffer makes the top row the same height as the other rows. And with a 6 pixel buffer the formattedHeight of the field will exactly match the formattedHeight of the field's content (although a non-zero borderwidth or a horizontal scrollbar changes this). Thus--what I wondered about in my original post--with a margin less than 6 the formattedHeight of the field is less than the formattedHeight of the content; the content is in effect clipped. At smaller textHeights this will be visible, while at larger textHeights only white space above the characters is clipped. I was trying to answer two questions, and I think I'm pretty close. 1. How do I make sure that the field's contents are all visible if I set the field's height to the formattedHeight? Answer: Set the top and bottom margins to 6. For the left and right margins, even 1 pixel should be enough to keep everything visible. 2. What margins will provide a symmetrical look for a text box? A top margin of 6 doesn’t look like a 6 pixel margin; how it looks depends on the textHeight. I estimate that its apparent height is one fourth of the effective textHeight, and I use this to size the other margins in the “tightMargins” handler below. While the top margin of 6 looks good with horizontal gridlines, without them (and especially if you show a text baseline) it looks too small compared to the space between subsequent lines. To match that larger space, in effect doubling the apparent top margin, add one third of the effective textHeight. See “niceMargins” handler below. Example of usage: set the margins of fld 1 to the niceMargins of fld 1 set the height of fld 1 to the formattedHeight of fld 1 getProp niceMargins put the effective textHeight of the target into t put round(t*7/12) into m1 put round(t/3) into m2 return m1,6+m2,m1,m1 end niceMargins getProp tightMargins put round(.25*the effective textHeight of the target) into m return m,6,m,max(6,m) end tightMargins Improvements to these are welcomed. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
FormattedHeight of a field and its contents
Is there somewhere an explanation of how a field’s textSize, borderWidth, margins, and formattedHeight interact? According to the dictionary entry for “formattedHeight”, a field’s formattedHeight is calculated “including top and bottom margins”, while the formattedHeight of a chunk is calculated “disregarding margins.” That does not seem consistent with these results for a field whose textSize is 16 and whose margin is 4: the formattedHeight of line 1 of fld 1 19 the formattedHeight of line 1 to 2 of fld 1 38 the formattedHeight of fld 1 15 if there’s one line of text the formattedHeight of fld 1 34 if there are two lines of text. Even though there are top and bottom margins of 4, the field’s formattedHeight is smaller, rather than larger, than the formattedHeight of its contents. A perhaps related question: Why does a field margin of zero clip the visible text at the top and left? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Identifying empty lines of text
I use “the number of words in myString = 0” to test whether a line of text appears empty, since I want a line with only space characters to be understood as empty. But a line of text I pasted from elsewhere contained an invisible character whose charToNum value is 202, and this was counted as a word by my script. Is there a better way to test for a line of text that has no visible characters? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Auto scrolling a locked field when mouse comes to edge
To clarify: For a locked field with autohilite and traversalOn both true, the “built in” auto scrolling works the same as with an unlocked field. I’m looking for a way to script this kind of auto scrolling with autohilite and traversalOn both false. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Auto scrolling a locked field when mouse comes to edge
When the mouse drags across text in an unlocked (horizontally and vertically) scrolling field, the field automatically scrolls at a legible rate to display the (previously hidden) text that the mouse was dragging toward. Has anyone scripted a way to reproduce this effect for a locked field? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Bizarre problem setting a custom property
From the message box, I type set the autoFitted of group “a” of stack “specs” to false Works as expected. But if I type set the frameOptions of group “a” of stack “specs” to false Fails with this message: Message execution error: Error description: Chunk: error in object expression Hint: Various other property names also fail, but I can’t detect a pattern. Any insights? Many thanks, David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
getProp puzzle
The script of stack “A” has a getProp handler to report the number of lines in an object’s script: getProp nSL return the number of lines in the script of the target end nSL With stack A frontmost, I type in the message box “the nSL of this stack” or “the nSL of stack’A’”, and I get the expected result. But with stack A still frontmost, if I type in the message box “the nSL of stack ‘B’” I get an empty result (not even a “0”). What am I missing? Thanks very much. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: MouseMove message interrupted when I change cards
Thanks to Scott Rossi, whose example is indeed what I am trying to do, and to Matt Maier, who warns me that there are aspects of mouseMove I don't quite understand. In trying to see why Scott's example works and mine does not, I discovered that my "mouseleave" handler seemed to be the problem. If I have "on mouseleave, go card 1, end mouse leave" in my script, then the mouseMove message stops firing after it triggers one change of card, perhaps because that change of card makes LC think I have "left" the control my mouse was moving in. (But why does it not still detect a "mousemove" on that same control on the card I have moved to? It seems like mouseMove doesn't start reporting unless there has been a "mouseEnter" event, and with my change of card my mouse did not enter the control because it was already in it). Adding my mouseLeave handler to Scott's script won't show this unless I also change the points of his polygon so that it is a single rectangle rather than 3 non-adjacent rectangles. With his polygon, the mouse really is "leaving" and then re-entering the polygon when it moves from one rectangle to the next; so that on each change of card there is a new mouseEnter event that restarts the mouseMove message stream. I tried Matt’s idea of catching all mouseMoves, but still had problems. So I have placed the entire “quick browse” diagram in a separate palette, where mouseMove is not bothered by card changes in the main stack. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
MouseMove message interrupted when I change cards
Among the controls in a group with background behavior I have a “quick browse” control — a polygon graphic whose many rectangular parts represent cards in the stack. I handle “mouseEnter” and “mouseMove”, and use the mouseH to calculate which card to go to. I find that the “mouseMove” message is interrupted when I change cards. Even though the mouse is moving across what looks like the same graphic, LC seems to treat each card’s representation of that graphic as a separate control. Thus when a mouseMove causes navigation to a different card, no more mouseMove messages are received, unless I move the mouse out of and back into the control. Is this how things should work? Do I need to move my control to a palette so that the change of card that it triggers does not interrupt its own operation? Are there other options? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Field loses its identity as a target
Sorry, I see my long question appeared twice; my eMail reported it undelivered, so I tried again. Thanks to Richard for his sound advice, and Jacqueline for the promising theory—promising because I have noticed that disabling locked fields with visible, non-3D borders does not make their borders gray, so that their enabled status is not clear if they contain no text. But disabling does not seem to be the source of my problem, as I have inserted into my script, just before the point of failure, tests both for the existence and the enabled of the field whose identity has been lost. I think it will be easier to circumvent this problem than to figure it out, but I will report back if I narrow it down. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Script-controlled export of animation from Livecode?
Thanks for the suggestions on this. If I understand them correctly, they seem to require using some tools outside of LiveCode. Can any of those tools be controlled by a LiveCode script? What I want to do is write a script so that a user clicking my button will create some kind of video file from the action that my script is displaying in a LiveCode stack. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Field loses its identity as a target
I have encountered a bizarre problem that occurs in a somewhat complicated context. I wonder if anyone has experienced anything similar. In short: when I click a locked field on one occasion “the long id of the target” returns the expected result; but when I click on it subsequently “the long id of the target” returns the long id of the card instead. Details: To allow the user to edit certain properties of a card, I copy a “dropPanel” group to that card, allowing the user the adjust various controls on that group whose settings I use to adjust the appropriate properties of the card. I want the “dropPanel” to disappear if the user clicks outside of it, so I insert a frontScript that, on mousedown, checks whether the targeted object is part of the dropPanel group. This has worked well for a long time, but I now encounter this problem. Several of the controls in one of my dropPanels are locked fields (call one of these “A”). The first time one is clicked on, it operates as expected. But on subsequent clicks my dropPanel gets deleted. When I debug my frontScript, I see that on the first occasion the long id of the target is recognized as “field id x of group id y of… etc.”—and my script confirms that this control is indeed part of the dropPanel group and so clicking it should not delete that group. On subsequent clicks, however, that same target is interpreted as “card id x… etc.”, which of course is not a member of the group, and this causes my group to be deleted. Why does my field “A” lose its identity between these two clicks? When working properly, the click on the locked field causes a different group to be created adjacent to it, allowing the user to select one or more things from a list field (“B”), and then click a Cancel or OK button. (This subgroup does not have the auto-close feature). The OK button of that subgroup sets a custom property of and sets the text of field “A”—neither of which seems like it should cause that main field no longer to be recognized as a target. And the Cancel button does nothing at all to the main field. OK and Cancel both delete the subgroup that includes them and Field “B”. Testing various combinations of events, I learned that the problem arises whenever the user selects something in the list field “B”—regardless of whether he clicks OK or Cancel—but there is no problem if he never makes a selection in that list field “B”—again, regardless of whether he clicks OK or Cancel. (And if toggleHilites is true for field “B” the problem arises even if the user removes a selection he initially made). So it seems as if nothing my scripts do to Field “A” is associated with its losing its identity; it is rather the fact that one or more lines have been selected in a different field (the list field “B”). Two more symptoms - clicking on a second locked field that operates in the same way also causes the problem; i.e., two clicks on one field or one each on two fields makes no difference. - Field A does not seem to lose its identity until the subgroup containing Field B is deleted. If a wayward user repeatedly clicks on Field A and makes a selection in Field B without clicking OK or Cancel, the script as written will keep creating new subgroups with new Field B’s. Only after the user has repeatedly clicked OK or Cancel to remove the duplicative series of subgroups will a click on Field A cause the problem. Thanks very much for any insights about this. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: menu buttons and showname
“Set the label of button myBtn to space” makes an option button appear blank but does not interfere with a user’s subsequent choice of an option. While disabling the button or hiding the button are other ways of making clear that no option is in effect, an able but blank option button means that an option can be put into effect in one step, not requiring some other action that enables or shows the button. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Insertion point problems
One more try on the second part of my original post. In LC 7.01, Mac Yosemite, I find that the insertion point blinks once when placed by clicking or typing, then disappears. It will also blink once in its most recent position if I click the title bar, but again it disappears. Also, if I type a tab key at the beginning of the line that has tabStops, the blink will be at the beginning of the line, not indented (even though if I then type a character it will be indented). This was not true in LC 5.5, and seems like a major obstacle to working with text. Do others see these symptoms? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Insertion point problems
1. With a word selected in field 1 of the topStack, a menu button in a palette issues a command “Paste”. The handler for this command includes set the defaultStack to the topStack get the selectedChunk — test whether the chunk is a suitable place to paste, and if so then paste This works fine if there is actually a word selected in field 1. But if there is only an insertion point it does not work; the selectedChunk is reported as empty. (On mouseDown on the palette menu, a selected word stays selected; but a blinking insertion point disappears). 2. Results above both in LC 5.5 and LC 7.01. But I notice another problem in 7.01 (unlike in 5.5): the insertion point does not blink. I see it blink just after typing a character, and it blinks once when the stack is activated, but when nothing is happening there is no indication of where the insertion point is. Do others see this, or have solutions? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Resolution of PDF in player object
In the past, when I displayed a PDF in a player object on my PowerPC Mac Mini, I could scale it to, say, 1.5x the formattedWidth and formattedHeight, and see it beautifully displayed at full resolution. On my newer MacBook Air and iMac this is not true; the PDF looks terrible when scaled to anything other than 100%. And if I print it, even at 100%, I get screen quality, i.e., very bad, resolution. Has something changed? Can LiveCode not display or print PDFs at full resolution on an Intel Mac? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Can a script preempt substack name conflicts?
With stack A already open, I open stack B and get a alert like this: "A stack "" in file is already in memory. The Revolution UI does not distinguish stacks which have identical names, so editing these stack files while both are in memory could result in data loss.” Is it possible by script to intercept the message that generates this alert, and rename either the substack that is already in memory or the substack of the stack I am trying to open, so as to avoid both the alert and the risk of data loss? My impression is that if I try to learn the substack names of a file I will already be loading that file into memory, and it will be too late to head off the alert. Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: What is driving the MB of a stack?
Thanks to Scott Rossi for calling my attention to “unplaced groups,” which seem important enough to be better known. I found and purged a few of these, but trimmed only a few KB off my 4.3 MB stack, which still seems much larger than its (known) content can explain. Are there any other ways of diagnosing what’s going on? David Epstein > An issue that has been discussed in the past might be unplaced groups -- > groups that have been created at some time but aren't being used in the > stack. Here's one thread: > <http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/Storing-and-saving-a-settin > <http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/Storing-and-saving-a-settin> > g-in-a-stand-alone-td4687858i40.html> > > Regards, > > Scott Rossi > Creative Director > Tactile Media, UX/UI Design > > > > > On 4/29/15, 6:21 AM, "dfepst...@comcast.net <mailto:dfepst...@comcast.net>" > mailto:dfepst...@comcast.net>> wrote: > >> A stack I have gradually improved over several years now occupies 4 MB on >> disk, whereas for a long time it was more like 500 KB. >> Is there some way to diagnose what elements are causing this? I'd like >> to generate a list of all of the stack's substacks, cards, fields, >> images, scripts, etc., and see the amount of stack space each is >> occupying. >> >> David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Interfacing with web services - advice needed
>> For those who want to know, my current case involves a succession of points >> on the Earth’s surface where I know each one's longitude and latitude: I >> want to convert the intervals between these points to distances in metres >> (say). Graham Samuel stipulated that he did not want to code a LiveCode algorithm to solve this problem, but in case it might be useful here is a function that I believe does so. function earthKM myLat,myLon,Lat0,Lon0,@aid -- return km distance on earth, load aid [angle in degrees] from origin point Lon0,Lat0 to myPoint myLon,myLat put PI/180 into rpd -- radians per degree put myLat*rpd into myLat put myLon*rpd into myLon put Lat0*rpd into Lat0 put Lon0*rpd into lon0 put (SIN((myLat-Lat0)/2))^2+COS(Lat0)*COS(myLat)*(SIN((myLon-Lon0)/2))^2 into j put 6371*2*ASIN(MIN(1,j^0.5)) into dkm -- distance in km put ATAN2(SIN(myLon-Lon0)*COS(myLat),COS(Lat0)*SIN(myLat)-SIN(Lat0)*COS(myLat)*COS(myLon-Lon0)) into k -- bearing in radians put k/rpd into aid -- in degrees return dkm end earthKM David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Spider Web chart?
Michael Doub asked > What are the implications of getting a fractional part of a point? Does > livecode just ignore the fraction or should the results be truncated or > rounded? When setting “the points,” LC insists on integers, although it is more forgiving in other cases (e.g., you can “set the loc” using non-integers. I wrote the function without rounding because I may want to call it from a script that performs multiple transformations and then rounds the final results. > On 3/10/15 10:27 PM, David Epstein wrote: >> function yAD x,y,d,a,@xAD >> -- calculate point x1,y1 that is distance d and angle a from point x,y >> -- return y1, load x1 into param 5 >> -- a is in degrees, positive is east of north >> put (90-a)*2*pi/360 into a >> put x + d*cos(a) into xAD >> return y + d*sin(a) >> end yAD > David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Spider Web chart?
Richard Gaskin asked for code useful for making a spider web chart. I think the function below would help. Both the grid and the plots will be polygons whose points can be conveniently specified by their distance from an origin and their angle on a circle. function yAD x,y,d,a,@xAD -- calculate point x1,y1 that is distance d and angle a from point x,y -- return y1, load x1 into param 5 -- a is in degrees, positive is east of north put (90-a)*2*pi/360 into a put x + d*cos(a) into xAD return y + d*sin(a) end yAD David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Invisible character treated as word?
Thanks for the helpful responses on this question. A complication is that while I want to get rid of invisible characters that cause seeming-numbers not to be numbers, I don't want to exclude all non-numbers from my table. But since it seems that fonts and systems will differ as to which characters are actually invisible, I will need to purge even harmless visible characters. So my current plan is to use this function: function scrubbedText txt -- For tab-delimited data, replace possibly invisible characters with a space; and then -- remove leading and trailing spaces from each cell repeat for each char k in txt if charToNum(k) > 31 or charToNum(k) < 127 then put k after hold else put space after hold end repeat set itemDelimiter to tab repeat for each line k in hold repeat for each item i in k put word 1 to -1 of i & tab after k2 end repeat put return into char -1 of k2 put k2 after hold2 put empty into k2 end repeat return hold2 end scrubbedText If anyone sees a way to do this without stepping through each character, or without excluding non-standard visible characters, suggestions are welcome. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Invisible character treated as word?
For a tab-delimited table of numbers, I want to be sure that none of the numbers is surrounded by invisible spaces that will interfere with using the numbers in calculation. I do that by overwriting each cell with "word 1 to -1 of" that cell. This generally works fine, but was tripped up by a case in which a number was followed by what looked like two spaces. Closer inspection revealed that the second space had charToNum value 202. Even though it is invisible, LiveCode (5.5) seems to treat it as a word, and so my script did not strip it out. Are there other characters that are always or sometimes invisible that cause the same problem? And what is a remedy? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Tabstops problem in 7.0.1?
On Mac Yosemite, a simple field with tabstops set to 36: In LiveCode 7.0.1 Community, with the insertion point in the field, I press tab, expecting to indent the paragraph I am about to type. The cursor does not move, as if the tab keystroke was not received. But when I type another character it gets indented properly, showing me that the tab had been inserted. In LiveCode 5.5 the cursor moves as expected and desired when I press tab, to the indented point where what I type next will be inserted. Do others see this symptom? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Determine the LC version of an existing stack
Is there a way to determine by script which version of LC’s file format an existing stack uses? I see that I can set the file format version when saving a stack by setting the stackFileVersion, but I’d like to write a script that saves a stack and leaves unchanged its prior version. Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Speed testing: Fastest search method
Thanks to j...@souslelogo.com for the suggestion that hasMemory(bytes) might be useful. I haven't tried this yet. Thanks to for replies to my other questions. On the memory cost of writing fld "data" to tVar Q2. Of course it does, but the same condition is in place in all three tests. And the data has to come from somewhere. My question was whether we could save memory (and if there is some other downside) if we write repeat for each line L in fld "data" rather than put fld "data" into tVar repeat for each line L in tVar On the rules about "repeat for": Q2. This 'repeat for each' rule refers to not modifying whatever 'each' refers to. In this case, 'each' is a line and the number of lines in unchanged so I am not changing the internal line pointers set up by the engine at the start. If your approach works consistently, it implies that LiveCode's dictionary is too restrictive when it says (regarding "repeat for each labelVariable in container"): "Important! In any of the for each loops, you should not change the labelVariable or container in a statement inside the loop. Doing so will not cause a script error, but will almost certainly produce unexpected results." David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Edit cell in basic table field
Thanks very much for the suggestions of other tools and the script that would help me write my own. But before giving up completely on the basic table, I'm trying to understand how it works (and, in the process, more about how LiveCode works). Inspecting "the frontscripts", I discovered that the handlers governing basic table fields are in the script of button "revTable" of group "revLibraries" of stack "revLibrary." 1. Hoping to see table-editing in action, I set a checkpoint at the beginning of the "on mouseUp" handler in that script. But clicking the field did not cause execution to halt or the debugger to open. Are LiveCode's own frontscripts not debuggable by the user? 2. It looks like if I am willing to edit LiveCode's own frontscript, I can get the information I want. When I insert this statement send "cellWasEdited pObject,txCell,tyCell,tNewText" to pObject into the frontscript's "revWriteCellField" handler, I can handle a "cellWasEdited" message in my table field's script. Doing this would mean my stack would not work on someone else's machine. I also wonder whether fiddling with LiveCode's scripts is hazardous, or if there are better ways of doing this. (I tried inserting my own closeField handler in front, and having it pass closeField on to LC's frontscript. This did not work. And some of the useful information is stored as script local variables by LC's frontscript, which doesn't give me access to it in my own script.) Any thoughts? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Edit cell in basic table field
If I check "basic table object" in the field property inspector, and check "Edit cell," clicking on the table field causes a small unlocked field to be created at the cell's location, which on tab or arrowkey has its contents written to the cell. Is there some way to have a script trap the relevant information about what is going on, e.g., that a cell has just been "opened for editing", that a cell has just been edited, which cell it is, etc.? I assume that this "Edit Cell" activity is governed by a script that is reading a custom property, but I see no indication that the field actually has such a property or where the script is. Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: pageHeights ignores new line properties in fields?
Thanks to Jan Schenkel for the confirmation and suggestion. Unfortunately, when I tried to script my own pageHeights function using formattedHeight, I discovered that formattedHeight also gives inaccurate results when paragraph properties have been set. I have reported both of these problems as bug #11688. The scripts below attempt to adjust for these inaccuracies, insofar as I have been able to understand them. I am sure I have not accounted for all cases, so amendments are welcome. The first function reports the scroll values that will put each complete paragraph (except the first) at the top of the field. The second function is more directly comparable to the "pageHeights" function, but it reports cumulative scroll values rather than the height of each individual page. function paragraphBottoms fid -- report the values of scroll of field id fid that will put the top of a full paragraph at the top of the field -- returns a return delimited list. Each line reports hScrollValue,adjuster -- hScrollValue is a cumulative total, unlike the pageHeights function, which reports height of each page -- adjuster is the LC-reported value less the true value repeat with n = 1 to the number of lines in fld id fid add the spaceAbove of line n of fld id fid to a if n > 1 then add 2 * the padding of line n-1 of fld id fid to a add 2 * the borderwidth of line n-1 of fld id fid to a add the spaceBelow of line n-1 of fld id fid to a end if get the formattedHeight of line 1 to n of fld id fid put it-a & comma & a & return after myList end repeat return myList end paragraphBottoms function lineBottoms fid -- a return delimited list of hScroll values that will show field id fid's -- content as consecutive "pages", each of which begins with a line (could -- be the wrapped continuation of a paragraph). -- Reports a cumulative total, unlike the pageHeights function, which reports height of each page put the height of fld id fid - 2 * (the borderWidth of fld id fid + (the margins of fld id fid) - 8) into tgtH put tgtH into h -- cumulative height target, increments as we go put paragraphBottoms(fid) into pbList repeat with p = 1 to the number of lines in pbList if item 1 of line p of pbList < h then next repeat -- Now work backwards from the bottom of para p, looking for the first -- visible line bottom < h put length(line 1 to p of fld id fid) into c put 2+length(line 1 to p-1 of fld id fid) into b put empty into s put item 2 of line p of pbList into a -- adjustment needed from what LC reports as formattedHeight of para 1 to this para add the borderWidth of line p of fld id fid to a add the padding of line p of fld id fid to a -- for chars in all but the last line of a bordered or padded para, this further adjustment seems necessary repeat with x = c down to b get the formattedHeight of char 1 to x of fld id fid if it - a < h then put it-a into s put s & return after newList exit repeat end if end repeat if s is empty then if p > 1 then get (item 1 of line p-1 of pbList) if it is not line -1 of newList then put it into s else put h into s else put h into s -- i.e., if line is taller than h, accept a value that breaks across the line put s & return after newList put s+tgtH into h end if end repeat return newList end lineBottoms ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
pageHeights ignores new line properties in fields?
I find that the pageHeights function does not take account of the newer lines-in-fields properties like padding, spaceAbove, spaceBelow, etc. If I set the scroll of the field to line 1 of the pageHeights of that field, it will ordinarily put the first line of "page 2" at the top of the field. But if I have, say, set the padding of line 3 of that field to 15, setting the scroll in this way may result in only the bottom half of a line of text appearing at the top of the field. (It might accidentally work properly for some cases, but trying a few different values illustrates the problem.) Can anyone confirm this, and has anyone already scripted a workaround? Thanks very much. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Finding matched parentheses
Thanks for all the interesting replies to this query. I used
"offset" rather than (what most replies suggested) "repeat" with (or
for) each character thinking it would be faster, but that seems to be
true only if the string is extremely long and the sought for
character very far from the front. And I tried to match the first
"(" rather than building a list of all matches. There is no
practical need for yet another approach, but in case others will find
it of interest here is a speedy one that does not step through each
character and barely uses offset.
David Epstein
function offsetPair a,b,str -- NOTE: a and b are single characters,
str cannot be more than one line
-- in string str, locate the first a, and the nth b, where n = the
number of a's that precede that b
-- e.g., if a = "(" and b = ")" the character positions of the first
matched pair will be returned
-- return 0 if a is not found and empty if no match is found
put offset(a,str) into ca
if ca = 0 then return 0
put numToChar(7) into char 1 to ca of str -- some char that's not
a or b
replace a with return in str
put 1 into na -- number (ordinal) of a's, also the line count in str
put 0 into nb
repeat for each line k in str
if k is not empty then -- does this line have (na-nb) instances
of b?
get nthHit(na-nb,b,k,z,numToChar(7))
if it is not empty then return ca && it+ca+length(line 1 to
na-1 of str)
add z to nb
end if
add 1 to na
end repeat
return empty
end offsetPair
function nthHit n,a,str,@z
-- returns character number of the nth instance of a (a single
character) in str
-- z reports the total number of hits
put numToChar(7) & str & numToChar(7) into str -- so str does
not begin or end with a
set itemDelimiter to a
put -1 + the number of items in str into z
if n > z then return empty
return length(item 1 to n of str)
end nthHit
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Finding matched parentheses
Has anyone scripted a function that will locate the closing parenthesis (or bracket, etc.) of a pair? Below is my effort. Reports of its limitations or simpler alternatives (regex?) are invited. David Epstein function offsetPair a,b,str,@z -- returns offset(a,str) and loads in z offset(b,str) where b is the "matching" member of the pair; -- returns 0 if there is no a, empty if there is no match if a is not in str then return 0 if b is not in str then return empty put 0 into b4 -- skipped characters put 0 into na -- number (ordinal) of the a hit put 0 into nb repeat put offset(a,str,b4) into ca -- character position of a put offset(b,str,b4) into cb -- character position of a if ca = 0 and na < nb then return empty if cb = 0 and nb < na then return empty -- only take note of the first hit: put empty into hitCase -- default if ca > 0 and (ca < cb or cb = 0) then put "a" into hitCase if cb > 0 and (cb < ca or ca = 0) then put "b" into hitCase if hitCase = "a" then add 1 to na put ca+b4 into aca[na] -- absolute char position of a hit number na put aca[na] into b4 else if hitCase = "b" then add 1 to nb put cb+b4 into acb -- absolute char position of most recent b hit put acb into b4 else return empty if na = nb then -- we have a match put acb into z return aca[1] end if end repeat return empty end offsetPair ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Printing puzzle
Jacqueline Gay lucidly explained printing settings, including this: Every printer has a hard, physical limitation on how far from the edges it will print. If you get a half-inch unprintable margin at 100% scale, it will still be the same at any other scale. Yes, the unprintable margins are fixed, but what are they? PrintRectangle reports their size in screen pixels, but that will only be their size on the printed page if the page setup scale is 100%. It appears that LC lets us either (a) use the full printable area of the paper (print card into rect the printRectangle), OR (b) place things at precise locations on the paper (leave a safe margin of empty space on all sides of a card whose dimensions are equal or proportional to the printPaperSize, then print into rect “0,0,” & the printPaperSize) – but not both. Unless my script can know what scale is governing the result of the printRectangle, it cannot position an object that will be exactly one inch from the top of the printed page using method (a). If the left and right unprintable margins were always symmetrical, the "pageSetupScale" I'm looking for could be derived as 100 * item 1 of the printPaperSize / ( item 1 of the printRectangle + item 3 of the printRectangle). But this symmetry was found on only one of the two printers I tested. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Printing puzzle
The question: how can I find out, by script, how big the unprintable margins are when the Page Setup dialog has been set to some scale other than 100%? At 100%, there's no problem. For example, the unprintable right margin = item 2 of the printPaperSize - item 4 of the printRectangle. But at any other scale I can't use this calculation, because while the "printRectangle" responds to a Page Setup choice of scale, the "printPaperSize" does not. Thus if I set the scale to 50%, the printRectangle of 36,36,1188,1504 tells me the pixels I can fit into a letter size page after shrinking them by half and avoiding the unprintable margins. This means the left unprintable margin on the printed output will be 18/72 of an inch (shrinking the 36 by 50%). But I do not see any way of learning this information in a script, because the 50% scaling factor is not being reported, and the printPaperSize doesn't change the way the printRectangle does when the scale changes. (The "printScale" seems to return 1 regardless of what I do to the Page Setup dialog). What I'm trying to do is show on the screen is both a rectangle that will, when printed, be 1 inch from each edge of the paper; and also as much space outside of that rectangle as can be printed to. Thus I need to know how much of that 1 inch cannot be printed to. Many thanks for any suggestions. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Polygon's share of its rectangle inconsistent?
Although within(,) returns a significant number of
false positives when a polygon is tested, I find that it gives much
better results when testing an image. I imported a snapshot of my
graphic, then ran my "coverage" function on the image rather than the
graphic itself. ("coverage" reports the number of pixels that are
within the object divided by the number of pixels that are within the
object's rectangle). For the image, "coverage" remains quite close
to constant when you resize the image, or when you resize the graphic
and then import and test a new snapshot.
David Epstein
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Re: Polygon's share of its rectangle inconsistent?
Thanks to Dar Scott, Craig Newman, and Jim Hurley for thinking about this. I don't know why the coverage function would yield 1.0 (except for a very small graphic; see glitch described below). The Dar Scott amendment to my function--subtracting 1 from the right and bottom of the rect that I survey--is, I learned, equivalent to testing whether "pt is within the rect of grcLID"; in other words the pixels on the bottom and right edge of a graphic's rect are not counted as "within" the graphic's rect. I tested Dar's suggestions about lineSize and borderWidth. Perhaps because I have showBorder set to false borderwidth had no effect. LineSize did affect the results of my "coverage" function, with results that are peculiar but do not solve my original puzzle (that reported "coverage" should not, but does, vary as I scale a shape). I resorted to careful study of a very simple polygon, an isosceles right triangle with its hypotenuse toward the bottom left. This is a case where I would want my "coverage" function to return 0.5, since half of the rectangle is covered by the visible graphic. Rather amazingly, the "within(graphicLID,point)" function returned true not only for the points I expected, but for 5 additional diagonal "lines" of pixels forming a kind of border extending left and down from my visible hypotenuse. This was true both for a 10 x 10 rectangle and for a 50 x 50 rectangle. This makes it easy to see why "coverage" seems to decline as a graphic gets bigger, since these false positive pixels are a much larger share of a small rectangle. But why is "within" returning all these false positives? I tested the "margins" property to no avail. One further source of difficulty: If I define a grapic’s “points”, LC seems to impose a lower limit of 8 x 8 on its width and height. Thus while a triangle with points 0,0 10,0 10,10 0,0 has 100 pixels within its rect, defining a triangle with points 0,0 5,0 etc. results in an object with 64 -- not the expected 25 -- pixels within its rect. And almost all of those extra pixels also register as "within" the filled graphic itself, so that "coverage" gets close to 1.0. Jim Hurley’s function is very useful, but I was hoping to use “within ()” so that I could handle graphics that are not singly connected and closed. Is there some way to script a test for those cases? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Polygon's share of its rectangle inconsistent?
In order to properly adjust the relative area of two dissimilar polygons, I thought I would use a function to determine the fraction of each polygon's rectangle that is covered by the polygon. function coverage obLID set the filled of obLID to true put the rect of obLID into r repeat with x = (item 1 of r) to (item 3 of r) repeat with y = (item 2 of r) to (item 4 of r) put x,y into pt if within(obLID,pt) then add 1 to isIn add 1 to all end repeat end repeat return isIn/all end coverage This seems to work as expected, but I am perplexed by the fact that when I resize an object keeping its proportions constant (drag a corner with the shift key down; or script this) I get a surprising variation in the result. E.g., a fairly simple shape I tried went from 0.48 coverage up to 0.59 coverage when I shrank its dimensions by about two-thirds. With tens or hundreds of thousands of pixels being sampled in the calculation, I would not expect this variation. Many thanks for any insights or suggestions. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Page 2 of a PDF
J. Landman Gay: That's pretty good, it works great. Where'd you get the "75" from? Based on your calculation, this one-liner also works: on goPage n set the currenttime of player 1 to (n-1)*75 end goPage Thank you, that's an improvement. The 75 came from observing that the "duration" of a player with a PDF loaded seemed to be 75*(z-1) where z = the number of pages. Thomas McGrath III: Do you have more code or explanations about how this works? I am actually looking for a step for images in a scrolling group on iOS and Android but your email made me think that maybe a pdf might work. I need the images to 'land' fully in view even if the user has not scrolled all the way on a touch. I don't know about iOS or Android, but I would think you could move an image to the group's top edge by setting the scroll of the group to the top of the image minus item 2 of the formattedRect of the group. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Two Windows
I think Tim Miller is right to think that opening two copies of LiveCode will not help him edit the same stack in two windows, as each will not know about the changes in the other until saved to disk and reopened, and two very different versions are likely to result-- unless all changes are immediately saved and the other window's stack is reopened. I would suggest rather creating a second stack (perhaps a substack) used as a secondary window, to which the content of individual cards could be copied as needed. Write their changes back to the main stack before you "navigate" to another card in the secondary window by copying new content there. You'll need to either prevent or handle the special case where one card is open in both windows at once (you can handle it by, e.g., using a closeField handler or a keyDown handler in stack 1 to change the content of field 1 of stack 2 whenever field 1 of stack 1 is edited). David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Keys of a custom property array
get the customKeys[myCustomPropertySetName] of myObject Jacqueline Gay asked: If I store an array as a custom property, is there a way to get its keys without putting the whole thing into a variable first? David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Re: Copying fields sometimes doesn't copy their content. But when?
Many thanks to Jacqueline for providing the master key to this question. By trial and error, I think I have confirmed this rule: "Copy to " will include the text of the field(s) in the new copy ONLY if (a) the sharedText property of the field is TRUE, or (b) the field is on the card that is or includes the destination, or (c) the field is on, and destination is or is on, the first card of a stack. Note that if you copy a field via the clipboard, the paste command will include the text of the field regardless of the sharedText property. The dictionary does not mention this effect of the "sharedText" property, saying (what is not strictly true) that "If the field is a card field (not part of a group), its sharedText property has no effect." I can add a user-contributed note there, and to the copy command entry, unless someone determines that my findings are incorrect. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Copying fields sometimes doesn't copy their content. But when?
Is there some rule that determines whether, when a field or group is copied in LiveCode (using the "copy to " command) the contents of the field or grouped fields are copied? This result seems strange: copying a field or group from a different stack to the current card includes the field contents if the current card is card number 1, but not otherwise. Recipe: Create two stacks, "x" and "y" Create a second card in stack y Create two fields on card 1 of stack x, put some content in them, and group them. Now with card 1 of stack y frontmost, type in the message box: copy group 1 of stack "x" to this card Then with card 2 of stack y frontmost, type in the message box: copy group 1 of stack "x" to this card Result: When copying to card 1, the content of the fields is copied. When copying to card 2, the fields are empty. Thanks for any insights into this. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Answer File crashes LC on PPC Mac 10.4
I've just started using LC 5.5.3 on my desktop Mac Mini, with a power pc chip running System 10.4 as well as on my MacBook Air running 10.6. This very simple script crashes LC on the Mac Mini: on mouseUp answer file "Display what file?" put it end mouseUp When I stripped away the intended functions and left only this, and created a new stack with only one button to put this script in, the crashes are not consistent but they are very frequent. On the first try a file path will sometimes be displayed as expected, but the second or third click of the button causes a crash as soon as I choose the file. On my MacBook Air, I do not have this problem. Any one else have this experience, or suggestions? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
Characters that can be used in an array key
Are there any limits on what characters can be used in an array key? For example, do tab characters cause problems? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
AltIDs
To avoid conflicts with normal ids, it seems we want to choose large numbers for altIDs. Testing this out: Create a new stack. Create one button. In the message box, "set the altID of btn 1 to 8" In the message box, "put the altID of btn 1" Result: 24120 Tried this again, using 9. Result was 51711 What's going on? Many thanks. David Epstein ___ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
