Re: Reading from Excel Files
Ray , If you're on Mac, I've you tried some applescript to convert all your excel files to tab/return test files ? JB Greetings,I'm using "open file myPath for binary read" to read an Excel file and I'm getting lots of garbage characters since I believe it's Microsoft's proprietary binary format. If I save the Excel file as a Text (Tab Delimited) file I can read from it fine. The problem is I have about 500 of these file. To manually convert all of them would be extremely time consuming. Any suggestions on reading an Excel file and filtering out all the garbage characters? ___ metacard mailing list metacard@lists.runrev.com http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC 2.4.3 Tiger problems
Recently, Karl Becker wrote: Am I dreaming, or does MetaCard actually run things faster than Revolution? It's quite possible this is true in the IDE, but as a standalone it's unlikely. They're run by the same engine. well, several times I had the experience of a stack created with MC 2.3 and converted to Rev 2.5 that was running faster as a standalone made with MC than as a standalone made with Rev... both on MacOS9 and WinXP... This was specially noticeable when user was returning to card 1 on which was a complex group made of a large number of images... JB ___ metacard mailing list metacard@lists.runrev.com http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Id numbers vs names
The reasoning against using the number was that it can change. I don't recall the reasoning behind the name, may be that was that names won't change... But in one instance I chose to use the ID numbers, and now I'm SORRY SORRY SORRY! Because when updating the program adding/deleting things, those numbers change, and I have to go thru every line of code to find where the numbers are referenced. well using ID numbers has certain drawbacks indeed, but also some benefits, especially in Rev where successive controls have incremental ID numbers (when in HC AFAIR they used to be created at random) : for instance in a project I had to create 400 graphics to be included in a group : referencing each graphic by its ID number was pretty easy and very convenient... JB ___ metacard mailing list metacard@lists.runrev.com http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: PHP versus CGI
Can you elaborate? What kind of details? And did you mean intrinsic or explicit? ;-) * PHP is safer than CGI unless you add a lot to CGI ; Actually, MC CGIs are probably the most secure as they will only run scripts that are in the cgi-bin folder with the engine. You can't send it a script to run from the outside, so it will only do what it has been preprogrammed to do. Or at least that's my understanding... A nice thing would be that someone with good CGI knowledge and competences could right a short tutorial (with clear DOs and DON'Ts) about using Rev CGI and how to configure a server (privileges settings, etc) in that context. This could be put online on the Developers web page at RR. I'm sure lots of users would benefit from that. So far only bits pieces of info can be found on the MC or Rev lists archives. If I had the knowledge, I'd gladly write such a tutorial... Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Intelligent Agents......
On the topic of this link : http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Feb/02082004/business/136566.asp AFAIR someone mentioned Terminator, but did anyone noticed that Stephen Thaler's Creativity Machine Paradigm has been used to design warheads for US Air Force ? JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Intelligent Agents......
Pierre Sahores a *crit : I'm associating me to the Chipp's second question : how could we gohead with good practices to design and code to life a small team of intelligent agents in MC/Rev ? Same interest here... There is, among some other great books about Artificial Life, an usefull title, unfortunally only available in french, i'm refering all the time, in about this matter : Vie Artificielle by Jean-Philippe Rennard. Editions Vuibert Informatique. 2002, 408 pages. As for books on that topic, I can recommend : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679743898/qid=1076866332/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3097674-2174534?v=glances=books a bit verbode at times, but a good survey and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262631857/qid=1076866054/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3097674-2174534?v=glances=books great introduction - a few years back I tried to reproduce some of the experiments described in that book with OMO and MC... Best, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Valentina and MC/Rev CGI (was :Metacard support)
Robert, Yes, I have been running a MC-based CGI for a couple years now. But it is a different story depending on the OS. OK, but I've been using MC/Rev-based cgi for almost 2 years as well... My question actually focused on MC/Rev-based cgi with Valentina database... And keep in mind that MC/Rev-based cgi may not be suitable for heavy duty usage Could you please comment this point ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: spreadsheet ( was :10000 fields and crash)
Richard Gaskin : That post explained _what_ was acheived, but not _why_ it couldn't be done with fewer fields. Did I miss something obvious? I'm curious too: Why not just one field, or at most a different field for each column. I tried that option (a different field per column) as a possibility to lower the number of flds, but actually dropped it as it made a few spreadsheet features more difficult to implement : - variable height of rows - multiple lines content of each cell - single cell selection As for the huge saving times I mentioned earlier, I made some progress on this issue : I discovered that it happens ONLY when all 3000 to 1 flds have the same rect (which happens when one creates 1 fld and then use clone fld 1 in a repeat loop). But once flds are arranged in rows cols (have different rect values), then saving is a snap. I don't why this happens like that : it seems that when too many controls have the same rect, MC gets lost, or has to crosscheck everything several times... Nevertheless, I choosed the option of creating flds on the fly, and it works like a charm... And therefore I was wondering whether enough list members would be interested in a spreadsheet made with MC (which could be of many uses, like GUI for a database...) ? If yes, I could put together a library of scripts allowing users to produce an Excel clone... Including bussiness graphics is also a possibility (and why not interactive 3D biz. graphics in openGL ?)... BTW, I have a question : as for the scripting language for cells, should I emulate the one implemented in Excel, or would it be better to use MetaTalk and the do command ? Thanks for any suggestion... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: 10000 fields and crash
J. Landman Gay : MetaCard's Save menu command includes a compact stack. That's what is probably taking the time. It should save much faster if you type save this stack into the message box. Just tried it : things get even worst : saving a stack with 2000 flds takes 15 min, when it took only 9 min with the Save menu... Shari : The stacks I have with big overhead, lots of sounds and graphics, also take a long time to save, and forever to quit Metacard. Just a simple quit with no quit handler, using whatever Metacard does to quit, can take forever. And I'm on a G-3, 350 mhz, 128 MB ram (though probably beefed up with virtual memory on). Yes I remember you mentioning that. But this time we're talking about 2000 empty flds. And there's no delay in opening / quiting the stack, modifying the flds etc. Only when saving... Richard Gaskin : Have you considered custom properties as an alternative The suggstion is based on the assumption that these fields are being used for data storage only, without need for direct user interaction (are you having the user tab through 10,000 fields? g). Not exactly, but as I'm exploring the possibility to use MC to simulate a spreadsheet, I could use 10,000 flds to display data, and therefore for some direct user interaction, like selecting / moving rows cols... Data will be stored in a global. These data size will never go beyond 250 or 300 Kb, but will be spread on 100 rows of 160 cols. If I can built a binary stack file from scratch (as I was suggesting yesterday), I'll probably try to build all flds groups I need on the fly, since it doesn't take more than a couple of secs on rather slow machines like a G3-300... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
10000 fields and crash
Hi list, I have a stack with only 1 card, and 10,000 fields on that card. I can modify these fields without any problem (resize them, change location and content, etc) but when I save the stack, MC crashes (freezes). So my question is not whether it is wise to have so many controls on 1 card, but what can be the reason of the crash ? I have the feeling I've reached a limit, but which one ? I'm running MC 2.4.1 on Mac OS9, MC memory space is set to 60 Mb and there's 1 Gb of free space on the HD... Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: 10000 fields and crash
Richard Gaskin : May just be a memory issue, esp. given that you're using Mac Classic. Why do you need 10,000 fields? he he he... I knew I would get such questions... For short let's say I'm testing MC limits... And I think I've found a possible answer to my question... I've created a new stack with 1 card and 1000 flds on it. Creating 1000 flds with clone fld 1 in a repeat loop with lock screen takes about 0.1 sec. And as said before, flds can be modified (content properties), grouped or ungrouped, etc. fluently. This is no surprise, since MC limits for number of objects on a card mentions a limit of 4 Gb. Saving a stack with 1000 empty flds produces a 60 Kb file. But to my BIG surprise, saving that stack takes about TWO MINUTES (at least on a PowerMac G3-300) ! And a stack with 2000 flds produces a 112 Kb file, but saving it takes about 9 minutes So, when attempting to save a stack with 1 flds, I don't think it crashes nor freezes the app : it just takes forever When opening the file with BBedit, I noticed that all info regarding the flds is in binary (hence the small file size). Could it be that this process of converting objects data to binary takes so long ? And could there be some way to improve that ? Any MC/Rev big boss listening ? And could someone be kind enough to try it on different platforms and OS ? Thanks in advance. OTOH opening such a stack with 2000 flds is a snap. It's time to go to bed now, but tomorrow I'll try another approach : in BBedit I will duplicate the lines (of the text file that describes the stack) relative to the flds by copy / paste to match large numbers, and then I'll open the file in MC... I guess this should work and be somewhat faster... I hope that's possible... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: 10000 fields and crash
Have you considered custom properties as an alternative? Mmmh... what do you mean exactly ? JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
dashes
Hi there, Is there a way to set the border of a field to dash ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
MC vs EXCEL
Hi again, Is there a specialist of Excel on this list ? In a project for 1 of my clients, I have a flat database on a server whose content is set via a sophisticated HTML form and a couple of MC cgi scripts. This flat database is a tab-return file with 100 rows and 100 cols. My client wants to visualize / modify all the content at once like in a spreadsheet on his PC, and save modifications on the server. Further data processing will need to be done on the PC (not saved on the server), like generating PDF files from sections of the database content, etc. Is there a way to do that with Excel (view / modify / save the database) or do I have to simulate a spreadsheet with MC ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: plug-in architecture (was : MC IDE's home)
I guess so, although I'd probably want a lawyer to take a good look just in case one of you guys implements something that would add value to Rev. However, if it's GPL it's just another good reason for you to go with a plugin architecture. I know it sounds like a newbie question but anyway, as I still haven't found the time to take a look at the latest Rev version, could someone be kind enough to explain to me briefly how does this plugin arch. work in Rev ? Thanks in advance, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: plug-in architecture (was : MC IDE's home)
Richard, jbv wrote: could someone be kind enough to explain to me briefly how does this plugin arch. work in Rev ? Basically it's just a menu built dynamically to provide quick access to stack files in a Plugins folder. Rev builds its menu at startup, but my own plugins menu works so fast being built on mouseDown that I've grown fond of the convenience of not having to quit MC to have new additions appear in the menu. I see. I don't know why, but I was expecting some sophisticated concept... Thanks for the explanation anyway. One last question : could we also drop standalones into that Plugins folder ? I don't see any specific reason to do that right now, I'm just wondering if that would be feasable... Thanks again, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC IDE
Robert Brenstein a écrit: If Revolution were modified so that only the basic functionality was implemented in the IDE and all other features were implemented as modules that could be turned off would that satisfy everyone? If so, perhaps we could develop a proposal for RunRev to implement such a design. The ability to develop custom modules that would fully integrate into the IDE would be fantastic as far as I'm concerned. Monte What you suggest would be only a half solution IMHO. Hiding/deactivating undesirable or not needed elements could unclutter the display. However, the large memory requirements will likely remain and so will the background activity to name a few things that affect some of my work. Plus this will complicate the Rev IDE even further, hencefore making it potentially less stable. May be, but also may be not : I think the idea of modules to beturned on/off is a great one (actually I had the same not so long ago :) And IMHO the possible memory / bg activity / stability problems mentioned by Robert could probably be bypassed by using an adequate structure : modules would be selected so that to update a preferences file that would be taken into account at the next launch of Rev only. This way, only modules used would be loaded into memory and therefore would reduced the amount of memory needed as well as the bg activity, and a simpler configuration would certainly mean more stability... I don't think that turning on/off modules on the fly is necessary : IMHO most users don't change their preferences very often once they get a GUI that suits their needs... Perhaps this could be achieved by dropping stacks into a Preferences folder, whose content would be loaded at MC startup, a bit like you drop extensions into the Mac system folder... This way, private features could be added very easily... Anyway, I could be wrong, but I think that from a commercial / marketing point of view, now that RR owns the MC engine, a sophisticated GUI should become less important... Well it should still be an option (especially for Director afficionados and other developpers wannabes who think tons of palettes mean a more sophisticated / productive piece of software), but the main goal needs to be the improvement of the engine of course. Another great thing I'd like to see implemented in the engine (already mentioned on this list by me about 1 year ago) is that the interpreter would be structured as librairies (like in C/C++) : standard, math, graphics... This way, when building a standalone, only librairies used in the stack would be added to the stack, and not the whole engine. Of course, this process should be 100% transparent to the end user : the engine should be able to analyse which librairies are needed and would add those only. This would perhaps lead to a slower standalone building process, but also (and mainly) to slimmer apps. Well, I'm not sure if this is feasable... Perhaps does that imply to re-write the whole engine... But I don't think so : seeing how new features are added to MC at every update (without ruining what already exists) shows that obviously some modularity already exists... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: New tool proposal for the MetaCard IDE
Alejandro Tejada a écrit: Hi developers, Can I propose a Bezier Drawing tool for the MC ide? I could prepare something for the middle of the next week. It will include a tool to modify polygon graphics using bezier curves. Who could help me to review and enhance the code? I can help if you want, as I'm slightly less busy for the next few days... Although I might suggest that we introduce REAL Bezier curves instead (and not only polygon aproximations) : it's possible to have such 2D splines (and manipulate them in realtime with the mouse, and add control points, etc) through openGL. The only drawback is that AFAIR the MC engine doesn't allow the creation of new controls through externals... Therefore these splines will have to be displayed inside img controls... But I was thinking that may be there's a possibility to fake such a vector control by setting the rest of the img pixels to transparent... Any suggestion welcome... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Script Limits and solid IDE evolution!
I personally dont see an economic reason why this should be limited. I do see reasons to abandon MC/RR more and more... Sad but true... I dont mind evolution of products, but Im against limiting of features while essential things like a good Script Editors or debugger are still as arcane as an sword against an automatic rifle which put a major brake on your productivity are still not being improved as they should. Same remark for antialiased vector graphics which are non-existent in MC/RR,and that would make of MC a good competitor to Flash... Without competition most of the world would be made of communist or socialists and using microsoft DOS. Well, things aren't so straightforward... Please remember that USSR was thefirst country to put a spaceship in orbit, to have robots landing on Mars... And BTW DOS wasn't invented by K. Marx... But this is getting OT... The choir : "Wow! there's a communist on this list..." More features, more freedom = more users, more clients, more applications, more power to the developper = MORE competitive IDE = more users = less competition! Well, these days too often competition leads to standardization monotony... At least we can agree on the following : more features + more power to the developper = less users tempted to switch to another IDE... JB
Re: Script Limits
I know that this limitation will cause of to rewrite sections some of my existing products. I remember in HC and OMO using scripts of controls to hold data. In case scripts of controls in MC are used for the same purpose (holding data, and not executable code), could custom props be a nice workaround ? Just asking, as I've never used custom props much... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC OpenGL (update)
Hi again, I'm afraid there's a little confusion in the word implementation. The only purpose of the demo I put online was to show that realtime communication between MC and openGL was possible, as well as displaying the rendered image in an MC img control. Of course the final purpose is to have everything scriptable, including 3D objects, textures they use and how they interact... My question concerned mainly : HOW to do that in MetaTalk ? A large set of functions and properties should be added to the the language of course, but HOW should it be structured ? As long as there's only a couple of textured spheres or cubes floating around, that's not too complicated... But what about a particule system made of metaballs bouncing around according to a complex math function (for instance) ? I'm presently working on a 3D sound processing app that would display partials spectrum of sounds in 3D (from Csound files), and allow users to manipulate these data (first with the mouse and various tools, and in the end with a data glove) like clay, and then re-synthesise the sound. So at every step of this work I try to figure out what would be the best (read: more ergonomic / intuitive / productive) way to script it in MT. And sadly, it appears that coding it in C as an external with simple calls from a MC scripts remains the most powerful flexible way to do... By powerful I mean : giving access to all openGL features. My suggestions would include a good look at Director and the 3D Lingo terminology and then to take the core of this and add something special. I had a look at 3D Lingo (I dropped Director around version 4, andit made me feel strange to go back to this crappy sprite stuff)... Please don't take it personal, but it's the typical example of what I'd like to avoid... It's a vague suggestion, and I'm not up fully on the technical side - but the frustration I had then was the lack of ability to dynamically create a world. So I'd like to ba able to have an interface which would allow me to stream / add to / delete from / morph the OpenGL content - not just move around and interact with precreated environments. This is closer to what I had in mind... Bringing up the open source theme again - the most exciting thing by far in the 3D realm from my point of view would be to take the Open Source code from the largest online 3D community - Blender and be able to use both the authoring tools and real-time engine to create and control 3D objects within the MC environment. is Blender cross-platform ? It uses Python at the moment as a scripting language, and you could look at how this is implemented. From my view at the time it would make a more valuable product to use MC as a backend scripting language for a 3D front end than to play 3D windows within an MC front end? Any useful link for that ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC OpenGL (update)
I am excited about your work. Thank you so much.After the lack of response to my post from 2 weeks ago, I thought everyone had lost interest in it... It would extra cool if we could import 3d objects in from modeling apps as well. I didn't include that option in the demo, but it's one of the easiest thing to do I guess most 3D modelers export to openGL format. And if they don't, there are more than enough translators available on the net. Format translation is also an option that could be implemented... I wasn't planing to create a 3D modeler with MC anyway. But I strongly believe that a set of (scriptable) tools to process / modify 3D data (extrude, stretch...) could be a great feature, because interactive 3D doesn't only mean moving rotating objects... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC OpenGL (update)
Hi all, I'm a bit surprised by the lack of response to my post from 2 weeks ago regarding the best way to implement openGL in MC... Has everybody lost interest in that feature ? Or is everyone on vacation ? Or has WW4 already began ? Regards, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: A task for Binary decode?
Rodney,
At first glance, the data looks like octal (base 8), and therefore
I'd be tempted to use baseconvert to convert it to base 10...
For instance :
put baseconvert(377, 8, 10) -- 255
But I'm somewhat puzzled by things like Exif or MM in the
code...
JB
Hi everyone,
I need to convert some data received from a postgreSQL database back
into recognizable binary data. The data was written there by a
JDBC/Java application, and it appears that it stores the binary data in
octets - but this is new territory for me so I am hoping someone more
knowledgible here can help.
I'm retrieving this data using Revolution's database library.
I wonder whether binaryDecode or (possibly even) the convertOctals
property could be useful in converting this data back into recognizable
binary data. Any ideas?
I am still trying to get the PostgreSQL database to allow me to upload
blobs from Revolution, but so far without success...
Thanks very much.
~Rodney
(going to bed as is 4.30am, and although I enjoy programming in
Revolution a lot... well, there are limits!)
-- sample of data
\377\330\377\341\025\342Exif\000\000MM\000*\000\000\000\010\000\014\001\
017\000\002\000\000\000\006\000\000\000\236\001\020\000\002\000\000\000\
023\000\000\000\244\001\022\000\003\000\000\000\001\000\001\000\000\001\
022\000\003\000\000\000\001\000\001\000\000\001\032\000\005\000\000\000\
001\000\000\000\270\001\033\000\005\000\000\000\001\000\000\000\300\001(
\000\003\000\000\000\001\000\002\000\000\0011\000\002\000\000\000\016\00
0\000\000\310\0012\000\002\000\000\000\024\000\000\000\326\001\000\002\
000\000\000\020\000\000\000\352\002\023\000\003\000\000\000\001\000\001\
000\000\207i\000\004\000\000\000\001\000\000\000\372\000\000\003\240Cano
n\000Canon PowerShot
G3\000\000\000\264\000\000\000\001\000\000\000\264\000\000\000\001\000\0
00QuickTime 6.1\0002003:08:03 17:56:50\000Mac OS X
-- sample of jdbc code used to write the object:
(I think this code is right, but - well - possibly not the latest
version, let me know if you are interested and
I will check)
Postgres supports inserting blobs through JDBC like Oracle:
CREATE TABLE images (imgname text, img bytea);
To insert an image, you would use:
File file = new File(myimage.gif);
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file);
PreparedStatement ps = conn.prepareStatement(INSERT INTO images VALUES
(?, ?));
ps.setString(1, file.getName());
ps.setBinaryStream(2, fis, file.length());
ps.executeUpdate();
ps.close();
fis.close();
To retrieve it you:
PreparedStatement ps = con.prepareStatement(SELECT img FROM images
WHERE
imgname=?);
ps.setString(1, myimage.gif);
ResultSet rs = ps.executeQuery();
if (rs != null) {
while(rs.next()) {
byte[] imgBytes = rs.getBytes(1);
// use the stream in some way here
}
rs.close();
}
ps.close();
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Re: Does your MC crash too?
Weird cause Im using windows with some 750 MB's of ram (*1.2 swap files) MC usually doesn't go beyond 30MB's of ram usage (go figure for what!) To me part of the problem seems that the allocation of the image space in the stack is not "solid" - it is not compactable it seems for one, and once an image is decompressed, that's it, you're stuck with that size... Well, I'm not sure if this is gonna help, but I have the feeling it's a memory problem. I always develop my stacks on Mac (OS 9 so far) and when I do multiple successive "set filename of img 1" (for an img control used as background graphic), it seems that previous content of that img control isn't purged from memory, and that successive replacements finally crash the app. Perhaps is it related to the fact that the "always buffer" prop of that img is set to true... I don't know... I also noticed that "set filename of img 1 to empty" before setting filename to another file leads to less crashes. I only experienced these problems in edit mode. In standalones everything's works perfect... JB
Re: Script Limits and solid IDE evolution!
I still think the free StarterKit was the best thing ever. One could play with it, get used to the app and even build useful things :-) and 30 (contiguous?) days may be not enough, even with no script limits... And BTW is this 30 days trial a valid / useful protection ? I know ppl who build huge projects by re-downloading again and again Flash MX (or other apps) evaluation versions every 30 days... Telling the truth I downloaded the Rev 2.01 (AFAIR) about 2 weeks ago, but haven't downloaded the key yet, as I'm not sure I'll have enough time within the next 30 days to explore every feature... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Script Limits
Richard, what you suggest are all workabouts. And the fact that this groups is 100% against the change does not mean it will not go into effect. This issue barely caused a blink on Rev list and that is where majority of Rev users are. We are soon to be a true minority and our interest in retaining MC as it was will make us dinosaurs :( Same feeling here...:( BTW could someone eventually post Shari's informal poll to the Rev list ? I'm not on the Rev list myself... And BTW again, did anyone contact Kevin privately about this script limit thing, as suggested in his original message ? And did anyone get an answer ? I'm not so interested in the content of the answer, but much more in knowing if any answer has been received... JB PS: if such big differences exists between MC and Rev users, why don't we (MC users) get organised as an (informal) think tank / users union, in order to provide RR with smart criticism, wise suggestions and even source code in order to improve the MC engine, in exchange for free (or lower prices on) licences ? Yes, I know, it's a weird mix between naive hippie idealism and open source philosophy, and it certainly needs to be improved, but well it doesn't cost anything (except some bandwidth) to post it... According to recent messages on this list, if things at RR evolve the wrong way, it seems that many of us won't upgrade to Rev and will switch to another tool... So at first glance it looks like each side would gain from that : - Rev would have a bunch of pro / experienced beta testers / critics / contributors / whatever - we would keep our favorite tool and watch it evolve in ways we like - MC/Rev will improve and be a strong competitor (for Director etc) and eventually attract new users, which means more market shares for Rev... Of course, these contributions would rather concern the engine than the GUI... And since I didn't spend more than 5 minutes on this idea, there are certainly numerous flaws that everyone will be happy to point out... ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: An informal poll....
How many, who have purchased licenses, use MC/Rev to build standalones, that will be distributed to others? I don't create much for my own use. 99% of everything I do, is for distribution, to produce income. The rest of you? I would say 80% to produce income, the rest is for my own use, mainly experimentation ideas testing, for future use in prof. projects eventually... But anyway, of all the standalones I produced for clients within the last 3 years, only 1% or 2% could have stand the 10 lines script limit. All the rest was way too complex... BTW I think one should extend the poll to Rev list... I'm wondering if the responses would be similar... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC OpenGL (update)
My understanding is that WW4 has begun. Oh I see... When did it begin ? When Runrev bought MC ?;-P I think you'll need to write an external that draws directly into a window - maybe something like the life external demo? Well, drawing into a window isn't too difficult, and can be done when you use openGL in C/C++. I think I've achieved smthing slightly more exciting : drawing directly into a MC image control. Some of you probably remember the demo I did several months ago (still online at http://www.netchampagne.com/demoopengl/ Windoze only). I say more exciting because IMHO it is more embedded in the MC environment than an extra window, and also it allows several interactive 3D windows to be included in the same stack simultaneously. As mentioned in my post from 2 weeks ago, this feature is now available for Win32 and Carbon. But my main question regarding the implementation of openGL in MC was : how end users would like to access 3D properties and functions from within MetaTalk scripts... Anyone who has some experience with openGL coding in C/C++ or Java knows that using openGL is slightly more complex than setting a few QT properties for instance... I might be wrong but I have the feeling that MC users (or at least MC list members) are more experienced programers with experience in many languages / environments, while Rev users (or at least Rev list members) are more HC or Director users in search for a new tool... What I mean by that in that IMHO using interactive 3D in projects should be an attractive feature to members of this very list... And that good advices and wise considerations regarding 3D implementation should come from this list... Just imagine : networked 3D interactive apps could be more affordable now, requiring less development time... This should speak to game designers... For the anecdote, as I'm about to change job, I recently met a few managers of multimedia companies in Paris. The problem is (and has always been) that most of these ppl lack the technology knowledge to make good decisions regarding exciting projects. For that matter, they all think that Flash Director (with the help of a few Xtras) are still the state-of-the-art for interactive media projects, and when I mentioned such networked 3D interactive apps, they immediatly thought in terms of long expensive development in C/C++ ... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Script Limits
Richard Gaskin : Custom properties are a very powerful feature of not only Rev but other xTalks as well, including ToolBook, Gain Momentum, and SuperCard. Well worth taking an evening to experiment with... Which confirms my first impression. BTW I guess that a custom property can also include some code that can be activated / executed via a do command... Execution speed might be slowed down a bit, but could this be a workaround for the 10 (or 0) lines script limit ? JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Script Limits
I would still like to know exactly what the new changes will affect, in case it is something that my current projects use. Telling the truth, I must confess that I share Shari's worries. I'm afraid this script limit thing might be the first of a long list of unexpected (and undocumented / unexplained) changes, and discussions about them might clutter this list in coming weeks... Last but not least, I think that getting messages from Kevin saying we're working on this and that... If anyone has any objections to this, please contact me off list. isn't the best strategy / politics to convince MC users to upgrade to Rev... And certainly not the best official answer to all the questions raised lately... As Shari wrote, we need an official FAQ showing that there are still ppl at RR reading this list, and not only a bunch of biznessmen busy with marketing strategies... Yes, I know I'm overreacting a bit, but better now than too late... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: environment question
Hi everyone, In view of the future, and with regards to what is running, how can you know if it is MetaCard or RR running your stack? Well, at first glance I see 2 options : - checking the version : if it's beyond 2.5 it must be RR; otherwise, no way to know... - if it's a standalone, the question is meaningless, since only the engine is added to your stack and since MC RR use the same engine... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Standalone Builder question
Thank you all for your kind answers and wise recommendations to test the standalone on a Windoze machine before releasing it. But actually the reason why I decided to build the Win standalone on a Mac is because I'm facing another problem : a Win standalone built on an XP machine doesn't launch on a Win98 machine... Actually it's been built on an XP machine, then burned on a CD, then ftp transfered via Fetch on a Mac to my client who can't launch it after downloading it to his PC... We've done that before and it worked fine, the only difference is that there were Win98 machines on both sides... Did anyone experience anything similar ? I guess something gets lost on the way, but I can't figure out when... I thought that building the Win app on Mac might reduce the risks to spoil the file... Of course I still have the option to snail mail a CD... Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
MC OpenGL (update)
Hi list, Although I don't have much time to spend on this project these days, I managed to build an external for accessing openGL on Mac. Since it's Carbon compatible, it should run on OS8.6 to OSX (haven't tested it on OSX though). As I already achieved something similar on Win32 a few months ago, some sort of cross-platform compatibility already exists. Nevertheless, I'm still puzzled about the way to implement openGL in a MC context. So far, I see 3 options : 1) implement all openGL functions in MetaTalk. I see several flaws in this option : - there are more than 130 functions, which might end up in a HUGE external. - accessing openGL would still remain complicated, as programmers would still need to think code simultaneously in MT, C and openGL... - execution of scripts would be quite slow due to the multiple calls - some programing tricks tips in C + openGL would be impossible to reproduce... 2) make a selection of a limited number of openGL functions options, and implement them in a MetaTalk-compatible way. In that case, programmers would still think code in MT, and translation of the code to openGL would be completely transparent. Again several flaws : - how to do the selection of openGL functions ? - execution of scripts would be quite slow due to the multiple calls - some programing tricks tips in C + openGL would be impossible to reproduce... 3) keep doing what I've done in my experiments so far : build a different external for each project involving openGL. Each external features only the C functions (and openGL calls) to be used in each specific project. This option has several advantages : - the size of the external remains small - many programing tips can be used - scripts execution (and openGL calls) are done at high speed. OTOH the main drawback is that a specific C development needs to be done for each project. Of course, reusability of large portions of code is possible, but still : more programing debugging are necessary... Actually, if implementation of openGL in MC is quite feasable, it's not as straightforward as QT for instance... I would gladly apreciate any suggestion / discussion on this topic. According to previous reactions, I know that several list members (especially those involved in games and / or scientific apps) are highly interested in that option. Last but not least : there's a 4th option. As the company I'm working for isn't doing very well and as I might get laid off within the next few weeks, I can sell my skills as programer to those interested in developping projects including 3D imagery... I know it sounds like an heresy to fans of open source and those who think this list should remain a place to share code, but I guess I'll still have some monthly bills to pay, even after I get laid off... Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Importing ( streamlining) EPS
Alejandro, Tonight, I test your handler and I'm getting two list of points. But in the first list, the X coordinate is the same for all the numbers of the list! What I'm doing wrong? Maybe this part is the problem. It returns the same number. -- INITIALIZES step value AND fixed x values put trunc(abs(item 1 of last line of variablezxc-item 1 of first line of variablezxc)/Nsteps) into v put into Vsteps repeat with i=1 to Nsteps put item 1 of first line of variablezxc+(i*v) into item 1 of line i of Vsteps end repeat put item 1 of first line of variablezxc cr before Vsteps WHOOOPS !!! I didn't send the very last version... The part of the handler quoted above should be replaced with the following : put trunc(abs(item 1 of a-item 1 of d)/Nsteps) into v put 0 into n put into Vsteps repeat with i=1 to Nsteps put item 1 of a+(i*v) into item 1 of line i of Vsteps end repeat put a cr before Vsteps I just tested it and it works. Sorry for the mistake, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Importing ( streamlining) EPS
Alejandro, Can you give us an example of this linear interpolation? At the end of this message you'll find the Bezier handler I'm using. The linear interpolation works although it's still a bit crude and needs some more fine tuning. I haven't had a look yet at the other approach you mentioned in your last email, but if that new solution is really computationally intensive, I guess I'll stick with linear interpolation which isn't too slow after all... By the way jbv, you made a demostration of openGL in MetaCard. Are you going to keep working in this demo? or Abandoned the idea? Well, it's a long story. About 6 months ago, I was planing to develop this openGL thing within a project for a client. It seemed like a good opportunity to make some applied research financed by a real life project. Unfortunately, the client abandonned the project and I found myself overflooded with other things to do and had to put the idea on a shelf for a while. Now I'm working on it at home in my spare time (using Code Warrior on a Mac), and of course things have been slowed down by several orders of magnitude. It's quite irritating because it opens a fantastic new world... Anyway, if anyone is willing to sponsor this research, please contact me off-list... Thanks, JB -- on bezier global variablezxc,a,b,c,d,Vsteps put a cr b cr c cr d put the first item of a into x1 -- red dot the first item of the loc of grc startpoint put the first item of d into x2 -- blue dot the first item of the loc of grc endpoint put the first item of b into xa -- green dot the first item of the loc of grc control1 put the first item of c into xb -- yellow dot the first item of the loc of grc control2 put the second item of a into y1 put the second item of d into y2 put the second item of b into ya put the second item of c into yb put 20 into Nsteps put 0 into v1 put(1/Nsteps)into j put into n put into nv Repeat with i = 1 TO Nsteps put i*j into v1 put v1 into line i of n put 1-v1 into v2 put v1*v1*v2 into v11 put v1*v2*v2 into v22 put(v2^3)into v3 put(v1^3)into v13 put (x1*v3+(3*xa*v22)+(3*xb*v11)+(x2*v13))into x put (y1*v3+(3*ya*v22)+(3*yb*v11)+(y2*v13))into y put x div 1,y div 1 return after variablezxc end repeat -- REMOVES similar successive pairs of values repeat with i=(number of lines of variablezxc) down to 2 if line i of variablezxc is not then if line i of variablezxc = line i-1 of variablezxc then delete line i of variablezxc end if end if end repeat -- INITIALIZES step value AND fixed x values put trunc(abs(item 1 of last line of variablezxc-item 1 of first line of variablezxc)/Nsteps) into v put into Vsteps repeat with i=1 to Nsteps put item 1 of first line of variablezxc+(i*v) into item 1 of line i of Vsteps end repeat put item 1 of first line of variablezxc cr before Vsteps -- COMPUTES linear interpolation on y values according to new x values repeat with j=1 to (number of lines of Vsteps)-1 repeat with i=1 to number of lines of variablezxc if item 1 of line i of Vsteps = item 1 of line j of variablezxc then put item 2 of line i of variablezxc into item 2 of line i of Vsteps next repeat else if (item 1 of line i of Vsteps item 1 of line j of variablezxc) and (item 1 of line i of Vsteps item 1 of line (j+1) of variablezxc) then put item 1 of line j of variablezxc into x1 put item 1 of line (j+1) of variablezxc into x2 put item 2 of line j of variablezxc into y1 put item 2 of line (j+1) of variablezxc into y2 put trunc(y1+((y2-y1)*((item 1 of line i of Vsteps-x1)/(x2-x1 into item 2 of line i of Vsteps end if end if end repeat end repeat put item 2 of last line of variablezxc into item 2 of last line of Vsteps put Vsteps cr cr variablezxc end bezier ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Importing ( streamlining) EPS
BTW in the EPStoMetacard stack (I'm not sure I'm using the last version though), and more specifically in the bezier handler, is there a way to modify the equations used to get x values (and the corresponding y values) EQUALLY SPACED on the x axis ? Oviously, it has to do with the way v1 and v2 are incremented in the loop, but my maths are too limited to figure out how to do that... I know I could use the handler as it is and then perform linear interpolation, but I'd like to compute the values on 1 single pass... Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Compiling externals on Mac with Code Warrior
I managed to compile an external into a CODE ressource and place it into mchelp.mc, just as indicated in the ReadMe file under system 9. So I'm happy, but still have a practical question though : if I modify the C source code and recompile it, it seems that Code Warrior refuses to simply replace the CODE ressource in mchelp.mc and crashes. I if remove the ressource with ResEdit before re-compiling, it works. Do I have to remove the CODE with ResEdit before every new compilation ? I can do it, but it looks like a real waste of time... Is there a more easy way to develop an external and test it ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Radical slowdown on one system
Richard, When I run the WebMerge tutorial here on the slowest machine I have (Win 95, 300MHz), it generates the tutoprial pages in 3.9 seconds. I have a customer running Win98 on a 1.7GHz maxchine and the same files take 4 minutes to process.(!) Does your customer have things like Kazaa installed on his hard drive ? One guy in our company recently experiencied major slow down under XP and Photoshop, and spent the whole day trying to figure out what had changed in his settings, and it was only Kazaa users accessing some files on his HD... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Dumb sort question - Tanks Comments
Ken, Sorry for being so late on this topic, but last week has been sort of hectic... Anyway, thanks a lot for your suggestion. I found the time to test it today : it works great but, like the other script submitted by Jacqueline, it becomes rather slow when the amount of data gets large... Best regards, JB jb, I'm sorry that I came in late on this, but here's a way to do it with a custom transposing function... it may not be fast enough, but adapt it to your data and give it a try and let us know your results: on mouseUp -- A sample line number to extract put 3 into theLineToGet put 1 into theItemNumberToSortBy -- Some sample data put b,d,c,a cr 2,4,3,1 cr B,D,C,A cr 20,40,30,10 into tVar -- Transpose the data put transposeIt(tVar) into temp -- Sort it sort lines of temp by item theItemNumberToSortBy of each -- extract line (column) of data, put it into a field put line theLineToGet of transposeIt(temp) into fld 1 end if end mouseUp function transposeIt what -- assumes comma-delimited items and cr-delimited lines put into returnVal put 1 into tItemCounter repeat for each line tLine in what put 1 into tLineCounter if tItemCounter = 1 then -- use replace for quick action on first line of data replace , with cr in tLine put tLine into returnVal else repeat for each item i in tLine put , after line tLineCounter of returnVal put i after line tLineCounter of returnVal add 1 to tLineCounter end repeat end if add 1 to tItemCounter end repeat return returnVal end transposeIt Hope this helps, Ken Ray Sons of Thunder Software Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/ - Original Message - From: jbv [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 9:36 AM Subject: Re: Dumb sort question - Tanks Comments Thank you all for your help suggestions. Unfortunately, none of them helped solving my problem... Below you'll find a few more info on what I'm trying to do, comments on some suggestions and finally some feature requests for future versions of MC. Basically, I need to sort a variable featuring 5 lines with a max of 30,000 items each. The sort key could be any of the 5 lines, and after sorting I'd like to extract any line of the variable (get line 3 of myVariable) for further processing. The content of every item of every line can change / evolve continuously. When the variable is organized as 30,000 lines of 5 items each, sorting is a snap (less than 1 second), but then extracting 1 column is impossible... Jacqueline : Thanks for your script : it works great, but when the variable reaches 20,000 items per line, it becomes way too slow... Ray : Yes, the transpose function looks attracting, but unfortunately it only works on arrays. And once the array has been transposed, it seems impossible to extract 1 single line / row. I tried to put the array content into a variable, but it remains stractured as an array... BTW, when the size of a 2 dimensions array reaches a certain limit (5 rows 20,000 column), I get the error message : can't transpose this array (or something similar), while it works fine with 5 rows and 10,000 colums... Is it a bug ? Mr X : Yes, 1 of the Rinaldi externals does that perfectly, but doesn't run on Windoze... Andu and Tariel : Yes, being able to access arrays content via individual rows columns would be a GREAT feature... I'd even dare to say that future versions of MC should implement most of the properties functions associated with spreadsheets in OMO, but applied to arrays, which means : - the ability to split arrays vertically horizontally - the ability to extract individual rows / colums - the ability to sort the content of an array according to sort keys that could be individual rows / colums - a special find function that would work like in OMO spreadsheets : find rows of myTab where item 2 10 would return a comma-separated list of numbers of rows for which this condition is true Actually, spreadsheets in OMO where 1 of the greatest tools I've ever used and I still miss them several years later... Of course, this would work on 1 or 2 dimension arrays; for 3 dimension arrays, things get more complex... Cheers, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL
Re: MC front end to PostgreSQL
Pierre Andu , andu a écrit : When it comes to browsers they should be considered bugged when they work... I'd like to understand why people use javascript when they can do with plain html. Allo Andu, I agree with you. Most browser-side problems are happening in parsing ..js code. Sorry folks, but I totally disagree with you... Yes, parsing JS can be a problem sometimes (especially between the same browser version running on different platforms), but according to my humble experience, HTML is much worse !!! JS + CSS (actually DHTML) is the less painful solution... Unless of course, your use of HTML is limited to forms... As for Flash, I just can't understand why most ppl fall in love with it... It's a totally self-contained environment that can't interact with anything else on your webpage... Furthermore, the scripting language is the most absurd thing I've ever seen (although I must confess I don't have a long experience with it : what I mostly do is trying to write a few lines of script to help our graphic designer when he's facing a critical situation); for instance, I never managed to create a global variable in Flash... Telling the truth, I'm seriously thinking of using SVG in the future, coz I like the way it can be embeded in webpages and interact with JS. And BTW did anyone notice that SVG has been recommended by the W3C, and that they never mentioned Flash ? Last but not least : as for web-dedicated MC apps, I'm working on a rather ambitious project that would combine cgi, DHTML and MC (and a few other techniques). The problem is with our client (and even with many ppl in the company I'm working for) : the shift in the approach is so big that they need a long time (much more than I expected actually) to get used to it, before they take any decision... The funny thing is that the main reason for the client to take the plunge is when I say that in the long run, development costs will be reduced (and in my company, it's the opposite : it's a good reason to ignore my project and stick to the good old webpages)... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Dumb sort question - Tanks Comments
Thank you all for your help suggestions. Unfortunately, none of them helped solving my problem... Below you'll find a few more info on what I'm trying to do, comments on some suggestions and finally some feature requests for future versions of MC. Basically, I need to sort a variable featuring 5 lines with a max of 30,000 items each. The sort key could be any of the 5 lines, and after sorting I'd like to extract any line of the variable (get line 3 of myVariable) for further processing. The content of every item of every line can change / evolve continuously. When the variable is organized as 30,000 lines of 5 items each, sorting is a snap (less than 1 second), but then extracting 1 column is impossible... Jacqueline : Thanks for your script : it works great, but when the variable reaches 20,000 items per line, it becomes way too slow... Ray : Yes, the transpose function looks attracting, but unfortunately it only works on arrays. And once the array has been transposed, it seems impossible to extract 1 single line / row. I tried to put the array content into a variable, but it remains stractured as an array... BTW, when the size of a 2 dimensions array reaches a certain limit (5 rows 20,000 column), I get the error message : can't transpose this array (or something similar), while it works fine with 5 rows and 10,000 colums... Is it a bug ? Mr X : Yes, 1 of the Rinaldi externals does that perfectly, but doesn't run on Windoze... Andu and Tariel : Yes, being able to access arrays content via individual rows columns would be a GREAT feature... I'd even dare to say that future versions of MC should implement most of the properties functions associated with spreadsheets in OMO, but applied to arrays, which means : - the ability to split arrays vertically horizontally - the ability to extract individual rows / colums - the ability to sort the content of an array according to sort keys that could be individual rows / colums - a special find function that would work like in OMO spreadsheets : find rows of myTab where item 2 10 would return a comma-separated list of numbers of rows for which this condition is true Actually, spreadsheets in OMO where 1 of the greatest tools I've ever used and I still miss them several years later... Of course, this would work on 1 or 2 dimension arrays; for 3 dimension arrays, things get more complex... Cheers, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
MC on Apache and CGI
Hello again, I have a rather odd request regarding the installation of MC on a server running Apache for CGI applications, both from standard web pages and from MC standlones. MC has been installed on 2 of our servers several months ago and I've used it successfully for a couple of projects and everything works fine. The question is NOT about how to use it, but how to INSTALL it. Let me explain : it had been installed by a guy who no longer works with us, and I'm not an Apache wizzard. Furthermore, there are plans to transfer the content of our servers to the servers of a company who would administrate everything for us (mainly for cost reduction). Of course, ppl at that company never heard of MC and are quite reluctant to install it on their machines... So what I need is accurate info (from someone who already installed it and uses it daily - Pierre ? ) about installation and safety issues, mainly to convince those ppl... I remember some posts on this list about the need of a wrapper (to hinder hackers to take control of the server), and differences between MC and Mchttpd, but am afraid I don't master these subjects well enough to convince a Unix pro... As I want to use MC for cgi in more and more projects, I'd be very glad if someone could take a part of his time and explain everything to me (or at least everything I need to know), on or off list, it doesn't matter... Or perhaps does anyone know of some company here in France who already knows MC and is willing to have it installed on their servers... It would make things easier... Thanks in advance for your time attention. Best, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC on Apache and CGI
Pierre, It's, basicaly, two ways you can install mc to have it running behind Apache. 1.- As a simple cgi engine : just drop the mc engine where you want (but not in a directory where any bad guy will expect to find it) and add the right path head your mc-cgi scripts, alike #!/the path/mc. Verify that the right permissions are ok to let the cgis lauchables by the mc engine and it will be ok. That's what has been done (AFAIK) and it works OK. Although your comments raise a few important questions that I'll have to discuss with the UNIX guy : - what is the best directory to drop the mc engine so that no bad guy finds it ? - and what can happen if any bad guy finds it ? - is there anything specific that can be done (by a bad guy) with MC as a simple cgi engine that can't be done with a php or perl engine ? - does it have to do with the presence of a wrapper (I've seen that word at times in articles / discussions about cgi engines) ? - are there any safety measures to take to prevent that ? And as for permissions : I know that the right permissions have to be set to mc-cgi scripts and text files used by those scripts, but have the feeling that there must be some specific other permissions to set in the Apache configuration to allow mc-cgi scripts to be triggered by external requests... If yes, can those permissions be set for one domain name only ? More on this issues, please... Thanks a lot, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Dumb sort question
Hi everybody, Sorting a variable made of various lines with several items in each line with the sort command is easy : sort lines of Myvariable by item 2 of each But how can I sort a variable featuring 4 lines with several hundreds of items in each, so that (for instance) items of line 4 are sorted numeric ascending, and (that's important) items of other lines being moved according to the new position of each item of line 4 ? For instance : line 1 :b,d,c,a line 2 :2,4,3,1 after sorting line 2, the content would become : line 1 :a,b,c,d line 2 :1,2,3,4 I have the feeling this can't be done in MC, while I remember doing it in OMO using the spreadsheet control... Thanks for any suggestion. JB P.S. I need to do it FAST on large variables, therefore a repeat loop won't do. ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
setregistry Windows registry question
Hi list, How do I use setregistry when a key features more than 1 value ? I'm somewhat puzzled coz after some web search, I found different infos : - some ppl say that the Windows registry should contain several times the same entry with a different value for each - others say that the same entry can contain multiple values separated by a NULL (or space / coma) character and must be of MULTI_SZ type... Any specialist opinion ? Can I use setregistery with a coma-separated list of items as Value parameter ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
active app
Hi everyone, Is there a way to know (by script) when a standalone becomes the active app in the foreground (on Windoze Mac) ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Mouse keyboard tracking blues
Hi again, I still have a problem when tracking mouse keyboard events on Windoze when a QT movie is playing : all events are kind of buffered and processed only when the movie has come to its end... It's rather disturbing, especially in apps where users are allowed to grab moving objects while movies are playing... At first I thought that QT was sucking up all processor power, but the same problem arises under XP @ 1.2 GHz... On Mac, everything goes perfect (at least 95% of the time)... Did anyone experience the same problem ? Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
odd-shaped cards
Hi folks, The info slips my mind right now... Could someone remind me which MC version was the first to allow the use of a PNG img as a source for non-rectangular odd shaped cards, and what is the name of the associated property ? Thanks in advance, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
MC openGL
Hi list, The demo of an external / DLL bridging the gap between MC and openGL is available at : http://www.netchampagne.com/demoopengl/ It should remain there for 1 or 2 weeks. It's a 1.64 Mb zip archive, featuring a MC standalone and a DLL. So far, it's only Win32 compatible. Once unzipped, to run properly both files need to be in the same directory. It's actually a simple / crude demo with rotation, zoom, texture mapping blending. You can also load your own texture (256 * 256 pixels file only). Comments apreciated. Thanks, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC openGL
Ken Ray wrote : What's the minimum requirements in your opinion to get decent performance? Performance depends mostly on openGl code (number of vertices, etc), not on the DLL itself which only passes data to the openGL libraries. The last few days we've been experimenting on a K16 CPU at 300 MHz with about 12,000 vertices and are still getting decent performance... Needless to say that with an accelerator board, it's heaven on earth... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: slighty OT (and slighty stupid) : triggering events
The only way i know to simulate this kind of stuffs under IPV4 is to use the server-side cgi or app to store some parameters in a server-side file witch can be tested by a on-idle alike command working on the client-side app. I never tested this successfully before in using a web-based app nor cgi-scripts but i got the expected good results in using this method to build a VPN on-line networked game app. I've tested that method and it works. The only problem is : as I can't test the parameter file on the server from the client-side more than once every minute (or I'll take the risk to overload the server), there's always a lag between the launch of the server script (and update of the parameter file) and the client reaction... I'd really like to reduce the lag as much as possible... Thanks anyway, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC and openGL
Well hot soup, that sounds like some good stuff. Screenshots, examples, anything would be interesting to see. Is the speed really acceptable, and is it drawing this directly in a MetaCard window? I'm somewhat more than busy right now finishing a couple of CD-ROMs, and the guy with whom I'm working on this external thingie is off for 2 weeks of vacation... So the project is on the shelf right now, but we are planing to post a basic example in early sept. In a few words : speed is really acceptable (at least with the simple openGL code we've used in our tests so far), and if you get a 3D accelerator board, it's openGL at its best... What we are planing to do as soon as we can get back to the project, is to optimize initializations so that it doesn't slow down execution. The external is actually drawing inside a MC image, but of course it is possible to resize the stack full screen, and the img as well... Hi JB (Jim Beam James Brown Jim Bo ? ;-) I'm guessing it's a girl, a very beautiful one at that, who is this JB, since she's being such a tease ;-) Well, I'm actually a bolding guy in his 40's - but everybody (friends, colleagues, ex-girfriends...) have been calling me JB for the last 30 years, so why change anything ? JB (grin) ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: MC and openGL
Well, I'm actually a bolding guy in his 40's So, you were once meek, but are now getting bolder as you get older? :) Yoop ! Balding guy, that's what I meant... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Still on the subject of emails
Hi all, Is there a way, from within a MC script, to open the default email client (I know how to do that) AND to have a new email window automatically opened WITH a certain file automatically attached to that message ? Or may be is there a way to do that with the SMPT protocol with libURL (I've been too busy lately to check the latest developments of libURL)... Thanks. JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
mouse tracking blues
Hi list, First I want to point out that I've read the archives and am aware of Scott's advice to not use a repeat loop inside a mousedown handler, but to use mousemove / mouserelease instead. However, I'm facing a problem for which using a repeat loop inside a mousedown seems to be the only solution, and of course I met the problem of the mouseup event not being trapped by my script. In a few words, when the mouse is down on an image (very large one, like a panoramic) the image is supposed to scroll back forth horizontally according to the position of the mouse relative to the loc of that image, the scroll speed being proportional to the distance between the mouseloc and the loc of the image (actually like in a QTVR). So I used the following script : on mousedown repeat until the mouse is up show img 1 at max(-633,min(1432,(item 1 of loc of img 1)-(trunc(((item 1 of the mouseloc)-400)/10,300 end repeat end mousedown It works great (very smooth scrolling), except that the up position of the mouse isn't recognized about 15% of the time, and the img keeps scrolling even when the mouse btn has been released. It is obvious that I can't use mousemove, since the image must keep scrolling even when the mouse isn't moving, as long as it is down. I tried to use mousestilldown (which is a loop by itself) : on mousestilldown show img 1 at max(-633,min(1432,(item 1 of loc of img 1)-(trunc(((item 1 of the mouseloc)-400)/10,300 end mousestilldown It works (the release of the mouse btn is always detected), although the scrolling effect isn't smooth at all... If anyone has a brilliant idea for a possible solution, I thank him / her in advance... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: mouse tracking blues
I already tried that : problem was the same. JB I used a procedure similar to this once but instead of: repeat until the mouse is up I used: repeat while the mouse is down I do not recall ever experiencing a problem with it not stopping to scroll. You might try that just to see if it makes a difference. Philip Chumbley
Feature request (was: converting EPS to MetaCard poligons)
I made a couple of small improvements to the bezier handler (see code below) : 1) the number of steps for the bezier curve is stored in a variable Nsteps 2) successive duplicates in the list of points for the graphic are removed Anyway, I tried to modify / increase the # of steps for the bezier, but it doesn't change much : the design is only slightly smoothed when going from 50 to 200 steps !!! So here's the request : in a future MC version, could we have antialiasing on graphics, that also works when graphics are resized ? Thanks JB - on bezier global variablezxc,a,b,c,d put the first item of a into x1 put the first item of d into x2 put the first item of b into xa put the first item of c into xb put the second item of a into y1 put the second item of d into y2 put the second item of b into ya put the second item of c into yb put 100 into Nsteps put 0 into v1 Repeat with i = 1 TO Nsteps put i*(1/Nsteps)into v1 put 1-v1 into v2 put (x1*(v2^3)+(3*xa*v1*v2*v2)+(3*xb*v1*v1*v2)+(x2*(v1^3)))into x put (y1*(v2^3)+(3*ya*v1*v2*v2)+(3*yb*v1*v1*v2)+(y2*(v1^3)))into y put x div 1,y div 1 return after variablezxc end repeat repeat with i=(number of lines of variablezxc) down to 2 if line i of variablezxc is not then if line i of variablezxc = line i-1 of variablezxc then delete line i of variablezxc end if end if end repeat put variablezxc into msg -- set the points of grc bezier1 to variablezxc end bezier ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: converting EPS to MetaCard poligons
Very interesting promising attempt. The problem however seems to be aliasing of the rendered graphics. Is there any way to improve that ? I didn't have much time to spend on this, so I simply tried to increase the number of steps in the Bezier computation, but the final graphic gets all messed up when the # of steps is different from 100. Anyway to improve that ? JB Hello, to every member in the list. This time, I've experiment a bit with math and beziers and the result is a rough importer of eps graphics to metacard: http://ffc.virtualave.net/EPStoMetaCard.zip http://ffc.virtualave.net/EPStoMetaCard.sit These poligonal objects could be useful in some cases. There is wide room for improvement in these trial, so feel free to add your own math and programming skills to this first intent. Alejandro __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Remove HTML function
Does anyone have a script to removing HTML from a string/chunk/whole file? I think the following is safer, coz I've often seen javascript code after the body : function html2text htmlRaw # trim all html tag put offset(body,htmlRaw) into bodyStart if bodyStart 0 then delete char 1 to (bodyStart -1) of htmlRaw end if put offset(/body,htmlRaw) into bodyEnd if bodyEnd 0 then put char 1 to (bodyEnd -1) of htmlRaw into htmlRaw end if replace br with cr in htmlRaw replace p with cr in htmlRaw repeat put offset(,htmlRaw) into sTag if sTag = 0 then exit repeat put offset(,htmlRaw) into eTag delete char sTag to eTag of htmlRaw end repeat return htmlRaw end html2text JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: script limits
Nice to know you're thinking ahead, Scott -- I can hardly wait to get started writing systems with multiple gigabyte-plus scripts! ;-) -- I was wondering : when compared to my projects made with HC and OMO between 1987 and 96, the size of my current projects under MC has increased (mainly due to all the pix, sounds QT movies). But does the size of scripts increase as well ? With all the build-in functions, it's often possible to use 1 single line of code for what took a whole handler several years ago... I remember writing scripts 32 kbytes long in OMO, when a few kbytes are enough today, and for projects of similar (and even greater) complexity... Do you folks share the same experience ? One last question (from the devil's advocate) : does MC really features the right tools to write (and debug) several GB of script ? Cheers, JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Comparing big lists
I'm wondering : what is the most expensive ? Is it lineoffset, or is it : put j tab line thisLine of bigList return after mergedList I vaguely recall some discussion about adding new lines at the end of a variable inside a loop, and the loop getting slower slower... I'm even pretty sure it was already a problem in HC and/or in OMO... Anyone ? JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Question to Scott (was : MC openGL)
Hi, After the enthusiasm triggered by my suggestion to have built-in access to openGL, I am wondering : is there any chance to see that feature added to MC in a near future, or is it wiser to start working on a DLL / external ? Thanks. JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
MC openGL
Hi list, Has anyone tried to build a DLL/external to link MC with openGL ? The idea is pretty straightforward : one should be able to call openGL functions and have the result displayed in the standard mc window. I really need this feature for a project I'm working on at the moment, so any link / pointer / suggestion is welcome. BTW, since MC openGL are both multi-platforms compatible, could it be a feature request to have basic openGL compatibility in future mc releases, just like we already have QT compatibility ? Thanks. JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Memory usage
Shari, Please, don't speak or think like that. There are no differences, betwin boys and girls, in the logical abilities scope. Don't listen for the ones that says or think otherwise ;-) Agreed : quite often, boys can get as stupid as girls...;-) JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
metacard cgi - example
Sorry if I'm late on this thread. Shortly, here's what I'm presently doing with mc cgi. There's a rally going on in the desert of south Marocco (for more detail : http://www.tropheeaichadesgazelles.com/) Each vehicle features a GPS system. GPS data are sent via satellite, then via email (as attached data files) to 1 of our servers. When an email is received, it triggers a mc cgi script. That script decodes the GPS data (longitude / latitude / time) into x/y values, and updates the content of one of the HTML files of the website. GPS data are updated every 30 minutes, and they accumulate in the file. in french : http://www.tropheeaichadesgazelles.com/LIVE/FR/index.htm in english : http://www.tropheeaichadesgazelles.com/LIVE/FR/index.htm best with IE5+ On the other hand, one of the crew members (in charge of security), is in the desert in a 4WD with a laptop and a satellite cellular phone. Since he needs to keep track of the position of each vehicule in real time, and since connecting to the web would be too slow too expensive, we have set up the following system : his laptop HD features a duplicate of the website. The mc script on our server, when receiving GPS positions via email, also generates a small txt file (about 500 bytes) featuring the latest positions (X/Y pixels values). On the laptop HD I have also installed a small app (made with MC of course) that : - opens the connection through the cellular phone - downloads the small txt file (with a simple get URL) - updates the HTML file on the HD (just like the script does on the server) - launches the default browser - opens the updated file in the browser window, - converts the XY pixel values into longitude / latitude format and saves it on the HD as a separate HTML table file that can be openened in a pop-up window inside the page automatically opened in the browser. In other words, with nothing more than a double-click and a few seconds of waiting, the guy gets the latest positions of all vehicles on a graphic interface in the middle of the desert. of course, this small app uses a very similar script as the one on the server, and it didn't take more than a few hrs to make it. Needless to say that being able to use the same code for both purposes was really apreciated !!! Cheers JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Alias on desktop
andu : create alias x to file y Well, I tried that already, but sadly it doesn't work... Actually, it does create a file on the desktop, but the target of the alias / shortcut is missing, and when I doubleclick on it nothing happens (at least on Win98). What am I doing wrong ? Thanks JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Alias on desktop
Hi, I am writing for a client an installation procedure to install a MC standalone + the data folder from a CDROM to the end user HD (on Windows). The client also wants an alias to be automatically installed on the desktop. How can this be done from a MC script ? Thanks JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Suggestions please...
Hi folks, I'm presently working on a project for which I'd like to get some suggestions (at least for 1 part of it)... Emails will be received several times a day at a specific address. Each email will feature an attached file (actually a tab-return set of data). What I need to do is : every time a new email arrives, AUTOMATICALLY save the attached file in a specific directory (always the same) as a binary file, and then trigger a MChttpd CGI script that will process that file and update several HTML files according to the data received by email. The whole thing will be installed on a server running Apache. I have already investigated the problem and have found a couple of solutions, although I'm open to your best suggestions... Thanks in advance. JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Window Shape/Style
Check this : http://www.mcbeen.com/wdefs/ JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: save
Phil Davis : (To test it, you could add a beep or 'put CLOSING ' statement in the handler and see if anything new happens upon close.) Although it's a clever suggestion, I find it quite funny (and refreshing) that ppl use statements as simple as beep to check if anything happens... Jus like in good old early days of Hypercard... JB P.S. : I do that myself quite often, and it's one of the best debugging tool I know... ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Restart a Mac
How can I restart a Mac from within a MC script ? Should I use applevents, and send quit to the Finder or something similar ? Thanks. JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Screen saver
Hi list, I already posted that question a few months ago, but am wondering if anyone has done any new experiments in that field : I'm working on the idea of a web app made of a MC standalone, but because of the content purpose of that app, re-shaping it as a screen saver would be much cooler... I know there are several utilities (like screentime) to make screensavers from QT, Flash or Director files. But what about MC ? The main idea behind my project would be to have the app download the latest version of a data file somewhere on the web everytime it launches, and have the display contents automatically modified accordingly... Thanks for any suggestion... JB ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Decouple a Launched App (was Autoplay a CD)
If your software/delivery package can accommodate an extra 1.3MB or so, there is indeed a workaround. The concept is to create a standalone launcher app which handles your launching and then shuts down. The launch process looks something like this: Your App -- Launcher App -- Browser (or other application) Using this technique it is possible to decouple the launched application from your stack. This behavior has bugged me ever since I started MC to launch external applications. Thanks to list member JBV (sorry, I don't know this person's name) I've built out a workaround over the last few weeks that seems to be flexible and reliable. This also handles a number of real world problems that occur when faced with browsers other than IE and NC. Just a couple of remarks : 1) this problem (an app being shut down with the app that launched it) occurs under Windows only : on Mac (and AFAIK on Linux) too, the launcher quits but the launched app keeps running. 2) the workaround works with all sorts of apps (not only browsers). For instance, I'm using it for a few months to launch the QT installer. 3) in your app script (after launching the launcher app), I strongly recommend to add the following line : wait 1000 before quitting. Indeed, you need to make sure that the launcher app has the time to start and launch the other app (I've met some problems a couple of times). The only drawback is the additional 1+ MB file required, which can be a lot in the case of downloadable stacks/apps. Yep, it's a bit of a waste to have to built a 1.3 Mb standalone just to run a few lines of script. IMHO this shows that the suggestion I posted a couple of months ago made some sense... That suggestion was that MC, when building the standalone, would add to the file only those parts of the MC engine actually used by the app. I guess it requires the MC engine to be split into some kind of librairies, and to be smart enough to analyze the scripts the app structure to decide what's useful and what's not... I don't know if that's feasable (or if it requires MC to be re-written from scratch), but in the case of web applications (in which you often make heavy use of only a small set of functions - like in chat apps), it's quite difficult to ask ppl to download 1+ Mb (even if it can be reduced to 700 Kb when zipped). The extra Kb could be better used for sophisticated artwork, etc. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Drawing lines
Hi list, I need to draw a line 'on the fly' between 2 points whose coordinates x,y will appear at random on a card. At first I thought I could use a graphic control : it works very well except for graphic quality : aliasing produces ugly lines that don't fit with the rest of the graphics on the card. Could anyone be kind enough to point me at an alternative solution ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
(surprising) memory management
Hi folks, I completed yesterday (evening late) a big project with several stacks featuring lots of imported graphics etc on 2.3. The whole thing weights 30 Mb as a standalone. It features several stacks (only 1 opened at a time, destroy stack on close selected on each stack etc...). Everything runs OK on Win with 64 Mb. But on Mac I end up with a standalone that requires 30 Mb (which is normal), but also a suggested maximum RAM space of 70 Mb !!! Furthermore, once launched, it occupies 70 Mb of RAM space (only 40 Mb if I reduce the max RAM space, and still works OK); but the RAM space used by the Mac system itself is increased by 30 Mb For that reason, the app launches ONLY on Macs with MORE than 128 Mb of RAM !!! Any explanation for this ? Thanks JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
open process quit
Hi again folks, Some of you might remember the question I asked about 12 days ago about opening processes under Windoze. I made some more investigations on this topic, and it looks like on Mac, processes can be opened (and apps launched) by a MC standalone, and when it quits, all apps processes remain open. OTOH on Win, things are different : a MC standalone kills all processes it opened (and all apps it launched) when quiting (or closing). For instance, if your standalone opens a browser or another standalone, everything will quit when your standalone quits or is closed. Fortunately, there's a workaround for this problem. Actually, I needed to detect the presence of QT during a preopenstack, then launch QTinstaller if no QT and quit the stack. Of course, QTinstaller would quit shortly after launching, when the calling MC app would quit. Here's what I did : I built another (small) standalone that just launches QTinstaller on openstack. This new standalone is launched by the main MC app on preopenstack. The idea looks like this : App1 -- App2 -- QTinstall And the script in App1 : on preopenstack get QTversion() if = 0 then launch App2 wait 500 quit When App1 quits, it also quits App2, but NOT the process opened by App2 (QTinstaller in that case). Finally, when QT installation is over, App1 App2 have quit long time ago (and in a very clean manner). I would apreciate is anyone has comments and/or similar experience to share on this topic... Thanks JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: More Quicktime problems
Ken Ray a écrit: Did you set the lockLocationi of the player object to true? I tried both options (true false), among many other things (like setting the filename of the player, as well as its height width every time I want to start it), but problem remains... BTW I forgot to mention that problem occurs not only with .mov files, but also with .swf... Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
More Quicktime problems
Hi people, First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who offered solutions to my previous questions. Now I'm meeting a problem with QT movies in 2.4 : players get shrinked in height. Here's what I mean : if I have a player of 320 (w) x 240 (h) with the filename set by script to a .MOV file, as soon as the start player 1 command runs, player runs OK, but its size becomes 320 x 225. And height gets 15 pixels smaller every time player starts, unless I put the comand line : set height of player 1 to 240 before starting it. In that case, size is 320 x 225 every time it starts. This happens on Mac OS9 and Win98. This is quite embarassing, because I'm working on a project with lots of videos and graphic transparencies (with PNG). If I can't use MC 2.4 because of the player problem, I'll have to go back to 2.3 and forget all the transparencies... And then deliver a final product of lower quality... Any idea / suggestion ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Well, just another URGENT question
And hopefully the last one, as the CD-ROM I'm working on is planed to go to duplication plant on monday... Here's the problem : I have 2 standalones, actually the french english versions of the same app (FR.EXE and UK.EXE), both in the same directory (at top level of the CD-ROM). I want the end user to be able to switch between both with 1 single click. In other words, both apps should never run simultaneously. So I'm using the following script : on mouseUp get pathname UK.EXE open process it close this stack The pathname is OK. This works on Mac, but on Windows I'm meeting some problems. When I run the app as an MC stack (from the MC application), it works (I mean : if I open FR.MC in MC and run the script open process F:/UK.EXE it works OK. But as soon as FR.MC is converted into a standalone (FR.EXE), it doesn't work : open process... doesn't work, but close this stack works OK. All .MC and .EXE are in the same directory, so I don't think it's a directory problem... I'm sure I missed something, but what ? Thank you all. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Opening substacks as invisible
Hi, How can I open a substack, rearrange (by script) various controls on it, and then print it, without ever disokaying it on screen ? Is there any special parameter associated with the open stack command that I missed ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
A few URGENT questions - Thanks
Hi people, I have a few VERY URGENT questions - sorry for being so demanding... I am finishing an MC app (2.3.2) that will run on Mac Win and will be distributed on a CD-ROM. QUESTION 1 : At the some point, the app will need to launch the default browser to open an HTML file located on one of the local volumes (CD-ROM or HD). On Windows, I can get the default browser by checking : get queryRegistry(HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command\) and on Mac, I can launch the defaut browser with the following line : send http: www.yahoo.com to program Finder with GURLGURL BUT how can I open the HTML file on a local volume ? In other words, how can I get the filepath of the browser app that has just been launched ? Or the list of the currently opened apps (without using an external...) ? QUESTION 2 : On Mac, when launching the local defaut mail client with the line : send mailto:; [EMAIL PROTECTED] to program Finder with GURLGURL how can I fill other fields (like CC: or body) within the same command ? Same question for Windows. QUESTION 3 : how can I get the mail server name / IP used by the local defaut email client ? Thank you so much for your time. JB P.S. : I know that some (if not all) of the above issues could be adressed / bypassed by using MC 2.4, but I'm running out of time to switch to the new version... P.S. 2 : thanks a lot to all people who offered solutions to my sending emails request of last week... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Sending emails
Hi List (2), I'm finishing an app with 2.3.2 that will ship on CD-ROM and is supposed to send emails (among other things). I was thinking of using the POST command to send request to a script somewhere on one of our servers (Perl or MChttpd) that would forward the email to the right addresses... AFAIR, MC2.3.2 doesn't support SMTP. Any better idea ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
MC 2.4 final release - when ?
Hi list, Any idea of when final release for MC 2.4 will be available ? I'm asking because I have a project that will require heavy use of images with full transparency, and only 2.4 supports this. Due to tight production schedule, if I have to simulate this on 2.3.2, I need to start the work right now, due to the huge amount of work... If 2.4 gets available sometimes in september, that will save me quite a lot of work... Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Flickering problem with a stack
Hi List (3), I have a problem with a stack I'm finishing on 2.3.2 (Mac) : I have a jpeg image on layer 1, and on top of that (layer 2) a group made of various images transparent buttons performing rollovers card selections. The problem is : when the mouse rolls over the transp. btns, rollovers clicks run OK, but random portions of the image on layer 1 flicker. Problem remains when the app runs as a standalone. The strange part is that in MC, when I select the edit tool and select 1 element of the card (any element actually) without editing it, and then select browse tool, problem disapears. Is it a known problem, or a bug, or is my stack corrupted ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Sending emails
Ken, Sure - use the computer's native email client, as in: Thanks for the idea, but it crossed my mind already, and it doesn't really suits my needs : in that case the end user needs to write emails by himself... The app is a kind of catalog in which the user chooses various items and then his choice is automatically emailed to the right person and in the right format, according to the user's location... The less the user has to write, the better... Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Flickering problem with a stack
Brian, Yes, I forgot to tell : all images are imported into the stack and the always buffer property is set for all images. The only thing I don't understand is the fact that when I select any control just once with the select tool and then go back to browse tool, problem disapears... The bas side of the story is that I can't do that when the stack runs as a standalone... JB Have you tried setting the always buffer property of your stack? That should reduce flickering. HTH, Brian Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Flickering problem with a stack
Ken , Yes, I've tried that already and it doesn't help much... Actually, IMHO it doesn't look like a simple redraw issue. As I wrote before, random portions of the image on layer 1 flicker... Replacing re-importing that image didn't change anything... I'm starting to think seriously that my stack is corrupted... JB, That sounds like a redraw issue. Have you tried doing a lock screen/unlock screen combo? That usually forces a redraw and it might do the trick. Ken Ray Sons of Thunder Software Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/ - Original Message - From: jbv [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 4:48 PM Subject: Flickering problem with a stack Hi List (3), I have a problem with a stack I'm finishing on 2.3.2 (Mac) : I have a jpeg image on layer 1, and on top of that (layer 2) a group made of various images transparent buttons performing rollovers card selections. The problem is : when the mouse rolls over the transp. btns, rollovers clicks run OK, but random portions of the image on layer 1 flicker. Problem remains when the app runs as a standalone. The strange part is that in MC, when I select the edit tool and select 1 element of the card (any element actually) without editing it, and then select browse tool, problem disapears. Is it a known problem, or a bug, or is my stack corrupted ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Mousestilldown palette
Hi, I have a problem with preventing Mousestilldown message to be passed from a palette to the stack. Whatever I do (like putting on Mousestilldown / end Mousestilldown handlers in the buttons, cards stack scripts of the palette) the message is always passed to the stack (the one calling the palette).The strange thing is that message blocking works for other messages (mousedown, mouseup, etc.)... Any idea ? And BTW, when saving a stack as a standalone, how should palettes be saved : as substacks of the main stack within the same standalone, or as standalones of their own ? Thanks, as usual. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
cookie info libURL
Hi, I'm trying to find a way to get the info relative to cookies passed by a cgi server in the header of an HTML document. for instance : Set-Cookie: CUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTE; path=/; expires=Wednesday, 09-Nov-99 23:12:40 GMT As far as I understand, when I run get URL www.whatever.com in MC 2.3.2 I can't intercept the content of the header. But MC 2.4 allows that, with the help of libURL. Right ? Anyway, I still don't understand everything relative to the handlers in libURL, especially getFormat, which seems to be able to do what I want. Could anyone give me a hint on how exactly use that handler to get the header in a variable ? Thanks JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: CrossPlatform
Nelson, I've created a stack on my Mac to keep track of the editions of my wife's bronze sculpture. Cross town the gallery is PC, is there any way to get my stack to run on their PC without creating a standalone? Nelson Zink In theory (and in practice), if they download the right version of the MC Starter Kit, they'll be able to run your stack. This trick works for Linux too. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Crash report - pt 2
Hi guys, Sorry to bother you again with the same thread, but I made some more discoveries on the topic of on-the-fly grouping / ungrouping. As described before, I have 50 images that can be grouped / ungrouped in various ways. If I run the following script : group image id 1430 set name of grp 1 to sel ungroup group sel I end up with an empty list in the groupnames, which is 100% normal. But then, when I run the following line : group image id 1450 I get a new version of group 1 (which is what I expect), but if I check the content of the groupnames, surprise : the name of group 1 is automatically set to sel, without running the line : set name of grp 1 to sel Needless to say that it's a bit disturbing... So if you adress groups by # instead of id, you can get several groups with the same name, and in certain conditions it might cause MC to crash. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Set bordercolor
At 12:55 AM -0700 7/20/2001, jbv wrote: I'm also having problems changing bordercolor of images... The color of image borders is inherited. (The bordercolor of an image does something else, it's determined by the image's palette data.) So you need to set the borderColor of the card/stack/group the image is part of. Fine. But what if I want a different borderColor for each image on a card ? JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Groups again
Today I've been playing with groups in MC and found it quite frustrating, for 2 main reasons (if I missed anything please MC gurus enlighten me) : - the only way to group controls is to select them first, which makes grouping/ungrouping on the fly via script quite cumbersome : you need to set the selected of each control to true, then group, then set the selected of all controls back to false. And if you don't wznt your controls to be selected on screen during the process, you have to perform a lock screen / unlock screen... Frankly, I miss the groups in OMO where you could group any number of objects by simply listing them in a variable (the same kind of list that you get with the selectedobjects)... The good side of it was that the same object could be part of different groups at the same time... - it looks like grouping controls changes the numbering of those controls : for instance I have 50 images on screen and the user can select any of them (like image 12 to 25 and 37 to 42) and they're supposed to get automatically grouped. What happens is that all images being in a group are re-numbered ! Therefore I had no choice but to change my scripts and use the id instead... Is there any *good* reason for that kind of behavior ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: MC vs. Panorama
[EMAIL PROTECTED] : Some years ago I developped a relational database that was faster than Filemaker. There were about 70 records... FMP just chocked on it. HC stacks choked after 12 MBs of data where in... The trick was to split the interface/engine from the records which were in turn split into categories/levels, where any category was another stack. This keeps the searches real fast. The smaller the file, the better... Secondly, I knew already where the categories to be searched were so I had a table of doubly linked references between records. This allowed to browse the database at any point in seconds (Filemaker too over 15 minutes PER search)... This is basic computer science... Search for binary trees, etc... doubly-linked records... It's all in how you design your database... Access times were all under 2 seconds even from the cd media! The reverse of the medal was that importing the records and linking the records took over 3 days of work non-stop on a Mac 8500 with HC 241. But it doesn't mean that a real time program couldn't do it real fast. MC being much faster will also help. Yes, this is exactly the kind of trick I used in my recent experiments : splitting the data into numerous text files, multiple indexing, etc... The only problem is when you offer this kind of solution to a client : if you mention Access and ASP (for instance), most ppl in the internet / CD-ROM biz will take you seriously. But if you start the kind of above description, you'll just look like a weird hacker and will probably loose the client... JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: MC vs. Panorama
Robert Brenstein : I just read that Panorama recently released v4.0 (see http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0107/10.panorama.shtml). Given that both MC and Panorama are RAM-based, anyone have insights into why building databases in native MC is discouraged? I am not an expert but you are looking at apples and oranges. You can build small databases in MC with no problems, but I think that the card paradigm does not work well for large databases (like millions of records). Indeed. But if you consider using external txt files for storing the database records, with sophisticated indexing, it may be possible. According to some experiments I did lately, using lineoffset, itemoffset and some (rather sophisticated) indexing, I found that elements can be retrieved quite fast (0.5 to 1.5 second) among a list of 2000 to 1 records. Actually performances limits vary according to the type complexity of the data... And 1 being the upper limit.Most likely 5000 records is an acceptable compromise. One problem is the native MC sort command which is rather slow. But I guess that using an external could make things easier... JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Groups
Hi guys, can an object (btn, fld, image, etc) be part of different groups simultaneously ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Transparency
Hi again, I'm trying to find a graphic format to import in an image object in MC that doesn't mess up with transparency (in 8 bits on the alpha channel). I tried PNG and GIF, but it seems that those formats include transparency on 1 bit only. The ideal thing would be to import Photoshop files, like in Director... Any idea and / or experience on that topic ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Hardware key protection
Hi, Has anyone already tried to implement a hardware key protection (dongle) with a MC standalone ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
MChttp and stdin buffer size
Hi list, We have MChttp installed on our local mail server running Apache, and I've been doing various client / server tests and scripts. Everything works fine fast, except that I noticed that long cgi requests using POST method from a browser get truncated... My script use the following command : read from stdin until empty I asked the sysop, and indeed there seems to be a buffer of 1024 chars under Unix for the use of stdin in the command shell... Could this be a limitation of MChttp ? And, if yes, is there a way to bypass it for long cig requests featuring a large number of parameters and uploading files ? Thanks. JB Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
