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Toolbox differences

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  Toolbox differences Mister Ron <mrronman@googlemail.com> - 2011-06-09 15:21 -0700
    Re: Toolbox differences Martin <News03@avisoft.f9.co.uk> - 2011-06-10 10:32 +0100
      Re: Toolbox differences Mister Ron <mrronman@googlemail.com> - 2011-06-10 10:14 -0700
      Re: Toolbox differences chrisbazley@bigfoot.com - 2011-06-12 04:45 -0700
        Re: Toolbox differences Martin <News03@avisoft.f9.co.uk> - 2011-06-12 16:59 +0100
        Re: Toolbox differences wpb <willblatchley@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-12 11:37 -0700
    Re: Toolbox differences Rik Griffin <rik.griffin@btinternet.com> - 2011-06-10 11:08 +0100
      Re: Toolbox differences Mister Ron <mrronman@googlemail.com> - 2011-06-10 10:17 -0700

#409 — Toolbox differences

Hello
I'm using a Toolbox scrolllist in an app.
Iyonix 5.16 : TextGadgets 0.30 (14 Jun 2008)
RiscPc 4.33 : TextGadgets 0.49 (06 Jul 2003)

The Iyonix will select 1 item at a time, mutiple items can be selected
by adjust. This is fine.

On the RiscPc every item selected stays selected (unless it is
deselected)
I've upgraded the RiscPc Textgadget from something like 0.13 but the
problem still persists.
I tried deselecting the previous selected item first but then i am
unable to select mutiple items.

Any suggestions please

Ta.
MrRon

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#410

On 09 Jun, in article
<e7ab116d-b6ed-4f79-b3aa-97d0a60da1fb@i4g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>,
   Mister Ron <mrronman@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I'm using a Toolbox scrolllist in an app.
> Iyonix 5.16 : TextGadgets 0.30 (14 Jun 2008)
> RiscPc 4.33 : TextGadgets 0.49 (06 Jul 2003)

> The Iyonix will select 1 item at a time, mutiple items can be selected
> by adjust. This is fine.

> On the RiscPc every item selected stays selected (unless it is
> deselected)
> I've upgraded the RiscPc Textgadget from something like 0.13 but the
> problem still persists.
> I tried deselecting the previous selected item first but then i am
> unable to select mutiple items.

> Any suggestions please

Yes. Prepare for lots of anguish. The state of the Toolbox nearly caused
me to give up development and even RISC OS when I was developing an app
of mine in 2008.  At the time I wrote...

<quote>
Rover makes extensive use of a Toolbox ScrollList, which is provided by 
the TextGadgets module. I have tested Rover with the following versions,
and unfortunately they give different results!

v0.29	As supplied with RISC OS 5.13 in Iyonix ROM.
	     Does not handle columns, so lists looks very untidy.
	     Also vertical spacing becomes odd with some icons.
v0.49	Latest publically available 26/32 bit version from ROL at Jul 2007.
	     20 times slower if ScrollList_AddItem flag is 0 not 1.
	     Aborts if ScrollList_AddItem flag is 1 without Sprites
	     Works if flag 1, but sometimes the icon spacing is too small.
v0.85	As supplied with RISC OS 4.39 (in Adjust ROM)
	     Works well with ScrollList_AddItem flag of 0.
	     Should have columns correctly spaced.
	     Will have Vertical scroll bar if required. 
v0.95	As supplied with RISC OS 6.06.
	     Made to work like v0.85, but some oddities programmed round:
	     ScrollList_DeselectItem raises Select event even if flag 0. 
	     This caused a very nasty loop!

If anyone has other versions of TextGadgets that do not work well, please 
let me know.

My conclusion is that improvement will not be practical until a common,
updated version of TextGadgets is publically available for all machines. 
We can but hope.
</quote>

That is three years ago, but no substantial improvement has been made
since, AFAIK. If there was any sign of co-operation between ROL and ROOL
I would hope that at least a common set of Toolbox modules could be
developed. Until then, it will be a development nightmare, I am afraid.

Regarding your selection problem, I can vaguely remember I had similar
trouble getting it to behave correctly ie Select is one, Adjust adds to
selection. I *think* if it was the Select key, I deselected everything
then selected the single item, regardless of TextGadgets version. This
worked on all combinations I could try!

Good luck!
 
Martin

-- 
Martin Avison 
Note that unfortunately this email address will become invalid
without notice if (when) any spam is received. 

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#412

On Jun 10, 10:32 am, Martin <New...@avisoft.f9.co.uk> wrote:
> On 09 Jun, in article
> <e7ab116d-b6ed-4f79-b3aa-97d0a60da...@i4g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>,
>    Mister Ron <mrron...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm using a Toolbox scrolllist in an app.
> > Iyonix 5.16 : TextGadgets 0.30 (14 Jun 2008)
> > RiscPc 4.33 : TextGadgets 0.49 (06 Jul 2003)
> > The Iyonix will select 1 item at a time, mutiple items can be selected
> > by adjust. This is fine.
> > On the RiscPc every item selected stays selected (unless it is
> > deselected)
> > I've upgraded the RiscPc Textgadget from something like 0.13 but the
> > problem still persists.
> > I tried deselecting the previous selected item first but then i am
> > unable to select mutiple items.
> > Any suggestions please
>
> Yes. Prepare for lots of anguish. The state of the Toolbox nearly caused
> me to give up development and even RISC OS when I was developing an app
> of mine in 2008.  At the time I wrote...
>
[snip]
Thanks.
>
> Regarding your selection problem, I can vaguely remember I had similar
> trouble getting it to behave correctly ie Select is one, Adjust adds to
> selection. I *think* if it was the Select key, I deselected everything
> then selected the single item, regardless of TextGadgets version. This
> worked on all combinations I could try!
>
That's basically what I tried but you then can't select mutiple
entries with select.

> Good luck!
Haha. Cheers:-)
>

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#421

On Jun 10, 10:32 am, Martin <New...@avisoft.f9.co.uk> wrote:
> On 09 Jun, in article
> <e7ab116d-b6ed-4f79-b3aa-97d0a60da...@i4g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>,
>    Mister Ron <mrron...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm using a Toolbox scrolllist in an app.
> > Iyonix 5.16 : TextGadgets 0.30 (14 Jun 2008)
> > RiscPc 4.33 : TextGadgets 0.49 (06 Jul 2003)
> > The Iyonix will select 1 item at a time, mutiple items can be selected
> > by adjust. This is fine.
> > On the RiscPc every item selected stays selected (unless it is
> > deselected)
> > I've upgraded the RiscPc Textgadget from something like 0.13 but the
> > problem still persists.
> > I tried deselecting the previous selected item first but then i am
> > unable to select mutiple items.
> > Any suggestions please
>
> Yes. Prepare for lots of anguish. The state of the Toolbox nearly caused
> me to give up development and even RISC OS when I was developing an app
> of mine in 2008.  At the time I wrote...

> My conclusion is that improvement will not be practical until a common,
> updated version of TextGadgets is publically available for all machines.
> We can but hope.
> </quote>
>
> That is three years ago, but no substantial improvement has been made
> since, AFAIK. If there was any sign of co-operation between ROL and ROOL
> I would hope that at least a common set of Toolbox modules could be
> developed. Until then, it will be a development nightmare, I am afraid.

I have done a lot of bug fixing and feature development of the Toolbox
on ROL's branch since the middle of last decade. My motivation was
precisely that it is so fundamental to application development and I
use it myself.

Of all the Toolbox modules, TextGadgets was in by far in the worst
state. It was never production-quality code in the first place
(presumably no secret, since ROOL released the source code) and
frankly I'm appalled that it was ever included in ROM. As you may have
noticed, its methods' behaviour deviate from those of the 'core'
Toolbox modules because it wasn't written by the same programmer.

Instead of rewriting TextGadgets to address its original deficiencies,
the early Select releases bolted on additional incomplete features and
some bug fixes that introduced further bugs. This made the task of
bringing it up to scratch more difficult, because the TextArea and
ScrollList gadgets now provide a very rich set of facilities.

I have very nearly finished an almost complete rewrite of the
ScrollList gadget which should fix all known bugs. As you can imagine,
the number of unit tests required to assure better quality than the
current version is huge (hundreds). Therefore this has taken me about
2 years.

Regarding co-operation, I absolutely agree with you. However a 'free-
for-all' situation without code reviews and discussion of Toolbox
interface changes and extensions would be very damaging.

Chris Bazley

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#422

On 12 Jun, in article
<bf5b2374-7ee2-4c19-84ae-71383c989c9d@v18g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
   Christopher Bazley <chrisbazley@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> On Jun 10, 10:32 am, Martin <New...@avisoft.f9.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

> > My conclusion is that improvement will not be practical until a
> > common, updated version of TextGadgets is publically available for
> > all machines. We can but hope. </quote>

[Snip]

> I have very nearly finished an almost complete rewrite of the
> ScrollList gadget which should fix all known bugs. As you can imagine,
> the number of unit tests required to assure better quality than the
> current version is huge (hundreds). Therefore this has taken me about
> 2 years.

That would be wonderful news ... *if* it will become generally available. 

It it is not, I fear that your valiant efforts (and I do appreciate the
time it must have taken) will be largely wasted, because developers will
still have to cater for the older versions which ARE available on the
various RISC OS platforms, unable to be replaced by your much improved
version.

> Regarding co-operation, I absolutely agree with you. However a 'free-
> for-all' situation without code reviews and discussion of Toolbox
> interface changes and extensions would be very damaging.

I was not advocating a free-for-all! Changes to such core routines
obviously need to be done with careful design and control.

As I wrote in 2008: We can but hope.

Martin

-- 
Martin Avison 
Note that unfortunately this email address will become invalid
without notice if (when) any spam is received. 

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#423

On Jun 12, 12:45 pm, chrisbaz...@bigfoot.com wrote:
[snip]
> Instead of rewriting TextGadgets to address its original deficiencies,
> the early Select releases bolted on additional incomplete features and
> some bug fixes that introduced further bugs. This made the task of
> bringing it up to scratch more difficult, because the TextArea and
> ScrollList gadgets now provide a very rich set of facilities.
>
> I have very nearly finished an almost complete rewrite of the
> ScrollList gadget which should fix all known bugs. As you can imagine,
> the number of unit tests required to assure better quality than the
> current version is huge (hundreds). Therefore this has taken me about
> 2 years.
[snip]

That sounds fantastic. Great news. I hope, as Martin says, it will
available for all to use (and open source?).

What are your thoughts on the ROOL version TextArea? Does it have many
bugs that need fixing? Would a total rewrite be overkill? It's
something I'm interested in working on later this year.

Cheers,

WPB

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#411

In message <e7ab116d-b6ed-4f79-b3aa-97d0a60da1fb@i4g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>
          Mister Ron <mrronman@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hello
> I'm using a Toolbox scrolllist in an app.
> Iyonix 5.16 : TextGadgets 0.30 (14 Jun 2008)
> RiscPc 4.33 : TextGadgets 0.49 (06 Jul 2003)
> 
> The Iyonix will select 1 item at a time, mutiple items can be selected
> by adjust. This is fine.
> 
> On the RiscPc every item selected stays selected (unless it is
> deselected)

I find the same here, using the RISCOS Ltd modules on an Iyonix. It looks
like it's a bug in the ROL version of the TextGadgets module.

-- 
Rik Griffin

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#413

On Jun 10, 11:08 am, Rik Griffin <rik.grif...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> In message <e7ab116d-b6ed-4f79-b3aa-97d0a60da...@i4g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>
>           Mister Ron <mrron...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello
> > I'm using a Toolbox scrolllist in an app.
> > Iyonix 5.16 : TextGadgets 0.30 (14 Jun 2008)
> > RiscPc 4.33 : TextGadgets 0.49 (06 Jul 2003)
>
> > The Iyonix will select 1 item at a time, mutiple items can be selected
> > by adjust. This is fine.
>
> > On the RiscPc every item selected stays selected (unless it is
> > deselected)
>
> I find the same here, using the RISCOS Ltd modules on an Iyonix. It looks
> like it's a bug in the ROL version of the TextGadgets module.
>
> --
> Rik Griffin

Is it possible to run a RiscOS 5 versions of the module on an Iyonix?
Failing that, how far is RiscOS 5 being available for the RiscPC?

Ta.
MrRon

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