LiveCode Forums

Just installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS today and after installing Livecode, I was reminded at just how terrible LC menus look in Ubuntu (one of the most popular distros).

Here's what LC menus in Ubuntu currently look like:


Here's what they should look like:


Is there any way to make LC menus look the way they should in Ubuntu?

P.S. I opened a project made in an earlier version of LC (7 probably) and its menus look bad as well (virtually unacceptable, in all honesty):

I haven't yet upgraded to 18.04, but Ubuntu is the leading distro and officially supported by LiveCode, so please find a bug report on that:
https://quality.livecode.com/

Please also post the URL to the report here after you've filed it so we can follow along and contribute other details if needed.

I should have my systems upgraded next week, so I'll be in a position to help then.

Thanks for catching that.

FWIW, they look exactly the same here in 16.04 as in OP's screenshot of 18.04

ClipArtGuy wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:46 pm

FWIW, they look exactly the same here in 16.04 as in OP's screenshot of 18.04

There may be something else going on. What is the lookAndFeel global property set to?

Here's how they look in 14.04:

to make LC menus look the way they should in Ubuntu?

That may be asking a bit much as the wonderful thing about almost all forms
of Linux is that the end-user can change almost all aspects of the GUI.

I'm running LC 9.0 on Xubuntu 18.04 and it resembles LC on Macintosh very closely.

This is probably NOT to do with LiveCode, but is to do with how the XFCE
Windowing thingy deals with LiveCode.

I also run various versions of LiveCode on MX Linux and other Xubuntu 18.04 versions (all of which use XFCE) with NO problems (such as blank menus) at all.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:56 pm

I'm running LC 9.0 on Xubuntu 18.04 and it resembles LC on Macintosh very closely.

This is probably NOT to do with LiveCode, but is to do with how the XFCE
Windowing thingy deals with LiveCode.

If the lookAndFeel is set to "appearance manager" we should see most menu details render close to spec per the current window manager (it's still not perfect, but close). If set to "Motif" it will look like a UI Bogs and I like from the '90s, but something most people under 40 have never seen.

I'm not sure how I'd check that, "put the lookandfeel" in the message box just gives me "Appearance Manager". They did look better for me under 14.04 as well, but the Attached screenshot shows what they've looked like since upgrading to 16.04 quite a while back now...

FWIW here's what I see every day, courtesy of a simple "Ubuntify" script I wrote to adjust menu and background colors. The script is in my devolution tool, settable as a checkbox in its startup options. devolution is freely downloadable here:
http://fourthworld.com/products/devolution/

The IDE menus don't bother me too much, and I pretty much only use LC for personal in house automation tools with no menus. I was just pointing out that ugly menus aren't new to Ubuntu 18.04 (which I am in the process of upgrading to now.) I will definitely check out devolution once I am upgraded.

lookAndFeel

Way back when LiveCode was called 'Revolution' you could set the Look and Feel from the Menu bar.

Those times are gone (which is a pity).

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:58 pm

If set to "Motif" it will look like a UI Bogs and I like from the '90s, but something most people under 40 have never seen.

How right you are

Funny enough, I seem to remember reading about how to fix just this kind of issue in linux (from way back in time). IF I find it again, I'll post it here for posterity

*Edit - on devolution's menu, I'll have to test out whether it carries from distro to distro at some point.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:30 pm

lookAndFeel

Way back when LiveCode was called 'Revolution' you could set the Look and Feel from the Menu bar.

Those times are gone (which is a pity).

It was seldom used, except maybe by Bogs and I while playing around with nostalgic UIs.

Any value other than "appearance manager" is an emulated skin based on HIG conventions from at least two decades ago (Win95, Mac classic, and Motif).

The default of "appearance manager" allows LC to take on the skins of the current theme in whatever OS it's running on at the moment. Most folks don't need or even want anything else.

It's nice that the emulations are still in the engine and still available for the few who enjoy the nostalgia. But not the sort of thing I would take up precious UI space for in the IDE.

If you really want a UI to rapidly change the lookAndFeel you could whip up a plugin in a few minutes.

bogs wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:46 pm

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:58 pm

If set to "Motif" it will look like a UI Bogs and I like from the '90s, but something most people under 40 have never seen.

How right you are

Funny enough, I seem to remember reading about how to fix just this kind of issue in linux (from way back in time). IF I find it again, I'll post it here for posterity

*Edit - on devolution's menu, I'll have to test out whether it carries from distro to distro at some point.

It should work anywhere LiveCode can run, but no matter which desktop you're using the Ubuntify handler will use Ubuntu's colors, so it may not be what you're after (or it might be exactly what you're after <g>).

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:50 pm

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:30 pm

lookAndFeel

Way back when LiveCode was called 'Revolution' you could set the Look and Feel from the Menu bar.
Those times are gone (which is a pity).

It was seldom used, except maybe by Bogs and I while playing around with nostalgic UIs.

I seem to remember this part of the conversation from before as well I wonder who determines when something is seldom used, though, I don't remember seeing a poll on it anywhere

but no matter which desktop you're using the Ubuntify handler will use Ubuntu's colors, so it may not be what you're after (or it might be exactly what you're after <g>).

Ah, no, I was looking for the universal sporific