Livecode 9 and Big Sur

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michalow
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Livecode 9 and Big Sur

Post by michalow » Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:07 pm

I develop Livecode scientific applications on Mac OS. Very specific and specialized data analysis programs for Synchrotron Spectrosopy experiments, using a lot of Numerical data treatment (integration and differentiation, Statistics, Matrix Algebra, Fitting by least squares refinement,...) and graphical functions I have translated from Fortran to Livecode. I don't want to go further in my explanations of what I do with Livecode, it's too complicated and unuseful for most users, and I don't have any reason to distribute these programs elsewhere than in my scientific community via free relationships The only thing I must say is that I was surprised to see the amazing speed of these programs translated to Livecode. Combined with the simplicity of the user interface programmation, and the possibility to develop on my favorite platform applications for Mac, Windows and Unix, I want to continue to use Livecode.

I have attempted to upgrade my MacOS from Mojave to Big Sur (Mac OS 11) and finally I decided to come back to Mojave because of several Livecode drawbacks.
- The execution speed is divided by more than 3 in some parts of my programs (user interface, numerical calculations and graphics)
- Some of the button controls I use in the user interface do not work properly anymore. Tab Menus waiting a lot of seconds before executing the scripts (calculations, graph drawing the results and switching beween windows), while these compliczaed tasks were almost instantaneous with MacOS10.
- And impossible to save my programs as Standalones for the three platforms. That's the worse : I chose Livecode ( in fact Revolution when I began this activity) just for that : the possibility to distribute easily my programs to colleagues using the three platforms.

One of my colleague tried to use the standalones I have developped properly and correctly tested on Mojave, on a Mac computer equiped with Big Sur : the program works, but with identical speed and graphical problems.

I will try Big Sur again when I am certain Livecode is fully compatible with similar ( or better) performances than with earlier MacOs Versions.

Best wishes.

richmond62
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Re: Livecode 9 and Big Sur

Post by richmond62 » Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:49 pm

And impossible to save my programs as Standalones for the three platforms.
Apart from taking umbrage at the "the" in that statement

[I am currently running a machine on Greentea OS, and another on Haiku]

I can honestly say that I have NO problems (MacOS 11.3 Beta 4) running off standalones for

Windows 32-bit, Windows 64-bit, Linux 32-bit, Linux 64-bit or macOS.

mmasson
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Re: Livecode and Big Sur

Post by mmasson » Thu Mar 25, 2021 6:28 pm

michalow wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:07 pm
I develop Livecode scientific applications on Mac OS. Very specific and specialized data analysis programs for Synchrotron Spectrosopy experiments, using a lot of Numerical data treatment (integration and differentiation, Statistics, Matrix Algebra, Fitting by least squares refinement,...) and graphical functions I have translated from Fortran to Livecode. I don't want to go further in my explanations of what I do with Livecode, it's too complicated and unuseful for most users, and I don't have any reason to distribute these programs elsewhere than in my scientific community via free relationships The only thing I must say is that I was surprised to see the amazing speed of these programs translated to Livecode. Combined with the simplicity of the user interface programmation, and the possibility to develop on my favorite platform applications for Mac, Windows and Unix, I want to continue to use Livecode.

I have attempted to upgrade my MacOS from Mojave to Big Sur (Mac OS 11) and finally I decided to come back to Mojave because of several Livecode drawbacks.
- The execution speed is divided by more than 3 in some parts of my programs (user interface, numerical calculations and graphics)
- Some of the button controls I use in the user interface do not work properly anymore. Tab Menus waiting a lot of seconds before executing the scripts (calculations, graph drawing the results and switching beween windows), while these compliczaed tasks were almost instantaneous with MacOS10.
- And impossible to save my programs as Standalones for the three platforms. That's the worse : I chose Livecode ( in fact Revolution when I began this activity) just for that : the possibility to distribute easily my programs to colleagues using the three platforms.

One of my colleague tried to use the standalones I have developped properly and correctly tested on Mojave, on a Mac computer equiped with Big Sur : the program works, but with identical speed and graphical problems.

I will try Big Sur again when I am certain Livecode is fully compatible with similar ( or better) performances than with earlier MacOs Versions.

Best wishes.
I have had a similar experience once I installed Mac OS 11. Namely, a previously functional Livecode program with real-time graphics presentations suddenly slowed down substantially. It appears that Livecode is not ideally suited to this new OS.

richmond62
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Re: Livecode 9 and Big Sur

Post by richmond62 » Thu Mar 25, 2021 6:50 pm

It appears that Livecode is not ideally suited to this new OS.
How new is this 'new OS'?

Or, put another way, what the flying fudge is so different that LiveCode suddenly slows down so markedly?

richmond62
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Re: Livecode 9 and Big Sur

Post by richmond62 » Thu Mar 25, 2021 6:52 pm

Oh, Yes, and in the IDE if one does a COMMAND-3 to advance to the next card it takes donkey's ages
to react (sometimes as long as a minute).

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Re: Livecode 9 and Big Sur

Post by FourthWorld » Thu Mar 25, 2021 7:01 pm

michalow wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:07 pm
...The only thing I must say is that I was surprised to see the amazing speed of these programs translated to Livecode.
That's good to hear. We don't see a lot of comparisons with things made elsewhere, so your input on this is very helpful.
I will try Big Sur again when I am certain Livecode is fully compatible with similar ( or better) performances than with earlier MacOs Versions.
Big Sur is an ambitious upgrade, and a quick review of responses to it around the web suggests LC isn't the only thing having issues with it. Some of Apple's own Macs have been bricked by it, many users have reported performance issues, and several apps have seen rendering issues.

When we consider LC's long history of keeping up with macOS changes in a way that's generally seamless, when glitches of this magnitude are seen it's not surprising to learn that the root cause appears to be a mix that includes some things beyond LC's control.

Apple has a dot release in beta which looks promising, and the LC team has been making updates rapidly as well. I suspect both will come together soon into a nice experience.

In the meantime, using an older macOS version as you're doing seems a good solution for right now.
Richard Gaskin
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michalow
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Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2015 5:28 pm

Re: Livecode 9 and Big Sur

Post by michalow » Mon Mar 29, 2021 5:01 pm

Yes, you are right. For the moment, I develop my codes, and use them on MacOS Mojave.
The problem for me is that I distribute my programs to colleagues who have already migrated to MacOS11 (Big Sur), or bought new Macs equiped with the new system. My programs gives the correct answer to their problem, but much less slowly.

I have also tested my program, developped on MacOS10, on old Windows computers, and it works perfectly. I haven't yet tested on Windows 10.

I hope Livecode team will fix this issue soon.

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