Disappearing Tools Palette

[RCozens]

Hi All,

I noticed this some time ago, and wrote it off as normal behavior; but I continue to wonder why and look for a fix:

1. Start LiveCode, which displays the main IDE and the Tools Palette.
2. Select "New Stack" from the File menu (or open an existing stack).
3. Select "Import As Control" & "image", at which point the Tools Palette disappears.
4. Select an image.

When the image appears in the stack, the Tools Palette remains invisible until the mouse clicks on the new stack or the IDE.

Similarly, when a handler in one stack calls Answer File to select another stack from which it extracts data, the Tools Palette disappears and remains invisible until the mouse clicks on the IDE.

Shouldn't the IDE redisplay the Tools Palette automatically in both cases?

Cheers!

[richmond62]

As far as I'm concerned the Tool palette should ALWAYS be visible unless the end-user chooses to hide it.

[dunbarx]

Hi.

It does not on my machine. And it should not, as Richmond says, at all. One thing has nothing to do with another.

I am on a Mac, but I bet that even Windows (ugh) users don't see this.

Craig

[SparkOut]

The tools palette is always disappearing on Windows. It always has. I think there is a setting somewhere, where it is supposed to be a choice for it and other palettes to auto hide out of the way of work going on, but it has never worked that I ever got the hang of.

[dunbarx]

Sparkout.

There is an arcane setting in the LC preferences to hide palettes when the SE is being edited. Never understood why anyone would need that.

But why on earth would one want to do that in general. I would think that since you can roll your own tool palette hider, that would do.

Oh, yeah...

Windows.

Craig

[stam]

There is an arcane setting in the LC preferences to hide palettes when the SE is being edited. Never understood why anyone would need that.

I'm guessing you don't work on a laptop then
With 1-2 palettes (especially if expanded), tools palette and msgBox you can easily loose 30% of your screen and palettes have no business being on top of the script editor which when open will often be maximised.
The only question for me is why anyone would actually want all the palettes to cover the SE with a single screen setup! (needless to say i always have this setting on )

[dunbarx]

Stam.

I could never do serious work on a laptop, though I have done frivolous work there. I would rather have a slow processor and multiple huge monitors than a lightning fast MacBook.

Craig

[RCozens]

Since I brought it up, I decided to check further:

While the Tools Palette remains visible when ask and answer commands are called, the IDE hides it and leaves it hidden (on Windows at least) when ask file and answer file are called.

If this is not happening on MacOS, is it worth submitting a bug report?

[dunbarx]

Nothing changes with "answer file" or "ask file" on Mac.

As Richard has exhaustively reported, this is likely not a "bug", rather just the way different OS's are built and used.

Craig

[richmond62]

I could never do serious work on a laptop, though I have done frivolous work there.

A man after my own heart!

On the rare occasions I have to make do with a laptop

[my current laptop runs Xubuntu 22.04 and is used almost exclusively for watching British Procedural Cop
Shows with my wife via an HDMI attached television.]

I set it to the max screenrect it can manage and/or attach a second monitor for the Tools palette and so forth.

[stam]

Stam.

I could never do serious work on a laptop, though I have done frivolous work there. I would rather have a slow processor and multiple huge monitors than a lightning fast MacBook.

Craig

Sure, I get that - I was just pointing out why someone would use that feature (because you mentioned you couldn't understand why someone would!)
What's one man's serious workplace is another's boring annoying setup... each to his own! but that's why there is a modifiable setting for this

This is also one of the reasons i prefer the 'dictionary' and SE equivalents to be separate apps - i can easily assign them to virtual desktops and just swipe between these with the trackpad...

[richmond62]

assign them to virtual desktops

Cruddy work around follows:

Run 2 instances of LC on different virtual desktops.

'swhat I do when I have to use my laptop 'in the field' (i.e. no secondary monitor attached).

[stam]

Except for me, Dash and VSCode do a much better job than the built in dictionary and SE.

And much less resource-hungry than running two instances of LC. Don’t forget that on Mac, to run two instances you need two copies of the software and current versions weighing in at about 2 Gb take a significant bite out of a laptop storage.

So I’ll not be using your “cruddy workaround”, thank you!

[richmond62]

So I’ll not be using your “cruddy workaround”, thank you!

I did not really expect you to.

As, Yes, it is resource hungry, and, Yes, it is cruddy.

[richmond62]

Here, at work, in my lunch break, on MacOS 10.7.5, with LC 8.1.10,

I made a new stack called 'LCD' and made the stacks 'revDictionary' and 'revDictionaryBehavior'
substacks of it.

Gave the 'LCD' stack a button 'LC Dictionary' with this code:

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   put the screenRect into SCRZ
   set the lockScreen to true
   open stack "revDictionaryBehavior"
   open stack "revDictionary"
   set the vis of stack "revDictionaryBehavior" to false
   set the vis of stack "revDictionary" to true
   wait 5 ticks
   set the lockScreen to false
   set the right of stack "revDictionary" to (item 3 of SCRZ)
end mouseUp

and ran off a Mac standalone, and "shazaam" ended up with a convenient app for looking
at the Dictionary on another desktop to LiveCode.