Livecode 9 menus look terrible in Ubuntu

[bogs]

Such a survey would need to include the most relevant question:
5. Would be willing to pay several million dollars needed to dynamically emulate modern OS appearances on every platform, and pay any legal fees where doing so may result in copyright or patent claims?

How many millions were coughed up when the original emulation was done? I wager not many, or even millions, although I -

1. could be wrong, since I wasn't there, or
2. it could be taken as relative, like what a record company claims the damage is when someone illegally downloads a single song (which I don't believe either).

If simply emulating an interface was as big a problem as you seem to be implying, I'm pretty sure WINE would have been out of business long ago. For that matter, so would react, sheep shaver, basilisk, etc etc etc. I'm pretty sure I could draw up controls that look like 'OSX' or 'Windows' from existing controls, and even make the program act like an OSX or Windows app, I don't think ms or apple would have any problem with it because I am not building an OS, and neither in this case am I (or anyone else) asking Lc to do so.

We are merely talking about an "In dev environment" option to preview what something looks like, not a "build and deploy all these controls" option.

And now I feel really bad for steering this topic into "WHERE THE HECK ARE WE NOW" off topic territory

[FourthWorld]

Look at the details of the rendering, and consider also the more frequent rate of OS changes.

Emulating every desktop on every desktop is not a trivial task, which is probably why we're not seeing any other company attempt it.

[FourthWorld]

copyright or patent claims

I find it very difficult indeed to see how one can patent the bevelling on a button,
the contrast between a font and its background, or any of the other subtleties that
go to make up an interface.

I'm not an IP attorney, and personally I'd prefer a world where everyone follows NZ's lead and refuses to spend time in their courts hearing software patent cases.

But in the world we live in it's big business.

So many insanely trivial things wind up meeting cease-and-desists that it's no longer possible to know what may trigger a legal assertion.

Q: How many people does it take to write a line of code in the 21st century?

A: Three. One programmer to write the line, an attorney to search every patent DB in all jurisdictions around the world against possible assertions, and a second attorney to submit patent applications in every jurisdiction for that line of code, to be used defensively in litigation.

[richmond62]

I feel really bad

Keep feeling bad bogs: I'm enjoying the hairy tangentialism.

[richmond62]

But in the world we live in it's big business.

Probably better to stop using the word 'we', unless you're using the 'Royal we'.

Many of us do NOT live in the United States of America, and know very well why, because the
Idea of America (the American dream) has been ruined, and become

"a greedy, domineering, isolated, stomping, hypocritical land of political correctness at home and blatant savagery abroad"

Lost Worlds, Michael Bywater, London, 2004, page 31.

as well as being hag-ridden by lawyers.

In an awful lot of the rest of the world things are kinder and gentler, and even in big business there is still an element of fair play.

[bogs]

Emulating every desktop on every desktop is not a trivial task, which is probably why we're not seeing any other company attempt it.

I think there are different reasons why a company might (or might not) attempt such a thing.

• I doubt MS has any interest in attempting it with little regard to whether it is trivial or not.
• I haven't honestly ever tried Java on any serious level, so can't comment with any authority, but considering what I've seen of swing, it doesn't strike me they are trying for native looks on any platform.
• RB/Xojo had the feature only where it applied to menus at least up till 2012, I haven't touched it since it became Xojo so can't say there.
  
• Delphi was Windows only, so would not be worried I think about trying to do it.
• C++ IDES don't usually have interface building kits, unless your talking about MS again, which certainly wouldn't be designing windows cross platform.
• Free Pascal is a text based IDE, Lazarus (and several others) have controls that range from lvl to wx derived, but again don't seem to try to make it native looking on any single target.

I'm also surprised you mentioned what other companies are doing since, as you have correctly pointed out in the past, Lc isn't trying to be like everyone else. if Lc's environment is to be like every other companies environment, they should immediately move to a monolithic single window layout and adopt property sheets, dot notation, and take 50 lines of code to do what we take for granted with our piddly 3 or 4 lines now, but put in a complete editor solution standard (along the lines of Delphi/Lazarus or VB (any issue) or Rb/Xojo or Vis.Studios or Netbeans or....), although I think that development of the environment on that scale would certainly tip the money cart.

Signed,
Your Hairy Tangentialist of America, off target 50+ years and counting but still living the dream...

[FourthWorld]

Probably better to stop using the word 'we', unless you're using the 'Royal we'.

Many of us do NOT live in the United States of America...

In just one case, Apple v Samsung, claims were heard in at least ten countries. Without the EU that number would easily have doubled. It was on track to increase even more anyway, but finally Apple and Samsung agreed to stop filling new litigation.

And that's just one case.

AFAIK the only nation which enforces IP but refuses to hear software patent cases is New Zealand. If there are others I'd be encouraged to learn about them.

[richmond62]

In just one case, Apple v Samsung, claims were heard in at least ten countries.

When I lived in the USA (1993-1996) I saw so much I admired.

It does seem a pity that what seems to spread in terms of American culture
seem to be the negative aspects rather than the positive ones.

A "little bird" told me that Microsoft stole the WIMP GUI from Apple who stole it from IBM . . .

And I recall using a BBC Master Welcome disk in the UAE in 1989 which also featured
a black-and-white WIMP GUI.

And Apple and Samsung suing each other: that's called 'the pot calling the kettle black'; they could spend more of their profits on reducing the prices of their products instead of keeping lawyers going.

[FourthWorld]

I'm also surprised you mentioned what other companies are doing since, as you have correctly pointed out in the past, Lc isn't trying to be like everyone else.

Really? Okay, I'll try to believe clarifying this is actually needed and do my best to provide it in good faith:

I mention other companies only as an indicator of feasibility.

Please observe that I didn't write that MetaCard Corp. stopped keeping up with new OS appearances in its emulation because they were trying to be like other companies. Indeed, I explicitly (and repeatedly, since most of what I write here is apparently rarely read) noted that the issue there is one of cost.

If you believe I'm mistaken on this, or that I somehow know it's actually quite trivial but have some unimaginable reason to mislead you, proving me wrong would be as simple as putting up a crowd funding campaign to do it. In 30 days you'd have your answer about whether there's interest (I suspect it would be quite popular), and some time later you'd know exactly what it would cost to pull off (I suspect a multiple of whatever total could be funded).

But even simpler, just as a though experiment, go through the macOS docs on how NSViews work with their compositor, repeat that with Win10 APIs, and with Gnome. Then imagine reverse engineering all the support needed to do that portably without the benefit of the OS.

Trust me on at least this much: I have no reason to lie to you on this. I do honestly believe that Scott Raney made the right decision to stop emulating OSes in the late 90s, and devote his time instead to integrating with them.

[FourthWorld]

A "little bird" told me that Microsoft stole the WIMP GUI from Apple who stole it from IBM . . .

The little bird was a bit off on details:

Apple acquired the rights to certain UI elements, not stole them.

They acquired them from Xerox, not IBM (for stock, IIRC, which, if Xerox had held onto, would have produced more in the long run than their total investment in UI research many-fold).

Microsoft didn't steal from Apple, they licensed from Apple.

There was a subset of UI elements Apple could claim were their own and which they had not already licensed to Microsoft, which became the basis of the (in)famous Apple v Microsoft suit.

But that subset was so narrow a judge ultimately dismissed the claims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Com ... osoft_Corp.

[bogs]

Richard, I always read (and try to comprehend) what you write very carefully and completely.

If I mis-read or mis-understand something you've written, my apologies to you are both heart felt and sincere. While I generally tend to try for levity in 99.999999999999% of what I put out, you can take my sincerity to the bank when I state it.

I think the problem in this case is that we both see this situation differently, I'm not looking for one to one parity from the IDE for each and every OS out there, but I suspect you think I want the IDE to be an OS emulator unto itself running full functions from every OS's core api-set. That would indeed be daunting to try to pull off, if it were even possible. Rest assured, this is not what I am talking about.

In the above post, mentioning other companies as an indicator of what is feasible has little meaning when the other companies have never in their history done such, nor show any intention in the future of doing such. The only company I can think of that *did* attempt part of such was RB back in the day with the menu'ing preview of which I posted a picture.

Please observe that I didn't write that MetaCard Corp. stopped keeping up with new OS appearances in its emulation because they were trying to be like other companies.

I don't see anywhere in my post that says you did say this, or even hinted that you might have said this. The point I was replying too was exactly what I quoted from your post, i.e.

Emulating every desktop on every desktop is not a trivial task, which is probably why we're not seeing any other company attempt it.

Again, my only issue with that statement is that mentioning other companies as an indicator of what is feasible or cost prohibitive has little relevance when said companies have never had that feature and likely are not trying for parity with that feature.

I hope that clarifies my previous post. Whether you know it or don't, a great deal of what you've written has been very informative on many levels for me personally, and it is very much appreciated. There are times where I suspect you are pulling on my leg, but I don't mind that so much.

[bogs]

A "little bird" told me that Microsoft stole the WIMP GUI from Apple who stole it from IBM . . .

The little bird was a bit off on details:
- Apple acquired the rights to certain UI elements, not stole them.
- They acquired them from Xerox, not IBM (for stock, IIRC, which, if Xerox had held onto, would have produced more in the long run than their total investment in UI research many-fold).
- Microsoft didn't steal from Apple, they licensed from Apple. *

They even made a movie about this (Pirates of Silicon Valley).
* The movie had a different take on that one, but of course, the movie wasn't 100% accurate in other ways either.

[FourthWorld]

It's all good, Bogs. Thanks.

The bottom line seems to be the bottom line: attempting to emulate modern composited appearances seemed prohibitively expensive to Dr. Raney, and apparently to the acquiring LiveCode Ltd. as well. Given finite budgets and a much greater need for OS integration than emulation, their priorities seem quite sound to me.

[bogs]

I'm fine with that as well

Now since we all agree on that, maybe we can steer this conversation back to why the menu's don't match when your trying for native integration

[FourthWorld]

I was enjoying this as a diversion from that deeper malady. Part is it is no doubt related to not using Gnome objects for menu items. But the same strategy works well enough on Windows, so I know they can get very close once they start work on it.