Archives for AROS

Tabs n Pages

Posted by ALB42 on 19. April 2015No Comments

Worked at my idea for the visible Tabs at the Pagecontrol. As I found out before the Register at MUI can not be changed on runtime, so hard to use it directly for the LCL Pagecontrol. But now I just add a second MUI Object above the Pages which only contains the Register. Rather the same schema I used for the Caption of Checkboxes.

TabControl

TAChart tests

Posted by ALB42 on 17. April 2015No Comments

I played a little bit with the TAChart, omg so many different units needed, so many components/pathes to set. Some inital drawing problems, some more error checking need. Now works nicely, of course some events and so on does not work.
This new TAChart is very different as the one I used long time before in my programs in university. So I’m not sure how to use this but in principle it works 😉
Made a little test program afunction plotter:

Download: TAChartTest

TAChartTest

Testing 3rd party applications

Posted by ALB42 on 16. April 2015No Comments

To debug the lcl more I tested some 3rd party lazarus applications, some of them are really bad made. So my LCL get some problems with Autosize, especially when the window is Autosized and sizeable at the same time (which sounds a little bit strange for me also)

WinFF

WebPage

Problems:
Statusbar still crashes, so I had to remove it, still no idea whats wrong there. Funny, after removal of Statusbar it still compiles, so it was not in use?.
Autosize setting of the main window, as described already. First it get some exceptions because the defaultsize was not set, thats right I didn’t set this things. It seems some alignment problems alao related to this. So now I made a very simple implementations set the Prefered Size to 20×20. Later should add some for every widget.
Besides this problems the program work, but inside many ifdef unix, ifdef windows so much work need to implement startup of programs and so on.

WinFF

This ffplay is already called as expected. (just the ffplay is strange, crashes often and plays much to fast). The convert is done via a script with is very nice and easy to bring to AROS. But sadly the ffmpeg has some problems: First it’s not made for amiga so a source defined with „System:test/test.avi“ will not work because ffmpeg will report „Error: Unknown protocol System“ so one have to use „file:System:test/test.avi“ or so. But even then its not working, unrecognized options everywhere, maybe its made for an other ffmpeg version, I did not find for which ffmpeg its made.

Lyapunov Fractal

I really liked this fractals on AMIGA, even its was VERY slow to calculate (and its still, even on this fast computers), but they look better, different than the mandelbrot, julia or so. I found a rather complex program to calculate it, for Delphi, but converting to lazarus and some tiny changes and it also works on Lazarus, some more changes also works on Linux. now to AROS.

Problems:
Mainproblem is the Tabcontrol which still does not allow to switch tabs, so I had to add some Buttons for navigation and like always some drawing problems. Especially, Editpanels behave strange sometimes. I have to check later.

Download: Lyapunov for AROS i386

Lyapunovia

Example saved images:

JellyFish

LazSokoban

This worked surprisingly well, biggest problem was only that the pathes was added a DirectorySeparator even there was already one, no problem for Linux/Windows, but at AROS it means updir. And again some AutoSize issues really need look whats the problem there.
In contrast to the lazman program this is really well programmed, work well and also fast on AROS without any further optimizations. The colors are so also in the origian not a colorbug (I had to check twice, could not believe someone make such colors by purpose)

Download: LazSokoban
(AROS i386 – inclusive Source)

lazsokoban

Captured Start

Posted by ALB42 on 11. April 2015No Comments

Working on the next EdiSyn Version (0.50). The main new feature will be userdefined programs with capturing and parsing the output that you can jump into the source to the error/warning.

 

The mainproblems are the capturing of hte output, because there is no way to route the Output of an AROS program directly into memory. The only way is to let the Output write to a temporary file in RAM and read this at the same time. It works very nice, just if something happen the files stays in RAM: and uses up some memory.

 

The other Problem is again a very bad Amiga-style problem. When started from Workbench/Wanderer its nearly impossible to get the shell path, so the compiler is not able to find the linker and so on.
There are several ways to obtain the path, but seems als does not work on AROS. For example:

  • WorkbenchControl(nil, [WBCTRLA_DuplicateSearchPath, @path, TAG_DONE]); does simply nothing, the Path stays on nil.
  • PProcess(WBStartup^.sm_Message.mn_ReplyPort^.mp_SigTask)^.pr_CLI^.cli_CommandDir the problem is that the pr_CLI is nil, so not set.
  • cli := AllocDosObject(DOS_CLI, nil); results in a CLI but the path is also empty there.

 

The only way I found was to trace through all Processes and search for the main process (e.g. Wanderer, Shell, DirectoryOpus, such things, rather unsafe way to do it… but better than nothing).

 

The Output from GCC and Freepascal is parsed now so you get colored output and click to jump to the related position.
 

EdiSyn with Freepascal Output (compiles EdiSyn):

 

and GCC, with error reporting:

Icaros native

Posted by ALB42 on 6. April 20152 Comments

My whole development is done in Linux hosted, I’m used to it especially because when there is a tool missing in AROS I can use the Linux tools to do it. But the hosted is slow, what is not bad for development but also some bugs does not appear there.
So I tried to install a Icaros 2.03 DVD on an old Computer which is long time not in use anymore (AMD64 X2, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia 7900, e1000 network card) in short a deasaster, it simply does not work at all, it begins to boot, whatever i choose there or in BIOS nothing happens. who knows what wrong there. I have no clue and tried every tip I found in the net.

 

I got an old Laptop which is laying around long time already, the display is somewhat broken. (Dell Inspirion 640m, Intel Core, 1GB Ram, Intel graphics, Chipset Network). oho finally it works somehow. Even the native graphics and sound is working. So far the good news, bad news follow… and they are really bad. Network does not work at all, both network cards are not supported (also checked in the compatibilty list). I thought on the left side the slit is a old style PCMCIA slot (I have a lot such wireless and wired network cards), haha but I was wrong its an express card slot. So it seems I do not have any chance to bring this laptop to network with AROS 🙁 Maybe with an USB network card, but I don’t have such things and I have no idea which one would work.

 

nevertheless I decided to install AROS on it, just to play around and „feel“ the speed, migario told me that it should be a lot faster than hosted.
First the installation.. OMFG … ok calm down… the installer self is nice and work as expected good that it only asks at the beginning and then install without any more questions, I like that.
BUT… guys serious the installation time is out of discussion… after a while I just put the laptop to ground and let it run made other things on my desktop computer. It needs HOURS for sure, seems the position on the DVD is not optimized. I noticed already on the startup that the DVD reader head moves like a maniac… a little bit like the 3.5″ disks in the past. Maybe the positions on the DVD should be optimized for faster access.
Why it needs so long… ok first it copies everything from the live DVD to the HD, the HD is ultra fast so thats not the bottle neck (boot up after installation is done in less than 5 seconds).
But this hundrets of very tiny files really slow down it very much. Especially the catalog files for every program and AROS and for AROS68k. this could be optimized a lot… PLEASE only install my language catalog files and english as fallback… PLEASE do not install all catalogs… also on 68k emulation side. (which is useless for me either). Maybe it would be better to move all this little files to a zip folder and unpack them directly onto the harddisk.
This redrawing bugs on the installer and zips unpacking…. looks very bad.. but OK I know them already, missing Zune feature of redrawing window when a dialog or so is open. I struggle with it in LCL as well.

 

The installation is over… but no hint what to do now.. reboot hmm ok but how (I would prefer the installer asks me directly and do it if I agree)
(and menu quit quits only dopus and not resets the computer, must click on this icaros eye and then choose Exit)

 

But ok after the installation it boots very fast as stated already. really nice… the sound works wow, even this sample sounds a little bit like disturbed (I checked on linux its in the file).
I tested with Shift_it_GL (which is sadly not included), nice GL acceleration works 🙂 its incredibly fast.

 

I played around with some of the tools installed. (why the icons on the harddisk are so „unsorted“ some even overlay which each other, and big holes, no clear ordering, especially the SYS: root folder)

Audio evolution: Guys what is that? Program open, asks me for Audio hardware… ok there is only one to choose, and underneath a slider Frequency with no numbers or so, what it does, I have no idea. The program opens… I would like to open an example project to play with it…
„Welcome to Audio evolution!“ the window say, Start new, load, load recent… but the recent is a project in RAM: which is of course not there. Load a project (I would expect it lands in a project folder maybe with example project) but nothing… how bad.. too lazy to search for its folder.

 

I searched a little bit around (also on the search for freepascal 😛 ) And found it in Extras/Development/Languages/fpc The fp-ide starts and work nicely… BUT seems the pathes in fp.cfg or fpc.cfg are not set properly… it can not find the Exec unit. I’m not sure whats wrong there the units are there the fpc.cfg looks good. maybe later I check again. Compiling from shell works well.

 

in Development tools is a C IDE, Murks… I also tried this one on startup looks nice (even I do not like this huge icons, but thats only my personal view)
Open project….. ARGH requester in RAM: .. guys..seriously… but I’m really interrested and know where its folder is so navigate to there and hey there are also examples… CHelloWorld.dev 😀 good that is what I’m searching for. Open it main.c in the list, click on click on it, the well known C hello world source… nice, now lets rock, compile it. big fat „Build“ Button. and…. guys… seriously whats that… „gcc: object not found“ …. I even do not found settings to set a path to gcc only project options. Sorry I stop here.

 

Finally I tested some of my programs especially EdiSyn (transfered with USB stick, worked very nice gratulation to this one). and really the tab open, scrolling and so on is FAAAAAST really nice, even size change with Opaque on looks not so bad, ok it flickers a bit, but the window decoration of the windows (all windows) flickers also like hell, most visible around the close button and scrollbars. So it is not only my problem 😛

 

As conclusion I would say… it is nice… but needs a lot more polishing, I would prefer less programs better sorted and WORKING, best with set (at least one) recent files, which are there and useable to play.

Happy Easter release EdiSyn 0.40

Posted by ALB42 on 4. April 2015No Comments

The new EdiSyn is out, Version 0.40.

 

Most important features should be the configuration possibility for the SynEdit control, inclusive Color selecting for Highlighter, and shortcut preferences.
The highlighter colors are saved in separate files.
 

  • ADD: Preferences Dialog
  • ADD: Key binding Dialog with Key catcher
  • ADD: Highlighter Color selection Dialog
  • ADD: New tab on every open
  • ADD: Tab Navigation ShortCuts
  • FIX: Faster New Tab
  • FIX: Drawing improvement
  • FIX: Menu Items Memory leak
  • FIX: Canvas Memory leak
  • ADD: Easter Eggs

 

Download at EdiSyn Page

 

EdiSyn040

I want cookies… ehm colors

Posted by ALB42 on 30. März 2015One Comment

For the step of EdiSyn I will need a working color requester, the ASL does not supply one so I have to create one for myself. Not a big thing actually, just create a new local MUIApplication (I was not sure this is even possible to create two of them in the same process, but seems no problem until now) a Window with two buttons and the Palette object.
Again meet this strange MUI color needs 32 bit value for each color, but the requester only counts from 0..255. So its working nicely. The presets colors I cannot use currently, maybe later someone has fun to add another little panel with this colors and events to set them to the palette event. Currently its not that important I would say.

colordialog

On the left side much space is wasted, it seems to be meant to change some pens at once, not only one as I need, but its working.

I also did a little bit research about the redraw problem if an ASL requester (or this one) is open, and hey the creators of MUI also thought to this problem, and there is a solution for it AROS MUIM_Application_CheckRefresh….. sadly its is not implemented in AROS, it does simply nothing.

EdiSyn 0.33 About

Posted by ALB42 on 27. März 2015No Comments

Last days I didn’t have much time to work on EdiSyn, much other things to do. And played little bit too much with the contents of the About box which should be introduced *shame on me*.
I added a smooth text scroller, seems magorium had the same idea and made crossfader. hmm both is nice, so I included both for the new release.
Besides this I got an idea hoe to slove some of the loop Notify problems. I also got a crash report, seems also related to the loop notify thing. Two things to reduce the notify loops: 1. Check if the value is changed, and only send to MUI if it has changed. 2. Block the Event if the Value is set by the interface. This should reduce the loop notifies and maybe the crash as well.
An other thing I noticed, seems I had a BIG memory hole in the code when drawing transparent Images to Canvas. The Canvas did no destroy the rastport/bitmap which was created if this Canvas is a free floating canvas, so not connected to a window/widget.
 
So here is a new release with some bugfixes and little improvements

 

EdiSyn 0.33

News:

  • FIX: Beep also when searching backwards (Shift F3)
  • ADD: Warn if a file is already open in the editor, jump to this tab
  • ADD: Show full path in Window title.
  • FIX: crash for un/checking TRadiobox
  • ADD: About Box

 

Download at the EdiSyn Page

 

EdiSyn033