Re: [NTLK] Newton Script Tutorial Chapter 1 and 2 are online

On 25.05.2008, at 01:05, Frank Gruendel wrote:
> What I liked immediately is that the Inspector is not in a separate
> window as in NTK. That way programming is much easier because it saves
> many clicks. Also, syntax highlighting is something I have always
> missed a lot in NTK.

Hi Frank,

thanks for this great and really helpful EMail. Yes, you are right, I
have qite little tim, but I nevertheless want to keep this rolling,
especially if we have the chance to get some new software developed
(or old software fixed)!

> What you describe so far works fine...
>
> However, since I am impatient by nature, I tried to load a very
> simple NTK project in DyneTK, which worked. I was able to download
> the package (the one that was built by NTK) to the Newton, and I
> also was able to launch it via DyneTK. However, when I tried to
> build the package in DyneTK, it gave me
>
> Building package
> **** ERROR while compiling or interpreting
> **** Global Error: No error

I have introduced an issue where the first build run will create an
error, but the second one may compile just fine. I assume that some
status variable is not changed between runs which is why you would get
those conflicting error messages. Now go and press F1 ;-)

> Should DyneTK be able to handle NTK projects?

Yes. DyneTK reads MS Windows and Mac NTK projects. If you copy a Mac
project onto an MSWindows machine, you must make sure that the
resource fork is copied as a second file, usually prepended by a '.'
or similar. Mac NTK projects keep almost all of their informatio in
the resource fork.

And just because of that resource fork mess, DyneTK can not write Mac
project files. The MSWindows project file that it writes should be
readable in MSWindows NTK though.

> I then created my own project with DyneTK, which consisted of only a
> protoFloatNGo, which I was able to compile, load and launch.

Phew ;-)

> Adding a protoCheckbox to the protoFloatNGo worked, and DyneTK
> compiled the package successfully. However, when lauching it, there
> was no checkbox in the application.

That is very well possible. The part of DyneTK that converts a layout
into NewtonScript has not been tested very much. Please send me the
project if you like, or, if you are even more adventurous (and I know
you are), you can click on "Projects->Export Project to text". This
wwill generate "testing_script_writer.txt" in the launch directory.
It's likely that there is some essential code missing (NTK has a
similar function). It is pretty easy to insert the missing lines in
the next release of DTK.

> Things I think should be added to DyneTK first:
>
> 1) Make the open/save dialogs remember the last selection.

Yes, that is easy. I just hadn't looked at it yet.

> 2) Implement deleting templates.

Absolutely. I underestimated the project in the beginning and decided
for a relatively simply connection between databse and UI, which now
comes back at me and I have to restructure. But this will be in 1.7.1.

> 3) Context-sensitive popup menus would be helpful

I have not seen those in NTK, but they are relatively easy to
implement. Just give me a list of ideas and I will put the easier ones
in 1.7.1.

Thanks again for this mail. This is very valuable input and extremely
helpful to me.

Matthias

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