May 4 2002 Chat Log

HOME

FAQ

CHAT

LINKS

<Mike Baker> Sorry about Apurva
<Chris Swenson> I was up at 5 AM here finishing a PHP project...we could of done it then. =+)
<Mike Baker> about "that" i mean
<Amy Blankenship> Next time, Chris
Steve Howard> Cool -= I was thinking about lunch then Chris ;-)
[Sat May 04 18:58:07 GMT+01:00 2002] David Lynch: Michigan USA
<Amy Blankenship> Hi, David
<Apurva> its okay. Company of the best people in the world is worth it
<Chris Swenson> Hi David
<Apurva> Hi David
<David Lynch> hello all
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, I am pleasantly surprised at who is here
<Amy Blankenship> I know we have some more coming, but the log has started
<Mike Baker> wouldn't miss an opportunity to find out what to do next :-)
<Apurva> i was working on my college project. Making a cafe model simulation
<Amy Blankenship> I know I have my ideas on what I'd like to see happen, but what does everyone else think
<Apurva> in authorware
<Amy Blankenship> Apu's version of 'the Authorware Sims'
[Sat May 04 18:59:53 GMT+01:00 2002] Ronny Elgad has no profile.
<Amy Blankenship> Hi, Ronny
<Grace Daminato> Motion icons that support rotation
<Ronny Elgad> Hi all
<Grace Daminato> Hi Ronny
<Amy Blankenship> Oooh, good idea
[Sat May 04 19:00:15 GMT+01:00 2002] andrew lucking has no profile.
<Ronny Elgad> hi
<Steve Howard> Hi Ronny
<Grace Daminato> I've wanted those for a long time
<David Lynch> rotation from center point
<Amy Blankenship> There are so many things we have to fudge because of that
<Ronny Elgad> hi all
<andrew lucking> g'day all
<Amy Blankenship> Hi, Andrew
<Grace Daminato> Is there a technical reason why Authorware can't support rotation natively?
<Steve Howard> I'd love to see Director -style image modes all the "ink" ontions in Director are way more powerful than AWs
<Mike Baker> what kind of graphic support with that? Would be ok to only allow rotation of vector or would we need support for png, psd, gif, bmp, and all that?
<Steve Howard> If it is visible, spin it ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> I don't think rotating AW drawn images would help much
<Amy Blankenship> And Aw does not seem to do other vector formats well
<Steve Howard> They would look better if they were antialiasable
<David Lynch> i agree the images for rotation should be imported formats
<Grace Daminato> Mike, does the graphic format make a difference? What does the motion icon do now with different formats?
<Mike Baker> Some graphic formats don't support it as easily as others
<Chris Swenson> repaint issues?
<Jamil Zainasheff> I always have to ask the question, what are you using it for?
<Amy Blankenship> Well, a question that comes up from time to time on the ng is to use it to simulate dials and such
<Grace Daminato> Control knobs in simulations...I've always had to find a workaround when faced with control knobs
<David Lynch> Advertisements Trade show displays training
<Apurva> Mike, won't the vector formats need some kind of recalculation while repainting ?
<Mike Baker> I can think of 1000 things that I would use it for. But then I would just do those things in flash.
<Jamil Zainasheff> It is good to list what you want to do exactly, rather than just saying rotation.
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, but Flash does not do OTHER things as well as AW
<Amy Blankenship> and Flash in AW has limitations
<David Lynch> aw seems to have inconsistency in flash with transparent backgrounds.
<Mike Baker> That's very true Amy
<Steve Howard> I have an issue with using Flash for certain animation because of the slow-down
<Jamil Zainasheff> You want to interact with an image and allow the user to rotate it in increments or drag in either direction.
<Steve Howard> Yes - or just have it rotate instead of using a movie
<Amy Blankenship> That is just part of it...you give us rotation and you know as soon as you do we'll start pushing it
<Ronny Elgad> or just to show some thing
<Grace Daminato> Either let the user rotate it OR rotate with the motion icon.
<Ronny Elgad> right
<David Lynch> Personally I have a need to rotate the image at various speeds thus I use director or flash but they are slow load (director) and inconsistent (flash)
<Steve Howard> if you can rotate it with the motion icon, you can let the user think they did it anyway
<Grace Daminato> Recently, there's a Masters student in Physics trying to emulate optics experiments that involve rotating an object and seeing how light bends at different angles.
<Amy Blankenship> But he is using AW 4
<Steve Howard> that definitely sounds like a job for Director
<Amy Blankenship> rotation in 7 won't do him any good ;-)
<Grace Daminato> He got all kinds of advice including doing it in Flash which wasn't an option because he's using A4.
<Chris Swenson> The ActiveX would be supported
<Mike Baker> nothing that we discuss here will wind up in AW 4
<Mike Baker> :-)
<Steve Howard> he can use the ActiveX control in 4
<Amy Blankenship> Ya think LOL
<David Lynch> I do a lot of work with automotive they have rotating mass in various applications I try to create sims
<Steve Howard> Awe :'-(
<Grace Daminato> Amy, you're right...but he's not the only person who may want to create optics simulations among other things
<Amy Blankenship> I saw an interesting concept at the MM free seminar in Austin. They are pushing Flash as a front end for Database applications
<Chris Swenson> What are some of the inconsistencies people are seeing in Flash? <wheels are spinning>
<Steve Howard> I have been discussing similar things with a prospective client - imaging for Oil rigs .. trying to simulate the stuff that is going on 6 miles underground
<Jamil Zainasheff> Is this THE thing that people want. If you could pick ONE thing would this be it?
<Apurva> we do a lot of work with creating sims for machinery
<Grace Daminato> The problem with using ActiveX is that it's not cross-platform. I'm still seeing the need to support things for the Mac.
<Mike Baker> anybody here remember the figurative $100? How much of your $100 would go into rotation?
<Amy Blankenship> I think AW has much more capability in that direction
<Apurva> so we need animated gears and wheels
[Sat May 04 19:09:33 GMT+01:00 2002] Mark Henry: Rampant Lion Interactive - We Make Authorware EASY! - www.rlinteractive.com
<David Lynch> using transparent backgrounds loads once works great 2nd time poor
<Amy Blankenship> We want everything, guys ;-)
 Afternoon!
<Amy Blankenship> Welcome
<Ronny Elgad> -:)
<Chris Swenson> Hey Mark
<Mike Baker> hi Mark
<David Lynch> Hi mark
<Apurva> Hi Mark
 Have I missed anything important?
<Amy Blankenship> I have a question for the group. Much was made at EuroTAAC about having AW be able to export Flash
<Mike Baker> we've been discussing adding rotation to the motion icon
<Grace Daminato> Hi Mark
<Amy Blankenship> How much interest do the people in this room have in being able to do that?
<Grace Daminato> I'd be willing to pay $50 for that feature (out of the hypothetical $100).
<Steve Howard> OK Jamil - here's $30 of my wedge - fix the unsupported thing in the Asset Xtra for Flash - LoadMovie etc, - and improve performance for transparent movies
 The ability to rotate and zoom via the Motion icon is long overdue.
<Mike Baker> oh yeah, zoom too.
<Steve Howard> We just been talking about that very think Mark
<David Lynch> $100
<Amy Blankenship> maybe not via the motion icon
<Amy Blankenship> what about making one of the image and/or icon properties
<Mike Baker> or a new icon to replace the video icon :-)
<Amy Blankenship> allow those to actually be variably set
<Steve Howard> Improved support for scaling images in AW.
<Amy Blankenship> the docs say now that scale SHOULD be settable
 Exporting to Flash would be good in concept, if for nothing else than to reduce problems associated with distributing and supporting the AW plugin.
<Amy Blankenship> but it is not
[Sat May 04 19:12:36 GMT+01:00 2002] Erik Lord: top secret
<Grace Daminato> Yes...can we lose the video icon. Hardware to support it is long gone
<David Lynch> I second the scaling
<Steve Howard> Hey Erik :D
<Amy Blankenship> Ha, Erik, we know it's you
<Erik Lord> lol ;) hi
<David Lynch> hey Eric
<Ronny Elgad> Hi Erik
<Grace Daminato> Hi Erik
<andrew lucking> but why not just build in flash mark, time?
<Chris Swenson> I think faster support for Flash and a command that made a flash file from an image that could rotate, zoom, etc. would be handy
<Steve Howard> Flash takes longer to develop in
<Chris Swenson> Hey Erik
<Erik Lord> hey folks
<Apurva> What kind of stuff do you think exporting in flash have ?
<Steve Howard> What about the other way about - what would we lose with a Flash Export option??
<Mike Baker> any action script experts here?
<Chris Swenson> what if creating a rotating, zooming flash file was simple
<Amy Blankenship> I, personally, have less interest in exporting to Flash
<Amy Blankenship> It kind of is, but you still have the problems with performance
<Grace Daminato> The animation part of Flash is simple...rotate and zoom...Other things that involve Action script take longer to develop and are hellishly difficult to troubleshoot.
<Steve Howard> me too - but I hear people shouting about multi-platform delivery. If that is a real demand on us, Flash and HTML are the easiest solutions. Then I would want Flash export
<Apurva> rotating, zoom , translate should be a breeze with flash if flash could be exported
<Erik Lord> why is the performance with Flash in Aware so...slow?
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, AW does fall down when it comes to cross platform delivery
<Chris Swenson> And that's pretty simple to write a flash file...
<andrew lucking> why not push for better x-platform aw support?
<Mike Baker> that's why I need an action script expert. what do we typically do in AW that's easy that we would lose in the swf format?
 What platform(s) are you including when you say "cross platform"?
<Amy Blankenship> Interactivity
<Steve Howard> I think that would be prohibitively expensive. Hey Jamil... Have you guys looked at that? The cost of cross-platform development of AW vs. Flash export costs?
<Amy Blankenship> And, actually, the ability to create a whole group of Winctrls that can be easily treated as a group
<Mike Baker> but can that be done with action script. Click this GoTo scene that?
<Amy Blankenship> Well, a lot of the world won't give up their Macs
<Steve Howard> Cross-platform? I hear a small number of people shouting very loudly that they NEED Mac and Unix support
<Jamil Zainasheff> As Mark asked, what do you mean by cross platform?
<Amy Blankenship> more than that, Mike
<Amy Blankenship> AW does drag and drop EASILY
<Steve Howard> I have been reading a lot about delivery of training to palm-top devices via Flash too. Never seen any though
<Grace Daminato> Mike, some types of interactions...where you have custom cursors on hot spots but not on others...couldn't do that with Flash 5. Hand cursor always shows even if you use a button as a catch all. I don't know about MXS
<Amy Blankenship> you have to turn yourself inside out in Flash to do what a day 1 developer can do as far as drag and drop in AW
<Steve Howard> Interactions in general are overly complex to achieve in Flash. AW makes interactions a breeze
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, but if AW is going to be able to stand on its own two feet toe to toe with Flash it needs to run on everything Flash can
<Grace Daminato> Drag and drop is definitely a drag in Flash
<Jamil Zainasheff> Maybe you should ask for an AW interface on top of Flash . :-)
<Erik Lord> lol grace
[Sat May 04 19:19:12 GMT+01:00 2002] Kathy Napierala has no profile.
<Steve Howard> Oh yes :-) But if you can get it to work in Flash it can be more powerful
<Amy Blankenship> Actually, I'd like to see an AW interface on top of XHTML
<Chris Swenson> Is there a market really for Mac/ Unix... how often are clients asking for this?
<andrew lucking> ask who Jamil? mm or the psd guys? ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> That's not the point. The "perception" is that Flash is better because it is cross platform
<Erik Lord> we hear occasional requests for Mac, never for *nix
<Grace Daminato> What would be easier...to put an Authorware interface on Flash or to add some Flash-like features to Authorware?
<Jamil Zainasheff> Neither.
<Amy Blankenship> I'd also like to see AW be used a lot more for application development, so you could have seamless integrated training
<Chris Swenson> =+) good answer
<Amy Blankenship> for that to work, you have to be accessible to all comers
<Mike Baker> I'm not in the PR department. I don't care as much about "perceptions"
<Steve Howard> Chris nobody has ever asked me for this. I just hear folk like Grace, Mike Mizen telling us they need Mac support, and Mike also has said he wants Unix. Then there is that guy AhFoo on the NG who thinks the world will end without Authorware in Linux
<Chris Swenson> We all know about perception, but what it boils down to is how do I get more done quicker
<Erik Lord> I assume it is completely out of the question to rewrite Aware, eh?
<Chris Swenson> Wine works fine on most *nix with AW
<Amy Blankenship> well, you should be. Every time someone chooses to buy a copy of Flash because they perceive it as more capable than Flash, that is less R&D money you get
<Jamil Zainasheff> Nothing is ever out of the question, just what is realistic.
<Erik Lord> why not then? You could make it SO great...
<Grace Daminato> I still have clients who are asking for programs to run on the Mac. The worst of it is, they don't ask up-front. They add it on as a requirement when the project is close to completion.
<Erik Lord> Flash ++++
 I've had very little requests for MAC or Unix/Linux support. I send the MAC guys to Michael Mizen, and the Unix requests I tell them I'll do it on PC and they're OK with that.
<Ronny Elgad> so why it is not realistic?
<Chris Swenson> I'd think cost
<Erik Lord> but the returns...
<Ronny Elgad> ho
<Steve Howard> Grace if they ask at the end tell them to *&(_&)&^)*&*_(*^%%$£^£$^£ ;-)
<Erik Lord> biggest bad is taking away from Flash base
<Jamil Zainasheff> Yes? What are the returns?
<Ronny Elgad> to whom?
<Jamil Zainasheff> MM
<Erik Lord> MM of course ;)
[Sat May 04 19:23:09 GMT+01:00 2002] Ron McNutt: knowledgeware@kccsoft.com
<Steve Howard> What do you mean Erik? Returns from rewriting AW?
[Sat May 04 19:23:23 GMT+01:00 2002] Erick Emde: Like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain...
<Steve Howard> Hey Ron, Erick!
<Erik Lord> yeap
<Grace Daminato> Steve, I'd like to but...I like to eat and still have a mortgage ...
<Erik Lord> It would be THE premiere authoring tool
<Ronny Elgad> right
<Chris Swenson> It would be nice to have a new code base but I'm not sure that the size of the AW Community could support the dev costs
<Amy Blankenship> :-) look at it as a weight loss program, Grace :D
<Steve Howard> What returns do you imagine? MM would have to spend a lot and sell a lot to get returns forma rewrite, so what would they have to add/improve to justify the cost and attract buyers?
<Steve Howard> LOL
<Chris Swenson> plus we'd have to wait along time for the update
<Erik Lord> it would be tough at first, I think, but afterwards, no other tool would compare
<Chris Swenson> what tool compares now. =+)
<Steve Howard> Exactly. But nobody knows about it today
<Erik Lord> of course ;) but Toolbook still has a base, doesn't it?
<Apurva> yep there is no tool like AW as of now
<Steve Howard> if it were **perceived** as more accessible than Flash it would be even better
<Apurva> but never loose sight :)
<Amy Blankenship> I know from working with other peoples' code that it is often easier to start from scratch than unpick and try to figure out what is happening, where
<Amy Blankenship>and you usually wind up with a more capable product in the end
<Steve Howard> Yes !!!
<Ronny Elgad> but we want more that the issue
<Erik Lord> agreed Amy
<Jamil Zainasheff> Yes, but when you hit 1M lines of code, it isn't a small project to start over.
<Erik Lord> I'm sure it's going to be a huge task...
<Amy Blankenship> No, it's not
<Amy Blankenship> but I know we have a very talented team, with loads of experience
<Steve Howard> Sure. I suspect you would have number of interested developers who would love to work on the project though :D
<Jamil Zainasheff> So, you'd have to ask yourself would you sell enough additional copies to justify the cost?
<andrew lucking> and very hard to justify
<Erik Lord> but isn't there a growing need for this type of tool? if you could make it Flash + Aware...wow
<Chris Swenson> No 1M lines of code is a huge task, and when you already have the best tool out there does it make sense to start over?
<Brandt Wagner> Who is the major target for a rewrite? Us? How much of the Flash/other tool developers are pushing them so far that they would switch over to a new tool
<Erik Lord> probably not for a year+
<Amy Blankenship> Well, eventually you won't be able to sell any copies as the base code gets further and further out of date
<Jamil Zainasheff> I can understand the desire for such a thing, however.
<Erik Lord> that's the biggest var I think, cannibalizing Flash community
<Chris Swenson> Every day I have AW, Delphi, Flash, and notepad (the best code tool ever) open, I don't even think about the fact that I'm using different tools
<Steve Howard> Does anybody else agree that there appears to be a change in the market? More demand for LMS integration means more people are delivering via web/intranet ... therefore the predicted boom is almost upon us???
<Apurva> Chris , I agree with you but with the growing technology needs to be updated someday if not today then tomorrow. And if stuff is required , necessarily needed then it must be added or existing stuff modified
<Erik Lord> I agree Steve, I hear it more and more <groan>
<Amy Blankenship> That is a good point
<David Lynch> I agree
<Grace Daminato> What about reducing the size of the runtime. Is that possible without a complete rewrite of Authorware?
<Amy Blankenship> and if AW could anticipate, and become a web application building tool with integrated training...WOW!
 I'm seeing more demand for records keeping and data analysis - but not necessarily LMS integration.
<Chris Swenson> I agree the existing stuff should be modified as the needs comes up, which so far has been the case.
<Steve Howard> and if that predicted boom is upon us, a new greater version of Authorware needs to be here very soon...
<Jamil Zainasheff> So you want a smaller runtime than Flash MX?
<Chris Swenson> I've got a trick to make Xtras, u32, and dlls much smaller. It's helped us out a lot.
 Grace - the runtime is pretty small now. Or do you mean the size of the FULL plugin and Xtras?
<Amy Blankenship> Certainly on the executable side
<Chris Swenson> The runtimes are about the same size
<Erik Lord> not necessarily smaller than MX ;) but backward-compatible would be an issue
<Apurva> one more important thing that is required is ability to create functions
<Amy Blankenship> I am not as bothered by the size of the player
<David Lynch> Actually one that loads quicker on the web and shows the user something is happening
<Steve Howard> I think the Flash development team will solve that problem for us if they continue as they are Jamil ;-)
<Grace Daminato> Or a runtime about as small as Flash's. How big is the MX runtime now?
<Chris Swenson> around 800k
[Sat May 04 19:30:49 GMT+01:00 2002] Rick Zanotti: rzanotti@relate.com
<Amy Blankenship> Hi, Rick
<Amy Blankenship> glad you could make it
<Jamil Zainasheff> They're the same size now.
<Chris Swenson> Hey Rick
<Rick Zanotti> Hi All, sorry I'm late...
<Amy Blankenship> And the ability to load Xtras on demand would be nice, too
<Erik Lord> plugin size not so much a problem w. broadband coming
<Erik Lord> and I think its coming
<Amy Blankenship> that makes the perceived start-up for AW much longer than it has to be
<David Lynch> maybe
<Erik Lord> a TV in every house kinda thing
<Grace Daminato> I guess the tag along product runtimes (A3.5 through 5) add a lot to the runtime. How does Flash deal with the backward compatibility?
<Steve Howard> Exactly - so when they realize the video support in Flash is rubbish the Flash plugin will grow even bigger and AW will be the smaller player
 I'm really only delivering to corporate intranets, so there's not much impact on download speed - it's the time it takes the plugin to start that's frustrating.
<Erik Lord> right on Steve and Amy
<Jamil Zainasheff> Flash handles it by putting a whole bunch of engineers on Save As Flash 5.
<Erik Lord> lol
<Steve Howard> :-)
<Amy Blankenship> Grace, I think if they made the older ones available separately, it would make more sense. Like the ability to choose between minimal and full
<Steve Howard> Flash has an established habit of backward compatibility to live up to. Authorware has the opposite habit carved in .. history ;-)
<Erik Lord> back compact w/OUT separate runtimes would be kicka**
<Amy Blankenship> Jamil, so you guys will just have to drink more coffee ;-)
<Chris Swenson> Not really, Macromedia wants to drive the sales of AW6
<Grace Daminato> But it means a lot of confusion for the end user...as if there isn't enough now.
<Amy Blankenship> There is that
<Kathy Napierala> For my customers (nonprofits) it's the fact that the plugin has to be downloaded at all, not included like Flash.
<David Lynch> Can you make the plugin standard in IE and NET like flash and shockwave?
<Amy Blankenship> web delivery is a mystical realm for many
<Rick Zanotti> Plug-in size all of a sudden isn't so much an issue anymore with Flash MX vs AW
<Erik Lord> I can imagine 'included' is a tough sell
<Amy Blankenship Not if MS buys MM ;-)
<Erik Lord> LOL
<Ronny Elgad> LOL
<Erik Lord> noooooooo........
<Apurva> MS buys MM , eeeeekkkkssssss
<Rick Zanotti> But many IT shops don't install the Flash option in Windows anyway
<David Lynch> please don't
<Steve Howard> This is the point we missed earlier when we spoke of Flash Export. The size of the plugin for Flash is mostly irrelevant - as most people already have it!!
<Grace Daminato> There's still the perception that Flash is 'part' of the web browser...it's not an add on.
 Rick - what's funny is that when Flash v1 came out that was a big
"plus" that MM touted - that the plugin was so much smaller than AW or Dir! Now it's headed the opposite direction!
<Erik Lord> You find so, Rick?
<Rick Zanotti> That's very true, Mark
<Erik Lord> I think it's about 50-50 IME, but not all THAT many big corp clients
<Rick Zanotti> Yes, you can argue that 300k difference is no difference in corporate shops
<Steve Howard> because they are doing the only thing they can do to keep up interest -- adding features. You cannot add features without adding bulk
<David Lynch> my problem is the host doesn't want to add plugin with out a 4 month eval and test but flash is assumed to be part of IE so they don't even blink an eye
<Erik Lord> rewrite ;)
<Erik Lord> interesting David, I can see that
<Rick Zanotti> IE7 should come in at a small 100Gb to take advantage of new disks. :)
<Ron McNutt> My suggestion is that in the short term, MM put effort into making the plugin download as easy and bullet-proof as possible for all end users, including a meter showing % downloaded and keep the users advised what is being loaded to their machines. Overall I have found the plugin download less trouble than expected, in most cases quite smooth.
<Erik Lord> next version of MS OS is gonna be delivered on a DVD!
<Chris Swenson> It sounds like the biggest issue is perception, not the capabilities of the tools or the size of the plug-ins...is this what I'm hearing?
<Erik Lord> METER!
<David Lynch> they want toolbook cause they sneak in and the host never knows
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, but that is a very real issue for us as developers
<Rick Zanotti> Jamil, multi-threading in AW would be great
<Grace Daminato> Chris...yes, perception is everything...
<David Lynch> YUP!!!
<Apurva> I second multi-threading
<Amy Blankenship> Third
<Steve Howard> fourth
<Apurva> and maybe the ability to work on multiple monitors
<Amy Blankenship> trying to fake it ties you in knots
<Erik Lord> what would that really mean?
<Jamil Zainasheff> Great. How much will you pay for it?
<Steve Howard> and finally I am swayed to the argument of changing the code to OOP
<Amy Blankenship> and breaks the call stack if you are not very, very careful
<Rick Zanotti> Take it out of Flash's budget. :)
 Chris/Apurva - can you give me an example of how you would use multi-threading for a CBT?
<Steve Howard> $40
<Erik Lord> lol
<Rick Zanotti> $50
<Chris Swenson> I use it now in U32's
<Steve Howard> I already work on multi-monitors
<Chris Swenson> but that's only for external processes...
<Rick Zanotti> One Chris in every shop with AW7
<Steve Howard> LOL
<Chris Swenson> No Chris is too busy now as it is. =+)
<Erik Lord> lol
<Rick Zanotti> LOL
<Jamil Zainasheff> We'll need a bigger box.
<Steve Howard> I'll ay $100 for Chris ;-)
<Erik Lord> what would multithreading achieve?
<Brandt Wagner> wouldn't multi threading undermine the flow idea of AW
<Apurva> CBT maybe no. simulations multi-threading can be useful
<Amy Blankenship> You just said you slept today
<Amy Blankenship> what do you mean, busy?
 How would you get Chris to download? And would he work on a MAC?
<Rick Zanotti> Broadband, Mark
<Brandt Wagner> He used to work on Macs... times change
<Steve Howard> what about in a palm pilot? Could we get Chris in there?
<Chris Swenson> =+) I was up until 5 working on a PHP thing and I do work on a
Mac (realbasic) but lets not...
<Chris Swenson> What would the perceived goal of multithreading be?
 Oh great, and he talks back to. Now I want a refund.
<Steve Howard> Multi-threading would not kill the flow of AW it would enhance it
 I don't know - you brought it up!
<Rick Zanotti> Imagine multiple parallel flowlines all active simultaneously - pretty cool
<Chris Swenson> No Rick did. =+)
<Erik Lord> lol
<Amy Blankenship> Well, for instance, say you are using TTS to drive an
"animation" of a character with lips moving in response to the phonemes
 Isn't that the point of Perpetual interactions?
<Amy Blankenship> and this has to work regardless of what else is going on
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, but they only work to a certain point
<Erik Lord> I've never tried TTS in Aware
<Rick Zanotti> We're doing cockpit simulations and could REALLY use multi-threads
<Amy Blankenship> and you have to use lots of them to keep everything separated
<Steve Howard> You have to work real hard to get multiple events and perpetuals to play the game in AW
<Chris Swenson> Multi-threading works now in Xtras/u32/dlls if it's been programmed that way...sounds like you want better event support?
<Apurva> events would be good too in AW
<Steve Howard> Chris we don't all make u32s and Xtras
 Or is it faster updates to displayed items?
<Rick Zanotti> Yes, parallel events that don't disrupt existing flowlines
<Amy Blankenship> Not just events...anything where two things can happen at once causes problems
<Chris Swenson> I know but does it make sense to add it to the base product or bug the Xtra vendor?
<Amy Blankenship> like a perpetual conditional that triggers right as you click a button, for instance
<Erik Lord> put van as on it
<Steve Howard> I use very very few Xtras or u32s. I'll happily bug MM thanks :D
<Amy Blankenship> How is he doing, BTW?
<Rick Zanotti> Jamil, could multi-threading be accomplished without a rewrite?
 Chris - I'm not sure how a U32 or Xtra could provide that type of concurrent functionality/event handling..
<Steve Howard> Or pressing a perpetual button as a sync event triggers....
<Erik Lord> MojoScript does, right?
<Chris Swenson> Only works for processes outside of AW, it still has to notify AW when it has something to return
<Jamil Zainasheff> Possibly, but it would not be simple. It would be major work.
<Amy Blankenship> And we haven't even gotten into the gyrations that 508 requires
<Erik Lord> <groan>
<Ron McNutt> Jamil - Mike Baker could probably do it in a weekend :- )
<Steve Howard> {good question, how is Stefan??}
<Chris Swenson> Nope MojoScript is not multithreaded (returns a result directly from the function call so it has to wait)
<Erik Lord> ah
<Mike Baker> it would not only be major work, it would also complicate the interface
<Rick Zanotti> Jamil, only one I know is multi-threaded is Quest and it's near death
<Chris Swenson> Take'n a break and coming the US, sounds like he is doing better.
<Amy Blankenship> Good!
<Jamil Zainasheff> You'd need to have some way of determining which thread, since you couldn't just do one or the other.
<Steve Howard> Great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
<Mike Baker> I worry about the person who has a perpetual that needs to execute in a separate thread but also needs to know when that thread is done so the main thread can continue
<Chris Swenson> yep
<Erik Lord> my head hurts
<Steve Howard> So they do it carefully ;-)
<Rick Zanotti> The thought of a secondary, callable flowline maybe?
<Amy Blankenship> Flash seems to handle that sort of thing handily. I don't suppose any of the concepts from Flash would transfer ;-)
<Jamil Zainasheff> That is what I was thinking.
<Erick Emde> With multi-threading w/I Aware, thinking of the visual imagery, how would you imagine the flowline looking (to be effective)?
<Jamil Zainasheff> A second flowline.
<Rick Zanotti> It could be done through Flash, but the events would need to be more fluid in AW
<Steve Howard> If the code was OOP, and we can have user-defined functions, would that not get us *closer* to multithreading anyway?
<Grace Daminato> A second flowline? How would that look?
<Steve Howard> like two flowlines? ;-)
<Mike Baker> but the second flowline is attached to the perpetual somewhere else in the program. Maybe an addition to the wait icon, wait for other thread.
<Amy Blankenship> It would be in a thought bubble ;-)
<Erik Lord> maybe at the top of the main, a map with a biiiig perpetual ;)
<Amy Blankenship> Oooh, that would be cool...two flow lines side by side
<Amy Blankenship> but then defining the relationships between them!
<Rick Zanotti> Or through perpetual subroutines
<Amy Blankenship> Actually, Erik, that has been done. That's how we do it now ;-)
<Steve Howard> There's your video icon replacement -- second flowline HERE please ;-)
<Erick Emde> Maybe something like a decision icon that split the flow. That would also handle the synching issue..
<Erik Lord> lol
<Rick Zanotti> Amy, there could only be one relational entry point
 Rather than a second flowline in the current program, what about being able to load and call processes contained in a separate AW program.
<Amy Blankenship> ooh, good one
 Sort of, shared AW libraries WITHOUT the overhead of a JumpOut?
<Amy Blankenship> Kind of like ASP
<Rick Zanotti> That would be good too, Mark
<Steve Howard> sort of like frames in a browser???
<Mike Baker> Oh there's your user functions. Store them in a separate file. Cool idea.
<Amy Blankenship> yes, very!
 Yes - like Frames - you could load a process like read record that would be a separate AW file
<Steve Howard> I like that. Gimme gimme gimme $110
<Apurva> user functions a definite yes
<Grace Daminato> Commands that work at runtime?
 It would support user-defined functions, but also have its own event stack for handling multithreading
<Amy Blankenship> What would be really nice is commands that stay up while you are designing
<Chris Swenson> over head becomes an issue at this point...
<Apurva> over head ?
<Amy Blankenship> You could use it, for instance, to have a set of bookmarks to commonly edited places in the file
 As it does with Xtras and U32's. It would have to be managed by the developer.
<Chris Swenson> Amy, yes that would be cool....I'd give $90 for that
<Amy Blankenship> :)
<Mike Baker> Hmmm.. same process = same memory space. wouldn't be automatic, have to handle the threads it manually.
<Chris Swenson> overhead would be processing power required to execute the second flowline
<Rick Zanotti> OK, let's go back to the $5k price and add lots of new toys. :)
<Amy Blankenship> LOL
<Steve Howard> in this world of multi-GHz GHz RAM machines does overhead come into it? Specify a minimum spec for multi-processing
<Apurva> oh OK. yeah that would be an overhead. slower execution
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, what ABOUT that 2 gig limitation?
<Erik Lord> ohhh
<Erik Lord> rewrite
<Jamil Zainasheff> Gone. Fixed.
<Erik Lord> woohoo!
<Steve Howard> :D YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY
 I love you man!
<Amy Blankenship> So, when do we get that? ;-)
<Steve Howard> thanks Jamil!!!!!!!!!
<Chris Swenson> ordering Ram now.. =+)
<Erik Lord> lol
<Steve Howard> Me too Me too
<Apurva> :)
<Steve Howard> how much can I squeeze into this laptop again?? :-D
<Jamil Zainasheff> Next release.
<Amy Blankenship> LOL
<Steve Howard> Cool.
<Erik Lord> many thank you's Aware team for that
<David Lynch> MY NEW SYSTEM WILL APPRECIATE IT
<Grace Daminato> That'll reduce the message load on the ng
<David Lynch> oops
<Jamil Zainasheff> Wait to see what I broke when I fixed it. ;-)
<Erik Lord> .jar files to auto install player on Netscape?
<Erik Lord> lol
<Steve Howard> :-(
<Rick Zanotti> LOL
<Mike Baker> Yeah everything loads backwards now.
<Amy Blankenship> The bank?
<Apurva> maybe now all computers need 2Gigs minimum for AW to start
<Apurva> :o)
<Steve Howard> Just a whole lot sweeter installation of the plugin would be lovely.
<Jamil Zainasheff> 5 minutes of work, about 5 months of testing. :-)
<Erik Lord> ;)
<Amy Blankenship> Isn't that always the way of it
 Sounds like parenthood.
<David Lynch> test test test story of my life
<Chris Swenson> ouch
<Amy Blankenship> and 2 months of red tape before to get the change approved
<Rick Zanotti> Microsoft - 5 years of work, 5 years of beta testing, lots of bugs anyway. :)
<Steve Howard> blame it on the beta testers ;-)
<Kathy Napierala> This is a much lower-level, newbie-type comment, but I think it speaks to user base. Perception-wise, I have a very hard time selling AW in my shop because of some of the things people expect to be able to do very simply cuz of HTML experience, such as mailto and PDF support, which seem to be difficult in AW. The attitude is , what features does AW have that makes it worth it. This might be invalidated by more experience but the initial impression makes it tough to get people to spend the time to get the experience.
<David Lynch> but hey release it the fix it on next release the MS way
<Steve Howard> Mailto and PDF are not that tough
<Steve Howard> PDF Xtra makes PDF a doddle, and there are loads of Mailto options.
<Erik Lord> Kathy, make models/KO's for them to use so it's not hard on 'em>
<Erik Lord> ?
<Rick Zanotti> Kathy, AW can do much more than HTML and quicker too...
 Steve - it can be pretty daunting for new users. Even with the KOs and Commands that come with AW now.
<David Lynch> ActiveX will do PDF
<Kathy Napierala> No, its just they guys in my shop expect them to be automatic! Like I said, its just perception.
<Chris Swenson> The best thing about AW is the ease of authoring when compared to flash or html...course that only works if you're just starting out...if you know HTML or flash it's a harder sell
<Jamil Zainasheff> I think that is the type of stuff we should be doing, making common tasks incredibly simple.
<Amy Blankenship> Kathy, do they actually do interactivity in HML?
<Steve Howard> Anything is daunting when you don't know how. Once you learn it - it is a doddle.
<Amy Blankenship> oops HTML
 JZ - YES! Exactly!
<Rick Zanotti> It comes down to audience - who does AW most?
<Amy Blankenship> I'd tend to doubt it...THAT is tough
<Erik Lord> to sell more, I agree Jamil
<Chris Swenson> What are some tasks that should be simpler?
<Chris Swenson> I have a list but I'd like to hear what other's have to say
<Mike Baker> Hmmmm- drag an rtf onto the flowline which looks at the Xtras table and selects the Xtra that uses rtf doc?
<Amy Blankenship> Hey, you know the next chat will be models that should be included in the next release of AW
<Steve Howard> installing the web player should be as easy as it is for Flash !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<Erik Lord> cool Amy
 Recording keeping that support analysis, bookmarking, web delivery,
<David Lynch> YAY Steve I second
<Erik Lord> on the Netscape side as well
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, web delivery has been made easier with OBP, but many aspects are still a mystery
<Jamil Zainasheff> read/write data to database
<Kathy Napierala> No, not interactivity, and I have been able to sell AW for that. My point was that people expect stuff that's simple in HTML be simple in AW also.
<Erik Lord> RTF could be much better, agreed, any kinda ext text embedding
<Jamil Zainasheff> xml
<Jamil Zainasheff> html display
<Ronny Elgad> right the web issue
<Steve Howard> XML YES
<Jamil Zainasheff> email, post, get
<Steve Howard> Sound control - muting sound, controlling volume
<Rick Zanotti> XML! $150
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, being able to change the color of text on the fly is a biggie
<Steve Howard> Yes again Jamil
 read/write to xml, databases, text files - better, more automated support for parsing
<Rick Zanotti> Completely native database support without code
<Jamil Zainasheff> It should be super simple, as automatic as possible.
<Steve Howard> Make the HELP button bigger
<Mike Baker> any type of document. rtf, PDF, html, if there's an Xtra (or ActiveX) to handle then add it automatically.
<Erik Lord> no inquiries about XML yet, I think SCORM is a bigger issue?
<Jamil Zainasheff> Native support for read/write XML > 32KB.
<Grace Daminato> I'll spend my other $50 on HTML display
<Steve Howard> SCORM/AICC etc. is a huge issue - finding and distilled information/instructions is difficult
<Rick Zanotti> Most people don't care about SCORM or AICC in corporations...
<Amy Blankenship> I would disagree with that
<Steve Howard> No more 32 k limit on text files too please
<Chris Swenson> I think it depends on the size of the corp...I'm seeing it a lot
<Erik Lord> we're seeing it more and more Rick
<Steve Howard> SCORM AICC is a growing issue
<Amy Blankenship> Actually, there are a lot of "auxiliary" issues that MM can't possibly address
 Amy - like what?
<Erik Lord> ya, why 32k limit?
<Amy Blankenship> we need to be able to get that information compiled and to the public
<Amy Blankenship> Like "what is XML"
<Steve Howard> Yes ... If I get this job... ;-)
<Erik Lord> <echo>
<Rick Zanotti> Yes, we see it too, but it's never been an issue with any user we had (lots of Fortune 500). They don't seem to really care too much
<Amy Blankenship> like "how does an AW web piece fit into a web page"
<Amy Blankenship> stuff like that
 I'm getting a lot of requests from Fed Gov and large companies that do work with the Fed.
<Erick Emde> re: SCORM - they don't care until they start thinking about interoperability -
<Amy Blankenship> I remember a time that we could submit articles to MM and have them posted to the website
<Steve Howard> Stuff that we are trying to get onto various FAQ pages
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, but then the stuff is all over the place
<Amy Blankenship> MM simply does not have the resources to write all these articles
[Sat May 04 20:03:24 GMT+01:00 2002] Ron McNutt: knowledgeware@kccsoft.com
<Amy Blankenship> but many of us can and will!
<Steve Howard> Maybe so Erick - but even getting something to work on the first LMS is tougher than it should be
<Steve Howard> and do Amy ;-)
<Rick Zanotti> Same here, but not corporate too much... Ask the normal client why they want SCORM and you usually get blank stares...
<Erick Emde> Oh, I agree whole-heartedly
 Hehehe - they just know they "need" it.
<Erik Lord> otoh, it SCORM can justify a larger quote ;)
<Amy Blankenship> we do, but it is harder for people to find them
<Rick Zanotti> Hehe, that's right, Mark
<Kathy Napierala> SCORM is sometimes a buzz word picked up by people who want to sound plugged in. They throw it around like they do Flash
<Amy Blankenship> Jamil, what are the odds we can get the MM website opened back up for articles again?
<Chris Swenson> very true
<Steve Howard> Nah - they throw Flash around like it was loose change ;-)
<Chris Swenson> If not Brandt is setting that up on Authorware.com
<Kathy Napierala> LOL
<Erik Lord> cool Chris
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, honestly most businesses don't need full compliance now
<Erick Emde> But if you ask them if they want to be able to pull in generic content to supplement the custom content or want to be able to use this again if they change LMSs, I be they'll say yes
<Amy Blankenship> but they suspect they will need it in the future
<Amy Blankenship> But what if that content is AICC?
<Steve Howard> Sure they will Erick - even if they never actually do it ;-)
<Rick Zanotti> Too many "Standards" - beta vs. VHS
<Erik Lord> I'm curious about that 32k limit....
 Aren't we all...
<Erik Lord> ;-)
<Chris Swenson> I believe it's a hold over from the old days
<Steve Howard> Jamil fell asleep - one too many Old Jock's ;-)
<Chris Swenson> safe answer
<Erik Lord> not too easy to boost I guess ;)
<Erik Lord> lol
<Apurva> could there be an Xtra which could write say MS-Access format or any database format where records could be got and a recordset moved through
<Amy Blankenship> He and Mike are probably having a conference "can we do all this"?
<Apurva> that would be cool
<Chris Swenson> there are many Xtras like this now
<Erik Lord> <saying 'these guys are insane'>
<Steve Howard> Sure it would Apu - but it can already be done
<Rick Zanotti> Jamil's working on the multi-thread issue - should be done before end of chat. :)
 Yes - but it needs to be something that's fronted by an intuitive interface.
<Steve Howard> they already knew our mental state ;-)
<Erik Lord> ;-0
<Ronny Elgad> LOL
<Amy Blankenship> That is a problem...You have to do hours and hours of research to take even a baby step sometimes
<Chris Swenson> commands that helped with database access would be a plus then
<David Lynch> Child Calls thanks everybody see you at the next chat thanx Amy
<Steve Howard> Yes Amy ;-(
<Chris Swenson> bye David
<Erik Lord> I haven't tried commands much at all yet...
<Steve Howard> OK, Dave - see ya!!!!
<Amy Blankenship> That sounds like more of a KO issue. You'd need to leave code in the file to do it
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one
<Chris Swenson> commands can write code anywhere...even a selected icon
<Amy Blankenship> true
 Yes - a KO that allowed you to point to a database, then select a table from a list, and then fields from the table.
<Rick Zanotti> Great chat! My family beckons as well... See you all soon.
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one
<Chris Swenson> bye Rick
<Erik Lord> bye
 l8r Rick
<Apurva> the ODBC u32 is okay but if there could be a few more functions like getting records, getting fields . Then again the problem of 32K
 I don't know about Delphi, but it wouldn't be hard in VB. Chris?
[Sat May 04 20:10:32 GMT+01:00 2002] Jamil Zainasheff(2): Director of Engineering, Macromedia
<Amy Blankenship> Like a DSN less connection!
<Amy Blankenship> Hi, Jamil
<Chris Swenson> Delphi is simpler
<Amy Blankenship> we were wondering what happened
<Erick Emde> Mark, that sounds a lot like what MM has in Dreamweaver Ultradev/MX
<Erik Lord> what's that?
 Right. It's really not that hard if you have a tool that is dB aware.
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Power loss, now it won't let me back in under the same name.
<Amy Blankenship> The trade-offs is that UD has a lot of extra code that slows things down tremendously
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, we are trying to go to an AW only chat room
<Chris Swenson> The issue isn't getting the data/tables/fields... it's creating a new text block in a display icon
<Erik Lord> oh, ok, so....about that 32k limit ;)
<Amy Blankenship> Very good point
<Steve Howard> the chat client is a little buggy. It forgets to forget you when you disappear
 Creating a new text block in an EXISTING display icon?
<Chris Swenson> yep
<Erik Lord> embedded vars?
 Ah.
<Steve Howard> Jamil - tell us about the 32k limit variables
<Chris Swenson> but doing it automatically from a command
<Mike Baker> better control to the individual objects within a display icon in general
<Erik Lord> oh
<Chris Swenson> Mike, bingo
<Steve Howard> Chris I look forward to the day we can add text fields to display icons :D
<Amy Blankenship> Chris: I have a Command that writes an RTF file from a text file
<Steve Howard> ]Yes Yes Yes
<Amy Blankenship> I bet if we put our heads together, we might be able to come up with something
<Apurva> yep Mike, control over individual items in an icon would be cool
 Mike - Yes. Object name referencing, but not just as development time, but during delivery as well.
<Steve Howard> Yes more power at runtime
<Amy Blankenship> What would be really nice would be for paragraphs to be as aware of themselves as AW is of them
<Mike Baker> SetIconContents - the reverse of GetIconContents which would allow a list variable to specify the items within the display?
<Steve Howard> I have text and a line break, therefore I am .... ?
<Apurva> if item control is possible then stuff like color change and font and stuff would be cool to do
<Chris Swenson> Mike yes that would be perfect
<Erick Emde> Amy, what do you mean?
<Steve Howard> Yes please Mike
<Mike Baker> Runtime too?
<Erik Lord> neat mike
<Steve Howard> of course
<Amy Blankenship> How many times have you had to go through code and set up {Mylist[thelineIamin]} and change that umpteen times
<Chris Swenson> I'd be happy with CallTarget only, but as much as you can give us would be nice. =+)
<Amy Blankenship> yes, Mike, definitely runtime
<Ronny Elgad> It is great to meet you all but I've got to go see you next time
<Apurva> runtime
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one Ronny
<Steve Howard> OK Ronny ... have fun
 l8r Ron
<Amy Blankenship> thanks for stopping by
<Chris Swenson> bye Ronny
<Ronny Elgad> bye
<Erik Lord> yes, building a table on the fly would be groovy
 Building a table in a display icon, or in a dB?
<Amy Blankenship> Erick has a groovy kind of table :-D
<Erik Lord> both!
<Erik Lord> but display icon
<Mike Baker> This is something that Jamil brings up from time to time. How important is the support for other platforms - meaning 16bit, 68k?
<Steve Howard> like a Word or Excel table?
 or HTML table...
<Steve Howard> I do not care about 16 bit and have not done for 5 years
<Chris Swenson> Mike, I'd say none...strip it out =+) there are older versions of AW that people can use
<Amy Blankenship> I can't imagine that anyone cares about Win 3.1 these days
<Erik Lord> generic table, but html would be neat too
<Steve Howard> Chris - I agree
<Erik Lord> no deliveries to Win16 in years
 But what about support for my Commodore 64? It's got color AND sound!
<Amy Blankenship> You can't load 16 bit functions anyway
<Steve Howard> you want to support 10 year old OSs use old software too
<Chris Swenson> I've never done a 16bit delivery
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Whippersnapper.
<Mike Baker> Victoria will be so upset ;-)
<Steve Howard> Mark I can think of a few places where you can put that commodore :-)
<Amy Blankenship> You are just too young
<Erik Lord> lol
<Apurva> me too never done a 16bit delivery in years maybe 6 - 8 years
<Amy Blankenship> 1997 for me
<Chris Swenson> well qbasic but no Authorware
<Steve Howard> Vickie will die happy :D
<Steve Howard> If she can just get rid of TenCORE
<Kathy Napierala> Got to go - thanks for the perspective.
<Erik Lord> cya Kathy
<Mike Baker> hey don't knock the TenCORE, that's where I started... 9 years ago
<steve Howard> OK Kathy
 By Kathy!
<Amy Blankenship> Thanks for coming out, Kathy
<Chris Swenson> bye
<Kathy Napierala> Bye!
<Brandt Wagner> she was using 5 anyway so new versions wouldn't matter
<steve Howard> I started there too - 5.5 years ago. And cast it aside for AW a year later
<Brandt Wagner> as Chris mentioned there are old versions for those that need
that support
<Steve Howard> yeah but she saw 6 at ET and wanted it ;-)
<Erick Emde> Erik, you can do tables on the fly with repeat loops and drawing squares & lines - but it's not real pretty or fast code
<Apurva> what about localization ?
<Erik Lord> yeap, pretty slow, but true
<Erik Lord> and still need embedded vars, eh?
<Apurva> we had a client which has got offices in a few parts of the world
<Erik Lord> I have done two Spanish versions in my career and that's it
<Erik Lord> not that its not an issue
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> HTML support in displays would handle tables easily.
<Apurva> dates, time, currency, all have different formats
<Erik Lord> agreed Jamil
<Chris Swenson> JZ, yep that would be cool
 And it would handle HTML too! What a bargain!
<Chris Swenson> err yep
<Amy Blankenship> And color changes
<Steve Howard> Yes please Jamil. :-)
<Erik Lord> oh yeap
 And text styles, and alignment, and fonts....
<Erik Lord> so auto use of IE control, or....
<Erik Lord> own rendering engine
<Steve Howard> if you give us HTML support in displays, then do something about 32k limit too please ;-)
<Mike Baker> hey - my window just cleared. I wasn't finished reading!
 Read faster.
<Erik Lord> mine did that about 10 min ago....
<Mike Baker> :-)
<Chris Swenson> 32k makes the HTML pretty limited
 ;-)
<Erick Emde> Mine did too
<Erik Lord> 32k limit
<Amy Blankenship> I keep after Chris about the MojoMessage thing
<Amy Blankenship> so that we won't have that problem
<Chris Swenson> I'm working on it
<Amy Blankenship> ;-)
<Erick Emde> MojoMessage?
<Steve Howard> id does that every now and than - it is a pain. Nothing we can do to stop it :-(
<Amy Blankenship> So we can make this an all AW chat room
<Chris Swenson> I ran into a string limit...researching new components. Actually MojoChat is the name ...MojoMessage is something else
<Amy Blankenship> oops
<Steve Howard> Hey Chris, what about MoJo Massage?
<Erik Lord> <groan>
<Chris Swenson> You need it? I've got it.
<Chris Swenson> =+)
<Mike Baker> String limit? 32K
<Steve Howard> Cool :-)
<Steve Howard> I'll be over in a couple of weeks ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> Can't take you anywhere
<Chris Swenson> bring money that will cost you
<Steve Howard> Moi??
<Steve Howard> I have real American Dollar
<Erick Emde> As opposed to...?
<Steve Howard> Yes we keep asking about this 32k limit and all we hear is tumbleweed
<Chris Swenson> no smaller then 32k it's for the individual messages.
<Steve Howard> Afghani Dollar?
<Chris Swenson> I'm cluttering the TCP/IP calls somehow
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, but I can set a limit to the number of characters till we get that worked out
<Amy Blankenship> So, MM Guys, ABOUT this 32K limit? What is causing it, and what can be done to fix it?
<Erik Lord> <tumbleweed blows by....>
<Apurva> Chris, I would be glad to help if you I can on the chat stuff. but I don't know Delphi., anything in C ?
<Chris Swenson> Apurva, maybe...contact me off list sometime and we will discuss
<Apurva> ok
<Erik Lord> <followed by another....>
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Multi-platform support.
<Chris Swenson> the data type was probably done in 16bit days and is small
<Erik Lord> binary source files...?
 So, it's the MAC support that's causing the problem?
<Amy Blankenship> The 32K limit is caused by multi platform support?
<Steve Howard> Mac support restricts us to 32k???
<Chris Swenson> It's probably 64 bit but it's storing twice the data for cross platform?
<Chris Swenson> whoops
<Chris Swenson> 64k
 64k would be an improvement, but still rather small.
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> No, the tools we're using. Let us drop 16 bit and Mac and go strictly to 32 bit win and it would be much easier.
 Especially if we're talking about adding support for html.
 Ok, sounds good. When can you start? ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> there is always FileIO
<Erik Lord> 16bit np, Mac....grrrr
<Mike Baker> Mac 68k
<Amy Blankenship> Jamil, would HTML support be layer 0 like RTF support?
<Chris Swenson> There is always AW6 for the Mac
<Chris Swenson> I say go for it
<Steve Howard> Jamil .... I will gladly help you tear out 16-bit and 68k support with my bare hands
<Erik Lord> 68k np, ppc ....grrrr
<Erik Lord> ;-)
<Brandt Wagner> yes what standard of HTML would be supported?
<Apurva> FileIO is cool and easy to use. The only problem is there is no NULL character in AW. If that one character was there I think it would be complete
 Feel lucky Michael's not here. He'd be taking on you guys with his bare hands. ;-)
<Apurva> maybe there could be a system variable called NULL
 Mizen
<Steve Howard> Yeah but you've met him - he is just a widdle guy. I'm not scared ;-)
 Hehehe, yah, but he's wiry
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> The reality of the Mac platform is that very few people are using it with AW.
<Steve Howard> LOL
<Mike Baker> OK the 32k limit is from the combination of a super-fast parser ( that requires contiguous memory ) and the 16bit + Unicode support.
 Apurva - NULL, like RETURN and TAB? Right?
<Apurva> yep
<Amy Blankenship> But is that because Mac delivery is just impossibly hard?
<Erik Lord> Unicode?
<Steve Howard> Very few as in 1%? 5%?
<Mike Baker> double byte. 64k double byte leaves room for 32k chars
<andrew lucking> do you guys get a lot of different requests for increased Mac support?
<Amy Blankenship> Like putting up a page that looks terrible in NS...eventually people stop browsing it with NS
<Chris Swenson> I thought it was 64K =+)
<andrew lucking> or just a few people asking again and again?
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> No, very few requests for Mac. A VERY low number, not allowed to divulge.
<Amy Blankenship> Well, maybe people have just given up on AW for the Mac
<Grace Daminato> I get requests for Mac support because there are lots of Macs in schools and the software I'm developing is aimed at schools
<Erik Lord> can't just boost that to 128k?
<Erik Lord> forgive ignorance
<Apurva> another think I think would be cool is that maybe AW in authoring mode support multiple monitors
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> No, they didn't give it up recently. They gave it up before AW4.
<Erik Lord> I do that Apurva, how do you mean?
<Mike Baker> has to do with the way platforms allocate ram
<Amy Blankenship> Hm
<Mike Baker> don't want to get real hairy with all the details. just wanted to let you know
<Apurva> AW piece when authoring could have so many Map icons open
<Steve Howard> Apu I already use multiple monitors with AW...
<Erik Lord> so when 64bit systems are the norm, that can be increased?
<Chris Swenson> Actually we'd want "wide strings" up to 2 gig
<Apurva> and all the map icons could make the screen all cluttered up
<Erik Lord> oh, so like DW, outside the 'window'
<Apurva> so we could drag one map icon on the second monitor
<Steve Howard> WOW - Imagine how big list variables could be then :-O
<Amy Blankenship> :D
<Erik Lord> Mac side used to work like that
 Considering that there is so little demand for MAC support, and that it causes so many problems in expanding functionality on the PC side, is there any reason to continue providing support in that direction at all?
<Erik Lord> I loved it
<Mike Baker> 2 gig Chris? the entire process is limited to 4 gig.
<Apurva> it would be so cool that AW had the multiple monitor support while authoring
<Chris Swenson> Ok not wide strings ...I was think'n of BIG string types. =+)
<Amy Blankenship> Mark, Flash goes pretty far it its "develop once, run anywhere" claim
<Steve Howard> Apurva -you can do this already - just stretch the AW window across the monitors
<Apurva> I tried it didn't work
<Chris Swenson> Big string types with Unicode support
<Erik Lord> it should, I've done that too
<Apurva> I think even Andrew tried it
<andrew lucking> I find the maximized window across multi monitors is fine
<Steve Howard> works for me - you have to NOT have the window full screen
<Erik Lord> could Aware be installed w. or w.out Mac compatibility?
<Amy Blankenship> hm...interesting thought
<Apurva> hmmm got to try it again
<Mike Baker> I think the presentation window is limited to the primary screen. Stretch the desktop and put the authoring window in the second monitor.
 Erik - I think that would probably mean 2-code bases.
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> You mean like install AW6 if you want it, install AW7 if you don't? :-)
<Steve Howard> Mark I agree --- but if we get Flash Export support the multi=platform issue goes away
<Erik Lord> lol
<Erik Lord> no, but get your point ;)
<Erik Lord> no, like a patch system....
<Chris Swenson> nightmare to maintain
<Erik Lord> ya...
<Amy Blankenship> So can we misquote you and say expect AW 7 rather than 6.1? ;-)
<Mike Baker> I think MS still ships VC 1.52 for 16 bit support :-)
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> No.
 Yes - loose the MAC support for 7 and fix the "problems" related to the MAC.
<Steve Howard> Like I almost said - if we get Flash export, the multiplatform issue goes away
<Steve Howard> Awe aJaiml ;-(
<Amy Blankenship> but then you are limited to whatever capabilities swf has
<Steve Howard> I definitely need to learn to Tpye
 I think Steve's on to something here....
<Apurva> what kind of flash export ? an entire app into Flash ?
<Chris Swenson> or quit drink'n
<Steve Howard> Me??? Drink? Sheesh
<Amy Blankenship> He is a strict Southern Baptist
<Steve Howard> Yes a full application export
<Chris Swenson> =+)
<Grace Daminato> Or just develop in Flash if you need to deliver on Mac...expand the skill set...
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Chris, there is thinking outside the box and there is just plain crazy talk.
<Amy Blankenship> has never touched a drop
 Maybe not export directly to Flash - what about export to XML (APLE), then an import from XML feature in Flash.
<Apurva> but that is almost impossible because of ActiveX , movie formats
<Steve Howard> Not ONE drop
<Chris Swenson> Apurva hit it...no plug-ins in Flash
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> So are you getting back around to Flash in AW or AW on Flash. :-)
<Amy Blankenship> so, is that a limitation of the swf format?
 You're not going to run ActiveX on a MAC or &nix anyway.
<Chris Swenson> I'd say so
 *nix
<Amy Blankenship> I am not necessarily in favor of Flash export
<Amy Blankenship> I am in favor of cross platform, cross browser support
<Erik Lord> xplatform web support is kinda important
<Steve Howard> Well what I am saying is that if AW can export Flash without too many restrictions, the people who yell that they HAVE to have multiplatform support are satisfied. We all know they will lose U32s and stuff, but you can do a LOT without resorting to external help
<Apurva> maybe small utilities could be created, zooming , rotation of bitmaps, text stuff is possible but an entire app wouldn't be possible because flash itself doesn't support it as yet
<Apurva> maybe creating flash movies on the fly would be possible
<Chris Swenson> I'm doing that now
 From AW code?
<Chris Swenson> well not right now, but I've done it
<Chris Swenson> yep
<Erik Lord> flash goes easy into Aware, no way to put Aware into Flash?
<Apurva> so say we have a condition and you want to generate a ticker tape or some kind of small animation then that could be possible
<Steve Howard> Director had (has???) Java export that is a limited subset of Director skills. Anybody have any idea how well used that was/is???
<Chris Swenson> it was bad
<Erik Lord> that's a shame, I was curious too
<Chris Swenson> guy I used to work with was a director nut...he was excited about it till he used it. =+)
<Apurva> from aw code . yes Mark
<Apurva> or maybe a separate u32 or Xtra could be made
 I really gotta learn Flash one of these days...
<Steve Howard> Me too ;-)
<Erik Lord> I'm with ya Mark
<Erik Lord> and Steve
<Erik Lord> lol
<Chris Swenson> I used MojoScript and a dll. The dll wrapped up most of the swf format
<Chris Swenson> I wouldn't want export to swf, I'd want export to fla....and this is a problem
<Erik Lord> brb
<Apurva> com dll , Chris ?
<Chris Swenson> yep
<Amy Blankenship> yes, and what style of actionscripting would you want?
<Steve Howard> Jamil. If it were possible to export to Flash - aside from limited (or no) u32, ActiveX and scripting Xtra support, what might we lose?
 Well, I hate to cal it a night, but I've got to go. Ya'll have a good time.
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Hard to say...
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one
<Steve Howard> OK Mark - see ya!!!
<Apurva> bye Mark
<Chris Swenson> L8R Mark
 l8r - mark h
<andrew lucking> ciao mark
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Probably some of the more complex jumping around on the flow.
<Mike Baker> The ability to move a subroutine from one framework to another without breaking the link for one.
<Steve Howard> Could you narrow that down a teeny bit Jamil? :-)
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Not until we do research.
<Steve Howard> Move a subroutine????
<Mike Baker> any kind of connection from one icon to another.
<Grace Daminato> Mike, that wouldn't affect the export...presumably the flow line would be changed before the export...
<Apurva> I think icon to icon connection is difficult
<Chris Swenson> But if the export was a "dive when packaged" then wouldn't the icon table be valid when it was exported
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> In a way, I think it would be easier to put the flowline on Flash, since you could drop all the stuff you don't want to support.
<Steve Howard> Mike I am talking about publishing to swf
<Apurva> and then as I said ActiveX , u32 , Xtra functions what about them ?
<Amy Blankenship> But would that still be AW?
<Mike Baker> hmmm
<Chris Swenson> I've been working on a new player in Delphi for internal use that allows me to call dll functions from a flash file (using Fscommands), but its not very robust
<Amy Blankenship> hm...what about mwf? All the good points of Flash, plus extensibility and a tool that makes it that looks like AW
<Steve Howard> :D
<Steve Howard> Chris "not very robust" does that mean it is crap or it had mileage once you fix your code ;-)
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> mwf?
<Amy Blankenship> medium web format ;-)
<Chris Swenson> =+) It means it does what I need it to do
<Steve Howard> LOL
<Mike Baker> has a button that says "Do it" ?
<Chris Swenson> no...not that one =+)
<Amy Blankenship> No, that is his girlfriend LOL
<Steve Howard> Like as in Psychic? Do hat I am thinking? Yeah coool!
<Steve Howard> :-o
<Mike Baker> The DWIT function!
[Sat May 04 20:51:03 GMT+01:00 2002] Stefan van As: Dutch developer with class
<Steve Howard> I know when I have to do as I 'm told ;-)
<Steve Howard> Hey Stefan !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<Amy Blankenship> Welcome, Stefan
<Erik Lord> hi sva
<Grace Daminato> Hi Stefan
<Chris Swenson> hey it's our Dutch friend
<Chris Swenson> hey Stefan
<Apurva> Hi Stefan
<Mike Baker> Hi Stefan
<Stefan van As> Hey. What's up?
<Andrew lucking> howdy Stefan
<Amy Blankenship> We're just divvying Jamil's money into tinier and tinier chunks
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Everyone was assigning you work for the next release of AW. :-)
<Grace Daminato> Exporting to Flash...
<Chris Swenson> yes it was very fun. ;-)
<Mike Baker> Yup - it's gonna be re-written in Delphi :-)
<Chris Swenson> It's not nice to tease mike ;-)
<Andrew lucking> that's the July release right?
<Mike Baker> 2005
<Andrew lucking> :-)
<Amy Blankenship> :-)
<Amy Blankenship> So, AW MX is not coming out in 2 months
<Andrew lucking> if you release this July it will take til 05 for our IT to ok it
[Sat May 04 15:05:58 CDT 2002] Steve Howard: Intermediate Authorware icon dragger
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Officially, we may or may not have a release.
<Steve Howard> That is nice to maybe know or not
<Erik Lord> lol
<Erik Lord> at least that's official
<Amy Blankenship> Good to know, officially
<Erick Emde> Ok, to beat somebody else's dead horse: What about Linux/Unix (player) support? I'm just curious - don't shoot - I've seen the thread, but never really heard how big a PITA it would be, if it's even doable at all
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> We get in lots of trouble promising releases or features.
<Erik Lord> WINE
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Sure, it is doable.
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, we heard that caused the LA riots that time
<Erik Lord> or Lindows!
<Chris Swenson> Has Lindows shipped yet?
<Mike Baker> XBox support anyone?
<Erik Lord> not yet, ain't seen it yet, but looking forward to it
<Chris Swenson> Umm sure mike. Hey PS2 has flash support. =+)
<Amy Blankenship> Hey, good idea Mike
<Andrew lucking> they're going to ask for more "memberships" before they release it :-0
<Amy Blankenship> we would have asked for that next
<Mike Baker> I got a XBox SDK around here somewhere...
<Stefan van As> Is there a topic to this chat?
<Amy Blankenship> Future of Authorware
<Erick Emde> Ok, anything is doable. But how difficult
<Mike Baker> The future of AW. You missed the first 2 hours.
<Erik Lord> no Xbox support before (non-ActiveX) HTML support!
<Steve Howard> I went through 6 months of discussion with a prospective client who wanted to deliver training to Playstations ... it never happened, but with Flash support in games machines, who knows...
<Amy Blankenship> We've hashed through a lot of it already
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> It has kind of gotten off the rails. :-)
<Amy Blankenship> but it will be posted
<Chris Swenson> A bit.
<Stefan van As> Future of Authorware? Oh, I should had guessed that ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> Well, it was sort of posted on the door as you came in ;-)
<Steve Howard> In big letters
<Mike Baker> Who reads?
<Steve Howard> er
<Erik Lord> lol
<Amy Blankenship> Not people taking training
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> So, does anyone have a final list of what they would buy with their $100.
<Apurva> when my boss ordered AW6 he came and asked me are you sure we need it. I said yes because it has new features . My boss said that the local distributor told him that there won't be any future releases of AW
<Mike Baker> Not Mojo Massage
<Stefan van As> Some of you might already know this, but I'm flying out to Jamil's place in 2 days. This might be the time to ask us tough questions
<Amy Blankenship> durn
<Apurva> how does the local distributor know what is going to happen if it is going to happen ?
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Apurva - Ha! That is funny.
<Apurva> Jamil, Mike, Stefan ?
<Steve Howard> Hey good one Stefan :-)
<Erik Lord> non-ActiveX html support - dynamic text creation/etc - LOADING bar for plugin?
<Amy Blankenship> But you'll be discussing the chat, we know
<Andrew lucking> your local distributor is Jamil?
<Chris Swenson> Non-modal commands, more icon properties, umm yeah that would do it for me
<Apurva> Jamil. that stuff is true
<Amy Blankenship> Jamil and Stefan, I e.mailed you a while back about the problem with the RTF KO scrollbar not appearing to be part of the object
<Apurva> and that could mean that half the people who ever thought of buying AW might have never bought
<Amy Blankenship> any thoughts about that?
<Apurva> because of false information
<Erik Lord> SetIconProperty
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> I'm sure they said that. I don't quite know why, but maybe they're trying to sell some other software?
<Grace Daminato> HTML support (similar to what's available in Flash)...
<Steve Howard> More exposed properties - especially at runtime. Dynamic text manipulation. Html support in display icon. Database made easy. MUCH better plugin installation
<Erik Lord> SetIconContents, sorry ;)
<Apurva> yeah but can't MM do anything about it
<Stefan van As> Non-ActiveX HTML support? I guess you're asking us to embed and distribute Mozilla, right?
<Steve Howard> That Flash export thing would be cool if I actually needed it ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> They don't even half advertise AW
<Chris Swenson> just gecko =+)
<Erik Lord> woohoo!
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Oh well, we're still the 800# gorilla in this market. I guess it hasn't hurt too much. :-)
<Apurva> yeah you guys don't even advertise as much as you do other products and stuff like this happening might hurt AW further
<Erik Lord> yes, gecko with Aware, that would be nifty
<Chris Swenson> I was kid'n
<Erik Lord> keen, even
<Chris Swenson> =+)
<Erik Lord> ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> gecko?
<Stefan van As> We can probably add dynamic text manipulation to RTFObj.u32. I know that is not the same thing as internal RTF manipulation, but we have to prioritize things and making RTFObj.u32 changes is simply much easier and with less risks.
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Well, we'll post a couple pictures of Stefan and I drinking beer. That should convince them that we're working.
<Erik Lord> core of Mozilla
<Chris Swenson> Mozilla's rendering engine... been in the works for a few years and is very cool
<Amy Blankenship> ah, cool
<Apurva> :0 the pic in the distributors office will be cool. I am sure they will know you are working :o)
<Erik Lord> especially as an Aware plugin
<Steve Howard> How about a picture of the two of you with one of Robin Ward's sheep? ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> hey, now we are getting personal
<Steve Howard> LOL
<Stefan van As> No promises, but wrapping Mozilla into a u32 or Xtra shouldn't be that hard. I've seen applications using both IE and Mozilla as a preview option.
<Erik Lord> that would be pretty neat
<Amy Blankenship> That being DW?
<Erik Lord> biggest thing against ActiveX is layer 0
<Chris Swenson> that would be cool.
<Mike Baker> My first C++ app was an HTML parser. It's the Symantec C++ tutorial.
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, it would be nice if there were some native feature that let you put things on top of ActiveX and especially Winctrls
<Steve Howard> So we could all build our own? Cool
<Stefan van As> What's up with Robin Ward? Doesn't she work for the MediaShoppe?
<Erik Lord> neat, keen, nifty!
<Steve Howard> LOL
<Chris Swenson> Hey can we take the Insert>control>ActiveX and make it just Insert>ActiveX? Unless you guys are planning on adding VCL or something this seems silly
<Steve Howard> No Robin Ward is a Welsh man who was very active on the list a few years ago. He stopped using AW and vanished
<Chris Swenson> No that's Robin Baker
<Stefan van As> Not Dreamweaver. Nick Bradbury's TopStyle embeds both IE and Mozilla.
<Amy Blankenship> ah
<Stefan van As> ActiveX will *always* be on layer 0. Fact of life.
<Amy Blankenship> I only have the lite that comes with Homesite
<Erik Lord> yep, so don't do HTML as ActiveX please ;)
<Steve Howard> Why is that? AW restriction or AX restriction?
<Steve Howard> Yeah Stefan, Jamil suggested HTML support in the display icon, so throw away any ideas of AX
<Amy Blankenship> Couldn't you put some sort of ActiveX wrapper on native AW objects to boost them up?
<Grace Daminato> Adding HTML tags to text files to set font attributes is really a good place to start. Is it that difficult to support...
<Stefan van As> Device context (DC) versus ActiveX. A device context can be layered because Authorware manages the painting of it's own presentation window. A child window can not be layered.
<Steve Howard> if you can dump those text files into the Display icon I am VERY happy
<Erik Lord> html rendering would be killer
<Amy Blankenship> Except for the 32K thing
<Erik Lord> though probably annoy the folks at digital audacity
<Erik Lord> oh yeap
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> So nobody has their final list of how to spend $100?
<Amy Blankenship> Would the html rendering include form tags?
<Amy Blankenship> We are listing stuff
<Amy Blankenship> you're not writing?
<Erik Lord> Chris in every box.....
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Columnar format please, double-spaced.
<Steve Howard> Jamil I sent mi
<Steve Howard> Jamil I sent my list :-)
<Chris Swenson> Non-modal commands $60, More Icon properties (including sprite), $30, random other stuff $10 having Chris shut up ...priceless =+)
<Erik Lord> not way to do a .jar install for Aware Netscape player?
<Stefan van As> Grace is right. Adding simple HTML tags support to set font attributes is not that hard. However, please mark the word SIMPLE HTML tags.
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> I don't think NS6 or above supports it anymore.
<Erik Lord> oh...maybe so
<Amy Blankenship> so no Forms
<Erik Lord> tables would be good enough for 6.5 ;)
<Brandt Wagner> Nonmodal commands $30, SetIconContents$20, improve flash communication/play (might appease rotation woes) $30, HTML rendering$20
<Mike Baker> We had rotation with the motion icon... How much?
<Erik Lord> $15
<Steve Howard> I like the idea of HTML support - simple or complex. The ability to dynamically change text font/colour/style/size is a HUGE leap
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> I don't know. I think if you were doing all the work to support HTML in a display, you'd use source from MS or somewhere that would support pretty much everything.
<Grace Daminato> $50 for rotating motion icons and $50 for the HTML support (SIMPLE tags only); apply them to text being read into a variable.
<Steve Howard> Jamil - Cool :-)
<Mike Baker> Amy - maybe when you go through this log you could build a poll for the items discussed here?
<Apurva> maybe the ability to change / set icon items would make up say 20% of the HTML stuff
<Amy Blankenship> Oooh, great idea
<Erik Lord> HTML - $40, SetIconContents - $30....thinking on the remaining 30
<Mike Baker> Think you can do it so they only spend $100?
<Apurva> because most of the people would love color, font change , style change
<Steve Howard> Mike - GREAT IDEA
<Erik Lord> I'll throw my other $30 to rotation...or like Director's 3D support
<Amy Blankenship> Mike, no. It is not set up where I have that type of control
<Amy Blankenship> I could build it in AW though :D
<Amy Blankenship> The problem is that my ISP does not support ASP
<Mike Baker> Oh well. We should get good ranking from a poll anyway
<Amy Blankenship> will look into it though
<Chris Swenson> ouch...anything server-side?
<Amy Blankenship> Not at this point
<Steve Howard> I want support of all the ink formats and dynamic levels of transparency that are available to images in Director.
<Steve Howard> Amy if you get the data I can sort out a poll
<Grace Daminato> I'm signing off. Bye everyone...great discussion. Thanks Amy, for hosting.
<Chris Swenson> Bye Grace
<Amy Blankenship> That is right, YOUR ISP allows server side
<Erik Lord> cya grace!
<Amy Blankenship> No prob
<Apurva> bye Grace
<Amy Blankenship> thanks for coming
<Grace Daminato> Bye
<Steve Howard> See ya Grace
<Erik Lord> your thought is....
<Steve Howard> Chris I am setting up a new ISP for me - ASP etc support before the end of the week
<Chris Swenson> Cool...asp or asp.net?
<Mike Baker> Web-forms! Yeah.
<Steve Howard> Not sure
<Steve Howard> Will know soon enough
<Chris Swenson> probably doesn't matter...I'm just looking for a few good ones
<Erik Lord> isp's?
<Chris Swenson> with asp.net
<Apurva> web forms - .NET
<Chris Swenson> yeah that too
<Steve Howard> I got one ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> He already has the one with the button
<Chris Swenson> too much info
<Erik Lord> looked at toad.net, Chris?
<Chris Swenson> =+)
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Don't mention it in front of Amy. :-)
<Amy Blankenship> You're not planning to share, I hope
<Apurva> how would we use web forms with AW ?
<Amy Blankenship> If you are simulating a web enabled app
<Chris Swenson> No I haven't but I will....I've got an internal one set up but I'm wanting to move to C# for client websites
<Steve Howard> Nope
<Amy Blankenship> you could capture the html forms
<Chris Swenson> so I'm just starting to look around
<Amy Blankenship> without the asp behind it
<Erik Lord> yer killin me Chris
<Erick Emde> So long everyone. It's been fun. Great discussion. Duty calls...
<Chris Swenson> I have no life...programming just happens
<Steve Howard> Erik - don't EVER try to keep up with Chris
<Chris Swenson> bye Erick
<Mike Baker> C# is SO cool!
<Steve Howard> See Ya Erick
<Erik Lord> oh no worries there!
<Mike Baker> Bye Erik
<Apurva> yeah C# is cool
<Erik Lord> C#....<groan>
<Erick Emde> Bye
<Apurva> bye Erik
<Chris Swenson> Very cool...course I'll probably drop it when Delphi.net ships this fall
<Chris Swenson> C# is my through away language =+)
<Erik Lord> ok, that's better
<Erik Lord> thanks
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one
<Chris Swenson> throw away
<Erik Lord> l(
<Erik Lord> ;-)
<Chris Swenson> maybe I should start drink'n
<Apurva> I just started looking into C# some 2 weeks back
<Amy Blankenship> You just woke u[
<Amy Blankenship> up
<Apurva> and it looks nice and easy
<Steve Howard> Yeah it helps Chris - so I heard
<Chris Swenson> It's a nice language, very easy
<Erik Lord> lol
<Chris Swenson> =+)
<Apurva> do you think making a function for formatting date and time would be useful. and detecting locale settings
<Apurva> I think they would be useful if the application being developed is traveling the globe
<Steve Howard> I want user-created functions and OOP-style language
<Erik Lord> <echo>user-created functions</echo>
<Apurva> anybody on the stuff about locale ?
<Steve Howard> Apu I think you can achieve most of that with existing functions and a trip to WinAPI
<Apurva> example 10/05/2002 and 05/10/2002 are different
<Apurva> so the locale stuff could be useful
<Apurva> detect and format the stuff according to region
<Erik Lord> IME, not too much need for that Apu, being selfish
<Apurva> :) OK
<Steve Howard> That is handled by DateToNum isn't it??
<Chris Swenson> I only ran into this when I was teaching in Africa
<Chris Swenson> other then that I've not needed it.
<Apurva> I was just wondering what people do when they enter stuff like dates in different parts of the world
<Erik Lord> others experiences sure could be different!
<Chris Swenson> but other's (over seas) might
<Steve Howard> I don't care
<Erik Lord> I gotta cut the grass....cy'all!
<Chris Swenson> Take care
<Mike Baker> Bye now
<Apurva> take care. bye
<Steve Howard> OK Erik - nice seeing ya
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one
<Andrew lucking> sure, it can be a pain with the Canadian 28 hour clock ;-)
<Steve Howard> So is there ANY mileage in asking for the scripting language to be updated???
<Mike Baker> What do you need?
<Chris Swenson> I'd like to see it.
<Chris Swenson> Case statements
<Chris Swenson> UDF
<Amy Blankenship> You will hear loads of squawks from people who only know AW as a scripting language
<Chris Swenson> Inc Dec Pred Succ
<Steve Howard> I really do like user-created functions now I have played with JavaScript - and Dot syntax is way cool :-)
<Andrew lucking> yah, case statements
<Amy Blankenship> It would be nice if an optional way to write property lists was dot notation
<Steve Howard> Case statement YES
<Amy Blankenship> start dragging the AW community into this century
<Amy Blankenship> lay the psychological foundation for true OOP
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Why drag them backwards? ;-)
<Steve Howard> Director made the changeover to Dot syntax with Dir 7. They kept support for old lingo syntax too. Not sure if that vanished with 8 or remained
<Steve Howard> What do you mean by backwards Jamil??
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> I still think AW is way ahead of its time, in some respects.
<Chris Swenson> Amy, I don't think you want true OOP, it may be very confusing to the icon slingers out there
<Amy Blankenship> In some respects, but a lot of things programmers take for granted were not even thought of when the basic metaphor was thought of
<Chris Swenson> course maybe you do...I think a radical change the script language at this point is dangerous
<Amy Blankenship> That's why you should kind of slide into it
<Chris Swenson> flash 4 to flash 5 took me a while to become productive
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Sure, AW is not a programming language.
<Steve Howard> But people learn to cope with change
<Amy Blankenship> We make programs in it
<Steve Howard> Lots of programmers USE AW
<Amy Blankenship> ;--)
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> Sure, whatever you say... :-)
<Steve Howard> and there is no dispute that dot syntax and user-functions have their place
<Chris Swenson> we programmers prefer software engineers. =+)
<Chris Swenson> Ohh I love OOP/Dot syntax but it's a radical change to language that's all I'm saying
<Steve Howard> Chris you can have a software engineer if you want - it will just take a little more time
<Steve Howard> But I already said - Director did it and kept support for old lingo too
<Apurva> I need to improve my programming
<Jamil Zainasheff(2)> OK. I've got to run. Promised the family this wouldn't be more than 2 hours, oops 2 1/2 hours.
<Chris Swenson> your kid'n right. =+)
<Steve Howard> We all do Apurva
<Amy Blankenship> Sorry, but thanks for coming by!
<Chris Swenson> bye Jamil, thanks for coming
<Andrew lucking> thanks for the insight Jamil!!
<Apurva> take care Jamil. bye
<Steve Howard> :o OK Jamil -- thank you for taking the time out for this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<Mike Baker> Talk with ya later JZ
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, we do appreciate your interest
<Amy Blankenship> I don't know about everyone else, but I have a horrible headache
<Steve Howard> So Stefan... Any mileage at all in us screaming for changes to the scripting language?
<Andrew lucking> never touched a drop huh Amy?
<Amy Blankenship> I did not want to squelch discussion, but I think I need to go now
<Chris Swenson> I'm starve'n...somebody order a pizza
<Amy Blankenship> Honest
<Amy Blankenship> :-)
<Steve Howard> Awe - poor Amy !!!!!!!!!!!
<Andrew lucking> ;-)
<Steve Howard> I want pepperoni and anchovies
<Amy Blankenship> ew
<Amy Blankenship> L8r, all
<Chris Swenson> yeah it's probably that time...I gotta eat and work on a project.
<Chris Swenson> I'm outta here too.
<Amy Blankenship> Thank you so much, Chris and Mike
<Steve Howard> Se ya Amy!!!!!!!!
<Mike Baker> Bye Amy, thanks for the invite
<Chris Swenson> thanks this was fun.
<Apurva> bye Amy
<Chris Swenson> I don't know that I did anything. =+)
<Amy Blankenship> Stefan, we appreciate that you dropped by
<Steve Howard> See ya Chris !
<Andrew lucking> thanks Amy & Chris!
<Apurva> bye Chris
<Brandt Wagner> Thanks all
<Apurva> have a nice day
<Amy Blankenship> Thanks all
<Amy Blankenship> Take care
<Steve Howard> Of course
<Steve Howard> I still wanna know if there is any sense squealing for a change to the scripting
<Mike Baker> So do we all have to leave? I got 20 minutes left
<Steve Howard> I'm fine
<Andrew lucking> I walked out of the flash demo saying we could really use some object oriented Steve
<Mike Baker> After Case statements, what's next on the list?
<Steve Howard> LOL
<Mike Baker> OOS ?
<Steve Howard> Well just defining functions would be wonderful!!!
<Andrew lucking> heh heh
<Steve Howard> :-o
<Steve Howard> And I would love to see dot syntax. After that I would leave it to the pros
<Mike Baker> I was thinking about this batting ideas about.
<Mike Baker> Forget DOT syntax for the moment. We'll come back to that
<Steve Howard> OK
<Steve Howard> I want objects
<Mike Baker> What about passing params to the user defined functions. Should they be by value or by reference?
<Steve Howard> the more I use property lists the more I want true objects
<Steve Howard> Em ... by value
<Apurva> user defined functions would definitely be a plus.
<Apurva> shouldn't there be facility for both type of params ?
<Mike Baker> So no changing of the passed params while in the function. Kind of throws a wrench in there since all vars are global
<Mike Baker> Yeah, should there be both. Hmm also the problem of vars being global
<Apurva> maybe the vars are given inside the function so those variables become available to that function the rest are global
<Mike Baker> I was thinking about copying the passed params to a temporary hidden storage and then just discarding them when finished
<Mike Baker> I suppose I could copy the contents to the var if the creator wants "by ref"
<Apurva> hidden storage ? would that mean every variable would have an additional storage space ?
<Steve Howard> How about an extra parameter - Ref or Val??
<Mike Baker> Every var passed in to a user defined function would be copied to temporary storage. Then the function could use it and change it but not affect the copy that was passed in
<Steve Howard> Well, that is how I would expect it to work unless I demanded otherwise
<Apurva> so if there are 20 vars then there would be 20 storage places . An extra overhead ? any possible pitfalls ?
<Mike Baker> So defining the function would have to include the #ref or #value marker. That could work...
<Steve Howard> :-) Cool
<Steve Howard> 20 extra temp vars .. is that really an issue?
<Mike Baker> Not worried so much about the overhead as yet. I'm just exploring the possibilities and capabilities at this point
<Apurva> oh ok
<Steve Howard> if the function transparently handles it as a list -well it should anyway - like JavaScript with the Args Array
<Apurva> I was more worried of some kind of memory leak
<Mike Baker> yeah - I have to worry about those too. :-)
<Apurva> because if an app crashes due to some reason then there could be a memleak or if the aw app was terminated or closed . how would you re-initialize the memory ?
<Apurva> yeah. that could be one problem
<Mike Baker> What would happen for example if I started a user code and then there was a GoTo in there or a syncpoint that allowed a perpetual to interrupt and then a one way nav icon
<Steve Howard> Mike is the fact that AW variables are always global a carved in stone FOL?
<Steve Howard> Well, if multithreading were possible, it would not matter ;-)
<Mike Baker> There is a facility for creating variables at runtime. It's in the U32 samples and the Xtra XDK in fact
<Steve Howard> or if the functions existed in a "frame" Authorware app
<Mike Baker> So you could use temporary variables.
<Steve Howard> yeah???
<Mike Baker> And then there's Icon Variables which are kind of OOP but not since you can access them from anywhere.
<Steve Howard> yeah those are what I meant - they are global vars that require a local ref
<Mike Baker> I wish I knew more about their storage mechanism so I could tell you. I can add new variables to AW's table, but I never had to dig deeper than that.
<Steve Howard> :-(
<Steve Howard> What else would we need to make user-defined functions work?
<Apurva> maybe the email KO should also be updated to handle attachments
<Mike Baker> Kind of like using an object in another language. You don't have to know what byte is set by the SetIconProperty, Just that it works :-)
<Apurva> Stefan did you write the email u32 ?
<Steve Howard> ;-) Yeah that would solve a lot of headaches
[At this point, the person keeping the log lost connection and the chat was over]