MaxGUI now free
BlitzMax Forums/MaxGUI Module/MaxGUI now free
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| [edit] Armstrong Communications Limited has published latest maxgui module release with zlib/libpng license declaring the popular BlitzMax module free. Thanks to all users that invested in previous versions of the software, I hope MaxGUI and the tools you have made with it have made your life more productive, and that future releases continue to reward your insightful purchase. Thanks also to Mark Sibly for concise API design and Seb Hollington for recent bling and primary maintainer duties. https://sourceforge.net/projects/maxgui/files/ |
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| Ohhh, ok... Thank you - I'm a 'licensed (investor at this point)' user. Quick questions: now that MaxGUI is 'free/open source/etc', 1. who follows up the development/maintenance 2. there is one (or more) 'dev path' I'm a *very happy* user of MaxGUI (I made dozens of applications for my daily job using it and I can't do anything without it!) and - as ex-payer customer - at this point I'm a little bit worried about the MaxGUI future. I would like to see some 'plan/answer' from Skid or Sebholl... ps: free is a good thing, but people needs to 'eat' something and I think some system of 'economic contribution' (PayPal donate etc) should be implemented... |
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| Another thing: I understand MaxGUI is now free, but why did you remove it from the 'products' page? You should put some link/info in the BlitzMax page - so potential new customers have a 'complete' overview of their possibilities with the language (making a game is ONE thing, making some DESKTOP applications is SOMETHING NEW...) Same for MiniB3D to be honest.... just a consideration. |
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| Will updates only be available via Google from now on? |
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| Is this the first sign of 'BlitzMax' death? Seeing bmx2 get all the attention (even having a 'native GL' mode, which probably means generating code for Win/Lin/Mac) - and now MaxGUI being 'free', I am really worried :( I purchased both BlitzMax and MaxGUI last year... I just hope BlitzMax doesn't get the same treatment Blitz3D has, not being officialy 'dead', but not being 'updated' (as in, upgraded to newer - at least to a compatible with newer OS's - tech). |
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| I think this is a great idea. It'll encourage more people to buy Bmx if they only have to buy one official product. There's a guy who's just bought Bmx and couldn't understand why he had to buy a GUI to get the samples to run. I had the same problem years ago so I'm sure other people did too. I hope that Maxgui's free status will not get it removed from the 'product updates' page. That would be a shame. |
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| at this point I'm a little bit worried about the MaxGUI future. I would like to see some 'plan/answer' from Skid or Sebholl... Why be more worried now than before? It's open source now... you can submit your own patches for future stuff (just as everyone else can) |
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| Why be more worried now than before? It's open source now... you can submit your own patches for future stuff (just as everyone else can) Because before 'changes' were managed by Skid or Sebholl and there was only one 'way' (wrong or right is another thing). Now the open source thing could rise to a countless MaxGUI 'variation on theme'... with too much 'dependencies' to check to run, dead projects and so on. I would like to see ONE MAIN BRANCH (the stable/the preferred if you prefer) to rely on my projects. |
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| I do get an error trying to compile the SVN version: Compile Error: File 'c:/code/blitzmax/mod/maxgui.mod/win32maxguiex.mod/xpmanifest.o' not found After copying it from my old/existing MaxGUI folder it compiled without errors... May want to add it to the SVN checkout, though., |
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| Personally, I have found MaxGUI to be invaluable for some of my cross-platform BlitzMax projects: miscellaneous applications, fractal generators, editors, and even rogue-like text RPGs. I thank skidracer, Sebholl and others who have made the module so useful over time, and wonder why some users have criticized it so ruthlessly. It's a light-weight, cross platform GUI module: not perfect, but very useful for a great deal of applications. |
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| Oh that's bad news I guess... Sounds like Max3D. I don't have anything against open source but in the most cases it's just another dead project thing. What comes next? Blitzmax? Is that the end? Everything goes this stupid multi smart phone platform? |
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| @Xaron Bad news? Dead project? MaxGUI is still 'vital' (Sebholl made frequent changes to kill bugs and add new features) Max3d simply was a 'dead project' from the start - quite different than MaxGUI. And BlitzMax can't die. BMX2 (or whatever) will be 'another' products of BRL, aimed to mobile devices. It'll be a different story, so dont' be worried about this. If I remember correctly, Skid more than one years ago would like to follow the FOSS ideology... so this news is nothing sudden, it was already planned. |
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| Can't wait to see where this takes MaxGUI, and really appreciate the efforts made for it. As an "invested" user I just hope that it keeps going forward, it's been an invaluable tool for me and I would hate to see it languish due to a lack of funding/support. On the other hand, it may provide an avenue for even faster updates etc. Cautiously optimistic :0) And I too think it will be a boon for new users. Having access to a basic GUI system really expands the language. And maxgui has been the easiest/most native to work with. |
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| Ok guys, I just buyed a copy of BlitzMax and I need MaxGUI. After read this post Im so disappointed.... And what about blitz plus? Its GUI will become freee too?? And how can I install MaxGUI ?? I dont know how to use SVN. Please, any moderator of this list should fix a topic about MaxGUI download and install, its will help newcommers like me. Thanks to all. |
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| @vinians: Can you download the MaxGUI Module from your "Account" page -> "Product updates"? - I could e-mail you MaxGUI 1.41, but I'm not sure if such stuff is allowed?! |
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| I don't have anything against open source but in the most cases it's just another dead project thing. I guess this means you do not like BlitzMax? MaxGUI isn't going open source. Like BlitzMax, MaxGUI has always been open source. The only things that have changed with MaxGUI is it is now free and it is being released under a different license (which is more conducive to free projects). After read this post Im so disappointed.... No offense, but I would have thought you would be happy. You are getting Max GUI for free, instead of having to pay for it ;)Since you are new, I just want to clarify something for you. MaxGUI is owned by Skidracer, not BRL/Mark Sibly. And what about blitz plus? Its GUI will become freee too?? It's GUI isn't a standalone product and B+ still seems to be actively used, I can't imagine it going free. I dont know how to use SVN. BlitzMax used to use SVN before. I was new to SVN and had no issues picking it up. However, many people couldn't figure out how to use SVN and complained non-stop so SVN was dropped.The only bad thing with the way SVN is being used now, is it is tied to google, so now if you want to use MaxGUI and keep it updated, you probably have to sign up for Google. Still, a small issue since Google allows Skidracer to host MaxGUI for free which is always beneficial to a free product ;) |
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| @Grisu - I could e-mail you MaxGUI 1.41, but I'm not sure if such stuff is allowed?! I thik its alowed because its free :D Please, send it to my email pls vinians2006@... thanks in advance |
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| Skidracer, I've never used MaxGUI but always've been tempted to. Thank you for releasing it. PS: How do one handles the license? "Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution." As obvious as this may sound, do I have to include this License.TXT file with the files of my application distribution? can I rename the file to "MaxGUI_License.TXT" so users won't think that license is the one covering my application? (I'm only asking this because this is similar to the OGG Vorbis' licence, just so I understand them all at once) |
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| Ok guys, I just buyed a copy of BlitzMax and I need MaxGUI. After read this post Im so disappointed.... Look, you need to reread the first post again... slowly. It says a zip will be available soon. |
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| The only bad thing with the way SVN is being used now, is it is tied to google, so now if you want to use MaxGUI and keep it updated, you probably have to sign up for Google. False. BlitzMax used to use SVN before. I was new to SVN and had no issues picking it up. However, many people couldn't figure out how to use SVN and complained non-stop so SVN was dropped. Also false. It had something to do with the site hack a while back. Oh that's bad news I guess... Sounds like Max3D. I don't have anything against open source but in the most cases it's just another dead project thing. I don't see why you have to complain about it. If you don't like it, just stay away. Is this the first sign of 'BlitzMax' death? Good god, people. What is wrong with you?Just lock this topic. It's just an announcement after all. |
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| So the long planned step was done now. I think this could be really a step forward for MaxGui and BMax as well. MaxGui is perfectly usable in it's current state and if it's free now there is nothing to complain about, Max3D was a completely different story. I'm using MaxGui a lot obviously and it just worked for me and the apps I created. Actually MaxGui was one of the reasons I bought BMax years back and I never regret the money spent. |
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| False.[/quote[Not false, I said "probably". Whether it is true or not depends on the settings skidracer chooses to use. Hence my indecision and using an either-or like "probably". ;) Actually, true (as you did quote two sentences). People were in tears and literally near suicide because SVN was being used before. *shakes head* I knew a hacker lead to the take down of syncmods, but I had forgot another hacker was involved in the SVN takedown. Thank you for the reminder.[quote]Also false. MaxGui is perfectly usable in it's current state and if it's free now there is nothing to complain about For those that have major issues with MaxGUI being free, perhaps you could see if skidracer would allow donations or donate the amount it used to cost to some charity. MaxGUI was well worth the price of admission. Now being free, there should be no complaints. Skidracer has made it clear it will not be SVN only, so there will be a ZIP for those that do not like SVN. |
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| Whether it is true or not depends on the settings skidracer chooses to use. Hence my indecision and using an either-or like "probably". ;) I'm pretty sure it's accessible by anyone. Not false, I said "probably". I was merely trying to correct a presumption. Actually, true (as you did quote two sentences). My over-arching quote-it-all attitude is to blame. I was referring to the repository takedown. |
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| I knew a hacker lead to the take down of syncmods That's not true either... syncing was stopped because it was just too much hassle to keep all the pre-compiled variations in sync all the time (on the server). It's funny when people complain about something being free... (maybe that's where I went wrong...) |
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| I think most people find the module loses its "official status" this way, and they are afraid it will receive less updates now. I doubt all of this, but who knows? Only Skid and Seb know. For now, enjoy that it's free. Also, only Seb and Skid can update it, so there is no fear of unstable updates from anyone. Remember, open source and free does not mean it's like a wiki where anyone can add anything they want. Enjoy it, it's a good mod! |
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| Will be interesting to see where this take MaxGui. I use it a lot and been very happy with the support it has received, so I hope it will continue to get updates etc. The Blitz community has always been very good so I'm sure this is actually a good move that will ultimately benefit the module. |
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| So what are the plans for the continued improvement of MaxGUI? I can't wait to see what you have lined up. |
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| scintilating news |
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| This is great news indeed! I was annoyed that I had to make a makeshift GUI when creating tools for my games because no matter what it just didn't feel the same. Now they will look much neater and more professional :) |
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| I agree that this is excellent news, especially to new BMX users! I do have one suggestion/FeatureRequest though.... Perhaps it would be possible to add in Brucey's GTK+ driver! It is a little behind the other drivers, but is largely there and already works! |
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| Do I understand that right? If I continue to use MaxGUI I will have to put a stupid licence-text in my app? If thats true I stay at 1.40 - I didn’t pay to have oss licenses in my apps 8( |
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| It seems BSD and MIT license both stipulate redistribution of license with binaries built with the module, I would prefer this was not the case also so shall look into it further. If you use jpeg module in your project it is my understanding you are bound to the same annoyance also. |
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| If you use jpeg module in your project it is my understanding you are bound to the same annoyance also. Then that should definitely be noted to all users of BlitzMax in some manner. |
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| Might hack on this.. at any rate, I cloned it and stuck it up on github (linked in case anyone wants to quickly fork it), just in case this goes the way of max3d's repository (which I consider unlikely). |
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| Might hack on this.. Multi-column listboxes / grids would be nice to have... ;-) |
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| The zlib license is more permissive but is not available on Google code, they like so many other OSS proponents seem to be anti Public Domain. This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software. Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required. 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software. 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution. I assume this kind of license is OK on github? |
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| I will have to put a stupid licence-text in my app? Yeah, always better not to mention where anything came from. Giving credit sucks eggs! |
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| I gave credit though payment. |
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| OK, I have moved the module to sourceforge and relicensed all source with zlib/libpng license. This means no credit or copyright notice is required when distributing applications built with MaxGUI. A beta release of MaxGUI 1.42 in zip format is available here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/maxgui/files Windows users please unzip the contained maxgui.mod folder to %blitzmax/mod and rebuild docs in MaxIDE. Apple and Linux users are required to do likewise as well as build modules before using the MaxGUI module in this distribution. Please make sure you are using BlitzMax version 1.40 or above. |
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| Thanks for that skidracer!! D. |
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| Thx skid. It's not that I don't want to credit the developers - Just the long licence files are a total nogo for my usage as they need to much space I could use otherwise (demoscene demos have very strict sizelimits). |
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| The zLib license is a godsend. Thanks for the distribution package skidracer - I'll make sure to mention it on the acknowledgement section of whatever I do with it (there you go, Brucey!). |
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| Well spotted Dranix! Not a big deal but a bone of contention to some. And thanks to skidracer for sorting it out so quickly! |
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| Sebholl -- thanks for hard work @ keeping MaxGUI simple. |
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| i use maxgui for editors keep up the good work |
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| Once again, thanks for all the work on this, it really is a fantastic help. Should we tread the 1.42 beta that's up now as a release or still a development build? |
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| Thanks! I was thinking of buying this for a couple months now. (it was a couple months since I have not done any coding for fun in that long) |
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| Very Generous skidracer. Just upgraded my BMax recently to 1.41 thanks, I've been using a 3rd party app for my front ends - written by a bloke call bill. |
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| I bought MaxGUI hoping for a grid control. I have not used BMax and MaxGUI is a long time, I was wonderinf if a grid control was released? Jason |
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| Jason, There is not an official grid control. I made one though, it might suit your needs: http://wiebo.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/lifes-better-in-groups/ |
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| Thanks Wiebo. Is your control flexible enough to display cells? Like excel?  I wrote a windows explorer clone (keyboard controlled - mouse optional) back in 1997 using VB (mostly third party controls and Win2 API calls), but stopped due to resizing issues. I was about to re-write it in VC++, but personal and work issues took all my time. Since I bought bmax-maxgui, I wanted to re-write it. Instead of making my own grid control, I decided to wait for simon, seb, or someone if create the wheel for me :) It would of handled like amiga dopus with functionality designed for a developer working with many files. Jason |
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| Hi Jason, No, I'm not into creating applications which need that type of grid control. Mine is a property grid and not a data grid. |
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| LogicGUI comes with a (Windows only) extension to create datagrids. |
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| Thanks Htbaa! I guess I'll have to dig out my old source, and look into getting Logic GUI. Jason |
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| @Skid and Seb I've noticed on the SourceForge repository that FLTK has been removed from the 'stable' branch. Any particular reason? It is only a personal variation on MaxGUI? |
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| It is actually a "private" branch for finalizing the release build of a MaxIDE for monkey. |
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| Ah, ok. Thanks |
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| Not that i would miss the FLTK IDE, but does this mean there will be no Standard IDE for monkey in Linux? I know one can use text editors, just asking. |
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| I'm having a hard time using maxide in linux at times. It throws segmentation faults whenever i do something funny with my touchpad (ie. touch it when typing text)... This goes for MaxIDE v1.40 and above. I tried to debug build MaxIDE v1.40, but no luck in determining where the bug is located.... A pain in the ass is this when it happens every other minute, alot of time wasted having to type code all over again.... Can you have a look at this please? |
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| So you are using a previous release without problem? If so I can try and diff that particular working release with current builds so we can work out where its gone wrong. |
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| Short said: no... But then again my touchpad is acting a bit up sometimes, so it could be time consuming to locate the problem, if it is the problem. I have no problems on my other laptop. The touchpad acts up something like this: mouseY-200 + mouseX+250 and then a left/and/or rightclick if you know what i mean... Lol! You shouldn't care too much if no others are having this problem. |
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| Anyhow, any chance of getting the source code for MaxIDE v1.41 or v1.42 beta? I could only find the executables... Last edited 2011 |
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| Anyhow, any chance of getting the source code for MaxIDE v1.41 or v1.42 beta? I could only find the executables... Any particular reason you need v1.41/1.42? IIRC the latest is at least 1.50 beta. |
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| No, I would prefer the latest one ofcourse :-) |
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| If you want to get a lot better IDE use gedit with available plugins. I wrote a tutorial on that in the Linux section of this forum. Once you used it you will never want to go back. |
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| To answer my own question: http://code.google.com/p/max-gui/source/browse/trunk/maxide/?r=5 |
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| Is anyone working on a maxgui update? Or is the module dead... P.S. The about window is broken in maxide 1.50:  |
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| where can I get the latest stable version? (1.41 IIRC) |
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| It's at http://blitzmax.com/Account/produpdates.php |
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| Someone forgot to update that PHP. It only shows for download if you bought the product when it was on sale. EDIT: Don't know if 'forgot' is the right word. How would you enable a product for the entire community? definitely not generating a few hundred serial numbers. It mustn't be easy to do. Last edited 2011 |
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Hey.....^[[B^[[B^[[ @ post #59, #61 .... I think I managed to capture the mouse gesture that is crashing maxide on my system (Ubuintu 10, (backtrack 5)) It's there on line 3. WHY? I have nbo idea :-) Last edited 2011 |
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| When is the latest sourcecode available? |
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| MaxGUI is now an integrated part of the official BlitzMax (1.44) distribution. |
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| I had the same problem with Blitz Max 1.50 as in post #59 - scrolling with the touchpad frequently crashes MaxIDE with a segmentation fault. It also seems to be in versions 1.38 onward, but not in 1.37, and recompiling MaxIDE didn't help. Just in case, I tried recompiling with multi-threaded selected in the build options, and the resulting executable seems to work - I can't get it to crash. Edit: It's harder to get the MT build to segfault, but still possible by scrolling down a lot and then typing. So MT didn't fix the problem. |
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| What are you using Fltk or Gtk, or Linux? |
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| Linux Mint 17.2. I think Blitz is using FLTK. |
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| Right, well I recommend using Brucey's excellent Gtkmaxgui for Linux, it is much, much better than Fltk which I believe is unsupported now. Just download the bah.mod zip HERE and rather than installing all, just extract gtkmaxgui.mod, gtkwebkitgtk.mod and maxguitextareascintilla.mod (ignore the other gtk browser modules). Then build modules (./bmk makemods -a bah) and use "Framework bah.gtkmaxgui" instead of MaxGUI.Drivers. To update MaxIDE, download MaxIDE.zip HERE and, in the same files list, maxide.bmx (which should be the most recent) and create a folder in BMX/src called maxide. Extract the zip there and then drop the newer maxide.bmx (v1.43) over the old one (v1.40). I don't think it makes much difference though. Then open maxide.bmx and make sure the code at the top looks like below. You need Brucey's scintilla gadget as the default textarea gadget won't work with the latest maxide. 'Framework MaxGUI.Drivers Framework bah.gtkmaxgui Import bah.maxguitextareascintilla Import MaxGUI.ProxyGadgets ?Win32 Import "maxicons.o" ? 'Import bah.gtkmaxgui 'Import bah.gtkwebgtkhtml 'Import bah.gtkwebmozilla Import bah.gtkwebkitgtk There is also a small fix to Maxide by me HERE which makes browsing files much better. |
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| Thanks! I haven't got it to work yet, though, due to problems with dependencies - several of the 32-bit libs don't show up in the package manager and have to be installed manually. So far, the unpatched 1.43 segfaults on touchpad scroll (like 1.40), the non-scintilla patched version segfaults on file save (but not on scroll), and the scintilla version won't link :-( |
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| Oh yeah, I should have said what dependencies they need. You can find out by opening the main bmx file in the module and looking for Import or ModuleInfo "CC_OPTS" lines. Gtkwebkitgtk needs libwebkitgtk-1.0 and MaxGUITextAreaScintilla needs several things: gir1.2-glib-2.0, gir1.2-gtk-2.0, cairo (v1 but I have v2 also), libpango-1.0, gir1.2-gdk-pixbuf-2.0 and gir1.2-atk-1.0. These are the names on ubuntu so they may be the same for Mint - being based on ubuntu. Also, did you try the Mint-friendly script by dawlane HERE? |
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| Thanks. I didn't know about the newer MaxIDE, and your original post made finding and installing it quick and painless. I'm getting used to the dependencies issue, and a search on the Blitz forums turned up most of the info needed. The main problem was that the package manager won't install some of the 32-bit packages, or even show them. I had to manually download and install them, and for a few, extract and copy the .so files because the installer refused to do it. Apparently there are problems (1,2) with flag settings on some 32-bit packages. Turns out the PC is actually running Mint 17.1, so I'm going to install 17.2, and try again in that. Hopefully it'll be more successful this time (and if not, there's always 32-bit linux in a virtual machine :) I saw dawlane's script, or one very like it when installing 1.50, and it helped a lot, as well as mentioning Import "-ldl" (which includes MaxIDE). There's also a thread about the dependencies for bah.gtkmaxgui on 64-bit Ubuntu. Thanks again for your help. |
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