Two Point Oh

[Auggie]

Hot and heavy into the development of TOMY 2.0.  Lion compatibility is mostly finished.  Support for Eversion and GTZappiti fleshed out.  And also in the final touches, the long awaited and requested... NFO editor.

Just need to start tweaking the interface to handle all its new-found goodies...

[Ironfalcon]

I've just got an A300 and I'm French, so, sorry for my English.

First : Thank you very much for your tool on mac, I've quickly changed to YAMJ, due to my addiction to TV shows, and YAMJ is far way better than NMJ (expect for re-indexing , but it can't be perfect)

Second, do you have any release date for the Lion capable version ? and does this version will be fully compatible with an A300 ? (I'm asking, because I don't know if there's any difference between an A300 and A210 about YAMJ.)

Thanks again for your job

[Auggie]

The current development version is now 100% Lion capable.  We are hoping that its release will be sometime in December, barring any development obstacles.

As far as the A-300, there should be nothing fundamentally different with it versus the 200-series as YAMJ is basically just a set of web pages that an NMT's built-in web browser is able to read and "display" on a consumer television.

[Auggie]

Well, we are running into severe limitations of the compiler and are unable to currently implement a new interface scheme to handle the increased number of controls added.

Unfortunately, this probably will mean a December release will not be possible... 

[wgstarks]

Love TOMY. Just one question. Will 2.0 be backwards compatible as well? I'm still using Snow Leopard since most of my apps don't work with Lion.

[Auggie]

Yes, it should be compatible still with both Leopard and Snow Leopard as the fundamental code outputted by the compiler is the same as it's the same compiler used for the past couple versions released.

The issue with Lion that was addressed with the upcoming release of TOMY has been the networking protocol, which Apple has deprecated the GPL source Samba suite.

[Admin]

I've now dived head first into the Cocoa conversion to overcome the show-stopping graphical issues implementing the desired User Interface and immediately I am inundated with constant crashes with no rhyme or reason provided by the compilers debugger.  And the new Inspectors which I had basically finished are now completely broken (again with no reason provided by the debugger).

This is indeed going to be very painful... but hey, a test of the new UI implementation works great!

[wgstarks]

Remember, what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger.

[Auggie]

Remember, what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger.

Hrmph!  Heh, I dunno, but I've now uncovered graphical glitches (albeit minor) in other parts of this "beta" Cocoa compiler, and the incessant crashing is really testing my patience in trying to hunt them down as they are not being caught by the debugger, leaving me with mostly an unreadable Apple bug report dump that typically only reveals compiler or Apple toolbox crash points thereby making it difficult to trace back to what part of my code actually led to that crash.

But at least the software publisher provided some guidance by stating that allowing code in threads to update User Interface elements in Cocoa apps will lead to the type of crashes getting past the debugger.  Unfortunately, there is quite a bit UI updates from within numerous threads and it will be quite a challenge to extricate those parts out of the threads and into the recommended "timer" controls.
From reading the forums for the compiler, the next release will fix a slew of Cocoa bugs, but it was scheduled for November release and we're in December    I really have been contemplating backtracking to Carbon and doing a massive re-arranging of TOMY's layout in order to "hide" the deficiencies of the "scrolling" list of controls UI, but I may slug it out a bit longer and see what R4 of the compiler will bring...

[Auggie]

The Cocoa compiler is truly "beta" as I've come across just too many basic issues when compiling to Cocoa versus compiling to Carbon on the exact same code; what works perfectly in Carbon is somehow completely broken in Cocoa, and just frustrating errors that shouldn't be errors at all.

I've read about a lot of developers remaining on the sidelines and keeping away from the Cocoa compiler until these maddening bugs are fixed, but without knowing when the next compiler update will be released (it's already behind schedule), I don't know if I can simply just stop development of TOMY until the compiler update is released (which there is no guarantees that the compiler bugs I'm running into will be fixed), or back to Carbon and brainstorming a new approach to the UI 

[Auggie]

They finally released their update, so I'm just now giving it a spin and seeing just how many bugs were fixed that affected TOMY...

[Auggie]

Although the recent compiler update did fix a lot of issues, there are others remaining and the publisher still labels their Cocoa compiler as "beta," with their next release to (according to them) finally be considered a 100% Cocoa-compliant compiler.  But that's another 3-4 months away.

Alas, since Apple has dictated that Cocoa apps must behave in certain ways, I will have to eventually re-write TOMY to conform to Cocoa specs, therefore, I am slogging forward under Cocoa, warts and all.  When TWO point OH is released, it may not be as stable as desired, but I have no choice other than delaying TOMY for 4-6 months until the Cocoa compiler issues are worked out.

In the meantime, the entire new Inspector features are "broken" in that all the new Inspector windows no longer work (crash TOMY repeatedly) so it's going to take time to try to trace what exactly is causing the breakdown, in addition to rewriting their User Interface updating methodology to conform to Cocoa requirements.

I finally got the primary TOMY interface working again, for the most part.  There are still the occasional maddening crash here and there, so there's some work yet left to be done.

[Auggie]

I gave it a tremendous effort to switch to Cocoa, but after stumbling across crash after crash from seemingly innocuous routines that should work (as they work perfectly under Carbon), I have reached the conclusion that the Cocoa compiler as currently shipping is just not ready for "prime time" as even acknowledged by the publisher in their continued emphasis and use of the term "beta" on the Cocoa compiler aspect.

I had created new "on the fly" rendering routines to provide as close a representative preview of posters, banners and layouts as possible.  In TOMY 1.x I had actually implemented a very simplistic method of maintaining a large collection of miniaturized screen shots and relying on a lengthly "if-then" chain of branches to determine the correct image to utilize.  This required painstaking screen captures of each and every possible scenario for a given skin, which was just too tedious to update when incorporating new skins.  The new rendering routines where fully completed before I started investigating compiling to Cocoa, and now have uncovered a nasty bug on the Cocoa side of the compiler that breaks some of the new rendering routines, with absolutely no workaround possible due to the nature of the bug.  And I truly have reached my wits end on building numerous "exceptions" around Cocoa issues, which I would have to remove as the Cocoa compiler is updated and bugs resolved.

But this is just one bug within a slew of other (but potentially not as debilitating) bugs that has led me to the painful decision not to compile a Cocoa TOMY app.  But hey, it took Adobe 10 years before they finally released a Cocoa version of their Creative Suite.  Unfortunately for me, since there are no other cross-platform compilers anywhere, I am at the mercy of the compiler publisher to release a fully 100% Cocoa-compliant and reliable compiler.

Anyways, where does this leave TWO point OH?  I don't want to wait for the next compiler update, so I'm back to the original "bug" that prevented me from implementing a User Interface method to handle the large number of new controls that was scalable to fully utilize a users monitor as much as possible.  At least this experience will continue to drive me to bring TOMY to 100% Cocoa compatibility eventually, and as time permits I will continue to rewrite routines to follow Apple's Cocoa guidelines for that eventually day when I can finally release TOMY as a Cocoa app.

In the meantime, I'm actually putting off further development on the UI as I labor on cleaning up unfinished routines and features.  Hopefully, time will allow me to come up with some solution that will allow me to release TWO point OH with an acceptable (to me, that is) UI...

[Admin]

Although I had my laptop with me and did some development over the holidays, now that I'm back on my desktop iron I'm trying to get back into the swing of things but I hit a rut.  Had to go back into rewriting how I handled sets in the new Inspectors and it's requiring much more thought and rewriting than I anticipated. I find myself just wanting to walk away to give my mind some time to conjure up an approach.  If I instead start working on a different part of TOMY, I tend to forget the rhyme and reason behind the existing code and have to refresh my memory why I wrote the code the way I did (writing comments on methodology into the code can be very time consuming and rather boring so although doing so helps to understand the code later on when I have to revisit it, it's one of those " must adhere" to guidelines of development that I tend to skip).

I'm still hopeful for a release by February at the latest.

[Temujin]

Auggie: have you been able to dedicate any time into Two Point OH lately? I know a lot of people (myself included of course) are eagerly anticipating it.
The screenshots you've shown here and there and the comments about what you're putting into sound awesome, I can only imagine how much work it it is.
Just wanted to pop in and see how you were doing with it.
Thanks!
PS: I probably wouldn't have my YAMJ up and running if it wasn't for TOMY so hats off to you for the original TOMY which suits me just fine right now