What I'm adding / planning next?
Lots of things - and to keep track of them all, I'll detail them here.
Thing is, they are all kind of inter-related, so some things have to happen first to allow others to happen.
Listed in no particular order:
Extension builder / uwidget? additions.
Revised inspector (as above).
Replacement browser widget for Linux (while retaining stack compatibility for Win and Mac)
Replacement video 'player' classic control for Linux (replaces the broken one in the linux build only) - while again, trying to retain stack compatibility for Win and Mac. This will hook into my new inspector (above), so that all platforms know how to deal with it (It'll use the 'regular' player classic control on Mac and Win, but Linux will use a revised version).
Also want to revamp the script editor. This started as a
side project as an alternative way to colour xtalk syntax, but I wanted to develop this so we can add things like xtalk autocomplete, and at the very least - a script editor as a standalone stack, that is aware of xtalk formatting, rather than having to rely on a bbedit plugin /
pulsar (was atom) - (
xtalk syntax package for it detailed here by the way). - not that there's anything wrong with those text editors, and it's great they exist - just that it would be cool to make a standalone script editor in my opinion.
This also leads me onto the next point, of wanting to make a version of python idle - but xTalk Idle. So that you have a bare-bones window which you can write xtalk script in, which is coloured and indented automatically - then it can be run. (I'm thinking of a classroom implementation / edu tool here) - I know that at my secondary level school I work in, the teachers are teaching more advanced python programming techniques, but they predominantly use python idle to accomplish this. I can't help wondering if we had an xIdle version, it would be a lot simpler language for them to get their heads around, would introduce the fundamental thinking of functions, handlers etc - but in an xTalk way. You never know - it might boost uptake and interest of the xTalk scripting language (which is why I'm here after all - to see that hopefully expand and get updated with new feature set).
It would be fairly simple to create something like this, once the script editor stack is created, by simply exporting as a standalone for each and every target platform. The xIdle scripts need only be simple text files after all - they don't really need to be anything overly complex.
All that, while also trying to
fix the bugs listed here.
So there's plenty to do
Plus, there is the engine compile to do for
Windows and
Mac. (Linux one already done, fixing registration screen error). Progress is being made on this, but again - other things need to happen first. Hopefully next week (beginning 15/4/2024 with any luck). I want to remove the reg screen for Win and Mac, but once this is building successfully, the Mac engine needs some urgent fixes to remain compatible with various OS updates:
Fix the menubar properly, without having to use a patch - would want to correct this in the engine source.
Fix the date and time format returned on MacOS Sonoma properly.
Fix the SystemVersion function properly within the engine (MacOS 11+).
^ I could really do with a Mac-specific helper here, to take over maintaining the mac version - as it's such a moving target compared to Win and Linux
Fix the revCopyFile so it's not flagged by antivirus programs and blocked by UAC elevation (elevated permissions dialog doesn't trigger) in windows 11.
(oh, and feel free to try out
OXT Lite 1.03 if you like too). Comments welcome (do I mean that? - depends on how much work it involves
)
Seriously though, always looking for input and more people to contribute with their fixes too.
