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FourthWorld wrote: Thu Aug 23, 2018 11:57 am
Since then I hunted back in this thread to find the stack, and it opens but the compressed data does appear to be corrupted.
Well, that isn't exactly correct, if the compressed data were corrupted, it wouldn't have been able to be opened on a Mac either.
Indeed, it seems more likely the compressed data was compressed using something other than Lcs internal system**. The "how" would be a bit beyond my own understanding of how Lc works at this point, though, and I think we would probably need some input from the person who put up the stack itself.
Maybe we'll hear from them by page 4.... but in the meantime, I left a comment on the page of the lesson.
** Edit - I found no actual 'compress' statements in the code, my theory is that they compressed it outside of Lc and then threw the 'decompress' command and called it fine since it worked on their machine.
FourthWorld wrote: Thu Aug 23, 2018 2:51 am
Does BBEdit handle gzip, or just Zip?
It handles gz files, it auto-opens my server logs. This is strange because I use gz across platforms like you do and haven't had any problems. Did LC change the compression library since the lesson was written? Or maybe Windows did? I don't know if LC calls out to the OS for that, but I didn't think so.
@bogs, since it can be done in a single line of code, it's also possible (or even likely) they compressed and set the property from the message box.
Last edited by jacque on Thu Aug 23, 2018 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque at hyperactivesw dot com
HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
jacque wrote: Thu Aug 23, 2018 6:33 pm
@bogs, since it can be done in a single line of code, it's also possible (or even likely) they compressed and set the property from the message box.
Absolutely it could have happened that way, but if it were, I suspect the Lc compression would work unilaterally and it would decompress on any OS. Because of the way it is only decompressing on Macs, and not on Windows or Linux, that is what is making me suspect it more likely they used the msgbox to just read in an already compressed on the Mac file to the property instead. It fits what we're seeing in trying to open it on different systems.
Yes, because comments on the lessons are moderated. Sorry, you'll have to wait till they approve the comment before you can see it I did check the 'email me' box, hopefully they will when it posts and I'll point it out again then.
I have updated the sample stack on the lesson with a uAllWords custom property compressed in LiveCode which seems to resolve the issue.
I spoke to Ali, our resident Scrabble enthusiast and original author of the stack and lesson, and he can't remember exactly where the original data came from but it was likely just a zipped list of valid Scrabble words so I think you are correct in your theory that it was not originally compressed in LiveCode, just loaded into the custom property and, unfortunately, was in a form that LiveCode can't decompress on Windows or Linux.
Please let us know if the updated stack still has issues and we'll investigate further.
I spoke to Ali, our resident Scrabble enthusiast and original author of the stack and lesson, and he can't remember exactly where the original data came from but it was likely just a zipped list of valid Scrabble words so I think you are correct in your theory that it was not originally compressed in LiveCode, just loaded into the custom property and, unfortunately, was in a form that LiveCode can't decompress on Windows or Linux.
What a great idea from one of the main LC developers!
And so much for the motherships LC development being Mac-centric.
The lesson has been around for a while and I just meant that he can't remember off the top of his head exactly how the compressed list of words was created. He would have been working on a Mac so he wouldn't have picked up on the issue with decompression.
Of course we realise this is not ideal but it has been noted and we will be more aware of checking that our sample stacks work correctly on the supported platforms.
elanorb wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 12:22 pmOf course we realise this is not ideal but it has been noted and we will be more aware of checking that our sample stacks work correctly on the supported platforms.
bogs wrote: Thu Aug 23, 2018 6:57 pmYes, because comments on the lessons are moderated.
Hmmm, that may take some time...
That it might, I have no idea how often they look at those lessons
Apparently they look at the submitted comments quite quickly! Thank you Elanor and Ali! It is working now (on Linux), so I suspect it will now work everywhere (I haven't tested Windows, I'll leave that to one of our other intrepid helpers ).
elanorb wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 11:17 am
I spoke to Ali, our resident Scrabble enthusiast and original author of the stack and lesson, and he can't remember exactly where the original data came from but it was likely just a zipped list of valid Scrabble words so I think you are correct in your theory that it was not originally compressed in LiveCode, just loaded into the custom property and, unfortunately, was in a form that LiveCode can't decompress on Windows or Linux.
I want to also thank you for going that extra mile, confirmation of my theories is always nice for me, and it should save at least one unnecessary bug report
bogs wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 3:06 pm
I suspect it will now work everywhere (I haven't tested Windows, I'll leave that to one of our other intrepid helpers ).
I wonder if Mariasole (or any of the windows users) ever got around to testing it out
Hello everyone!
Sorry for the delay in the reply...
Unfortunately my computer broke (power supply went up in smoke, literally, damaged motherboard). Fortunately, (thank God), the hard drive has been saved and, after so many ups and downs, here I am again in front of a "clone" of my old PC. I thank everyone for the help!
I went over the page of the lesson, I have downloaded again the stack, and now everything works perfectly on Windows.
Now I can finally understand how it works!
Thanks again! (='.'=)
"I'm back" - The Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Series 800 Terminator
I did check the 'email me' box, hopefully they will when it posts and I'll point it out again then.
