Hi
Recently, I was able to pull-off a barebones repair of the drag'n'drop floatingViews system used in Venkman. That system (an identical one, actually) now works again under the new drag'n'drop system (I use FF 3.6.8 atm).
I'm not going to 'make' a version of Venkman that has the fix in it... its not my place to do that. But if anyone replies to this and wants to open-up their venkman.jar/xpi and do the one-hour fix, I'll tell them what I did... right or wrong. WARNING: I'm NOT a pro programmer! I simply modified the .xbl bindings, removed the use of nsDragAndDrop (client.dnd), tweaked the now-dead 'transferData' into being event.dataTransfer for the 4 drag funcs (in both venk-views and viewManager), slid an event.preventDefault() into onDragOver(), and then Venkman's viewManager came alive and handled the rest wonderfully. Client.dnd (an old-school global nsDragAndDrop object)... gets eliminated (is no longer created). Make the floatingView (and tabs) xbl bindings... call directly to the 4 drag/drop funcs on the drag/drop proxy objects... defined in venkman-views. Easy.
In the Venkman views system... you drag around 'vurl's. (Virtual URLs... or View URLs.) Its way cool and easy to work-with. Essentially, fix what is being fed to Venkman's viewManager, and it will all start working again. Need more? Holler on this thread... I'm listening.
Venkman FloatingViews Drag'n'Drop Update
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wingnut
- Posts: 49
- Joined: February 25th, 2003, 10:08 am
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GijsK
- Posts: 9
- Joined: August 11th, 2006, 7:30 am
Re: Venkman FloatingViews Drag'n'Drop Update
Hi,
I'm one of the Venkman peers (people who review its code).
Would you mind either sending me the patch, or if you like, filing a bug in bugzilla (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ , Other applications, JavaScript Debugger) and attaching it there?
Thanks!
I'm one of the Venkman peers (people who review its code).
Would you mind either sending me the patch, or if you like, filing a bug in bugzilla (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ , Other applications, JavaScript Debugger) and attaching it there?
Thanks!
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wingnut
- Posts: 49
- Joined: February 25th, 2003, 10:08 am
Re: Venkman FloatingViews Drag'n'Drop Update
Hi GijsK, thx for the response. A private mozillazine message for you... should be showing-up shortly. For anyone else keeping score, the 5 affected Venkman files were recently extracted from a v0.9.87.4, modded, installed, and lightly tested successful. These files may be available to everyone, soon, pending checkout by experts. The 5 files are not backward-compat, or at least not yet. They do not currently check-for/compensate-for older versions of Firefox that still use nsDragAndDrop and nsTransferable. Either I or GijsK will keep us posted. GijsK will probably look at the modified files and say "what a pathetic kludge-a-thon" and hunt me down and shoot me just for the pollution control gesture.
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wingnut
- Posts: 49
- Joined: February 25th, 2003, 10:08 am
Re: Venkman FloatingViews Drag'n'Drop Update
GijsK, you should have received the private mozillazine message by now. Holler if you haven't, and I'll re-send and/or use a different route.
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GijsK
- Posts: 9
- Joined: August 11th, 2006, 7:30 am
Re: Venkman FloatingViews Drag'n'Drop Update
No, don't worry, I have it. Just been swamped with work (unfortunately I don't get paid to work on Venkman 
). I hope to get to this either tonight or on Sunday, sorry to keep you waiting!
). I hope to get to this either tonight or on Sunday, sorry to keep you waiting!-
wingnut
- Posts: 49
- Joined: February 25th, 2003, 10:08 am
Re: Venkman FloatingViews Drag'n'Drop Update
Hi G! No problems, no hurries. I was just a little scared of M-zine's private message system, and wasn't sure if you had 'allow private messages' turned-on in your m-zine user control panel. My project is working fine, and its already full of kludges done by me, so I'm a happy camper. I just worry a bit about others who might count-on those modified files as being 'official' or 'professional' (whatever that means).
I wish there was a forum dedicated to Venkman (not a newsgroup, they scare us simpletons. Maybe a wordpress?). If there was, couldn't you 'farm out' the (sanity-) testing-of those modded files? I don't know the story, but Venkman and Chatzilla, (ok, ok, AND Calendar) are some real shiny examples of what could be called RAD... rapid application development. There was probably nothing 'rapid' about their development, but, they gave us early demonstrations (as did the Mozilla/Firefox browsers themselves) of how to build what looks and acts like a full blown 'program'... using a XUL-infested webpage operating within a chrome sandbox. COOL! To say it simpler, these XUL apps were (and are) just plain WONDERFUL from WAY BACK, and have also held their ground nicely through a myriad of browser versions. I realize you probably don't have a whole lot of say in Mozilla.org, and I realize that I should be more involved myself, but, man, Venkman, Chatzilla, and Calendar need a serious TEAM, and a serious place to bust them apart and show the general public how they work. Maybe I'm obsessed, but, Rob Ginda and James Ross are SERIOUS heroes of mine, and if the general public realized just what these two and their 'team' if they had any... DID... man, they'd crap their pants.
A copy of Venkman should be stripped to its bones, and then its source files FILLED with comments and tutorial goods... and offered to the public as a RAD starter kit. Then comes RAD-kit tutorials like... how to make'n'stock a floatingView, how to make'n'stock a dialog, what is a xulTreeView interface, what are prefs, what are commands, what are messages, what is a menu manager, all about RADkit spreadsheets and the new editable tree-cell feature (ok, that's an advanced thing). XUL Planet did an EXCELLENT job at trying to keep up with all the fun XUL things going-on, but it killed them. It was too big for that small team to take care-of, maybe. And it SEEMS, that small teams are caused by NOT being able to GENTLY explain everything that CAN be done with XUL, JS, Gecko, including XSL and XBL.
People get scared-off. Its a WIDE OPEN system, and it takes themes pretty nicely, too. Early XUL introduced us simpletons to springs, and spacers, and flex, and we got to experiment for the first time (barring Java AWT) in easy-bake GUI. But XUL itself is a deep system, and so is JS, and so is DOM (and AOM). Mix it all together with a Venkman/Chatzilla viewManager, commandManager, menuManager, prefManager, slop-in a little XBL, events, scoping, and rv (return value), and you have yourself a VERY hard-to-teach monster. Yet, SOMEBODY besides me MUST be able to see how valuable Firefox RAD apps really are, one would think. This is NOT something to yawn-at, and you/we need a serious team to help with hassles and get the spirit fired-up again.
I don't know what Rob is doing these days. He doesn't talk very often, at least not to me. But that's understandable, as I am a total newbie in comparison to what HE has done inside Venkman dev chambers. Look at the Venkman viewManager alone. IT is a true work of art. I have a theory... that its 'game plan' might echo one used in the Eclipse IDE. Not sure, though. It is truly wonderful... and big... but worthy of its size. I can't even imagine anyone imagining-up such a thing... speak nothing of ever having the brainpower to code it. I just drool and drool as I look at it, and slowly bring the whole Venkman RAD 'package' into blurred-but-improving view.
Sorry, rattling. Maybe someday, I'll un-build a Venkman into being a RAD-app starter kit. THEN, maybe I'll promote and teach it whenever possible. But, if folks only knew... what they had... in Venkman... I think they'd crap their pants daily just like I do. Ever seen a XULTreeView Interface? Unreal! A magical device indeed... and just the tiniest part of Venkman's power... yet so powerful in itself that it makes small animals run and hide. I spent a few months mapping things seen in Venk and Chatzilla... http://webpages.charter.net/wingthing/h ... /chazmaps/. Gruesome!
Yet, I recently fired-up Xoozilla... my 8-yr-so-far RAPID application on a Firefox 4 - b3, and it works just fine. Yay! Its a brutally smashed-together Venkman and Chatzilla with lots of slop still in it from both.
So I have no doubts... that Venky and CZ are a-ok for the future... and need only slight modifications as we blaze ahead. That, is something to be noted and applauded. If there is ANY way that we can put more fire under the spirit of Venkman and Chatzilla, I'm all for it. Maybe I need to hurry up and release this freeware multimedia moo/mud/anyserver chat client and have IT become the world's best chat (it already is, by far). Then I can sit back and point at Ginda, and Ross, and GijsK... and say... THESE PEOPLE are your heroes. I just stole a RAD starter kit out of Venkman... and turned it into a giant security hole of a xml chat program.
Thanks GijsK. No hurry, at all. Nothing is pending, no need to take any action at all... just... remember what kind of idiot did those mods. And... let us know what needs to be said to whom... to get you some help and/or pay. Thanks! (I probably have a doobie laying around here somewhere, if that might help with anything) (shhh)
Best regards!
Wingy
Evangelist for the Underbelly of Venkman. heh
I wish there was a forum dedicated to Venkman (not a newsgroup, they scare us simpletons. Maybe a wordpress?). If there was, couldn't you 'farm out' the (sanity-) testing-of those modded files? I don't know the story, but Venkman and Chatzilla, (ok, ok, AND Calendar) are some real shiny examples of what could be called RAD... rapid application development. There was probably nothing 'rapid' about their development, but, they gave us early demonstrations (as did the Mozilla/Firefox browsers themselves) of how to build what looks and acts like a full blown 'program'... using a XUL-infested webpage operating within a chrome sandbox. COOL! To say it simpler, these XUL apps were (and are) just plain WONDERFUL from WAY BACK, and have also held their ground nicely through a myriad of browser versions. I realize you probably don't have a whole lot of say in Mozilla.org, and I realize that I should be more involved myself, but, man, Venkman, Chatzilla, and Calendar need a serious TEAM, and a serious place to bust them apart and show the general public how they work. Maybe I'm obsessed, but, Rob Ginda and James Ross are SERIOUS heroes of mine, and if the general public realized just what these two and their 'team' if they had any... DID... man, they'd crap their pants.
A copy of Venkman should be stripped to its bones, and then its source files FILLED with comments and tutorial goods... and offered to the public as a RAD starter kit. Then comes RAD-kit tutorials like... how to make'n'stock a floatingView, how to make'n'stock a dialog, what is a xulTreeView interface, what are prefs, what are commands, what are messages, what is a menu manager, all about RADkit spreadsheets and the new editable tree-cell feature (ok, that's an advanced thing). XUL Planet did an EXCELLENT job at trying to keep up with all the fun XUL things going-on, but it killed them.
It was too big for that small team to take care-of, maybe. And it SEEMS, that small teams are caused by NOT being able to GENTLY explain everything that CAN be done with XUL, JS, Gecko, including XSL and XBL.People get scared-off. Its a WIDE OPEN system, and it takes themes pretty nicely, too. Early XUL introduced us simpletons to springs, and spacers, and flex, and we got to experiment for the first time (barring Java AWT) in easy-bake GUI. But XUL itself is a deep system, and so is JS, and so is DOM (and AOM). Mix it all together with a Venkman/Chatzilla viewManager, commandManager, menuManager, prefManager, slop-in a little XBL, events, scoping, and rv (return value), and you have yourself a VERY hard-to-teach monster. Yet, SOMEBODY besides me MUST be able to see how valuable Firefox RAD apps really are, one would think. This is NOT something to yawn-at, and you/we need a serious team to help with hassles and get the spirit fired-up again.
I don't know what Rob is doing these days. He doesn't talk very often, at least not to me. But that's understandable, as I am a total newbie in comparison to what HE has done inside Venkman dev chambers. Look at the Venkman viewManager alone. IT is a true work of art. I have a theory... that its 'game plan' might echo one used in the Eclipse IDE. Not sure, though. It is truly wonderful... and big... but worthy of its size. I can't even imagine anyone imagining-up such a thing... speak nothing of ever having the brainpower to code it. I just drool and drool as I look at it, and slowly bring the whole Venkman RAD 'package' into blurred-but-improving view.
Sorry, rattling. Maybe someday, I'll un-build a Venkman into being a RAD-app starter kit. THEN, maybe I'll promote and teach it whenever possible. But, if folks only knew... what they had... in Venkman... I think they'd crap their pants daily just like I do. Ever seen a XULTreeView Interface? Unreal! A magical device indeed... and just the tiniest part of Venkman's power... yet so powerful in itself that it makes small animals run and hide. I spent a few months mapping things seen in Venk and Chatzilla... http://webpages.charter.net/wingthing/h ... /chazmaps/. Gruesome!
Yet, I recently fired-up Xoozilla... my 8-yr-so-far RAPID application on a Firefox 4 - b3, and it works just fine. Yay! Its a brutally smashed-together Venkman and Chatzilla with lots of slop still in it from both.
So I have no doubts... that Venky and CZ are a-ok for the future... and need only slight modifications as we blaze ahead. That, is something to be noted and applauded. If there is ANY way that we can put more fire under the spirit of Venkman and Chatzilla, I'm all for it. Maybe I need to hurry up and release this freeware multimedia moo/mud/anyserver chat client and have IT become the world's best chat (it already is, by far). Then I can sit back and point at Ginda, and Ross, and GijsK... and say... THESE PEOPLE are your heroes. I just stole a RAD starter kit out of Venkman... and turned it into a giant security hole of a xml chat program.
Thanks GijsK. No hurry, at all. Nothing is pending, no need to take any action at all... just... remember what kind of idiot did those mods. And... let us know what needs to be said to whom... to get you some help and/or pay. Thanks! (I probably have a doobie laying around here somewhere, if that might help with anything)
(shhh)Best regards!
Wingy
Evangelist for the Underbelly of Venkman. heh