Clarion 7.x support

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

Would it be possible to have just a single check for 7.x support in SB so
that IT can figure out what 7.x versions there are and support ALL of them,
rather than for me to have to go in with every release of C7.x and ADD
support for the next build of C7??? So when C7.3 comes around, we download
the latest and greatest from you and recompile the scripts, rather than have
to go into each one and check the 7.3 checkbox? I'm tired of it<g> Oh, and
BTW: by C7.7 which will probably be out before the year is out, you will be
out of space for C7 versions in your "Clarion Environment Detection Dialog
Properties"<g>

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com

Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

same request from here Friederich

--
Merci
Cordialement - Best regards
Jean-Pierre GUTSATZ
__________________________________________________ _____

For those who do not understand ... : "Qui bene amat bene castigat."
__________________________________________________ _____

DMC - Data Management Center : a tool to let you Migrate Import Export
Transfer your Data
www.dmc-fr.com Certified by Microsoft : "Works with Vista" & "Works
with Windows Server 2008"

[NewsArchive]

Hi Arnór,

> Would it be possible to have just a single check for 7.x support in SB so
> that IT can figure out what 7.x versions there are and support ALL of
> them, rather than for me to have to go in with every release of C7.x and
> ADD support for the next build of C7??? So when C7.3 comes around, we
> download the latest and greatest from you and recompile the scripts,
> rather than have to go into each one and check the 7.3 checkbox? I'm
> tired of it<g> Oh, and BTW: by C7.7 which will probably be out before
> the year is out, you will be out of space for C7 versions in your
> "Clarion Environment Detection Dialog Properties"<g>

The truth is, I already played with such an additional "Clarion 7.x" option
in last December and had an experimental method available to handle this.
But it turned out that it did not work well and maybe it's not even "wise"
(ouch!) to have such a "forward-looking auto-detection" feature available.
Why? There are several reasons for it.

First of all, you never know upfront what exactly will be required to detect
the "next" Clarion version. Similar to Windows operating system detection.
You can use the GetWindowsEx() Windows API to retrieve the Windows system
version. For VISTA it returns "6" as major version and "0" as minor
version. For WINDOWS 7, it was expected to return "7" as major version and
"0" as minor version. But what a surprise, WIN7 returns "6" as major
version and "1" as minor version <g>.

In other words, if some internal rules change (which are completely out of
my control), Lindersoft will be blamed if auto-detection things go wrong.
With two girls at home, I don't need this extra trouble <g>.

Second, the Clarion "Product GUID" changed between a minor version upgrade
making it impossible (not really, but makes it very hard) to support a
"Clarion 7.x" option. The Product GUID uniquely identifies an application
(for example: Clarion 6, Clarion 7, Clarion 8). That's why I suggested to
use the same Product GUID again for Clarion 7.2 in a chat with Robert
Zaunere. That was (IMO) the right decision (especially from the technical
point of view). But we are living in a complex world, so this final
decision causes troubles for some developers. But changing the GUID again
for C72 would have caused even more problems (again IMO).

So in the future, with the same Product GUID decision, it might be possible
to have an additional "Clarion 7.x" or "Clarion 8.x" option.

But as I understand it, some developers are suggesting modifications to the
Clarion 7 deployment structure. Whatever the final decision will be, this
will again change the way Clarion auto-detection has to work.

Third, such a "forward-looking auto-detection" solution is not
unproblematic. Can 3rd-party developers be sure their templates work in
future Clarion builds? For example, what happens if an installer created
in the days of Clarion 7.3 will be able to detect Clarion 7.5, but things
changed making some stuff incompatible!?

Friedrich

Friedrich Linder
Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

SetupBuilder is Windows 7 installation -- "point. click. ship"

-- Official Comodo Code Signing and SSL Certificate Partner

[NewsArchive]

Your current stance is entirely justified, even if it's a minor pain
for us 3rd-party guys (says me, as I prepare to build my Super
Template installations for 7.2 <g>).

Mike Hanson
www.boxsoft.net

[NewsArchive]

You are not alone. I had to edit a line from a template I use as it did not like
7200 version, despite being valid. On the surface, this seems silly, but open the
hood and underneath not guessing on future versions is always the safest thing to
do.

I mean really, is there anyone using C7.1, let alone 7.0 deliberately? <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com
Clarion developers: www.radfusion.com/devs.htm

[NewsArchive]

Would it not be possible to put the "Clarion detection" part of a
user's project in an .sbi file? At least they wouldn't have to edit
every project in order to compile the new version support.

Jeff Slarve

[NewsArchive]

That's how I do mine. All super templates share the same dialogs,
with compiler variables to customize things.

Mike Hanson
www.boxsoft.net

[NewsArchive]

I wonder how Chuck Norris does his.<g>

Jeff Slarve

[NewsArchive]

I'll have to ask him. <g>

Mike Hanson
www.boxsoft.net

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

> Third, such a "forward-looking auto-detection" solution is not
> unproblematic. Can 3rd-party developers be sure their templates work in
> future Clarion builds? For example, what happens if an installer created
> in the days of Clarion 7.3 will be able to detect Clarion 7.5, but things
> changed making some stuff incompatible!?

Understood and all good points:) Would it be possible to control this
externally? For example what I did last night was I went into all my third
party installs, I have 12 of them right now, and set the 7.2 compatibility
checkbox, then I run Build Automator to do the builds. Now, if I could use
an external file somehow to control the compatibility as I set BA off to
build my installs I could easily to this from within the BA environment and
pass it on to SB. Or perhaps, like Jeff suggested, to put the logic somehow
into an include script where we could manipulate it. I'm not seeing this
side of support change any time soon so __I__ feel pretty confident that I
could set my products compatible with 7.x and pretty much forget about it -
at least for a month or two;)

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com

Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

> But as I understand it, some developers are suggesting modifications to the
> Clarion 7 deployment structure. Whatever the final decision will be, this
> will again change the way Clarion auto-detection has to work.

Can you point me to those suggestions? I don't read the newsgroups any more
so I don't follow up as much as before so I haven't heard of any such
suggestions. Seems to _me_ that what we have now works pretty well, but I'm
sure there are people who disagree with that.

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com

Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

Hi Arnór,

> Can you point me to those suggestions? I don't read the newsgroups any
> more so I don't follow up as much as before so I haven't heard of any
> such suggestions. Seems to _me_ that what we have now works pretty well,
> but I'm sure there are people who disagree with that.

I don't think the "suggestions" are available on the newsgroups. They are
in some nice emails I received (this is one of the top 3 ones).

"...I have installed C7.0, C7.1, and C7.2 on Win7 but your stupid Setup
Builder only detects C7.2. What the fu%& is going on? My customers are
waiting - fix it today or XYZ..."

Note: the "XYZ" does not apply to the News Server Acceptable Use Policy so I
"XYZed" it <g>

Because I can't "fix" it (by design, the Clarion 7 deployment strategy does
not support multiple installed intendances), I ask them to contact SV or to
open up a PTSS to make "suggestions".

Or this one:

"...Make a new Clarion7.2 EE - Build 7232 Release For CSP Customers
installer available today to solve this problem. This is a serious nightmare
for those who have to support C7/C71/C72 on the same machine..."

Hmm, it's news to me that I "make Clarion 7.2 available".

And this is another one that I really don't need after working my butt off
to provide a C72 compatible version so 3rd-party developers can release
their C72-aware setups to their customers.

"...You seemed to have an early release, SV is apparently making the
3rdParty developer community second class citizens now. So this sort of
thing could be picked up by you prior to the general release..."

I'll say it loud and clear: I DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO ANY CLARION 7.2
PRE-RELEASE. And even if I had access to such a Clarion 7.2 pre-release,
this would not make the 3rdParty developer community second class citizens.

Argh! :-(

And the current Clarion 7.x deployment strategy is by design. Why on earth
would a non-3rd-party developer need C70, C71 and C72 on the same machine at
the same time? C72 updates C71 and C71 updated C70. That's it <g>

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

Life is grand! <g>

Mike Hanson
www.boxsoft.net

[NewsArchive]

>
> Life is grand! <g>
>

<G> :)

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

Send a copy to SV ? ;)

A good thing the pony and the two women are there at times ....

At least you did not yet received threats of reverting to Wise
installers (as those certainly can handle clarion 8 installes) - what
a stupid world do we live in!

--
Merci
Cordialement - Best regards
Jean-Pierre GUTSATZ
__________________________________________________ _____

For those who do not understand ... : "Qui bene amat bene castigat."
__________________________________________________ _____

DMC - Data Management Center : a tool to let you Migrate Import Export
Transfer your Data
www.dmc-fr.com Certified by Microsoft : "Works with Vista" & "Works
with Windows Server 2008"

[NewsArchive]

>
> Send a copy to SV ? ;)
>

Too late. The self-protection mechanism in me already pressed the "Delete"
button <g>

>
> A good thing the pony and the two women are there at times ....
>

Hehehe. :)

> At least you did not yet received threats of reverting to Wise installers
> (as those certainly can handle clarion 8 installes) - what a stupid world
> do we live in!

<G>

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

First Rule of Management:

"Don't fix the problem. Fix the blame."

It's always uplifting yet humbling to be exposed to such genius.....

> "...I have installed C7.0, C7.1, and C7.2 on Win7 but your stupid Setup
> Builder only detects C7.2. What the fu%& is going on? My customers are
> waiting - fix it today or XYZ..."
>

Jane Fleming

[NewsArchive]

Friedrich,

> I don't think the "suggestions" are available on the newsgroups. They are
> in some nice emails I received (this is one of the top 3 ones).

And if anyone is wondering... NO, none of these were from ME!<g>

I vent but it's not directed toward SB or you, Friedrich.

> And the current Clarion 7.x deployment strategy is by design. Why on earth
> would a non-3rd-party developer need C70, C71 and C72 on the same machine at
> the same time? C72 updates C71 and C71 updated C70. That's it <g>

For this I suppose it's along the same lines as developers who need to
continue supporting older versions until new versions are debugged and
all the add-ons necessary have been installed. I know there are folks
waiting for RPM and can't move products to 7.2 until I can ship it. I
hope that won't be much longer but I'm at the mercy of SV right now.

This is not your problem and I hope I didn't suggest it was. If I did
it was completely out of frustration and not intended.

--
Lee White

Enroll Today at http://CWaddons.com

Reports....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/rpm/
Free Review: http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v11/v11n06rpm.html
Faxing.....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/afe/

[NewsArchive]

Lee,

>> I don't think the "suggestions" are available on the newsgroups. They
>> are in some nice emails I received (this is one of the top 3 ones).
>
> And if anyone is wondering... NO, none of these were from ME!<g>
>
> I vent but it's not directed toward SB or you, Friedrich.

Oops, sorry. Of course, none of these emails were from you!!!!

>> And the current Clarion 7.x deployment strategy is by design. Why on
>> earth would a non-3rd-party developer need C70, C71 and C72 on the
>> same machine at the same time? C72 updates C71 and C71 updated C70.
>> That's it <g>
>
> For this I suppose it's along the same lines as developers who need to
> continue supporting older versions until new versions are debugged and
> all the add-ons necessary have been installed. I know there are folks
> waiting for RPM and can't move products to 7.2 until I can ship it. I
> hope that won't be much longer but I'm at the mercy of SV right now.
>
> This is not your problem and I hope I didn't suggest it was. If I did
> it was completely out of frustration and not intended.

No, I did not read that into your messages :) And of course, I know that it
can make sense to have several different builds of the same Clarion version
on the same machine. But the current (deployment) design does not allow
this and the IDE always share the same settings. Similar to the fact that
you can't have different builds of the same Visual Studio version on the
same machine at the same time.

One possible solution (in theory) would be to give each and every new minor
version of Clarion 7 (7.3, 7.4, etc.) a new Product GUID including new
shortcut items and registry entries.

--
Friedrich Linder
Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

SetupBuilder is Windows 7 installation -- "point. click. ship"

-- Official Comodo Code Signing and SSL Certificate Partner

[NewsArchive]

Friedrich,

> One possible solution (in theory) would be to give each and every new minor
> version of Clarion 7 (7.3, 7.4, etc.) a new Product GUID including new
> shortcut items and registry entries.

That would fix the issue from my point of view but it's still SV's
call... but one I'd endorse... quickly.

As an indicator, there have been a significant number of downloads of
the Clarion switcher from my freebie page. Lot's of developers running
multiple builds of several versions of Clarion. Apparently it's not
just 3rd party folks who enjoy massive headaches!

Currently I'm just going to forward all tech support email to SV and
let them sort it out!!!!<g>

--
Lee White

Enroll Today at http://CWaddons.com

Reports....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/rpm/
Free Review: http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v11/v11n06rpm.html
Faxing.....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/afe/

[NewsArchive]

Hi Lee,

> As an indicator, there have been a significant number of downloads of
> the Clarion switcher from my freebie page. Lot's of developers running
> multiple builds of several versions of Clarion. Apparently it's not
> just 3rd party folks who enjoy massive headaches!

I use your Clarion Switcher almost every day. I even added to it the
ability to copy files when Clarion is started as I was constantly having to
copy .inc files to the correct LibScr folders. Now I keep the sources in
one place (outside of the Clarion folder struct) and copy them when I start
Clarion via Clarion Switcher. If you would like to get the code, just
holler and I'll send it to you:)

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com

Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

which is what I had thought would be done but still - same pref files
folder - if only those were 'under' the root and seperate GUID's all
would be SO much simpler

--
Merci
Cordialement - Best regards
Jean-Pierre GUTSATZ
__________________________________________________ _____

For those who do not understand ... : "Qui bene amat bene castigat."
__________________________________________________ _____

DMC - Data Management Center : a tool to let you Migrate Import Export
Transfer your Data
www.dmc-fr.com Certified by Microsoft : "Works with Vista" & "Works
with Windows Server 2008"

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

> I'll say it loud and clear: I DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO ANY CLARION 7.2
> PRE-RELEASE. And even if I had access to such a Clarion 7.2 pre-release,
> this would not make the 3rdParty developer community second class citizens.
>
> Argh! :-(

We, third party developers, are in the same boat - we do not get any advance
releases either so we have to wait for SV to come out with it for us to do
anything. You have to wait for SV just like us. It would be nice if you
could get at least a couple of days advance notice so you could have the SB
builds ready when SV has the Clarion builds out, but you don't and that's
that. Sounds to me that some developers need to take a big girl pill and
grow up<bg>

> And the current Clarion 7.x deployment strategy is by design. Why on earth
> would a non-3rd-party developer need C70, C71 and C72 on the same machine at
> the same time? C72 updates C71 and C71 updated C70. That's it <g>

If you do, use VMWare or other type of virtual machines.

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com

Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

> Third, such a "forward-looking auto-detection" solution is not
> unproblematic. Can 3rd-party developers be sure their templates work in
> future Clarion builds? For example, what happens if an installer created
> in the days of Clarion 7.3 will be able to detect Clarion 7.5, but things
> changed making some stuff incompatible!?

Just wanted to add to this that it would not make any difference in this
case if the developer goes in and checks the 7.5 compat. if the product
isn't compatible, it is _not_ up to SB to detect or test for that - that can
only be up to the developer. We _cannot be sure_ that anything works from
one release to the next! I.e. the responsibility to determine the
compatibility must always be up to the developer.

Best regards,

--
Arnor Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com

[NewsArchive]

Hi Arnór,

>> Third, such a "forward-looking auto-detection" solution is not
>> unproblematic. Can 3rd-party developers be sure their templates work in
>> future Clarion builds? For example, what happens if an installer created
>> in the days of Clarion 7.3 will be able to detect Clarion 7.5, but things
>> changed making some stuff incompatible!?
>
> Just wanted to add to this that it would not make any difference in this
> case if the developer goes in and checks the 7.5 compat. if the product
> isn't compatible, it is _not_ up to SB to detect or test for that - that
> can only be up to the developer. We _cannot be sure_ that anything works
> from one release to the next! I.e. the responsibility to determine the
> compatibility must always be up to the developer.

Yes, I agree!

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

I use SB but not Clarion so I am don't understand the complication.

Can somebody explain why SB needs to know about the Clarion version?

Steve

--
Neural Planner Software Ltd www.NPSL1.com
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com

[NewsArchive]

Hi Stephen,

> I use SB but not Clarion so I am don't understand the complication.
>
> Can somebody explain why SB needs to know about the Clarion version?

Clarion is a software development tool to build Win32 (and .NET)
applications:

http://www.softvelocity.com/

We started as a 3rd-party developer in the Clarion community 15 years ago.
IIRC, we released the first SetupBuilder version in late 1997. The
SetupBuilder IDE itself is written in Clarion.

http://www.lindersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24549

About 95% of all Clarion 3rd-party products are installed with SetupBuilder.
That's why SB needs to know about Clarion.

Today, most SB users are "non-Clarion" developers (we have customers in more
than 80 countries around the world now). But it all started here, in the
"Clarion community" <g>. Without Clarion and the community, SetupBuilder
would not have been possible.

Friedrich

--
Friedrich Linder
Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

SetupBuilder is Windows 7 installation -- "point. click. ship"

-- Official Comodo Code Signing and SSL Certificate Partner

[NewsArchive]

Friedrich,

> Without Clarion and the community, SetupBuilder
> would not have been possible.

It would've eventually happened but it wouldn't have been as much FUN!

<g>

--
Lee White

Enroll Today at http://CWaddons.com

Reports....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/rpm/
Free Review: http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v11/v11n06rpm.html
Faxing.....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/afe/

[NewsArchive]

Lee,

>> Without Clarion and the community, SetupBuilder
>> would not have been possible.
>
> It would've eventually happened but it wouldn't have been as much FUN!
>
> <g>

YES!!!! <bg>

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

Arnor,

> holler and I'll send it to you:)

Appreciated but not something I want to tackle until I get a bunch of
other stuff finished!<g>

--
Lee White

Enroll Today at http://CWaddons.com

Reports....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/rpm/
Free Review: http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v11/v11n06rpm.html
Faxing.....: http://www.cwaddons.com/products/afe/

[NewsArchive]

Hi Lee,

> Appreciated but not something I want to tackle until I get a bunch of
> other stuff finished!<g>

Just holler if you want it:) It's nothing pretty, but it works<g>

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com

Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

[NewsArchive]

Friedrich,

I'm not a 3rd party developer but I would like to keep multiple versions because
I would like to install and test my apps with the new 7.2 release while still
maintaining them in 7.1 until I'm sure I'm really to convert to 7.2.

I understand this isn't your fault, I'm just suggesting a legitimate reason why
someone might want to maintain multiple versions even if they aren't a 3rd party
developer.

There seem to be a lot of 3rd party updates required and some new SV issues
introduced with 7.2. If I just installed it, abandoning my 7.1 install I could
easily put myself in a situation where I could not produce a working app.

Regards,
Kelly E Major

PS: Yes, everyone, I know about backups and VM's. :-)

[NewsArchive]

BTW, "Clarion support" is an optional thing! If you are not a Clarion
developer and/or you do not have Clarion support enabled in the SetupBuilder
IDE, then the installer does not know nothing about Clarion.

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

I have never enabled Clarion in SB but I was interested to know why
Clarion users need to enable it. There is no such requirement for
other development systems.

Steve

--
Neural Planner Software Ltd www.NPSL1.com
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com

[NewsArchive]

Kelly,

Please see new "Clarion users only: Deployment Strategy for Clarion 7.3+" NG
thread.

Thanks,
Friedrich