Because, uh, you neglected to give your app any functionality? iTunes has lots of complexity, from encoding and decoding to various forms of visualization to managing tens of thousands of database entries.
yes i agree, but it isn't - or it shouldn't be doing any of that when I simply mousedown in the window (when im not on any button or option).
Now, what I am saying - is whatever tool they've used to create the iTunes UI has an issue of maxing the CPU, when it should be executing nothing.
Realbasic is one of the tools that has this unwanted behaviour with a certain class of UI control - EXACTLY the control you would HAVE to use if you wanted to make an iTunes style UI with RB - so it is possible that RB is the tool they've used to create this UI - regardless of whatever C++ libraries they've used for encoding or the fancy stuff, regardless of whatever other tools they have used. It is Possible that RB is the tool for the UI.
This is what i am trying to find out.
You do not know any more than I what they have used to create the UI. Period. You can guess as to what tools they have used, and they may be sensible, logical guesses, but at the end of the day you do not KNOW. I am suggesting, that because of the similarities in 'wierd' execution that iTunes and RB share, then it is Possible that RB was used to create the iTunes UI -which is precisely what you would use RB for and IMO would explain everything that is 'lame' about the iTunes UI.
It is possible that i am completely wrong and it is just a coincidence, and there are other ways of achieving the same problem that have nothing to do with RB. That is fine. I can be wrong. But I am not going to modify my opinion and agree im wrong on the basis that you have made a guess (no better or worse than mine) as to what they did use.
I went and grabbed a couple of apps off of RealBasic's Showcase on their web site, and ran the executable through strings, then grepped for 'RB' in the output on a hunch. Hundreds of lines such as:
Code:
RBValArchive
RBMailDB
RBFilemakerAttachment
RBFilemakerAttachment
RBMailDB
RBValArchive
RBWhichMailboxes
RBWhichMailboxes
RBWhichMailboxes
RBMailClient
RBMailClient
&RBMailClient_MouseEnter%%o<CCEmailApp>
%RBMailClient_MouseExit%%o<CCEmailApp>
RBMailClient_Open%%o<CCEmailApp>
"RBMailClient_Action%%o<CCEmailApp>
*RBWhichMailboxes_MouseExit%%o<CCMailboxes>
+RBWhichMailboxes_MouseEnter%%o<CCMailboxes>
%RBWhichMailboxes_Open%%o<CCMailboxes>
RBMailDB_MouseExit%%o<CCExport>
RBMailDB_Open%%o<CCExport>
RBMailDB_MouseEnter%%o<CCExport>
#RBValArchive_MouseExit%%o<CCExport>
RBValArchive_Open%%o<CCExport>
$RBValArchive_MouseEnter%%o<CCExport>
,RBFilemakerAttachment_MouseExit%%o<CCExport>
'RBFilemakerAttachment_Open%%o<CCExport>
-RBFilemakerAttachment_MouseEnter%%o<CCExport>
Constructor%%o<RBMailDB>i4
Then I did the same for iTunes 7. Here is the *complete* result:
Code:
kDRBurnStatusChangedNotification
kDRBlockSizeKey
kDRBlockTypeKey
kDRBurnRequestedSpeedKey
kDRBurnVerifyDiscKey
kDRBurnAppendableKey
kDRBurnCompletionActionKey
kDRBurnCompletionActionMount
kDRBurnTestingKey
DRBurnCopyStatus
DRBurnGetProperties
DRBurnCreate
DRBurnAbort
DRBurnSetProperties
DRBurnWriteLayout
com_apple_driver_iPodRBCNub
4RB>
$]3cM8RBh
%`RBp
RB0
XRBM
P@RB
vPGRB
E5RB
IY,<7'RB
IY,<7'RB
kHRBT
Ja[BnRB
o2RB
pN2^LlRB|
RBoo
5RBV%VQH
?ulYRBv
(RB.
RB^L9
Can we put a bullet through this one now?
The behaviour you're seeing is because of a brain-dead wait loop. MacOS Toolbox had it, Classic has it, Carbon inherited it (and it still pops up sometimes), and just plain lazy programming will recreate it. It's nothing unique to RealBasic.
Thankyou, its all I needed - iTunes is not made with RB.
Yeah, all you really have to do is look through the binary's strings.
Sheesh mon.
'strings' is a very useful tool for poking around in the guts of apps. If you haven't already run across it, take a few minutes to read the man page, and it'll open your eyes up to a whole new world of playing with apps. It's usually the first thing I do when I want an idea of how an app works. Just looking at the names will generally point you in the right direction of what it's doing, which subsystems it's using to do them, etc, etc, etc. Good stuff. It's also fantastic for finding those 'hidden preferences' that people publish from time to time. Look for a string that would make sense for the name of a pref controlling what you want to change, and then plop it into defaults with various values to see if the behaviour changes.
Kickaha - can you briefly explain the process of how you did that. It would be interesting to look at some of my own compiled code to see whats in there.
strings - find the printable strings in a object, or other binary, file
In other words, it takes all contents of a binary, removes those parts that aren't human-readable (i.e., unlikely to be text), and prints it out, one by one in a line each. So we do that on iTunes's binary. In a Mach-O application bundle, you'll find the binary in Contents/MacOS. Then, we pipe the results to grep:
Quote:
NAME
grep, egrep, fgrep - print lines matching a pattern
That pattern, in this case, is "RB". I.e., we look for strings inside the iTunes binary that contain the two letters "RB", both upper-case, in that order.
I guess what an app needs to do is start at the beginning of the code and look through all the characters that fall in the range of 'readable' letters in the ASCII code until the end. It would then show the readable characters in a listbox and reject the others.? How would you determine what an end of line/ or end of string was so that you didn't end up with one long list of readable characters?
I guess what an app needs to do is start at the beginning of the code and look through all the characters that fall in the range of 'readable' letters in the ASCII code until the end.
Yup, that's what strings does.
Quote:
How would you determine what an end of line/ or end of string was so that you didn't end up with one long list of readable characters?
if the ascii parser finds that a character that follows a string of readable characters is not of 'readable' type, then that must be the end of the string no?
and if the parser finds that at least 3 readable characters do not exist in sequence then it disregards the string? Is 3 a sensible number of readable characters to work with?
if the ascii parser finds that a character that follows a string of readable characters is not of 'readable' type, then that must be the end of the string no?
Yes.
Quote:
and if the parser finds that at least 3 readable characters do not exist in sequence then it disregards the string? Is 3 a sensible number of readable characters to work with?
Again, just read the man page:
Quote:
A string is any sequence of 4 (the default) or more printing
Anyway, I have created a quick app that does what i think it should. You can check it out if you like. It seems to work - have looked at the strings in all kinds of things...But it takes longer to update the screen, the larger the file you look at, so i suggest you look at small things to start off with...It seemed to handle a 10MB PDF in about a minute. And DONT try to open a shortcut - I think it tries to resolve the path and look at the original file - which might be hell huge - I think Cinema4d is too big for this app!
AND IN NO WAY AM I RESPONSIBLE IF THIS ENTIRELY BORKS YOUR COMPUTER.
I was afraid you were going to ask what a man page is...
'man' is a Unix command line tool, short for 'manual'. It gets you the documentation for command line tools on Unix. So 'man strings' would tell you how to run the strings program.
You can almost always google for "man whateveryou'relookingfor" and get the man page through your web browser, just for future reference.
Oh, and strings can parse and output the results from the 21MB iTunes app in.... oh, under a second? There's your performance target to shoot for.
I was afraid you were going to ask what a man page is...
'man' is a Unix command line tool, short for 'manual'. It gets you the documentation for command line tools on Unix. So 'man strings' would tell you how to run the strings program.
You can almost always google for "man whateveryou'relookingfor" and get the man page through your web browser, just for future reference.
Oh, and strings can parse and output the results from the 21MB iTunes app in.... oh, under a second? There's your performance target to shoot for.
hey, I managed iTunes (which is 14.5MB) on my 2.6Ghz PC in about 70 seconds. So i guess my code could do with some improvement!
Mousedown on a blank part of the iTunes interface (in the store homepage, this is the bluey/grey bit) and SHOCK!!! my CPU spikes to 100% - even though probably there is no reason for this to happen UNLESS the iTunes interface is a CANVAS CONTROL from RealBasic!!!
==
This was one of the most breathtakingly nonsensical leaps of logic I've seen this short of a George W. Bush speech...no offense.
I'm glad it all got settled but, boy, was it a page turner...
Comments
Because, uh, you neglected to give your app any functionality? iTunes has lots of complexity, from encoding and decoding to various forms of visualization to managing tens of thousands of database entries.
yes i agree, but it isn't - or it shouldn't be doing any of that when I simply mousedown in the window (when im not on any button or option).
Now, what I am saying - is whatever tool they've used to create the iTunes UI has an issue of maxing the CPU, when it should be executing nothing.
Realbasic is one of the tools that has this unwanted behaviour with a certain class of UI control - EXACTLY the control you would HAVE to use if you wanted to make an iTunes style UI with RB - so it is possible that RB is the tool they've used to create this UI - regardless of whatever C++ libraries they've used for encoding or the fancy stuff, regardless of whatever other tools they have used. It is Possible that RB is the tool for the UI.
This is what i am trying to find out.
You do not know any more than I what they have used to create the UI. Period. You can guess as to what tools they have used, and they may be sensible, logical guesses, but at the end of the day you do not KNOW. I am suggesting, that because of the similarities in 'wierd' execution that iTunes and RB share, then it is Possible that RB was used to create the iTunes UI -which is precisely what you would use RB for and IMO would explain everything that is 'lame' about the iTunes UI.
It is possible that i am completely wrong and it is just a coincidence, and there are other ways of achieving the same problem that have nothing to do with RB. That is fine. I can be wrong. But I am not going to modify my opinion and agree im wrong on the basis that you have made a guess (no better or worse than mine) as to what they did use.
I went and grabbed a couple of apps off of RealBasic's Showcase on their web site, and ran the executable through strings, then grepped for 'RB' in the output on a hunch. Hundreds of lines such as:
RBValArchive
RBMailDB
RBFilemakerAttachment
RBFilemakerAttachment
RBMailDB
RBValArchive
RBWhichMailboxes
RBWhichMailboxes
RBWhichMailboxes
RBMailClient
RBMailClient
&RBMailClient_MouseEnter%%o<CCEmailApp>
%RBMailClient_MouseExit%%o<CCEmailApp>
RBMailClient_Open%%o<CCEmailApp>
"RBMailClient_Action%%o<CCEmailApp>
*RBWhichMailboxes_MouseExit%%o<CCMailboxes>
+RBWhichMailboxes_MouseEnter%%o<CCMailboxes>
%RBWhichMailboxes_Open%%o<CCMailboxes>
RBMailDB_MouseExit%%o<CCExport>
RBMailDB_Open%%o<CCExport>
RBMailDB_MouseEnter%%o<CCExport>
#RBValArchive_MouseExit%%o<CCExport>
RBValArchive_Open%%o<CCExport>
$RBValArchive_MouseEnter%%o<CCExport>
,RBFilemakerAttachment_MouseExit%%o<CCExport>
'RBFilemakerAttachment_Open%%o<CCExport>
-RBFilemakerAttachment_MouseEnter%%o<CCExport>
Constructor%%o<RBMailDB>i4
Then I did the same for iTunes 7. Here is the *complete* result:
kDRBurnStatusChangedNotification
kDRBlockSizeKey
kDRBlockTypeKey
kDRBurnRequestedSpeedKey
kDRBurnVerifyDiscKey
kDRBurnAppendableKey
kDRBurnCompletionActionKey
kDRBurnCompletionActionMount
kDRBurnTestingKey
DRBurnCopyStatus
DRBurnGetProperties
DRBurnCreate
DRBurnAbort
DRBurnSetProperties
DRBurnWriteLayout
com_apple_driver_iPodRBCNub
4RB>
$]3cM8RBh
%`RBp
RB0
XRBM
P@RB
vPGRB
E5RB
IY,<7'RB
IY,<7'RB
kHRBT
Ja[BnRB
o2RB
pN2^LlRB|
RBoo
5RBV%VQH
?ulYRBv
(RB.
RB^L9
Can we put a bullet through this one now?
The behaviour you're seeing is because of a brain-dead wait loop. MacOS Toolbox had it, Classic has it, Carbon inherited it (and it still pops up sometimes), and just plain lazy programming will recreate it. It's nothing unique to RealBasic.
Thankyou, its all I needed - iTunes is not made with RB.
Oh wait, Chucker *did*...
Yeah, all you really have to do is look through the binary's strings.
Sheesh mon.
'strings' is a very useful tool for poking around in the guts of apps. If you haven't already run across it, take a few minutes to read the man page, and it'll open your eyes up to a whole new world of playing with apps.
Realbasic is one of the tools that has this unwanted behaviour with a certain class of UI control
And REALBasic was originally modelled after the Mac Toolbox, so not a huge surprise there.
You do not know any more than I what they have used to create the UI. Period.
They have used Carbon. Period. End of story. Just STOP.
now where do I find this string tool and this grep tool?
ok ive stopped!
now where do I find this string tool and this grep tool?
In Terminal. Here's roughly what Kickaha did:
strings /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes | grep RB
According to man strings:
NAME
strings - find the printable strings in a object, or other binary, file
In other words, it takes all contents of a binary, removes those parts that aren't human-readable (i.e., unlikely to be text), and prints it out, one by one in a line each. So we do that on iTunes's binary. In a Mach-O application bundle, you'll find the binary in Contents/MacOS. Then, we pipe the results to grep:
NAME
grep, egrep, fgrep - print lines matching a pattern
That pattern, in this case, is "RB". I.e., we look for strings inside the iTunes binary that contain the two letters "RB", both upper-case, in that order.
thankyou. As im not running OSX, do you know if something similar is possible in windows?
On Windows, I just wind up installing Cygwin and then doing the exact same.
In Cygwin, the line would look something like:
strings /cygdrive/c/Program Files/iTunes/iTunes.exe | grep RB
(Assuming iTunes is installed in c: \\Program Files\\iTunes)
I could walk you through installing Cygwin, but frankly, it's fairly straightforward.
Actually iTunes is made in Hypercard.
For a moment I thought it was AmigaBasic, but sensibilities got the better of me.
I guess what an app needs to do is start at the beginning of the code and look through all the characters that fall in the range of 'readable' letters in the ASCII code until the end.
Yup, that's what strings does.
How would you determine what an end of line/ or end of string was so that you didn't end up with one long list of readable characters?
You can set a minimum threshold of string length.
if the ascii parser finds that a character that follows a string of readable characters is not of 'readable' type, then that must be the end of the string no?
and if the parser finds that at least 3 readable characters do not exist in sequence then it disregards the string? Is 3 a sensible number of readable characters to work with?
if the ascii parser finds that a character that follows a string of readable characters is not of 'readable' type, then that must be the end of the string no?
Yes.
and if the parser finds that at least 3 readable characters do not exist in sequence then it disregards the string? Is 3 a sensible number of readable characters to work with?
Again, just read the man page:
A string is any sequence of 4 (the default) or more printing
characters ending with a newline or a null.
Yes.
Again, just read the man page:
um what is the man page.?
Anyway, I have created a quick app that does what i think it should. You can check it out if you like. It seems to work - have looked at the strings in all kinds of things...But it takes longer to update the screen, the larger the file you look at, so i suggest you look at small things to start off with...It seemed to handle a 10MB PDF in about a minute. And DONT try to open a shortcut - I think it tries to resolve the path and look at the original file - which might be hell huge - I think Cinema4d is too big for this app!
AND IN NO WAY AM I RESPONSIBLE IF THIS ENTIRELY BORKS YOUR COMPUTER.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mysteries...rBudv0.01a.exe
'man' is a Unix command line tool, short for 'manual'. It gets you the documentation for command line tools on Unix. So 'man strings' would tell you how to run the strings program.
You can almost always google for "man whateveryou'relookingfor" and get the man page through your web browser, just for future reference.
Oh, and strings can parse and output the results from the 21MB iTunes app in.... oh, under a second? There's your performance target to shoot for.
I was afraid you were going to ask what a man page is...
'man' is a Unix command line tool, short for 'manual'. It gets you the documentation for command line tools on Unix. So 'man strings' would tell you how to run the strings program.
You can almost always google for "man whateveryou'relookingfor" and get the man page through your web browser, just for future reference.
Oh, and strings can parse and output the results from the 21MB iTunes app in.... oh, under a second? There's your performance target to shoot for.
hey, I managed iTunes (which is 14.5MB) on my 2.6Ghz PC in about 70 seconds. So i guess my code could do with some improvement!
Mousedown on a blank part of the iTunes interface (in the store homepage, this is the bluey/grey bit) and SHOCK!!! my CPU spikes to 100% - even though probably there is no reason for this to happen UNLESS the iTunes interface is a CANVAS CONTROL from RealBasic!!!
==
This was one of the most breathtakingly nonsensical leaps of logic I've seen this short of a George W. Bush speech...no offense.
I'm glad it all got settled but, boy, was it a page turner...
Mousedown on a blank part of the iTunes interface (in the store homepage, this is the bluey/grey bit) and SHOCK!!! my CPU spikes to 100% -
Doesn't happen on my computers (2.0Ghz DP G5, 20" iMac Core Duo) with iTunes 7.0!
However iTunes does spinloop when you click and hold the volume slider or playhead.