The Yoix® Scripting Language
Yoix / What's NewOur latest version is 2.1.10, which was officially released on 11/28/07. It's a minor update to 2.1.9 that added some YDAT features, added an easier to use pattern to Regexp and corrected several minor problems. Most of the changes are described below. Version 2.1.7 included lots of important changes, so we strongly recommend 2.1.10 if you're using a version that's older than 2.1.7. We no longer support Java 1.3.1, so Sun's 1.4.0 release is the oldest version of Java that can run the interpreter. We've had lots of success with Sun's 1.6 release and it's the version that we recommend, particularly on Windows where 1.6 has improved font support and is less likely to allow an active window to be obscured by other windows. We still think Java 1.5 is a good release, but there's an obscure memory leak problem that has finally been fixed in 1.6, so 1.5 really isn't the best choice for production systems. Java 1.4.0 and 1.4.1 are no longer supported by Sun and we don't recommend either one. Free downloads of Java are available from Sun Microsystems. Finally, here is a brief history that came directly from one of the README files that we distribute with the source package:
Version 2.1.10 (11/28/07 - external release)
Added BUILTIN_GETSEARCHQUERY builtin to ydat/DataGenerator.java
so search string queries can be easily extracted. Thought about
adding a way to do it with BUILTIN_MATCH, but already had a few
httpd log specific builtins and didn't seem like one more would
hurt. Eventually may want a BUILTIN_GETMATCH, or something like
it, to return matched dsubexpressions.
---
Added an AUTO_PATTERN type to Regexp that will act as either a
text or a shell pattern based on absence or presence of shell
wild cards and character classes in the pattern. Rudimentary
ORing of patterns is also allowed.
---
Changed YoixMisc.tokenImage() so POSTINCREMENT and PREINCREMENT
return "++" and POSTDECREMENT and PREDECREMENT return "--". In
the old implementation the constants weren't mapped to token
strings so we just got long strings like "POSTINCREMENT".
---
Added "uniform spread" capabilities to YDAT plots (not stacks).
---
Fixed an apparent mistake in reading the timezone field in a
Calendar. Easy fix that's undoubtedly correct, but the old way
also seemed like it would work - probably should investigate a
bit before the next release.
---
Changed handling of the typename attribute so it works when the
lvalue is unreadable. Think this is the only remaining attribute
that deserves the change.
---
Backed out the YoixSwingJComboBox.setSelectedItem() change made
in 2.1.9 because it introduced occasional sizing problems and
instead we now call repaint() at the end of setSelectedItem().
Also dealt with a setFont() issue in YoixSwingJComboBox.java
that seemed to happen because changing the font doesn't clear
both size caches and as a result the getPreferredSize() that's
implemented in Sun's plaf/basic/BasicComboBoxUI.java might not
notice that the font changed.
---
Trivial change to yoix.mk to make the clobber target work with
Sun's default make and their /bin/sh.
---
Improved the printf/fprintf/strfmt handling of double values
displayed using the %d specification. In particular, doubles
less than 1e-15 of a whole number are displayed as that whole
number rather than being rounded down and double values outside
the (Java-valued) range [Long.MIN_VALUE, Long.MAX_VALUE] are
displayed as a sequence of asterisks (use %g or %f rather than
%d to display doubles if you want to avoid the asterisks).
---
Corrected the viewrowcount in JTable for the case where a table
has multi-line rows.
---
Fixed some menu background color issues that were observed under
Mac OS X Leopard (10.5).
---
In JTable, focus loss in a cell no longer terminates editing.
Version 2.1.9 (9/28/07 - external release)
JTable now supports a new column type called TEXT_TYPE, which
uses a JTextPane to display and edit the data, thus multi-line
cells and cells containing HTML can be included in a table.
---
Yoix scripts providing some business graphics functionality
are now available for download from the Yoix web site (look
for the BYZGRAF links). In addition, the functionality is
also available to YWAIT applications.
---
A subtext built-in was added to all Swing text components to
facilitate extraction of a subset of text. In the case of text
that contains formatting directives, such as HTML, it provides
a way to get text with directives stripped out (unlike using
the text field, which would include those directives).
---
JTextPane now includes an alignment field and is also more
responsive to the background, foreground and font fields.
Explicit settings in formatted text, such as HTML, still
take precedence, but these fields can now set the default
values and also can affect lines of text within the current
selection or at the caret position.
---
Our JTextPane RTF behavior has been improved. In particular,
binary RTF can now be loaded into and extracted from the
component using the text field.
---
Made some changes to the low level TitledBorder font and color
code in YoixMakeScreen.java that make sure the look and feel
settings win when no font or background are specified for the
border.
---
The low level color support code now looks at the fields in
a Yoix Color object and calculates the actual field values
differently depending on whether it finds an integer or a
double. The addColor(), getBrighterColor(), getCMYKColor(),
getDarkerColor(), getHSBColor(), and getRGBColor() builtins
were also modified to behave differently when an integer or
double is passed as a color component argument. Take a look
at the reference pages for more details.
---
Added a mechanism that lets Yoix scripts align menubar items
to the right side of the menubar. See the JMenuBar reference
page for more details.
===
Made some small changes to the order that things were done in
YoixBodyProcess.stopProcess() that make sure Yoix scripts can't
accidentally use the three streams associated with a process
that's been officially killed.
---
Made a small change in YoixSwingJComboBox.setSelectedItem() to
make sure it runs in the event thread. Done because a user of
a large Yoix application had problems with the label painting
properly in a non-editable JComboBox.
Version 2.1.8 (8/28/07 - external release)
The line number information in many error messages has been
improved. We also added a command line option (i.e., --trace)
that can be used to request a trace of the call stack when an
error occurs. The option is automatically enabled when you use
the -g option and it can also be controlled from a Yoix script
using the VM.trace field. Information about all command line
options can be obtained using the -? or --info options.
---
We also added a --lookandfeel command line that lets you pick
a look and feel using the command line or a property file entry.
As usual, more information about all command line options can
be obtained using the -? or --info options.
---
Several low level debugging flags that could be set using the
-d command line option or VM.debug were removed or moved. Most
of the changes were to obscure flags that were rarely used, so
we doubt anyone will notice these changes.
Version 2.1.7 (8/15/07 - external release)
We did lots of work trying to tame the behavior of screens that
contain JScrollPanes, which sometimes misbehave when the screen
is resized. The behavior of the algorithm that we're now using
can be controlled by a special field named sizecontrol that we
added to JScrollPane and the Swing components, like JList and
JTextArea, that normally provide their own scrolling support.
The default values assigned to sizecontrol in components that
support the field seem to result in very good behavior, so for
now we're not going to document the sizecontrol field. If you
think you need to use it please let us know and at that point
we'll provide appropriate documentation.
---
Added SWEEPGRAPHS to YDAT. Also added a monitor thread that can
be automatically kicked off by setting MONITORTHREAD to TRUE in
config files. Assigning a positive number to MONITORTHRESHOLD,
which can also be done in config files, means the monitor thread
will only start if the number of bytes in the input data exceeds
that number. You can take a snapshot of any YDAT data screen and
there's a popup menu available in the snapshot screen that will
let you draw on the snapshot and toggle its size (also done by
double clicking). We included a simple example of a "histograph",
in which nodes in a graph are colored the way bars in a histogram
are, which is the behavior that's illustrated by an old example
on our website. Finally, the same filter/search panel that comes
with YWAIT tables now automatically appears on all SWEEPTABLES
and the appearance of various buttons and labels is controlled
by the variables
SHOW_SWEEPTABLE_DND
SHOW_SWEEPTABLE_EXPORT
SHOW_SWEEPTABLE_FILTER
SHOW_SWEEPTABLE_RESET
SHOW_SWEEPTABLE_ROWINFO
SHOW_SWEEPTABLE_SEARCH
which can be set to TRUE or FALSE in a config file.
---
Modified the execute() builtin slightly so error reporting now
uses the String assigned to argv[0], if it's not NULL, when the
source is a String or StringStream. This primarily was to fix
a long-standing complaint about tracking down some YWAIT errors.
We also added an optional name argument to the eval() builtin
that is used for the same purpose. See the reference pages for
more detail.
---
Added code to YoixBodyComponent.mouseWheelMoved() that stops all
MouseWheelEvents when a component has been disabled. Apparently
AWT components behave properly but Swing components don't. We
also added code to make sure scrollbars used by a JScrollPane
are disabled when the JScrollPane is disabled.
---
Made lots of additions and several changes to the URL type. We
renamed two fields
headerfield --> responseheader
requestproperty --> requestheader
which probably weren't used in any real applications. We also
added fields named connecttimeout, readtimeout, requestmethod,
requestmethod, responsecode, responseerror and responsekeycase
and guarantee that the response information is available after
the URL is closed. See the reference page for more details.
NOTE - two proxy related fields were added, but the quick tests
that we ran didn't seem work properly. We will investigate and
update the reference page when we're sure they work properly.
---
Modified the open() and fopen() builtins so they accept one or
more key/value pairs that can be used to initialize fields in
the returned stream that aren't explicitly set by the builtins.
In addition open() now accepts a stream as the first optional
argument and uses it for the actual open, which can be a way
to recover error additional information that might otherwise
be lost. See the reference pages for more details.
---
Modified strjoin() and strsplit() to accept NULL arguments and
changed strjoin() so undefined elements in the array are skipped.
We also made the second strjoin() argument optional.
---
Changed the default scroll setting for JTabbedPane to AS_NEEDED
from NEVER. Improves layout manager behavior because AS_NEEDED
means vertical space for each separate tab doesn't have to be
reserved because the tabs don't wrap by default.
---
Added a columns field to JList that can be a useful way to set
the width of an empty JList. See the reference page for more
details.
---
Added a field named insets to JButton that can be used to adjust
the default padding that's added to JButtons. See the reference
page for more details.
---
Added infill(), ineofill() and instroke() builtins to Path that
pretty much duplicate the corresponding Graphics builtins, but
they provide a standalone hit-test capability for Paths which
can occasionally be convenient.
---
Added builtins named round() and iround() to yoix.math. See the
reference pages for more details.
---
Fixed a mistake in the implementation of the charpath() builtin
that led to an inconsistency in text drawn using the show() and
charpath() builtins.
---
Added a field named queuesize field to the Thread type. See the
reference page for more details.
===
Fixed a mistake in the mapping of the "ScrollPolicy" constants
in YoixBodyComponent.java that accidentally mapped some uses
of VERTICAL_AS_NEEDED and VERTICAL_NEVER to VERTICAL_ALWAYS.
---
Added code to YoixBodyComponentSwing.buttonGroupRemove() that
allows writing an updated items array. Prior to the change you
would get an invalidaccess error when you modified a non-null
items array.
---
We removed synchronization from ydat/SwingJDataTable.drawBar()
because it caused a few deadlocks. We now take a snapshot of
the datatable array in that method and use the snapshot, which
should prevent deadlock and null problems.
---
Made all variations of eval(), execute() and include() methods
in Yoix.java public, so Java code that belongs to someone else
can now easily run the Yoix interpreter.
---
Added YoixMiscJFC.getGray() that returns the NTSC gray value
that for rgb values. Also added pickForeground() that uses
getGray() to pick a foreground color that's appropriate for
a particular background. No Yoix script access yet, but it
might be worth adding a builtin.
---
Changed YoixMisc.copyIntoXXX() methods so they no longer expect
Vectors or Hashtables. Probably should take another look before
the next release.
=== TODO List ===
Tooltips don't work on YDAT background nodes and edges. It's a
little more complicated then you might expect, and there hasn't
been any real demand yet, but we eventually will get to it.
---
Seems like fields in URL (and maybe elsewhere) that are supposed
to be supplied as unixtime doubles might also accept date strings
that are parsed into unixtimes.
---
The BETA_PREFIX stuff in YWAIT may not be completely correct. We
will investigate and fix it in a future release.
---
The regex support for the =~ and !~ operators probably could be
more efficient.
---
Not convinced URL proxy related fields are all working properly.
Also don't forget about new ifmodifiedsince behavior - think we
may want to be more disciplined about time strings?? Behavior is
not currently documented and can safely be changed.
Version 2.1.6 (4/21/07 - external release)
The handling of the parent field for AWT and Swing components
meant there was a small chance that a parent window could be
disposed without it also disposing of all its children. This
was a rare occurrence, but when it happened it would lead to
a memory leak. Our Java code has been fixed, which means the
potential memory leak has also been plugged.
---
We made several changes in YoixBodyDictionaryObject.java that
were needed to fix thread related problems that only surfaced
in a production YWAIT application with lots of clients that all
worked hard for an entire 8 hour shift. Even then we only saw
about 10 to 15 unique occurrences per day.
While tracking this problem down we made a few changes, like
using a Hashtable instead of a HashMap for the nullcache in
YoixObject.java, that we eventually may undo when we get the
time and opportunity to test on the same production system.
---
We fixed a few small but annoying mistakes in YoixFontType0.java
that could result in pointsize mismatches between fonts used by
Swing and AWT components and the fonts used to draw and measure
text using the builtins defined in Graphics.
---
By default this version no longer has VM.fixfonts set to TRUE,
which means the low level font scaling adjustments that were
calculated during startup on some platforms are now skipped on
all platforms unless the +f command line option is used or
yoix.fixfonts = TRUE
is defined in a property file.
---
We added fields named rowheightadjustment, useedithighlight,
and visiblewidth to JTable. We also now recognize fields named
inputLocale and locale in the attributes dictionary that can be
used by the SET_COLUMN_FIELD action to control the formatting
for individual columns. See the reference page for more details.
---
We added a field named selectedlabel to the JComboBox, JChoice,
and JList components, but we currently haven't done it for the
corresponding AWT components. See the reference pages for more
details.
---
Added read-only fields named style and size to Fonts, so you
no longer have to extract them from the Font's name field. We
also added builtins named stringwidth() and stringbounds() to
Fonts that behave exactly like the two builtins available in
Graphics. We also added a builtin named stringBounds() to the
yoix.graphics module, mostly because the stringWidth() builtin
in that module is often the way scripts measure text. See the
Font and stringBounds() reference pages for more details.
---
The access attribute now works even if the object that it's
applied to is unreadable. The old implementation failed with
an invalidaccess error, which really wasn't helpful if your
program was just trying to see if the object was readable!!
For the record, the access and name attributes are currently
the only ones that can be applied to unreadable objects.
---
Added an attribute named growable that Yoix scripts can use to
see if an object, like a dictionary or array, can be grown by
at least one element. A non-zero answer, as you would get in
Array a[0, ...] = {"now", "is"};
if (a@growable)
a[2] = "the";
means the object can accommodate at least one more object.
---
Added an optional second argument to the linesplit() builtin
that can be used when you're interested in recording blank
lines. See the reference page for more details.
---
Added a builtin named isShutdownHook() to yoix.system that can
be used to see if the current thread is running shutdown hooks
that were added by addShutdownHook(). See the reference page
for more details.
---
The versions of YWAIT and YDAT available in this release have
been improved, but there's currently no summary of the changes.
===
An interesting description of a problem that we also observed
in a production system that was built using YWAIT. Most of the
users were running Java 1.6.0, but some were using Java 1.5.0
and a few of them had particularly big memory leaks and the
explanation of those leaks can be found in
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/enicholas/archive/2006/04/leaking_evil.html
and
http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6209673
The hacks that are described as possible workarounds don't sound
all that appealing so we probably won't implement them. Instead
our solution, for now anyway, is to recommend that you use Java
1.6.X to run the Yoix interpreter, particularly for a production
application.
Version 2.1.5 (2/28/07 - external release)
We did quite a bit of work on YWAIT and YDAT in this release
and we also now include several YDAT examples that are hooked
directly up to the YWAIT demo that you can build and install
on your own server.
---
TimeZone has been changed and no longer supports the fields
that provided a way to directly manipulate daylight savings
information.
---
Added optional radix and fail arguments to the atoi() and
strton() builtins. See the reference pages for more info.
---
Added a optional second argument to UIManager.get(), that's
used as the return value when a key string isn't found. See
the reference page for more details.
---
Added code to YoixSwingJScrollPane.java that tries to improve
mouse wheel scrolling behavior. Linux and Windows seemed to
be the worst because on the systems we tested scrollAmount in
the MouseWheelMoved event was always set to a constant value
that was bigger than 1 (e.g., 3). Mac OSX never exhibited the
behavior that we were trying to correct, so our mouse wheel
scrolling aren't currently applied on that platform.
---
We addressed an annoying problem that showed up in Java 1.6
when you drag columns around in a table that can also scroll
horizontally, which seems to be caused by a mistake in Java's
BasicTableHeaderUI class.
---
Fixed a JTable mistake that sometimes caused problems when a
table was loaded after the columns had been moved.
---
Added code to YoixObject.getTransferData() that can handle a
function or pointer to a function as the transferable. This
was done so the object that's actually dropped can be picked
right before the drop. It's now used by ydat drag and drop
support code. Documentation has not been updated.
===
We added a setCursor() method to YoixBodyComponentSwing.java
in 2.1.4 that also changed the peerscroller's cursor. We've
removed the special version of setCursor(), but at the same
time we added YoixSwingJScrollPane.setCursor() that doesn't
change scrollbar cursors (from their default values). Also
made a change to YoixSwingJTable.setCursor() that now sets
the cursor in its peerscroller.
---
Added a mechanism that can be used to tell the interpreter
to save a limited number of the exceptions that are caught
internally but ignored. The debug flag DEBUG_EXCEPTIONS is
used to enable the mechanism. When the DEBUG_JAVATRACE or
DEBUG_STACKTRACE flags are used the requested dumps will
also be printed on stderr. We added getSavedExceptions(),
getSavedExceptionCount(), and setSavedExceptionLimit() to
yoix.system but they haven't been documented yet. Also
think setSavedExceptionLimit() should return the previous
limit. These builtins aren't currently documented, mostly
because our implementation may change.
Version 2.1.4 (1/25/07 - external release)
The most important changes this time were low level Java code
fixes needed before Yoix and Java 1.6.0 would be completely
compatible. At this point all the outstanding problems that we
noticed using Java 1.6.0 have been fixed, so this is the first
Yoix release that should work smoothly with Java 1.6.0.
---
YoixModuleImage.java no longer uses com.sun.image.codec.jpeg,
which triggered compilation warnings under 1.6.0 that weren't
suppressed by the -nowarn option.
---
Addressed a low level bug in Java 1.6.0 that seems to omit the
step that closed subpaths before a fill. Meant code changes in
in YoixBodyPath.java and ydat/SwingJGraphPlot.java.
---
Changed how a string argument is handled by the decodeImage()
builtin. The old version assumed a string was a file name or
URL that referenced the image to decode, but we now assume a
string is a binary representation of an Image, which is what
encodeImage() and encodeJPEG() return. Change was mostly for
consistency and means the output of encodeImage() can be used
as the argument that's handed to decodeImage(), but the fact
that decodeImage() takes a stream argument means it still can
be pointed at an image in a file or URL.
---
Deleted some undocumented and unimplemented builtins, namely
decodeGIF, encodeGIF, decodePostScript, and encodePostScript,
that were placeholders for builtins that we never implemented
and so they always aborted with an "unimplemented" error.
---
Fixed some stream, socket and popupmenu bugs that had slipped
into our code over the last few releases. We apologize for the
mistakes.
Version 2.1.3 (1/18/07 - external release)
Included a config file named config_clf.yx that can be used
to display httpd log files in the "common" or "combined" log
format. It's not designed for big log files, and we haven't
actually tested it enough to be able to tell you what the
limits are, but we would expect reasonable performance on
log files up to about 100,000 lines.
If your httpd log is small enough and in the right format
then something like
ydat -cclf access_log
should pop up some interactive plots and histograms that
are populated data that's extracted from your log file.
We also hooked up mouse wheel zooming up to plots that are
controlled by an axis. By default scrolling is horizontal
in a plot, but you can hold the SHIFT key to get vertical
scrolling.
Incidentally, hitting the F2 function key in many components
enables or disables drag and drop out of that component (we
use the hand cursor to tell you when you can drag data out
of a component).
---
Added robot support via the new yoix.robot module and also
added a checkCreateRobot() security manager function that
can also be triggered using "robot" and the -S command line
option. See the reference pages for more detail.
---
The Yoix User-Agent string now uses '/' rather than space to
separate the product and version identifiers. Was an oversight
that we only recently noticed.
---
Added code to strsplit() that lets a dictionary or an array
of dictionaries control the splitting. Was added quickly for
an application that used Yoix - it may not be documented yet
and if not it's still subject to change. We will revisit this
in the near future.
---
An old one-line fix in YoixMiscTime.java was omitted in the
current version but it has now be restored. The following
import yoix.util.*;
double t = 3607.0;
stdout.nextline = timerFormat("D'd 'Hh':'ZM':'ZS", t);
works properly if the fix is in.
---
Fixed a mistake in YoixMiscMenu.java that sometimes caused
the last description of a menu to be ignored. Change was in
the buildAWTMenu() and buildSwingMenu() methods.
---
Changed YoixTipManager.java so a "dropped tip" always shows
up, even when the tip wasn't visible at the time of the drop.
---
Made a small change in YoixSwingJComboBox.setSelectedItem()
that seems to fix an occasional problem that showed up when
an editable JComboBox was told (via its Yoix initializer)
that first item was the selected. Looks like a Java issue,
but we didn't try hard to track it down.
===
Removed an old static Frame in YoixImageObserver.java that
was no longer used but could cause loading problems when the
interpreter was running "headless".
---
Small style changes in YoixDragManager so labels that you get
from YoixDragManager and YoixToolTipManager match.
---
Modified the getLayoutSize() methods in
YoixAWTCanvas.java
YoixAWTDialog.java
YoixAWTFrame.java
YoixAWTPanel.java
YoixAWTTextField.java
YoixAWTWindow.java
YoixSwingJDialog.java
YoixSwingJFrame.java
YoixSwingJPanel.java
YoixSwingJWindow.java
so Dimensions with zero width or height fields only received
special treatment when we get the preferred size. The change
means minimumsize or maximumsize Dimensions can explicitly
set their width or height to zero. Negative numbers still get
special treatment in all cases.
NOTE - the minimumsize and maximumsize fields aren't currently
documented in any AWT or Swing component, so any of this can
still be changed.
NOTE - Java 1.5 added methods to set preferred, minimum, and
maximum sizes to the AWT. Prior to 1.5 only Swing components
could explicitly set the various sizes. In other words the
only way for an AWT component could control its preferred,
minimum, or maximum sizes was to override the Java methods
that returned the values. When we no longer support 1.4.X we
can also change how our AWT support for preferred, minimum,
and maximum sizes.
---
Modified YoixSwingJScrollPane.getMinimumSize() so it always
returns a zero sized Dimension. Previous implementation was
more complicated and would sometimes return the container's
preferred or minimum size.
---
Added a pickLayoutSize() method to YoixBodyComponent.java and
now use it when Swing components set their preferred, minimum,
and maximum sizes to a non-null value.
NOTE - this probably should eliminate the need for similar
code in files like YoixSwingJFrame.java that gets called when
one these Swing components get their preferred, minimum, and
maximum sizes. The ability for AWT components to set these
values didn't appear until Java 1.5, so the old way is still
needed in AWT versions of the classes, however we suspect we
probably can remove the code from the Swing classes now that
it's used in YoixBodyComponentSwing.java - later.
---
Added a Robot in YoixBodyComponent.java as part of a kludge
to deal with relatively obscure cursor problems after a drop
that happens on some versions of Linux but not on Windows or
Mac OSX. The behavior on Linux is fixed in 1.6.0.
---
Added compareJavaTo() builtin to yoix.util, but we omitted
documentation because the builtin may be removed in a future
release. Don't count on it until you see a reference page.
Version 2.1.2 (12/18/06 - external release)
Made some changes to ydat/SwingJGraphPlot.java that affect
the mouse wheel zoom behavior. By default zooming with the
mouse wheel now uses the pointer's location in the graph as
the point that's locked during the zoom. Holding CTRL while
zooming with the mouse wheel restores the previous behavior,
which always zoomed to the center and is still the way the
zoom slider works.
Using CTRL actually is somewhat convenient because holding
CTRL and pressing the left mouse button in some histograms
(e.g., the node or edge histograms in an xdot display) can
center and flash the graph element that you selected. Move
the pointer anywhere in the graph while still holding CTRL
and the mouse wheel zooms to the selected element because
it's now in the center of the graph display.
---
Added RAWSHELL_PATTERN as a flag that can be assigned to the
type field of a Yoix Regexp. The only difference between the
RAWSHELL_PATTERN and SHELL_PATTERN is that RAWSHELL_PATTERN
doesn't assign any special meaning to backslash. We now use
RAWSHELL_PATTERN to match patterns that can be specified by
the -S command line option, which is particularly convenient
if you're trying to match a Window file name using pattern.
---
Fixed a few bugs in ydat/SwingJGraphPlot.java that were all
related to "plaintext" nodes. The mistakes were annoying but
relatively obscure and for the most part only happened when
you tried to move a plaintext node or any node connected to
a plaintext node.
---
Made some changes in YoixStack.java that should eliminate
fatal stackunderflow errors that occasionally happened when
a Java method called VM.abort(). Eventually should use the
UncaughtExceptionHandler interface defined in Java 1.5 to
clean up the error output (i.e., Java stack trace and any
other unwanted noise), but we still support Java 1.4.X for
building and running the interpreter, so we'll wait a while.
Version 2.1.1 (12/12/06 - external release)
We're now distributing YDAT (Yoix Data Analysis Tool), which
is a collection of scripts and Java class files that can be
used to display and analyze data. Class files needed to run
YDAT applications are now included in the yoix.jar file that
can be downloaded from our web site or installed using the
Yoix installer. When you run the demos remember that they're
interactive, so try things, like holding a mouse button down
as you move the pointer around in a histogram or graph (the
the behavior of mouse buttons in a graph is controlled by the
JChoice that appears in the lower right corner). If you see
a horizontal or vertical axis press button 1 when the pointer
is in the narrow light-gray region (the axis slider) and move
the pointer. Press button 2 in that region you can drag the
entire slider while you're hold the button down.
When you run the installer you get a generic script named ydat,
several other scripts that run canned YDAT demos, and another
one named ydot that can be used with AT&T's graphviz software
to display and manipulate graphs that have been formatted in
the xdot output language (i.e., you used the -Txdot option
when you ran a graphviz program like neato).
YDAT uses config files to describe the data that its supposed
to display, and right now the config file for graphviz xdot
output is the only generally useful one that comes with this
release. The situation should improve in the near future and
we hope to provide more YDAT documentation and info about the
config files that should let you customize YDAT and display
your own data. In practice it's not all that difficult and a
custom config file can often be built and tested in several
hours, however without any documentation it would be a rather
difficult task.
One final note - the YDAT related Yoix scripts end up in the
directory named ydat/scripts after you run the installer and
the scripts that run YDAT point at ydat/scripts/ydat.yx. The
entire ydat/scripts directory can be moved to a web server if
you want and the definition of HOME in ydat.yx is the only
thing you have to change when the files are moves to the web
server. Point the various ydat scripts in the bin directory at
the ydat.yx script on the server and YDAT will no longer be
using the locally installed Yoix scripts.
---
Fixed a minor mistake in our low level Java code that sometimes
failed to propagate settings, like the background or foreground,
to the components in a container. The mistake was introduced in
our last release and was hard to trigger, so we doubt anyone
noticed yet, but we recommend that you upgrade to this release
if you're currently running 2.1.0.
---
Added a special category named cwd to YoixSecurityOptions.java
that can be used when you want to apply security settings to
the files and subdirectories under where the user was when the
Yoix interpreter was started.
===
Made a small change in the way Yoix.execute() handles security
errors when they happen in a try/catch.
---
Changed convertRowIndexToModel() and convertRowIndexToView()
from protected to public so everything compiles under 1.6. The
Problem happened because the methods didn't exist in 1.5, but
Sun added JTable sorting in 1.6.
Version 2.1.0 (12/7/06 - external release)
The new --applet command line option tells the interpreter to
run scripts as applets rather than applications, which implies
(but does not guarantee) stricter security checking. Once the
interpreter is booted this option installs a security manager
(see file YoixSecurityManager.java) that tries to enforce the
security policy described by the Java policy files that are
installed on your system, optionally modified by -S command
line options that precede the --applet option. For example,
yoix -Sallow:readproperty -Sprompt:read --applet example.yx
allows reading of individual system properties, prompts with a
dialog before a local file is read, but it otherwise tries to
enforce the security policy described by the Java policy files
that are installed on your system. Detailed information about
all options, including -S and --applet, is written to standard
output when the interpreter encounters the --info command line
option.
The security related features that we added this release meant
a major overhaul of two Java files that the interpreter uses to
implement security features, namely YoixSecurityManager.java and
YoixSecurityOptions.java. Questions about our implementation can
probably be answered by taking a careful look at these two files,
which come with the Yoix source code package. Remember, you don't
get guarantees with open source software, but you do get to look
"under the hood" if you want and decide for yourself.
One other point that we should mention is that the interpreter
currently can't finish its required initialization if you use a
command line option to ask Java to install a security manager.
Even something that looks like it should work, namely
java -Djava.security.manager=att.research.yoix.YoixSecurityManager
won't because there aren't any hooks in YoixSecurityManager.java
that skip checks if the interpreter appears to be booting. Since
the interpreter runs without a security manager for a while, if
you've decided to look at our Java code you probably also should
follow it from startup in YoixMain.java to the security manager
installation, which for an applet happens when YoixVM.prepareVM()
triggers a YoixSecurityManager.setSecurityManager() call.
---
We added two Perl-like operators, namely =~ and !~, that compare
a String, int, or double to a regular expression that can be
represented as a String or Regexp. For example,
import yoix.*.*;
while ((str = readLine(stdin)) != NULL) {
if (str =~ "[^0-9]")
fprintf(stderr, "input |%s| isn't all digits\n", str);
}
reads lines from stdin and writes a message to stderr when any
line contains a character that isn't a digit. The =~ and !~
operators are documented in the "operators" reference page that
can be found in the grammar section.
---
We added two new string quoting mechanisms, namely @<...>@ and
@<<...>>@, that resemble a quoting mechanism that's available
in Daytona. We also added a reference page named "quotes" to the
grammar section that describes the quoting mechanisms available
to Yoix scripts.
---
Our GridBagLayout implementation now supports a flexible style
that can sometimes lead to compact descriptions of a container's
layout. This is often true for JPanels that display a series of
labeled JTextFields or a row of JChoices separated by strings.
See the documentation for more details. Unfortunately we haven't
time to convert our existing examples or convert most of YWAIT
screens, but there is at least one substantial application that
we know of that is now extensively using the new style.
Supporting the new the style meant disabling the GridBagLayout's
support for the fronttoback field. We seriously doubt anyone is
using fronttoback, which was mostly a kludge for printing that
we added to our early releases. We probably will disable support
for it in all layout manager in the near future and the field
itself may also disappear unless we get complaints from users.
---
Every layout manager now accepts a string where a component is
supposed to be and they use that string as the text displayed
by a label. Properties, like the font or foreground color, used
by these short-hand labels can't be directly specified, so they
are inherited from the enclosing container.
---
Added iconified, maximized, and autodeiconify fields to JFrame
and Frame. The default setting of autodeiconify is TRUE, which
means iconified frames are now automatically deiconified when
TRUE is stored in their visible field. See the reference pages
for more details.
---
Added a builtin named queueOnce() to Thread that can be called
when you want to make sure an action, as described by a function
and its arguments, is only queued once. queueOnce() compares its
arguments to actions that are queued or running and only queues
the arguments if they're not found. Most of the YWAIT screens
now use this builtin (via the QueueCommandOnce() function) when
the user does something, like press a button, that contacts the
server.
---
Added the root itself to the components dictionary so that the
root component can be referenced by its tag in the components
dictionary the same as other components. This was needed when
we implemented the YWAIT NewJTabbedPane2Screen() "constructor"
that lets users drag one or more of the JPanels managed by a
JTabbedPane into their own JFrames. It's a unique new feature
that we added to YWAIT in this release, but right now you may
have to build your own example using NewJTabbedPane2Screen()
to see how interesting it really is. We will try to build an
example YWAIT screen in a future release, but we probably won't
get time to do it until early next year (2007).
---
Made some Java code changes that improve the behavior of our
JTabbedPane. We also decided to change the default UIManager
setting for the "TabbedPane.contentOpaque" property from true
(Java's choice) to false, which we think is more appropriate.
Yoix applications can add
VM.screen.uimanager.put("TabbedPane.contentOpaque", TRUE);
if they want to restore Java's default.
---
Changed behavior of JChoice and JComboBox slightly to match
the behavior of AWT components (e.g., Choice and List) when
a "label" string (i.e., one of the displayed text strings) is
stored in the selected field. The old implementation for the
Swing components didn't recognize "label" strings, but we now
also look through the displayed text strings before deciding
that a string can or can't be displayed by the component.
---
Added lots of new attributes to JTableColumn: zeroNotShown,
overflow, underflow, inputFormat, lowSubstitute, highSubstitute,
timeZone, inputTimeZone. See the SET_COLUMN_FIELD description
under the action() builtin in the JTable reference page for
more details.
---
Added a builtin named findNextMatch() and fields named extent,
origin, viewport, and viewrowcount to JTable. See the reference
page for more details.
---
Added JList, JScrollPane, JTable, JTextArea, JTextPane, and
ScrollPane to the collection of AWT and Swing components that
support the adjustmentValueChanged() event handler. Also added
an orientation field to AdjustmentEvent so an event handler in
these components can figure out which scrollbar triggered the
AdjustmentEvent that they received.
---
New csvsplit(), htob(), and linesplit() builtins were added to
yoix.string. See the documentation for more details.
---
Added a distance() builtin to yoix.awt and yoix.swing. See the
reference page for more details.
---
Changed the toFront() and toBack() builtins so they no longer
complain if they're handed a NULL argument.
---
Calendar and TimeZone were updated in this release, so take a
look at the reference pages if you're using either one.
---
We finally documented the getArrayBands() builtin, which first
appeared in yoix.util in release 1.3.0, but for some reason a
reference page was never written.
---
Added code to YoixBodyComponent.handleDnDEvent() that stops all
drag and drop events when a component has been disabled.
---
Removed the field named specials from JTable in favor of the
column specific lowSubstitute and highSubstitute attributes
that are now supported by JTableColumn.
---
Removed the getSecurityManager() builtin and changed the value
returned by setSecurityManager() and setSecurityChecker() so
1 indicates success and 0 indicates failure. Applications that
need to install their own security manager or security checker
must use the value returned by these builtins to verify that
the operation succeeded. If the interpreter is running as an
applet (i.e., the --applet command line option was supplied)
then these builtins will always return 0 to indicate failure.
===
Fixed a mistake in 'for (ptr in dict)' loops that resulted in an
infinite loop when continue was used inside the loop.
---
Fixed a thread issue in our low level setup for https that meant
the setup might not finish before the interpreter tried to open
a script that needed the https support. This was most likely to
happen when the command line script needed https support, but it
wasn't restricted to that case and the incorrect behavior wasn't
always reproducible.
---
Removed a typecheck error when a dialog or window's parent was
disposed before the screen was built. Seems reasonable and was
done to eliminate an error message in YWAIT applications if a
dialog's parent was disposed before the dialog was even built.
It's something that might happen when a database query takes a
long time and the user gets impatient.
---
We added YoixSwingJScrollPane class to compensate for annoying
layout behavior that occurred when layout managers asked a
JScrollPane for its minimum size. Unfortunately JViewport.java
(actually ViewportLayout.java) returns a 4x4 pixel square as
its minimum size, which really didn't seem like the best answer
for most situations.
---
Fixed a typo in YoixBodyStream.cancelOutputInit() that mistakenly
used inputinit instead of outputinit in the initial test.
---
Fixed a spelling typo in the string associated with N_ICONIFIED.
The old version spelled it "iconfied" even though the constant
was spelled properly. The mistake only affected JInternalFrame,
which isn't used much, so we doubt the change will affect anyone.
---
Added several public variations of call() to YoixMisc.java. They
are particularly helpful when writing custom modules. We should
take a look at all similar call() methods that are currently
defined and probably should use the ones in YoixMisc whenever
possible,
=== TODO List ===
Thread.queue() should accept a pointer to a function. Should also
make sure other similar cases (if any) behave the same way. This
has been on our list of things to do for a while now - sorry.
---
Consider adding support for Java's SpringLayout.
---
Consider adding support for InputMap to all Swing components.
Definitely not urgent.
---
JComboBox recognizes focusaction but it's not documented. Don't
know if the omission was intentional?
---
Disable fronttoback, delete the field from all containers, and
remove it from all reference pages unless users complain.
---
Decide what should happen to the JTable OBJECT_TYPE support that
was added quickly for a YWAIT application but is no longer used.
Also ended up adding pickSortObject() and pickTableObject() to
JTableColumn as part of the support. This is undocumented stuff
that probably will be changed or removed in the near future, so
don't use it!!
Version 2.0.3 (8/16/06 - external release)
Fixed a careless mistake in YoixBodyBlock.restoreLvalues() that
could accidentally raise the access permissions associated with
a thread. This fix, on its own, is a good reason to upgrade to
this release.
---
We added an accelerator field to JMenuItem and changed the Java
code that builds menus from Menu arrays to accept a dictionary
as the second argument, which means accelerators can be defined
when menus are described by a Menu. See the JMenuItem and Menu
reference pages for more details.
---
Added fields named insets and bounds to the VM.screen dictionary
that can help account for the decorations that a window manager
adds to the screen. The VM.screen.bounds Rectangle incorporates
VM.screen.insets, so it's probably the only one you need to use.
Unfortunately Java doesn't seem to get a good answer from some
window managers (e.g., Gnome on Linux), so these values aren't
as helpful as you might expect. Our current implementation also
just takes a snapshot of the values when the interpreter starts,
so changes to the configuration of your window manager while the
interpreter is running won't be reflected in VM.screen.insets or
VM.screen.bounds. We eventually will change our implementation,
but we don't consider it urgent because we don't always get good
numbers back from Java.
---
Added code to our Java implementation of printf() to handle NaN
and Infinity properly. Our old implementation printed nonsense
numbers for those special cases.
---
The htoa() and urlDecode() now return "" when they're handed a
zero length string. The old versions returned NULL, which meant
that
atoh(htoa(""))
or
urlEncode(urlDecode(""));
would fail because atoh() and urlEncode() complained when they
were handed a NULL argument. The change means atoh() and htoa()
are inverses, as are urlEncode() and urlDecode().
---
The BETA_PREFIX variable that's defined in the YWAIT makefiles
now works properly. It can be used to build and install a test
version of the server code that runs in the same directories as
a production version.
===
Improved strsplit() and JTree loading speed for large sets of
data by replacing the growable array or dictionary used by our
internal implementation with a large ArrayList or HashMap that
is only copied into the Yoix array or dictionary at the very
end. Performance issues can be noticeable because by default
Yoix arrays and dictionaries grow one slot at a time (unless
asked to do otherwise), which can result in a big performance
hit if it has to be done often.
---
The initialization of selected for JMenuItem in YoixModuleSwing
now matches JButton (i.e., it's NULL) so Yoix initializers can
set either state or selected fields and the interpreter will be
able to tell which one was set. The state field wins if both
fields are set in the initializer.
---
Added public strfmt() methods to YoixMiscPrintf.java as a way
for Java code to easily access printf() capabilities.
---
Added a reflection call to YoixAWTInvocationEvent.run() that
provides an easy way to handle invokeLater(). Sometimes helps
when you're writing a custom module.
---
Added YoixTipManager class that currently is used by a custom
module, however we plan on providing Yoix script level access
to the capabilities in the near future.
=== TODO List ===
Look for other instances of internal code that use growable
arrays or dictionaries and change the implementation if they
could be forced to do lots of growing. Performance issues can
start appearing when the Yoix arrays or dictionaries have to
get big but are forced grow one slot at a time.
---
Consider adding field named text to a JTree that can be used
to build the tree from a relatively simple text representation.
The idea is illustrated in the jtree2.yx example, but it's not
exactly what we want. Needs careful thought before Java code is
added to our JTree implementation!!
Version 2.0.2 (4/25/06 - external release)
We made several small changes to the YWAIT package that were
needed to support an existing application that had been written
using an old (and unreleased) version of YWAIT.
---
Fixed an obscure stream related bug that affected streams that
were opened for reading and writing. The mistake was introduced
in version 2.0.0.
---
We made a small change that improves the appearance of some
JComboBoxes in the Aqua look-and-feel that's available on OSX.
Version 2.0.1 (4/20/06 - external release)
Fixed several mistakes in the YWAIT package that made builds
on Solaris fail when Sun's versions of make or /bin/sh were
used. We also changed the YWAIT cgi scripts, which are small
shell scripts, so they no longer use features that require
ksh or bash.
---
The only source code changes that we made in the interpreter
were so insignificant that they don't even deserve a mention.
Version 2.0.0 (3/29/06 - external release)
The interpreter's command line option processing has changed
in this release. Many obscure options are no longer supported
or are now only available using long options. A summary of the
available options can be obtained using -? or --help. Scripts
that start the interpreter using options that were removed or
moved will definitely need attention.
The changes were introduced after long options were added to
the Yoix getopt() builtin. The Option and getopt() reference
pages describe the new features that are available to Yoix
scripts.
---
We claimed "in" and "by" as new reserved words and we use them
in a modified version of a for loop that eliminates some of the
overhead involved in a standard for loop. The syntax is
for (name in expression) {
...
}
or
for (name in expression by expression) {
...
}
The first expression is required and must evaluate to a Pointer
(e.g., an Array or Dictionary) that's the target of the for loop.
The optional second expression must evaluate to a number that's
used as the loop increment, which is 1 by default. Inside the
loop name is a read-only pointer that can be dereferenced when
you want access to the next element in the target object.
For example, the standard for loop
import yoix.*.*;
Pointer ptr;
for (ptr = VM; ptr@sizeof > 0; ptr += 3)
printf("%s=%O\n", *ptr@nameof, *ptr);
that dumps every third element in the VM dictionary can also be
written as
import yoix.*.*;
for (ptr in VM by 3)
printf("%s=%O\n", *ptr@nameof, *ptr);
using the new for loop notation.
---
The overall performance of the interpreter has improved, but
there's still quite a bit more that could be done. We plan on
continuing the performance improvements, but they're really
not a high priority because we believe the Yoix interpreter
already performs remarkably well in applications, like YWAIT,
that it was designed for. If you disagree let us know - we
can easily shift our priorities if there's a real demand.
---
Low level interpreter code that tries to calculate a single
platform dependent font scaling factor has now been enabled.
This is a change from earlier releases so you there's a small
chance you'll notice a difference, however in most cases we
expect any noticeable changes will be an improvement. The -f
or --fixfonts command line options let enable or disable this
font scaling.
Unfortunately, Java 1.4.X running on Linux sometimes seems to
use different size fonts in AWT and Swing components. In other
words, tell a Swing and AWT component to use exactly the same
font and if you're using 1.4.X on Linux you may end up with
different results in the two components. We haven't observed
the behavior in 1.5.0.
---
Added keystore support to the Yoix interpreter, which means
SSL certificates can be managed pretty much the way browsers
do. Users are always prompted with information about a new
certificate before it's stored the interpreter's keystore.
We also added the --acceptcertificates option that tells the
interpreter to silently accept certificates without storing
them in the keystore. It's a special purpose option that's
really only designed for a program, like a web crawler, that
reads web pages and doesn't want to be prompted by every new
certificate.
---
We made low level encoding changes that separate the encoding
that the parser uses to read a script from the encoding that
the interpreter uses when it reads streams. The names of the
encodings used to read scripts and streams are stored in
VM.encoding.parser
and
VM.encoding.stream
as strings that can be read or written by Yoix scripts or set
using the --parserencoding and --streamencoding command line
options. Two other values in VM.encoding, namely
VM.encoding.JVM
and
VM.encoding.VM
are read-only strings that record the default encoding used by
Java and the Yoix interpreter.
We also added a builtin named getAvailableCharsets() to yoix.io
that provides a complete list of the encodings that your system
recognizes. See the reference page for more details.
---
Added fields named uimanager and headless to VM.screen. The
uimanager field means scripts no longer have to create their
own UIManager when they want to query or change the look and
feel. The headless field will be non-zero whenever the Yoix
interpreter is started in an environment that doesn't support
a display, keyboard, or mouse.
---
Added a theme field to UIManager, so yoix scripts can select
various themes that may be supported by a look and feel. The
"Metal" look and feel available in Java 1.5 is the only one
that currently supports themes and the only working themes
that we found were "Ocean" and "Steel".
---
Made changes to UIMamanger so fonts for each LookAndFeel are
scaled based on the command line magnification and platform
dependent scaling. Done for consistency and to fix JOptionPane
fonts, which on Linux were often way too small. Changes mean
supported UIMananger look-and-feels should be thought of as
being created when the interpreter boots, so fonts in those
look-and-feels won't be affected when a Yoix script changes
VM.fontmagnification.
---
Added autotrim, selectedends, and text fields to a JComboBox
that duplicate the behavior of the fields in other component
(e.g., JTextField). It also now supports a textValueChanged()
event handler, which really only makes sense if the JComboBox
is editable. The changes make it easier for a GUI application
to switch between using a JTextField and a JComboBox. See the
reference page for more details.
---
We added a field named persistent to the Process and Socket
types. Setting persistent to TRUE tells the Yoix interpreter
it shouldn't explicitly stop a Process or close a Socket when
the interpreter exits. See the reference page for more details.
---
Added a read-only field named focusowner to all AWT and Swing
components that can be read to determine if component has the
keyboard focus.
---
Added a field named reset to JColorChooser that can be used to
reset the reference color that the JColorChooser displays. We
also added support for the stateChanged() event handler. See
the reference page for more details.
---
Added a field named altgridcolor and action named MOVE_COLUMN
to JTable. See the reference page for more details.
---
Added a builtin named fmt() to yoix.string that can be used to
break or consolidate text so each line fits within limits that
can be specified in the call. This can be a convenient way to
prepare text that is supposed to be displayed in a component,
like a JTextArea. See the reference page for more details.
---
Added a builtin named addShutdownHook() to yoix.system that
arranges for Yoix functions to be called right before the
Java virtual machine shuts down. See the reference page for
more details.
---
Added builtins named addListener() and removeListener() to
yoix.awt and yoix.swing. The addListener() builtin lets you
add new listener to an existing AWT or Swing component, which
is something that was not allowed in previous releases. See
the reference pages for more details.
---
Added a builtin named nanoTime() to yoix.system that can be
used to measure time intervals in nanosecond precision. See
the reference page for more details.
---
Added a builtin named getColorName() and updated the addColor()
builtin, both of which are defined in yoix.awt and yoix.swing.
See the reference pages for more details.
---
Added builtins named htmlEncode(), htmlDecode() to yoix.string.
See the reference pages for more details.
---
New builtins named encodeImage() and decodeImage() were added
to yoix.image. See the reference pages for more details.
---
Added an optional int argument to stringbounds() that can be
set to non-zero when you want the rectangle to be a tight fit
to the text string. By default the fit is loose, with font
properties, like ascent and descent, controlling the vertical
span of the rectangle.
---
The Tree type has been renamed ParseTree, so Yoix scripts that
used Tree variables must be changed. We doubt this will affect
any external applications.
---
Simple grammar change lets global and restricted blocks omit
the lvalue (usually a dictionary). Changes were easy but may
not be all that useful, except to run quick interactive tests.
===
Fixed the low level implementation of the charpath() builtin
in YoixFontType0.java, which built a FontRenderContext that
always disabled antialiasing and fractionalmetrics, even if
they were enabled in by the appropriate Graphics object. The
mistake meant that measurements, like pathbbox(), taken from
a charpath() path wouldn't necessarily hold when the same
text was rendered using show().
---
Fixed a mistake in the translatepath() builtin that omitted
using the currentmatrix to transform its arguments to device
space. Was really inconvenient (and wrong) because skipping
the step meant the were always assumed to be in device space.
---
Fixed a gvsubsti bug that made it misbehave rather badly when
no pattern was set in its Regexp argument.
---
A late change in YoixVM.java restricts the platform dependent
font scaling factor to a number greater than or equal to 1.0.
Only happens when N_FIXFONTS is 1, so we might provide a way
to set it to something other than TRUE and FALSE?? Not 100%
convinced by the changes.
---
Changed calculation of getPreferredScrollableViewportSize() in
YoixSwingJTextArea.java so it matches getPreferredSize(). Swing
currently (i.e., in 1.5.0) omits margins when determining the
JTextArea's preferred size for a JScrollPane, so you normally
end up with a vertical scroll bar in a JTextArea that has rows
and insets set.
---
Made several low level changes to help with "skins". One was
to apply opaque setting for a screen to it's menubar if the
menubar hasn't explicitly set its opaque field to a non-NULL
value. The other change was to YoixMiscJFC.paintBackground()
and all we now do is check the component's opaque setting
before painting.
---
Added a field named uimkey to Swing and AWT components. It's
not documented yet because we're not convinced it's a useful
addition, which means it may disappear in future releases and
that means you shouldn't use it!!
---
Added an optional argument to cstring() builtin. Currently
undocumented and not used, so there's a good chance it will
be removed in a future release.
=== TODO List ===
Converting our FontMetrics code to LineMetrics should let us
remove an undocumented option that may still be needed by an
old (but important) application. Probably won't be difficult,
but that old application will need lots of testing.
---
Eventually may want to synchronize some of the addListener()
methods in YoixBodyComponent.java. The addListener() builtin
can now test and set bits in event mask and the way it's done
right now may not be completely thread safe. Definitely good
enough for now, but we eventually should revisit this.
---
Not convinced there's an easy way to get a copy of a path.
Reading Graphics.path doesn't return a snapshot - maybe it
should?? Something to investigate.
---
Added setPrebootAcceptCertificates() and called in YoixMain.
Done slightly differently the other prebootXXX, but it looks
like there should be a better way. We eventually clean this
up, probably by providing a method in YoixModule.java that
can access values stored in $init[] tables - later.
---
Consider renaming EMPTY and all related stuff. Seems like
VOID would be better. Also added isEmptyString() method
to YoixObject.java. Think the length() test can be changed
slightly (do we need to do stringValue()??). Also may want
other methods (e.g., isEmptyArray(), isEmptyDictionary()).
Just a thought - definitely not important.
Version 1.4.0 (11/14/05 - external release)
This release no longer runs under Java 1.3.1, which means
we don't need reflection to support features that appeared
in Java 1.4 (e.g., encryption, new event modifiers, better
sockets). All the reflection used to provide runtime support
for Java 1.3.1 has been removed from the source code.
---
You'll find extensive cryptographic support in this release
using the new Certificate, Cipher, Key, and KeyStore types
and the constants and builtins that are defined in the new
yoix.secure module. See the reference pages for more details.
---
DatagramSocket, ServerSocket and Socket have been improved
and they all now provide complete support for features that
were added in Java 1.4. Part of the cleanup work removed or
renamed several fields that we supported in older versions,
so applications that use any of the Yoix sockets will need
some minor changes before they will run under this release.
See the reference pages for more details, including a list
of the fields that changed or disappeared.
Please send us mail if you have a socket application that
breaks in this release - we undoubtedly can help and don't
mind hearing complaints about our incompatible changes.
---
MulticastSocket is new and can be used to send and receive
multicast UDP packets. Our simple tests on Windows and OSX
seemed to work, but we were not able to receive multicast
UDP packets on any Linux system that we tried. We suspect
the behavior is related to issues described in the 4701650
Java bug report. See the reference page and the bug report
for more details.
---
Random is a new type defined in yoix.math that can generate
pseudo-random and "cryptographically strong" random numbers.
It was added as part of our new cryptographic support, but
can be used whenever an application needs random numbers.
See the reference page for more details.
---
We added seven new builtins (e.g., getInterfaceAddresses(),
isLinkLocalAddress()) to yoix.net. See the reference pages
for more details.
---
DragGestureEvent, KeyEvent, MouseEvent, and MouseWheelEvent
define a new field named modifiersdown that represents the
state of all keyboard modifiers and mouse buttons when the
event occurred. See the reference pages for more details.
---
File, URL, and StringStream have a field named interrupted
that is incremented when a read operation is interrupted.
See the reference pages for more details.
---
The low level code that tries to compensate for font size
mistakes across platforms has been improved and is enabled
by default. The -f command line option or "fixfonts" property
file entry can be used to disable the font size adjustments
and means you get exactly what Java would give you when you
ask for a font. We also fixed a mistake that failed to apply
the font size adjustments to the Java font that windows use
when their font field is set to NULL.
---
We made "restricted" a keyword that is used to start a named
block that behaves like a "global" named block but is subject
to some restrictions. For example, include, import, try/catch,
and global named blocks are not allowed, reserved values like
execute(), stdin, stdout, stderr, and yoix will be NULL, and
others, like typedict and argv, start with restricted values.
A Yoix script that uses a restricted block can pass objects
into the restricted block by storing them in the dictionary
that's used for the block's storage, so the Yoix script has
the final say over how "restricted" the block really is.
---
Added code that lets Yoix scripts catch SecurityExceptions
using try/catch. This eventually may be expanded to include
more (perhaps all) Java Throwables, but we didn't have time
right now to implement and test everything.
---
We improved the Yoix installer and added controls that let
you pick the default font magnification. The installer has
always been included in the source code that we distribute
and now you can build an installer using the makefile that
we distribute with the installer source code.
---
Made several changes to our Java code that gets called to
interpret the mouse buttonmodel that can be set using the
-b command line option or the "buttonmodel" property file
entry. The default buttonmodel is now 0, which makes no
changes to event modifiers when a mouse button is pressed,
clicked, dragged, or moved.
The change should only affect users on a Mac who also happen
to have a one-button mouse. The default buttonmodel setting
in our previous release automatically translated a MouseEvent
with button 1 and the control key pressed into a MouseEvent
that looked like button 2 had been pressed. Unfortunately we
can't tell what kind of mouse generated a MouseEvent, so the
the translation requested by the default buttonmodel applied
to every MouseEvent on a Mac, even when a multi-button mouse
was being used. Mac users who what to the old behavior can
get it with -b1 command line option or "buttonmodel" property
file entry.
---
If you grab our source package you may notice some functional,
but still incomplete and undocumented Java 3D work. We hope to
return to the work, perhaps in a few months, but right now it's
not high on our list of things to do. Any help, as usual, will
be appreciated!!
Version 1.3.2 (8/30/05 - external release)
We added MouseWheelEvent to the collection of events supported
by the Yoix interpreter. MouseWheelEvents automatically go to
a mouseWheelMoved() event handler, if it's defined in an AWT
or Swing component.
NOTE - Java introduced MouseWheelEvents in 1.4, so you won't
get them if you're still using Java 1.3.1.
---
Our implementation of the "this" keyword has finally improved
and now handles functions that are defined in a block. Thanks
to Xinyu Feng for input on this one!! See the reference page
for a complete description of the "this" keyword.
---
Fixed a mistake that caused the urlEncode() builtin to throw
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException when it tried to encode binary
data.
---
Small changes to paintRect() method in YoixAWTTextComponent
and YoixSwingJTextComponent.
---
Added int argument to YoixMisc.javaTrace() that controls the
number of lines dumped.
Version 1.3.1 (8/13/05 - external release)
Fixed a parser mistake that meant it sometimes didn't backup
over lookahead that was consumed to recognize a bare if-else
statement. The mistake never affected if-else statements in
blocks (e.g., function bodies), so it really didn't happen
often.
---
We now compensate for subtle changes in TimeZone.getDefault()
and TimeZone.setDefault() that were introduced in Java 1.5.0.
We're not sure why Sun made the Thread-based TimeZone changes
in 1.5.0, but Yoix scripts now will not notice them.
---
The setTimeZone() builtin was changed slightly and now takes
a missing or NULL argument as a request to reset the timezone
to the original system default.
---
Implementation of setOrigin() in YoixAWTTextComponent.java
and YoixSwingJTextComponent.java has been improved slightly
and now does a better job handling scrolling under a window
that covers part of the component. Our solution doesn't catch
everything, but it's not bad and doesn't affect performance
much. Might not need the kludges if copyArea() was friendlier
and returned something that told us that the copy didn't work.
PaintEvents automatically generated by copyArea() don't seem
to be a complete solution, particularly when you're scrolling
rapidly.
---
Fixed a class cast mistake in YoixMake.java that sometimes
affected the Yoix implementation of UIMananger.
---
Fixed a small mistake in YoixBodyString.cstringValue() that
occasionally affected the cstring() builtin.
---
Added a kludge to YoixBodyComponentSwing.java that seems to
eliminate deadlock problems that occasionally happened when
a JFileDialog was created on a Mac.
Version 1.3.0 (7/14/05 - external release)
You can now add custom drag and drop handling to any Swing
or AWT component using Yoix versions of Java's drag and drop
event handlers (e.g., dragGestureRecognized(), dragEnter(),
drop()) that are described in their reference pages. Swing
components can use the new TransferHandler type or event
handlers when they want custom drag and drop support, but
the TransferHandler approach won't work with AWT components.
Everything should be documented in the reference pages, but
the information is spread out in a few different files. Take
a look at DragGestureEvent, DragSourceEvent, DropTargetEvent,
dragGestureRecognized(), dragEnter(), and drop() if you want
to know more about the event handlers. Otherwise look at the
TransferHandler reference page.
---
Added a field named dragenabled to all Swing components that
can be set to TRUE when you want to enable Swing's automatic
drag handling. Components that don't provide automatic drag
handling always return FALSE when their dragenabled field is
read, even immediately after you store TRUE in that field.
---
We added a Clipboard type and a getSystemClipboard() builtin
in yoix.system that can be used for cut and paste operations.
The details are described in the reference page.
---
Custom cursors are now available. They can be built using an
Image and assigned to to the cursor field that's defined in
all AWT and Swing components. The reference pages have all
been updated and there's at least one non-trivial example in
the Image reference page, which is a good place to start. Pay
close attention to the hotspot, paint, size, and type fields
that are defined in an Image - they're often the most useful
when you're building a custom cursor.
---
A new builtin named addCursor() is defined in the yoix.swing
and yoix.awt modules. It lets you add a custom cursor to the
official Cursor that's defined in yoix.swing and yoix.awt. We
also added the getBestCursorSize() and getMaximumCursorColors()
builtins that can sometimes help when you're building a cursor.
The getMaximumCursorColors() documentation may be missing or
incomplete (it sometimes gave some confusing answers that we
need to track down), but the other two builtins are documented
and there's another custom cursor example in the addCursor()
reference page.
---
Added a builtin named captureScreen() to yoix.image that can
be used to copy all or part of the screen to an image. See the
reference page for more details.
---
We changed our Swing border code so a border with a title is
created whenever a string is assigned to a Swing component's
border field.
---
We added a field named border to JFrame, JDialog, JFileDialog,
and JWindow, which means you can easily add a border to any of
them without having to modify the layout of their components.
We added the border field to JInternalFrame, but weren't happy
with the results, so it probably shouldn't be used because the
behavior may change in a future release.
---
JTextArea, JTextField, or JTextPane components can now define
a textValueChanged() event handler if they want to receive a
TextEvent whenever the text stored in the component changes.
We added fields, named length, offset, and type to TextEvent
that further identify what happened when something changes in
a JTextArea, JTextField, or JTextPane. AWT components, like a
TextField, that define a textValueChanged() event handler get
a TextEvent that includes the three new fields but they won't
be initialized with any useful information.
---
Changed the implementation of Graphics.erasedrawable() so it
erases a drawable component, like a Canvas or JFrame, using
the background color and the backgroundimage that are defined
in that drawable. Before the change erasedrawable() only used
the component's background color. We also made improvements
in the way erasedrawable() handles images, but we don't think
anyone will notice.
---
The value assigned to the backgroundimage field that's defined
in some AWT and Swing components can now be an Image, String, or
NULL. A string that's not NULL should name a local a file or URL
that contains a GIF or JPEG image.
---
Made some changes to addColor(), which now returns TRUE if the
color was successfully added and FALSE if the operation failed.
We also removed the optional hsb argument since there now is a
builtin named getHSBColor() that makes colors based on the HSB
model.
---
We documented all Yoix event handlers, including the ones that
handle drag and drop, added listEventHandlers() to yoix.event,
and moved the dictionary that maps Yoix event handler names to
integers to yoix.event.HandlerID from yoix.awt.Event. See the
reference pages for more details.
---
Added YoixPointerActive.initializer() method that sub-classes
can call, usually at the very end of their constructors, when
final initialization can be handled by a Yoix function named
initializer() that's defined in their data dictionary. May not
be used in standard Yoix classes yet, but there's at least one
new custom module that's currently using it. Tiny chance we'll
eventually implement finalizer(), but that could be asking for
trouble!!
---
Made lots of changes to YoixObject.java that were designed to
make it usable as a superclass in custom modules. Most of the
changes were access related and you will now find quite a few
protected methods that are designed to be used by classes that
extend YoixObject.java. We also added an empty interface named
YoixAPIProtected that we used to mark classes that your custom
modules can extend. We haven't finished with the changes, but
did think they should be mentioned - we're planning many more
in the next release or two.
---
We also removed final from the definitions of getManageObject()
and body() in YoixObject. Done to let classes in other packages
that extend YoixObject define them as super.getManagedObject()
and super.body(), which will essentially give other classes in
the same package access to the low level YoixObject methods.
---
We collected some of the Java reflection code that we had used
in the interpreter and in several custom modules and put them
in a new file named YoixReflect.java. You might find something
useful there if you're writing you're own Yoix module, but it's
otherwise not particularly noteworthy.
---
A mistake in our IO code that slipped into our last release has
been fixed. We apologize for the mistake and thank the people
who reported the problem.
---
Noticed CUSTOM_CURSOR is defined in our Cursor dictionary even
though it doesn't correspond to a real cursor. Happens because
READCLASS (in YoixModule.java) is asked to load the integers
defined in java.awt.Cursor class - looks like we need a better
way for READCLASS to select fields. Need to think about it some.
A regular expression or a way (perhaps an array of 2 Integers)
to specify an interval probably would work. Don't get carried
away on this - CUSTOM_CURSOR may be the only problem and it's
really not a big deal.
---
Made a quick change to POINTER case in YoixObject.cast(). Done
on 12/15/04 (and modified again on 12/21/04) primarily to help
with type definitions in a j3d support module that we're still
working on and will eventually release. Does the CALLABLE case
deserve similar treatment??
---
Changed the implementation of YoixObject.newPointer() that's
called to handle custom modules so it first looks for a method
named newObject() and only tries newPointer() when newObject()
doesn't exist. Done to let custom modules extend YoixObject,
which will help make other things easier and most consistent.
Old modules probably should change the name of newPointer() to
newObject() because it eliminates an extra step. Implementation
also added at least one new SimpleNode constructor.
Version 1.2.1 (12/10/04 - external release)
Added a callback mechanism to the readStream() builtin, which
is documented in the reference page, and we also improved the
performance of the low level Java code that readStream() uses.
The changes mean readStream is a very efficient way to read all
(or part) of a Yoix stream, like a URL, and the new callback
mechanism makes it easy to provide progress information to the
users of an application.
---
The Yoix installer finally behaves properly on all supported
platforms when the name of the installation directory contains
white space characters (e.g., "Program Files" on Windows).
---
In all the older versions of YoixBodyComponentSwing.java and
YoixBodyComponentAWT.java event listeners were added near the
end of the constructors, which sometimes happened after the
visibility of the window was set to true. The ordering meant
that there were situations when a windowOpened() event handler
defined in a Yoix window might not be called. A fairly simple
rearrangement of the Java code now adds event listeners before
the window's visibility is set, and that should guarantee that
a Yoix windowOpened() event handler is always called.
---
Removed static from YoixBodyComponentSwing.bg_dummy definition.
At least one substantial Swing application sometimes had memory
problems that were tracked down to the fact that bg_dummy was a
static.
---
Added JToggleButton, which is a JButton that behaves like a
JCheckBox.
---
Fixed a low level permissions mistake that caused freopen()
problems.
---
Made a small change to the menu code that tries to prevent a
separator from being the first entry in a menu. This was added
rather late, but it's such an innocent change that we really
don't think anyone will be adversely affected. If you disagree
send us mail and we will provide a workaround.
---
We changed the function dumping code in YoixBodyFunction.java so
parse tree is dumped when the DEBUG_PARSETREE flag is set. Was
done while we were debugging a problem and we decided to leave it
in for now even though we doubt anyone else will use it. There's
a pretty good chance it either will disappear or be improved in
our next release.
Version 1.2.0 (10/27/04 - external release)
Our Swing support is finally complete and almost all of it has
now been documented. There undoubtedly are some exceptions, but
for the most part any Swing class that you might want to use in
a Java application is available as a Yoix type. In one case,
namely JOptionPane, we decided that three builtins
showConfirmDialog()
showInputDialog()
showMessageDialog()
which were added to yoix.swing, would be sufficient, so there's
no JOptionPane type. Swing components share lots of new fields
(e.g., preferredsize, size, location, opaque, layer, and showing)
that are described in the reference pages, so we won't say more
here - take a look at a simple reference page (e.g., JLabel) and
you'll get the picture. You'll find other interesting new fields
(e.g., glasspane, resizable) that are only shared by top level
application windows (e.g., a JFrame). There's also a new layout
manager named BoxLayout that works with AWT or Swing components.
In addition to the standard Swing types we added several that
can help you convert an AWT application to Swing. For example,
there's a Yoix type named JChoice even though there's no Java
class that goes by that name. JScrollbar is another convenient
addition that's a synonym for JScrollBar (notice the case of the
'b'), which means you end up with a legitimate Swing scrollbar
when you add a 'J' to the front of the AWT Scrollbar type.
We also added builtins named
getBrighterColor()
getCMYKColor()
getDarkerColor()
getHSBColor()
getRGBColor()
getLocationInRoot()
getLocationOnScreen()
to yoix.awt and yoix.swing and documented each of them.
---
The -g command line option now guarantees that command line and
and source file information will always be available for error
reporting. In addition -g now also automatically generates a Yoix
stack trace when there's an error. Applications started with -g
pay a penalty when compared to applications started with the -O
option (they use more memory and are slower), so -g should only
be used when you need to debug Yoix problems.
The behavior of -O command line option has not been changed. It
starts the interpreter running in a way that should result in the
best performance (e.g., no line number or source file information
will appear in error messages), but Yoix programs can still make
changes (e.g., to VM.addtags) that can affect performance. When
-g and -O appear on the command the last one wins.
The -I command line option is new and it lets you point at Yoix
scripts in files that are included after all command line options
are processed, but before the input file named on the command
line is executed. Files included this way run in the environment
created for the primary input file. This option can be particularly
useful when no input file is named on the command line (i.e., the
Yoix interpreter reads from standard input) and you want a way to
establish a consistent environment, often for debugging purposes.
Multiple -I options are allowed and work as you would expect.
The -d command line option now interprets a leading 0x to mean
a hex number and a leading 0 to mean an octal number. See the
DEBUG_XXX definitions in YoixConstants.java for the current set
of debug flags. We made a few minor changes to the debug flag
definitions and added DEBUG_STACKTRACE, which lets you ask for
a Yoix stack trace when there's an error. Incidentally, command
line debug flags always end up in VM.debug, which means they can
be changed by Yoix scripts. For example, something like
{
save VM.debug |= 0x300; // means trace calls and returns
//
// Yoix code that you want to trace...
//
...
}
changes VM.debug so the interpreter traces function calls and
returns, but using a save statement guarantees that the previous
value is restored whenever the enclosing block is exited.
We changed -V option so version information goes to stdout. Also
-V now just prints the version string - use +V to get a little
more info. As usual, running programs can find version info in
VM.Version.
Incidentally, all command line options are currently documented
in the comments near the start of YoixMain.java, which you get
with our source code package. In addition most of them are also
described in comments in the scripts that our installer leaves
on your system.
---
All of our installers, including the one that we distribute from
our web site to install the Yoix interpreter, are now executable
jar files. It's a big improvement that saves space and means your
browser may know how to install Yoix when you click on the link
that's used to download the installer. We also followed our own
advice and converted the installer to Swing, which we think is a
another big improvement, and made it work on a Mac running OS X.
---
The conditional expression operator (i.e., ?:) has finally been
fixed, so the behavior that you get from the Yoix implementation
of ?: now does a pretty good job matching other languages. Most
of the trouble happened because we tried to make ? and : behave
as special binary operators that the interpreter grouped into a
traditional ?: (or non-traditional :?) when possible. It never
completely worked and ? and : weren't useful binary operators,
so our attempt at generality didn't add anything useful and left
us with a confusing ?: operator that sometimes didn't behave the
way you expected.
Our fix eliminated ? and : as binary operators (we really doubt
anyone found them useful) and :? as a non-traditional conditional
expression. As a result there's a small chance this version of
the interpreter will complain about syntax errors in scripts that
worked in our previous releases.
---
The interpreter now accepts
import yoix.*.*;
which means you're asking for access to all the modules that are
loaded into the yoix dictionary when the interpreter boots (the
list is complied into the interpreter so it doesn't change). The
new import statement can be a convenient one-line replacement for
long lists of imports. We use it most of the time now so you'll
see it in many of our examples.
Part of the implementation of the new import statement was the
addition of an array named importdict to the global context. It's
a read-only array that's used to keep track of the dictionaries
that have been imported by Yoix statements that end in '.*', like
import yoix.xxx.*;
or
import yoix.*.*;
NOTE - an application that happened to define importdict in the
global context (we doubt there were any) will have to be changed
before it will work using this version of the interpreter.
---
You can now use a Menu (which really is just an Array with a magic
type name) to initialize items in a MenuBar, PopupMenu, JMenuBar,
JPopupMenu, and JMenu. The change simplifies the job of converting
an AWT application to Swing. We also modified the Java code that
parses Menus (i.e., the code that runs when a Menu is assigned to
items) so it accepts an Array or a Menu whenever it wants to find
the description of a submenu. We also now accept an Array, a Menu,
or NULL as the first (and only) element in the description of a
menu item.
Remember, a Menu isn't the AWT version of a JMenu, so don't change
Menu to JMenu when you convert an AWT application to Swing!!
---
Types that define an insets field (e.g., GridBagConstraints or
Border) now let you assign a number to that field when all you
want is a uniform margin. For example,
BevelBorder bb1 = {
Insets insets = {
int top = 12;
int left = 12;
int bottom = 12;
int right = 12;
};
};
and
BevelBorder bb2 = {
int insets = 12;
};
both work and describe identical borders.
---
We now try really hard to give the focus to the last component
in a window's layout array that explicitly requests the focus
by setting its requestfocus field to TRUE. Done the first time
the window is shown or whenever the layout array is changed.
---
We made some improvements to the badcall and badargument error
messages and we now guarantee that both only happen in builtin
or function calls. The changes forced us to take a careful look
at our low level function code, and we ended up making several
changes that make function calls a little bit faster.
---
A Yoix JWindow or Window can now get the focus, which means you
can put a component like a TextArea in a Window and type text
into that TextArea. The implementation was tricky so there's a
chance it won't always work - Java didn't make it particularly
easy.
---
The exitflag field that was defined in the VM dictionary has
been renamed exitmodel. The behavior controlled by exitmodel
has not changed - allowed values are 0, 1 (default), or 2,
and they still control what happens when the main thread quits.
See the comments in YoixMain.java for more details.
---
The newline() function supported by TextTerm and JTextTerm is
now named afterNewline(). Applications that used newline() (we
doubt there were any) will have to be changed before they will
work with this release.
---
Several special purpose builtins
yoix.io.readInto()
yoix.io.writeInto()
yoix.system.getModuleCreated()
yoix.system.getModuleNotice()
yoix.system.getModuleVersion()
have not been documented yet and extra arguments that we added
to htoa() and urlDecode() are also undocumented. A small special
purpose parser, namely PatternParser.jjt, was also added for an
existing project, but it has not been documented yet.
=== Java Code Changes ===
We changed the argument order in put() and declare() methods
in YoixObject.java and all other classes that implement the
YoixInterfacePointer interface. Done mostly so the argument
order matches the put method defined in a Java HashMap and
the set method defined in Java ArrayList. This change does
not affect Yoix applications, but it will make a difference
if you were using the Yoix source code from an older release.
---
We made lots of changes to the module loading code. Perhaps
most important is the removal of the DEST column (it was the
fifth of the six columns in old tables). The smaller tables
means modules use less memory and load a little faster. Look
through YoixModule.java if you're interested in the low level
module loading code.
---
We reorganized this YoixVM.java a bit, mostly by separating
the error handling and stack support code out into their own
files, which means you now look in YoixVMError.java for the
error code and YoixVMStack.java for the stack support code.
The changes were purely cosmetic (notice that YoixVM extends
YoixVMStack and that YoixVMStack extends YoixVMError), but
we think it's a small improvement.
---
We now use a special class named YoixVMDisposer to handle all
Window disposing. Done because Java's Window.dispose() method
uses invokeAndWait() when dispose() is invoked from a thread
that isn't the event dispatch thread. Interrupt or stop that
thread and you may get an unwanted Java dump, and we suppose
there's even a chance the dispose() won't happen. Anyway, as
a precaution we now use YoixVMDisposer.
---
We added an equals() method to the YoixObject class that is
currently used by one important custom module. Probably need
to take one more careful look, because we're currently using
the "===" variation.
---
Changed VM.canExit() slightly so now it asks YoixMain if it's
OK before exiting. Means the main thread really gets a chance
to finish.
---
The version of YoixObject.newPointer() that gets called from
YoixMake.yoixType() with a non-NULL classname did VM.pushError()
but forgot the matching VM.popError(). The mistake only affected
user modules that defined type templates that defined N_CLASSNAME,
so the omission only caused occasional (very obscure) problems.
---
Changed quite a few uses of Hashtable to HashMap, which helped
performance. We haven't looked at all Hashtable uses in our Java
code and can't just blindly convert because the synchronization
provided by a Hashtable could be important. Same comments apply
to Vector and ArrayList, which are a little bit harder to convert
because some method names also need to change.
---
Added some simple number caching to YoixObject.java. Seems to
help performance and usually should help memory usage, but we
haven't verified that one yet. We don't expect problems, but
the stuff should be very easy to back out.
---
We modified YoixMake.initializer() so it now accepts an array
of strings, or a comma separated list of strings enclosed in
braces when a string, which currently must have a well defined
length, is created either in a declaration or using new. This
turns out to be an efficient way to concatenate strings, but
the current restrictions (e.g., the length of the string must
be specified) make it less useful than you might expect.
NOTE - this is now be used by an important project, so be very
careful if you try to change or improve the implementation. We
undoubtedly will try to make this more general, but remember
you can always use the + operator to concatenate strings. This
method happens to be a little more efficient.
---
The low level Java code for Swing and AWT components now uses a
magic field named menumodel (if it happens to be defined in the
component that's listening for ItemEvents) to decide how to handle
checkbox or radio buttons that are grouped in a menu. The default
behavior used when there's no menumodel defined in the component
is determined by VM.menumodel, which is currently set to 1. That
means ItemEvents for deselection in a menu item that's also in a
menu group won't get passed on to a Yoix itemStateChanged() event
handler that's associated with the menu item. Setting VM.menumodel
to 0 means raw mode and all ItemEvents that get to the interpreter
are handed to the Yoix itemStateChanged() event handlers (if there
is one).
NOTE - menumodel currently only affects menu items, and only when
they also happen to be grouped together.
---
Added code to YoixBodyComponent.windowClosing() that checks the
return value of the Yoix event handler, if one was defined. Usual
system cleanup (i.e., disposing window and checking to see if the
interpreter can exit) is performed when no Yoix windowClosing()
event handler is defined or when the Yoix windowClosing() function
returns FALSE (i.e., 0). This really should be documented!!
NOTE - the behavior was chosen to match mouse event handlers in a
TableManager, which was a change we added (but didn't document) in
release 0.9.3 (check README.old file for more info). Means there's
at least one important AWT based application that probably relies
on this behavior.
=== TODO List ===
Would it be worth changing the open() builtin slightly so it
automatically creates a StringStream when handed a pointer to
a string? Sounds easy and reasonable - later.
---
Should strsplit() accept a regular expression? Also, should we
accept an argument (a string or maybe an array of strings) that
specifies strings to toss?? For example, we often may want to
toss empty strings, which show up when delimiters appear next
to each other? Possible alternative might be regsplit()??
---
Reading text from a JTable doesn't capture any editing changes.
Inconvenient and unfriendly - investigate later.
---
Investigate using java.io.File.createTempFile() to implement the
tmpfile() builtin.
---
Looks like some fields (e.g., preferredsize) may be defined in
Module files but not implemented or used. For example, an AWT
Frame defines preferredsize, YoixAWTFrame.java tries to use it,
it's not mentioned in the Frame reference page, and there's a
decent chance it has no affect on Frames, even when set by user
code. Eventually investigate and clean this up.
---
The low level code that implements scanf() may not be completely
thread safe because it uses YoixBodyStream.getChar(), which isn't
synchronized - investigate. This is an old item!!
---
Currently get a FatalError, without any useful information, when
the interpreter encounters EOF in a comment. Seems like we could
do much better. This is an old item!!
---
Java 1.3.1 and later define new modifier flags - check them out
and probably add them to the modifiers defined in yoix.awt and
yoix.swing. Probably also need to look at cookModifiers() code.
Actually think extended modifiers appeared in 1.4.1, which we
don't currently require, so this one will have to wait.
Version 1.1.0a (5/31/03 - external release)
Fixed a simple mistake in our low Java code that prevented
JFrame and JDialog titles from being set.
---
Low level code in YoixInterruptable.java that we designed to
provide interruptible IO was added in release 0.9.4 and has
always used a support thread to handle IO operations, like
SeverSocket.accept() or URLConnection.getInputStream(), that
could cause problems. Part of our cleanup strategy when the
operation completed or was interrupted called Thread.stop()
(which we know is deprecated) when it looked like the support
thread was still running. However the checks that we ran on
some platforms (e.g., Linux using Java 1.4.X) often made us
believe the support thread was still running and needed to
be stopped. The resulting stop() calls in YoixInterruptable,
which were usually unnecessary, could cause slow performance
or hangs. We've changed the YoixInterruptable checks and we
now do a much better job determining when stop() is really
needed, and that has eliminated performance problems that
stop() sometimes caused.
NOTE - this is an important fix if you're running on Linux,
but as far as we know other systems were not affected.
---
We added code to the Yoix installer that tries to make sure
you're using an appropriate version of Java. If things don't
look right the installer displays a Dialog with error info
and download instructions and then quits.
---
The scripts built and installed by the Yoix installer now
use "-jar yoix.jar" instead of setting (and clearing) the
CLASSPATH. In addition they also include -Dyoix.home=...
in the script command lines, so the yoix.home definition
is added to Java's system properties. In other words Yoix
programs started by those scripts can do
yoix.system.getProperty("yoix.home")
whenever they want to find out where the Yoix installer
put things.
NOTE - the quoting that's done for yoix_exec.bat may need
to protect entire paths rather than just protecting the
installation directory. Means the simple quoting approach
that we added to installer.yx on 3/29/03 may have to be
modified.
---
Changed our low level Java code to make sure JLabels always
show up, even when they're asked to display text that's NULL
or the empty string. The best way to make labels disappear,
at least from our point of view, is to hide them by setting
visible to FALSE, rather than by storing NULL or the empty
string in the JLabel.
---
Added TreeSelectionEvent, which means a JTree can define
valueChanged() event handler if if wants to be notified
whenever its selection state changes. Punted on the code
(in YoixMake.java) needed to post a TreeSelectionEvent to
a JTree, at least for now, but we will tackle it in the
near future. Documentation is also missing.
---
Fixed a low level mistake that prevented event handlers,
like keyPressed(), from receiving events when they were
added to swing components, like JTextArea, that also had
internal scrolling support. Also fixed a related mistake
that caused problems if we tried to post an event to a
component, like a JTextArea, that had internal scrolling
support.
---
Added deleteText(), insertText(), and replaceText() to the
AWT and Swing modules. They complement appendText(), which
is a builtin that's been around for a long time. Still need
to document and thoroughly test the new builtins. We also
added optional arguments to appendText() that need to be
documented. Part of adding the builtins involved rewriting
much of the low level Java code that supported appendText().
NOTE - these builtins do not currently (5/29/03) work with
a JTextPane. See the YoixBodyComponentSwing.replaceText()
for more info.
---
Added -S to the options supported by the interpreter. It
can be used to install a security manager at startup that
implements the policies specified by one or more command
line -S options. For example,
yoix -S'prompt:file' ...
prompts with a dialog whenever the Yoix program that you're
running tries to read, write, delete, or execute a local
file, while
yoix -S'prompt:checkRead' ...
prompts you before Java reads any file (note that checkRead
is the name of the SecurityManager function that Java calls
when it needs to get approval before reading a local file).
The only current documentation is the source code in file
YoixSecurityPolicy.java.
---
Moved the Thread type definition from YoixModuleThread.java
to YoixModuleVM.java and installed it in typedict when the
interpreter starts, instead of relying on automatic loading.
Reason is that we could end up in deadlock when we used the
new -S to display a prompt dialog. The exact details of the
deadlock aren't terribly important - it was pretty easy to
reproduce. Happened when low level Java code decided to call
checkAccess() from a GUI thread and our implementation of
that method called YoixMake.yoixThread(t), which trigged a
load of the thread type in typedict.
---
Made a small change to the code that handles KeyEvents in
YoixMake.yoixEvent() and we now store -1 in keychar when
key is pressed or released and it doesn't correspond to a
Unicode character. All previous releases returned 65535,
which corresponds to Java's KeyEvent.CHAR_UNDEFINED, but
the behavior was not documented in Yoix and we did not
define a CHAR_UNDEFINED constant that programs could use.
Very small chance an existing program could be affected,
so make sure we test thoroughly. Done on 3/26/03 and we
didn't run many tests. Alternative solution would be to
add CHAR_UNDEFINED to yoix.awt and yoix.swing, but that
seemed like complete overkill. Revisit and document the
new behavior before our next release!!
---
Several strings in YoixModuleIO.java and YoixModuleVM.java
were defined with $LR__ access, but should have been $RORO.
The constants included ISO8859_1, UTF8, and the N_NAME and
N_MODE fields assigned to stdin, stdout, and stderr. The
mistake has been corrected.
---
Added two builtins name viewToModel() and modelToView()
to JTextArea, JTextField and JTextPane. Both need to be
documented and modelToView() needs testing!!
---
Added YoixSwingHighlighter.java, YoixSwingJTextField.java,
and YoixSwingJTextArea.java. They were added to help with
a custom application, but we think they add capabilities
that may be useful elsewhere. Has not been documented,
at least right now, but eventually will be. Highlights
can currently be accessed using the getHightlights() and
setHighlights() builtins that were added to yoix.swing,
while some of the low level behavior of highlights can
be controlled by setting highlightflags, which is a new
integer field that was added to JTextArea, JTextField,
and JTextPane components. The bottom 8 or 9 bits are
currently used, but right now the only documentation is
the Java code in YoixSwingHighlighter.java.
---
Fields named selectionforeground and selectionbackground
have been added to JTextArea, JTextField, and JTextPane.
Needs to be documented and tested.
---
Added a requestfocusenabled field to all Swing components
that can explicitly (by storing true in requestfocus) or
implicitly (e.g., pressing a button when the pointer is
in the component) request the focus. Setting it to false
means requests for the focus will be ignored. This field
should be viewed as a hint that Java may or may not honor,
however our experience setting requestfocusenabled has
been very good.
---
Added a nextfocus field to all Swing components that can
explicitly request the focus. The value that is stored in
nextfocus is the component that gets the focus after this
one when the focus is changed by the focus traversal keys
(Tab or Crtl-Tab). Needs to be documented and tested.
---
Added a field named insets to JTextArea, JTextField, and
JTextPane. Still needs to be documented.
---
Changed Regexp.bldcclass() so it accepts a dash (i.e., -)
as the first or last character in a character class.
---
Added yoix.system.getModuleVersion() builtin. Not convinced
it should to be documented - really seems like there should
be a more general approach.
---
Looks like there's a bug in ?: operator. The grouping in
the parse tree built by YoixParser.jjt for
0 ? 1 : 2 + 3;
doesn't look like it matches C because the parser currently
requires parens around the expression that follows the colon.
Find a fix, but then think about whether and/or how to put
it in. The change could easily affect existing applications??
Version 1.1.0 (1/23/03 - external release)
Java2D, Swing, and expanded Image support are the main new
additions. Take a look at the Graphics, Path, Matrix, and
Font reference pages (and the pages they reference) and you
will find lots of Java2D examples. Swing component names
all start with J (e.g., JButton, JFrame) and most of the
reference pages include examples. The Image reference page
(and the pages that it references) describe the new Image
processing builtins that were added in this release as well
as being a good source of examples.
---
Frame, Dialog, Window, Panel, Canvas, and Image are drawable
objects, which means each one defines fields named graphics
and paint that can be used to draw on them. The same thing
holds for the JFrame, JDialog, JWindow, JPanel, and JCanvas
objects that were added as part of our Swing support. See
the individual reference pages for more info. The Graphics
reference page (and the pages that it references) is a good
source of examples.
---
Objects that implement paint() now accept a function that can
be called with 0 or 1 argument and complain with a typecheck
error when an invalid function is assigned to paint. Previous
releases assumed paint functions could be called with exactly
one argument and only noticed invalid functions when the call
to paint() was generated.
---
Drawable objects now define a repaint() builtin that tells
the drawable object to completely repaint itself.
---
Added a field named coordinates to MouseEvents. It describes
where the event happened, much like the location field, but
when a MouseEvent arrives at the handler in a drawable object
coordinates will always be a point in the coordinate system
described by the drawable object's graphics.CTM matrix at the
time the event arrives. In other words, coordinates is often
used by event handlers that draw in an object, like a Frame
or a Canvas.
---
InvocationEvent is a new event type that Yoix programs can
send to AWT or Swing components with postEvent(). The event
triggers a call of the component's invocationRun() event
handler, if it's defined. As you might expect, the call is
made from the thread Java is using to dispatch AWT Events.
---
This release supports four Swing events, namely CaretEvent,
ChangeEvent, HyperlinkEvent, and ListSelectionEvent, which
are described in the reference pages. Future releases will
support more Swing events.
---
The postEvent() builtin can be used to send events through
Java's AWT EventQueue to any component that Yoix supports.
There are no restrictions about Swing components or Swing
events, except that you won't be able to send an event to
a component that can't officially handle the event. We also
changed postEvent's behavior slightly and made it return a
non-zero value if the event was put on AWT event queue. In
previous releases postEvent aborted with a badargument error,
but we decided that a return value would be a better way to
handle queuing errors. See the postEvent reference page for
more details.
---
Added the invokeLater() builtin (available in yoix.awt or
yoix.swing) that arranges to call a Yoix function after the
events pending in the Java AWT EventQueue at the time of the
invokeLater() call are processed. The call is made from the
thread that Java is using to dispatch Events.
---
Added the isDispatchThread() builtin (available in yoix.awt
or yoix.swing) that returns non-zero value if the calling
thread is the one used to dispatch AWT events.
---
The hints field that was defined in an Image has disappeared.
Existing applications that were using the Image hints field
may need to be updated.
---
The Image source field can now be a String or another Image.
Setting it to an Image, which wasn't allowed in our previous
releases, means make an immediate copy of the source image
so that both images will be completely independent. Setting
source to NULL (or "") means build a memory resident image
that has a size specified by the Image's size field. This is
a small change from previous releases, which did not build
a memory resident image when source was NULL.
---
The atoh() builtin no longer stops at the first null character,
which means it does a much better job working with the htoa()
builtin. In addition htoa, which still stops at the first null
character, ignores all other characters that don't represent
hex digits. These changes could impact existing applications,
but we think they're appropriate - please complain to us if
you disagree.
---
The appendText() builtin, which works for many AWT and Swing
components that define a field named text, now checks the
read and write access permission assigned to that field. It
also returns the length of the text string that was appended
or -1 if there was an error.
---
Fixed an inconsistency in the low level implementation of the
qsort() builtin so that the sorting when the compare function
is omitted or supplied as yoix.util.compareTo match as long
as no elements are NULL. Unfortunately this is a change that
could affect existing applications.
---
The position of the count and callable arguments described in
the qsort() reference page was incorrect and has been fixed.
---
Modified the low level implementation of the qsort() builtin
in a way that significantly improves performance when lots of
identical objects are encountered in the array that's being
sorted.
---
The colors (more than 700) defined in the rgb.txt file that's
part of the X Window System are now available (lower case only)
in the yoix.xcolor dictionary.
---
Constants BOTTOMLEFT, BOTTOMRIGHT, TOPLEFT, and TOPRIGHT are
now defined in yoix.awt and can be used in place of SOUTHWEST,
SOUTHEAST, NORTHWEST, and NORTHEAST. Identical constants are
defined in yoix.swing and can be used in the same situations
plus a few.
---
The clip entry in a Graphics is now a builtin instead of a
Rectangle. New model follows PostScript, so the clip builtin
creates a new clipping path by intersecting the current path
with the current clipping path. Use initclip first when you
need to enlarge the clipping path. This is an incompatible
change, but we seriously doubt anyone was using the old clip
model.
---
Fixed a mistake in the parser related to casts that caused
simple expressions like,
x = (int)12.3;
to fail. This change seems to fix the most annoying cast
problems, but we still realize there's at least one fairly
obscure cast related problem that we will try to fix next
time. This
x = (int)(12.3 + 4.8);
works, but put parens around the entire right side and the
parser gets confused and generates code for a function call.
We understand what's happening, but don't have a fix that
we're currently satisfied with.
---
Changing an AWT Frame's background or foreground color now
also tries to affect the frame's menubar, if there is one.
This change is implemented by removing and reattaching the
the menubar, which seems to work on some Unix platforms but
unfortunately not on Windows. We may add a system test and
leave the menubar alone on systems, like Windows, where the
background color doesn't change.
---
Added an optional alpha argument to the drawString() builtin
defined in yoix.graphics. We considered adding alpha to other
yoix.graphics builtins, like drawArc() and fillRect(), but
decided against it, at least for now. Partially transparent
shapes can be painted using the fill() and stroke() builtins
that are defined in Graphics objects.
---
The group field in a Checkbox is now active so changing it
should affect all "related" checkboxes. Setting it to null
should also remove the checkbox from the group.
---
Removed the nextcard field from ScrollPane. It could not be
used because the layoutmanager is an internal version that
can't ever be set to CardLayout.
---
Fixed an apparent mistake in YoixAWTTextField.java that only
seemed to cause problems on one platform using a new version
of Java (e.g., 1.4.1 on Linux). The getMinimumSize() method
called super.getPreferredSize() and under some circumstances
that could end up in an infinite loop. Replacing that call
with super.getMinimumSize() fixed the problem.
---
Many entries in typedict were readable and writable in our
last release. We've fixed the mistake by removing all access
(except to the name). We're not trying to hide anything (the
source code is available to anyone), but didn't think Yoix
programs should change typedict entries or make decisions
based on the content of a typedict entry.
---
We spent some time working on the Yoix module related code
and made many methods in YoixObject, YoixVM, YoixMisc, and
YoixMake public so they're available to be used in modules
that don't belong to the att.research.yoix package. We also
removed YoixPublic.java and YoixPublicConstants.java, which
were class files that provided access to some of the methods
that are now public. Module documentation is still missing,
but the comments and code in ExampleModule.java should help
some.
---
Added fields named buttonmask and sticky to TextCanvas and
Canvas objects. buttonmask selects the buttons that trigger
actionPerformed or itemStateChanged event and sticky controls
when state is reset to FALSE after an actionPerformed event
is triggered. Setting sticky to TRUE means the state is not
reset when an actionPerformed event is triggered, which means
it must be done somewhere else (e.g., in event handler) before
another actionPerformed event can be triggered. These fields
may not be documented in reference pages, which means there
is no guarantee they will be around in future releases.
---
The qsort() builtin in this release accepts a dictionary as
the compare argument, but it has not been documented here or
in the reference page, which means there is no guarantee it
will be accepted in future releases.
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