Links from documentation to blog entries

This blog is running for for over 10 years already. We have a ton of articles here and now we link them to our plugin documentation, FileMaker and Xojo.

In the documentation, when you find a function or class, which has been mentioned in an article, the maximum 10 newest articles will be listed for you to jump right into the blog and read it.

Earlier this year we got the links to CURL documentation, DynaPDF documentation and all our example projects into the documentation.

And with a documentation browsing tool like Dash, you would even find the blog entries there.

For dash documentation we added Interfaces and Plugin parts to the index.
Get the dash docset here for FileMaker and here for Xojo.

Cleanup your C code for MacOS and remove FSCreateFileUnicode

This is a blog article to remind everyone writing application in C to no longer use FSCreateFileUnicode function because it is very slow on APFS in our tests.

Speed tests show a 50 times slower result with APFS and FSCreateFileUnicode function:

Time needed for NSData writeToURL: 0.350506
Time needed for fopen & fwrite: 0.218125
Time needed for FSCreateFileUnicode: 11.721211

each for 1000 files to be created & written in a Xcode project.

For creating the file (not opening and writing!), you get a 11 second wait for 1000 files. Using fopen, the standard C library, you get a much better performance.

For Xojo, it looks like they use FSCreateFileUnicode for TextOutputStream and BinaryStream classes. We got one project run in 5 minutes instead of 2h by just changing the code to write output files. This tool writes something like 100000 files in a run and heavily benefits from any optimization. Reported as feedback case 54276.

By the way our LargeBinaryStreamMBS class in MBS Xojo Util Plugin still uses the old APIs, too. We need it mainly to read/write resource forks on Mac, but as that is going away, it may be good to deprecate that in favor of an optimized BinaryStream from Xojo in a future release?

The problem seems in Apple's implementation to emulate older and deprecated FSCreateFileUnicode with the newer Apple File System. For years they told us to move away from FSRef and really it is time to move. I also reported this to Apple (case 46302303) to let them know that it's slow than they can help to keep old applications performance well by improving it.

MonkeyBread Software Releases the MBS Xojo Plugins in version 18.5

Nickenich, Germany - (November 27th, 2018) -- MonkeyBread Software today is pleased to announce MBS Xojo Plugins 18.5 for macOS, Linux and Windows, the latest update to their product that is easily the most powerful plugin collection currently available for Xojo. MBS Xojo Plugins 18.5 have been updated and now includes over 2500 classes and 63000 documented features, and the versatile plugins have gained more new functions:

This version provides new classes for SmartCards. The new CryptoTokenKit plugin part wraps the framework from Apple to handle smart cards on Mac OS for 64-bit applications. New functions for APDU protocol allow you to read data from various smart cards. This includes reading Swiss health insurance cards, Belgian identity cards and many more. The same functions got added to SmartCardMBS class to do the same cross platform for Mac and Windows with the PCSC libraries.

The ChartDirectory library got updated to version 6.3 with resource loading from memory as well as a lot of bug fixes. We improved our Xojo plugin to better handle HiDPI and return pictures with proper resolution setting.

For MacOS we have new NSTextFinderMBS class and related classes to show search panel. This works for NSTextViewMBS based controls and standard Xojo textarea controls. In both you can show the user search and replace controls like in TextEdit application.

As we now build the plugins with Xcode 10.1 for 64-bit and Xcode 9.4 for 32-bit, we moved the minimum MacOS version required up to MacOS 10.9.

For Windows, we got a few enhancements: New date properties help you in the WindowsFileInfoMBS class. For HTMLViewer control, you can now end browser session with IEClearBrowserSessionMBS and clear session cookies. MAPI Email sending got improved to work better.

The new SGLockMBS module allows you to use dongles from SG Intec. The new KeychainAccessControlMBS class helps with TouchID on MacOS, InstallNSAccessibilityPatchMBS fixes a crash with NSAccessibility and menu classes in Xojo, we got a new CURLSURLMBS class for URL parsing and CIFilter classes updated for MacOS 10.14 Mojave.

Finally we updated CURL to version 7.62.0, DynaPDF to version 4.0.25.63, OpenSSL to version 1.1.1 for all targets, SQLite to version 3.25.2, SQLAPI library to version 4.2.4 beta 2, LibXL 3.8.3, and zlib to version 1.2.11.

See release notes for a complete list of changes.

Passing an UUID to each app download

There is a lovely trick in GateKeeper and code signing on Mac to pass through an identifier with the download of an application from your website. So for each download, you can associate an UUID with the download, which the app can read after unpacking. You know the UUID on the website, so you can put it in a database and link it to the account of the current user. This way when the app runs within minutes after download, you can link the application to the account without having the user login in the application. You may have seen that with a couple of apps you downloaded before for meetings.

The extended attribute with the UUID is named com.apple.application-instance and put into the application. You read it in Xojo with our ExtendedAttributesMBS.GetRawAttribute plugin function. When you sign the app, you zip the app to an archive. Next you add an "._name.app" file to the archive with the name of your app containing the encoded metadata with extended attributes. We got such a file with zipping an application with the extended attribute using ditto command line tool. Than we extracted the metadata file from the archive without applying it. Than we add this file now with the application zip without compression, so one dummy UUID is there without compressing. On the website, you would have a php script to replace the given UUID in the zip archive with whatever UUID you need for the user.

In short the idea is to have the zip on the server. When someone loads it, you switch the UUID to the new one. Than you let the user download, run the app within minutes and auto login them for their account. A seamless experience for the user!

And the great thing: Changing the UUID in com.apple.application-instance extended attribute will not break the code signing as you can read in TN2206.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.5pr9

New in this prerelease of the 18.5 plugins:
  • Fixed bug with SQLAPI on finding the MySQL libraries.
  • Fixed problem with ? not encoded for email subject line.
Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

Xojo Black Friday Offers

After Thanks Giving in the USA a lot of companies do give some discounts. So currently you can benefit from this Xojo related offers:
  • Save 20% on Xojo licenses in Xojo Store
  • Save 20% on XDC tickets ($799 instead if $999)
  • Save 20% on XDC Videos
  • Save 20% on all third party items in Xojo Store.
  • Save 20% on all MBS Plugins on our website
  • Save 20% on all Xojo Developer Magazine subscriptions and back issues with coupon CYBERMONDAY.
  • Save 20% on all digital books, articles, tutorials at XDevLibrary with coupon CYBERMONDAY.
  • Save 30% on all products from aprendexojo.com with coupon code BF2019.
  • Save 27% on StackView and CSTrueColors from Ulrich Bogun. See forum
  • Save $50 on piDogScrollingCanvas at pidog.com
All savings should be available from Friday to Monday.

We encourage every Xojo developer to add another year to their license, even if it expires in the future.

Survey about European MBS Xojo Conferences 2019

We are checking options for another Xojo related conference in 2019.

Again we look for a place in Germany, but this time we consider whether we go to Cologne instead of Koblenz. Cologne could be a city where people may go for additional days for some sight seeing and entertainment. Cologne will definitive be more expensive than Koblenz, and maybe same as Munich. But if we go there, we need to make that decision soon to reserve the space in advance to get good rates.

Date could be somewhere in October 2019 as spring is taken by Xojo Inc. for their Xojo Developer Conference in May 2019.

If you have time, please fill this survey with just 10 questions. Please leave name/email for further questions. For additional comments, please email us or comment here. Please don't do the survey twice. Thanks.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.5pr8

New in this prerelease of the 18.5 plugins: Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

Xojo Black Friday Sale!

Xojo Inc. runs a sale for Black Friday with 20% off:

The biggest sale of the year for developers!
Everything Xojo is 20% off for one weekend only! That means new licenses, renewals and upgrades are all 20% off this Friday, November 23rd through Monday, November 26th. Also, all 3rd party products and Xojo Developer Conference videos are 20% off! No coupon required.

Save on new licenses, renewals and upgrades.
Xojo licenses are available in the following options:

  • Xojo Pro - Get one license for Desktop, Web, iOS, Raspberry Pi and Android (in development - read an update), plus many extras like priority support and beta access. Also, your Xojo Pro license will work on up to 3 of your own machines.
  • Xojo Desktop - Develop and build apps for macOS, Windows and Linux.
  • Xojo Web - Build web apps that can run on Linux, Windows or macOS servers and support Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.
  • Xojo iOS - Create native iPad and iPhone apps.
  • Xojo Raspberry Pi Desktop - Build Linux/Pi-native desktop apps you can distribute to others.
Interested in upgrading to Xojo Pro?
You can check your upgrade price here and come back during the sale to save an additional 20%. Upgrades from Xojo Lite to full Desktop are available by contacting Customer service at hello@xojo.com.

Tell Your Friends
Help spread the word about Xojo - tell your friends about this sweet deal to get them started with Xojo. Xojo comes with a 90-day money back guarantee.

XDC 2019 Special Offer
We have already reached the end of our early bird pricing, but we will still offer the special $799 discounted price during this sale! Save $200 though Cyber Monday.

Auto Renew
If your license is set to auto-renew during the sale, you don't need to do anything. Your auto-renewal will automatically process with the Black Friday discount.

*Xojo Cloud is not included in the sale.

If you prefer buying directly from us, please use coupon code ... in the webshop to get the same 20% discount. If your license is up to date, you can still buy an update to add a year of maintenance.

Windows on ARM in 64-bit

With Visual Studio 15.9, Microsoft now supports ARM64 processor architecture as target for Windows software. So Windows now runs currently on 4 architectures: x86 for Intel 32-bit, x64 for Intel 64-bit, ARM in 32-bit and 64-bit. In history Windows NT also run on IA-64, MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, PC-98 before, so they keep it quite cross platform viable.

Now the big question is whether Xojo Inc. and/or FileMaker Inc. will support the new architecture anytime soon. But if they would, we would of course try to build the plugins for the new platform.

See blog entry from Microsoft.

MBS Xojo Training

Looking back this year we had two group trainings this year for Xojo and seven individual trainings. Alone this November I visited two companies to train them on Xojo. At the MBS Xojo Conference in Munich, Ulrich Bogun did the beginner training, so I could concentrate on the advanced training. If you are looking for training here in Germany, you could ask Ulrich or me for help. Others developers may be available if you ask on the Xojo forum.

Looking on topics, there may be different cases:
  • Getting started in Xojo, starting with a walk though the IDE and building an example application live in front of audience.
  • Kickstart a project by building a prototype together with me. We setup the basics, do a little part so your developer learns how to do it and than adds more similar pages or windows.
  • We debug your application to try to fix a list of bugs.
  • Reviewing your project for possible problems and security holes and make sure you have less problems in future.
  • Learn from the experts advanced features like declares, delegates or interfaces.
  • Learn what we have available in the plugin toolbox to help your applications.
  • Kick start your project by implementing a new feature based on a plugin where you like to have help from the guy who wrote the plugin.
  • Connect a new device (e.g. USB) to your application by creating the interface via plugin.
  • We may even work on a plugin of your company or in a project add a new function to MBS plugins to help you.
  • Assist a new employee and help them developing in Xojo.
To give a few samples, a company flew me in to review the project for two years to fix possible issues before it went public. Another company invited me and we spoke a whole day about what our plugins can do and they took a lot of notes. Second day we implemented a few of the most wanted features directly into their solution. A few clients came to our office and we started a new web app together and put a first version on the server the very same day. Some projects turned out into bigger consulting projects as I wrote the app for them instead of just training. Other clients turned into regularly booking training and providing a todo list of each meeting, so I come for a visit every few months and we work on a todo list of problems they couldn't solve themselves.

Training is available as one to one or group training. It can be organized in your company, in our office or in some hotel. While I may work via phone & screen sharing for some things, I may often need to connect to a database or physical device, so physical presence is sometimes easier than getting a hole in the firewall.

If you are interested in any of this, please get in touch.

SetApp for Xojo Apps

In the last week we made a new Xojo plugin for a client. The plugin allows the integration with the SetApp service. As you may know SetApp allows you to subscribe for $9.99 to a pool of various Mac apps. The money is split each month to the developers based on what percentage of users have the app installed and in use.

When you offer a Mac application though SetApp, you receive your own custom library to link into your app (or a plugin). The library offers functions to report usage, ask user for email and present login or release notes. As the library is different for each vendor, we just build a new plugin for each of them.

If you like to try SetApp as Xojo developer, please visit their developer website.

Machine ID

As you may know we offer MachineID function in our SystemInformationMBS module. That ID is a MD5 of some values of the computer like the Mac serial number, Mac model, CPU Brand string and hard disk serial. But that is not very stable as some people may have seen values change. Especially hard disk serial may sometimes be available and other times not.

So we got a better way as a Xojo project. Our new Machine ID example project uses a SQLite database for preferences and to keep a list of configurations. We use the following 10 values for a configuration: MACAddress, MacModel, HardDiscSerial, MacUUID, WinProductKey, ComputerName, CPUBrandString, Platform, PhysicalRAM and ProcessorCount.

The CheckMachineID method checks if the current values for all of them matches an existing configuration. If yes, we have a perfect match. Otherwise if 9 of 10 values match, we add the new configuration to the database. This way we learn all the configuration and user can change RAM or swap hard disk without breaking the licensing. Only if 2 or more values changed, we would ask for license key or activation via web and than store the new configuration.

Download: MachineID.zip
The example will be included in next plugin prerelease. You may want to fine tune this to your needs.

Please provide back feedback and we can update our example.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.5pr7

New in this prerelease of the 18.5 plugins:
  • Added IEClearBrowserSessionMBS global method.
  • Changed how timeout is passed to LDAPMBS.Search function.
  • Updated SQLAPI library to version 4.2.4 beta 1.
  • Changed CDDataSetMBS.setDataSymbol, CDThreeDScatterGroupMBS.setDataSymbol and CDPolarLayerMBS.setDataSymbol to retain the CDDrawAreaMBS object to keep it alive.
  • Changed DecompressZLibMBS to auto detect the size of output data.
  • Bugfixes in ChartDirector 6.3:
    • In contour and surface charts, the color axis is not drawn correctly if smooth coloring is and the number of ticks on the color axis are significantly less than the number color stops. For example, there are only 2 ticks, the color axis will draw itself by using a smooth gradient to vary colors between the two ticks, ignoring the other color stops in between.
    • In contour and surface charts, if the color axis is of logarithmic scale, and smooth coloring is used, the colors are still interpolated using linear scale. As a result, the coloring may look good.
    • For the color axis, if auto-scaling is used, the setColorScale always results in linear scale, even if setLogScale has already been called for the color axis.
    • Vector layer crashes if setArrowHead(0) is called.
    • In a vector layer, the setLineWidth has no effect if setArrowStem is used.
    • In a vector layer, the stem is visible even if the line width is 0.
    • In a vector chart, the legend icon disappear if the head size is 0 (that is, the vector chart shows stems).
    • In a vector chart, the image map is not natural if the stem width is thicker than the arrow head.
    • FinanceChart can produce too many x-axis labels in some cases.
    • ChartDirector can crash if the SurfaceChart has no data
    • DrawArea.setOutputOptions has no effect for SVG.
    • ArrowShape does not work in CDML <*IMG*>.
Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

Xojo Script Warning Enumeration

One of our apps uses XojoScript to compile and run scripts on the fly. We log warnings and errors. There is a list of all warnings in Xojo documentation. Today I had to figure out which warning is a specific number, so I started building a table. Here it is:
XojoScript EnumerationDescriptionValue
ConversionPrecisionConverting from %OriginalType to %NewType causes a possible loss of precision, which can lead to unexpected results.5
ConversionSignConverting from %OriginalType to %NewType causes the sign information to be lost, which can lead to unexpected results.6
CustomA custom warning displayed with Pragma Warning.8
Deprecated%Name is deprecated.1
DeprecatedWithReplacement%Name is deprecated.  You should use %Replacement instead.2
FloatingPointComparisonPerforming a %Operator comparison on floating-point values can yield unexpected results due to their inexact binary representation.7
NameLookupChangeBefore 2014r3, this would have referred to the %OldPath but now it refers to the %NewPath.14
OldStyleConstructorOld-style constructor methods are no longer supported.  You should use "Constructor" instead.3
ShadowedConstantThis constant shadows one already defined by %Superclass.13
ShadowedPropertyThis property shadows one already defined by %Superclass.12
UnknownPragmaWarningUnknown pragma name.4
UnusedEventParameter%Name is an unused event parameter.11
UnusedLocal%Name is an unused local variable.9
UnusedMethodParameter%Name is an unused method parameter.10

Welcome Stefanie

Monkeybread Software proudly presents our new junior software developer Stefanie Juchmes. Last month Stefanie finished here Bachelor of Science in Informatics. And she accepted our employment contract, so 1st January she will start at Monkeybread Software.

We are looking forward to a lot of new content from here including tutorials, examples, videos and presentations related to our plugins. And as she knows some C++, we may even involve here in some plugin programming. But first, I've given her my library of books about FileMaker and Xojo to read.

You may have seen Stefanie at a few conferences this year and we may bring here to a few more conferences in 2019 so she can meet our clients.

Bugs fixed in ChartDirector 6.3

With MBS Xojo Plugins 18.5 we include the new ChartDirector 6.3 version for all platforms. The main new feature are embedded resources:

ChartDirector can use images for the chart background, pattern colors, scatter symbols, CDML icons, … In previous versions of ChartDirector, these images have to be provided using file system paths. ChartDirector 6.3 allows these images to be embedded in executables as resources, and uses "resource paths" to access them. This eliminates the need to redistribute image files with the executable. Apart from images, font files can also be embedded as resources.

Beside the new resources functions, it also includes the following bug fixes:
  • In contour and surface charts, the color axis is not drawn correctly if smooth coloring is and the number of ticks on the color axis are significantly less than the number color stops. For example, there are only 2 ticks, the color axis will draw itself by using a smooth gradient to vary colors between the two ticks, ignoring the other color stops in between.
  • In contour and surface charts, if the color axis is of logarithmic scale, and smooth coloring is used, the colors are still interpolated using linear scale. As a result, the coloring may look good.
  • For the color axis, if auto-scaling is used, the setColorScale always results in linear scale, even if setLogScale has already been called for the color axis.
  • Vector layer crashes if setArrowHead(0) is called.
  • In a vector layer, the setLineWidth has no effect if setArrowStem is used.
  • In a vector layer, the stem is visible even if the line width is 0.
  • In a vector chart, the legend icon disappear if the head size is 0 (that is, the vector chart shows stems).
  • In a vector chart, the image map is not natural if the stem width is thicker than the arrow head.
  • FinanceChart can produce too many x-axis labels in some cases.
  • ChartDirector can crash if the SurfaceChart has no data
  • DrawArea.setOutputOptions has no effect for SVG.
  • ArrowShape does not work in CDML <*IMG*>.
The new version can be tested now with 18.5pr6 or newer.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.5pr6

New in this prerelease of the 18.4 plugins: Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

Fix for missing accessibilityIsAttributeSettable function

For one of our Xojo app, we got crash reports for missing accessibilityIsAttributeSettable function in various classes:

-[NSMenuItem accessibilityIsAttributeSettable:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x600001ffea00
Please report to the application developer.

0 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3cc54fa5 __exceptionPreprocess + 256
1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff68d4befb objc_exception_throw + 48
2 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3ccd2c8d -[NSObject(NSObject) __retain_OA] + 0
3 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3cbf65de ___forwarding___ + 1468
4 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3cbf5f98 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 120
5 AppKit 0x00007fff3a7aea33 NSAccessibilityPerformEntryPointBOOL.llvm.11937614488442194757 + 16
6 AppKit 0x00007fff3a545d63 NSAccessibilityEntryPointIsAttributeSettable + 86
7 AppKit 0x00007fff3a61a460 -[NSCarbonMenuImpl _carbonIsAccessibleAttributeSettableEvent:handlerCallRef:axElement:] + 185
8 AppKit 0x00007fff3a409778 NSSLMMenuEventHandler + 1009
9 HIToolbox 0x00007fff3be26b79 _ZL23DispatchEventToHandlersP14EventTargetRecP14OpaqueEventRefP14HandlerCallRec + 1502

The name of the class and functions related in the stack trace changes, but the problem is always the same. Same function in Apples framework wants to call deprecated accessibilityIsAttributeSettable function, but that one is no longer implemented in Apple's own classes. It's a code path which doesn't happen for all users, so only a few get the crash and maybe this is related to some accessibility setting.

Anyway, via a new InstallNSAccessibilityPatchMBS function in our plugin, we'll patch it and install a accessibilityIsAttributeSettable function to just return false every time. If the class has such a method, the class method is preferred, but we install a fallback to avoid the crash.

So when you see such a crash, you can soon try our MBS Xojo Plugins in version 18.5 and call InstallNSAccessibilityPatchMBS method on start of the application.

Write formatted text with DynaPDF

As you may know you can use MBS Plugins with Xojo and FileMaker to write PDFs with DynaPDF functions. The WriteFText functions accept formatting commands in the text, so you can create various formats. We got a few examples in the following Xojo source code:
  • Change text rise and size to get footnote references
  • Change font to get e.g. a bold font
  • Change color
  • Create lists with hierarchies, numbered entries or multiline entries.
Check the sample code here:

// set font call pdf.SetFont "Helvetica", 0, 12.0, true, pdf.kcpUnicode dim y as Double = 50 // change font size and raise for foot note references text = "\FS[12]Hello World\FS[6]\TR[6]123\TR[0]\FS[12] Just a test." call pdf.WriteFTextEx(50, y, 200, -1, pdf.ktaLeft, text) y = y + 20 // change font to get bold text = "\FT[Helvetica]Hello \FT[Helvetica-Bold]World \FT[Helvetica]everyone." call pdf.WriteFTextEx(50, y, 200, -1, pdf.ktaLeft, text) y = y + 20 // change color in the text text = _   "\FC[" + str(DynaPDFMBS.RGB(255, 0, 0)) + "]Red "+_   "\FC[" + str(DynaPDFMBS.RGB(0, 255, 0)) + "]Green "+_   "\FC[" + str(DynaPDFMBS.RGB(0, 0, 255)) + "]Blue "+_   "\FC[" + str(DynaPDFMBS.RGB(0, 0, 0)) + "]Black " call pdf.WriteFTextEx(50, y, 200, -1, pdf.ktaLeft, text) y = y + 20 // make list text = _   "\LI[0]First"+EndOfLine+"with two lines\EL#"+_   "\LI[0]Second\EL# "+_   "\LI[0]Third\EL#" call pdf.WriteFTextEx(50, y, 200, -1, pdf.ktaLeft, text)
The same formatting texts can be used in FileMaker, Xojo and any other development tool supported by DynaPDF like C++, VB, PHP and Delphi.

ChartDirector 6.3 Released

We got the announcement of an update to ChartDirector:

Advanced Software Engineering is pleased to announce the immediate availability of ChartDirector 6.3.

ChartDirector 6.3 adds support for embedded resources in executables. As embedded resources are mostly used in desktop GUI applications (as opposed to web or command line scripts), so ChartDirector 6.3 is only released for C++ and .NET (C#, VB).

ChartDirector can use images for the chart background, pattern colors, scatter symbols, CDML icons, … In previous versions of ChartDirector, these images have to be provided using file system paths. ChartDirector 6.3 allows these images to be embedded in executables as resources, and uses "resource paths" to access them. This eliminates the need to redistribute image files with the executable.

Apart from images, font files can also be embedded as resources.

More details can be found in the ChartDirector 6.3 Release Notes.

We'll update our MBS Xojo ChartDirector Plugin soon, when we get the libraries and header files.

IconFamilyMBS class deprecated

In our Xojo plugins we have the IconMBS and IconFamilyMBS classes. They use Apples frameworks with icon functions, but those are not well maintained the last few MacOS releases and we see more and more issues. Probably as a lot of functions are based on the deprecated QuickDraw framework. So we deprecate IconFamilyMBS class for the next prerelease plugin.

So please change code and move to newer functions. For example instead of IconFamilyMBS class to get an icon in various sizes, you can use NSWorkSpaceMBS class methods. IconForFile functions returns the icon for a file and than you can use NSImageMBS class to scale down. With the following code you can quite easily get a 2x picture for a FolderItem:

const SizeWanted = 256
dim file as FolderItem = SpecialFolder.Desktop.Child("test.rtf")

dim n as NSImageMBS = NSWorkspaceMBS.iconForFile(file)
// set size we want
n.setSize SizeWanted*2, SizeWanted*2

// make picture
dim p as Picture = n.CopyPictureWithMask

// make 2x picture here:
dim q as new Picture(SizeWanted, SizeWanted, array(p))

If you need an icon for a file type, you can use the IconForFileType function. If you need to add an icon to a file, please use SetIcon method in NSWorkSpaceMBS class.

The folderItem.IconMBS function is still working well and was upgraded in MBS Xojo Plugins in version 14.2 to use NSWorkspace methods to get the icon.

By the way, NSWorkspace's icon functions internally use the same functions as our IconMBS class, which is not deprecated!

Xojo Stammtisch in Zürich, Schweiz

On my next visit to Zurich, I'd love to make another Xojo developer meeting:

Wer hat Interesse an einem Xojo Entwicklertreffen am 21. November in Zürich?



Einfach gemütlich zusammen sitzen und über Xojo schnacken.
Gerne zeige ich auch neue Pluginfunktionen oder helfe bei Problemen mit Xojo Projekten. Einfach Computer mitbringen und was zeigen.

Bei Interesse bitte anmelden: Anmeldung

Wer Interesse hat an einem Termin mit mir für Softwareentwicklung, Schulungen, Entwicklungshilfe, Plugin Empfehlungen, assistierte Fehlersuche, Code-Review und IT-Beratung, der darf sich gerne melden für eine baldige Terminfindung.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.5pr5

New in this prerelease of the 18.4 plugins: Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

xDev 16.6 Issue

The November/December (16.6) issue of xDev Magazine is now available. Here's a quick preview of what's inside:

Munich 2018 by Marc Zeedar
The MBS Xojo Conference in Germany gets bigger every year. This fall it was held in Munich and Marc went so you could stay home and read all about it.

Upgrading Xojo by Jim Meyer
No doubt you have a few older Xojo projects you haven't upgraded to the current version. How much trouble will it be to get them working in the latest IDE? Will it be worth it? Jim shares his experience.

Road Work by Marc Zeedar
These days, programmers can work almost anywhere there's Internet. Marc spent a few weeks in France testing the theory and has tips for working on the road.

Building a Controller by JC Cruz
Jose shows how to build a data-entry controller.

PLUS: Clipboards, database rules, database transactions, Xojo 2018r3, and more!
The biggest plugin in space...

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