You may have read about
The failure of Digital River's MyCommerce platform.
The saga continues. As of today we still wait for over 100.000 Euro from them. But they fired everyone in Germany and the company is just a letter box on an office building. Mail seems to be scanned in and send to some company using AI to write their answers. Only empty promises and no real answers or accountability.
In the last days a few customers contacted us to get invoices for their purchase. At the time of order, they got one by email. But that email may have been lost in the spam folder earlier this year.
If you need an invoice, you can contact ordersupport@mycommerce.com with your order number, purchase date and name, so they can find it and send the invoice again. If and only if, someone still works there, reads the emails and actual is willing to help you. We don't have a copy of the invoices, so we can't help you. You can look into your backups for one of the order date and look if you find something in the spam folder. If you can't find the invoice, you can print the email about the order.
As of 28th January 2025, it looks like the company filed for bankruptcy. Since all the money is probably moved out of the company already and it loaded with debt, the administrator won't have much fun there. And once the computer systems get shutdown, the invoices may get lost anyway.
Well, if you like to support us, please consider ordering a license. New sales go through FastSpring or 2checkout unless you pay us directly. Thank you for your support.
In this article I want to introduce you the new functionalities from the MBS Xojo Plugins in version 25.0.
Saxon
A completely new area that we plan to further expand in the next releases is the connection to the Saxon library. Saxon is a widely used and high-performance software library that specializes in the processing and transformation of XML and XSLT data. It enables developers to manipulate data efficiently and convert it into the desired formats. We would now like to make these functionalities from the library available to you in Xojo. We have already included some functionalities in this release, but there will certainly be more to come in the near future. To find out what the MBS Xojo XML Plugin can already do, please have a look at the blog article Saxon in MBS Xojo XML Plugin
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In Xcode we enjoy some automatic analyzer features to find memory leaks for CoreFoundation and Cocoa object. I used them in the past to find leaks related to various objects in the code. In the last months, I got to use these for our Xojo objects and strings.
I defined my own function annotations to inform the compiler whether the function returns a REALobject or REALstring with +1 reference count or +0 reference count.
To give you an idea how many annotations I needed, here are the numbers:
| REALOBJECT_RETURNS_RETAINED | 13012 |
| REALOBJECT_RETURNS_NOT_RETAINED | 17 |
| REALSTRING_RETURNS_RETAINED | 2814 |
| REALSTRING_RETURNS_NOT_RETAINED | 7 |
Once the annotations work, we use analyze command in Xcode to find issues. I setup an example for you:
The functions NewDictionary, REALNewVariantString, REALNewVariantInteger, CString2RB and many others are annotated to return a retained object. Xcode can report that we allocated a dictionary, a string and objects in the method. And since we don't free them, it can complain.
Adding this took months and on the way, I found a couple of memory leaks. Mostly in edge cases where memory was not released property on case of an exception or with a lot of nested branches.
In future we will enjoy this and I hope it helps us ship less memory leaks.
Nickenich, Germany - (January 14th, 2025) -- Monkeybread Software today is pleased to announce MBS Xojo Plugins 25.0 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 have been updated and now includes over 3000 classes and 82,000 documented features, and the versatile plugins have gained more new functions:
For macOS Sequoia we like to use more of Apple Intelligence. As part of that you can now show the image playground window to have the user generate a picture based on a prompt and an input image using ImagePlaygroundMBS class.
If you like to add writing tools features to your application, you can set allowsWritingTools to true for your text fields using NSTextFieldMBS class. You can show the writing tool item in the toolbar and you can exclude text to be rewritten by writing tools using the NSWritingToolsExclusionAttributeName in NSAttributedStringMBS class. To show the writing tools panel when needed, you can use showWritingTools method on NSTextViewMBS class.
We work on integrating the Saxon XML processing libraries into Xojo. Once completed this will allow you to use XSLT 3.0 for transformations, XQuery 3.1 for queries, XSD 1.1 for document validation and XPath 3.1 for navigation within documents. This version includes a preview of the classes for you to try.
In XL Plugin we added ways to get and set properties for a document like title or subject with the XLCorePropertiesMBS class. You can also remove the properties and query the default format for a row or column.
For DynaPDF we got the CheckEmbeddedFileCheckSum function to validate whether a checksum for an embedded file inside a PDF is valid. The ConvToFreeTextCallout allows you to convert a regular FreeText annotation to a FreeTextCallout annotation. And with DeleteOutputIntent you can delete an output intent, e.g. if you like to define a different colorspace as output intent.
We updated the Phidgets library and added PhidgetMotorVelocityControllerMBS class as well as numerous properties, constants and methods to our phidget classes.
For iOS we added MPNowPlayingInfoCenterMBS and MPMediaItemArtworkMBS classes, so your iOS app can update the now playing screen. The AVPlayerViewControllerMBS class provides you the possibility to easily play videos fullscreen.
Our Bluetooth classes for Windows got a new WindowsDeviceInformationCustomPairingMBS class to start a custom pairing of BluetoothLE devices. We improved the stack trace logging and exception handling for Windows in SignalHandlerMBS class.
For the WebView2ControlMBS control on Windows we added the BasicAuthenticationRequested event, so you can pass username and password to websites for basic authentication.
You can use Shell class and merge error and output streams, the TagLibFileRefMBS class got a ID3v2Tags method, and UTTypeMBS module got constants for JPEG XL, HEIF and HEIC.
Finally we updated the curl library to version 8.11.1, DynaPDF to 4.0.96.273, expat to 2.6.4, LibXL to 4.5.0, mongo-c-driver to 1.29.1, SQLAPI to 5.3.5, SQLite to 3.47.2, ssh2 to 1.11.1, taglib to 2.0.2, zlib to 1.3.1 and zxing to 2.3.
See release notes for a complete list of changes.
For MBS Xojo Plugins 25.0, we add a way to better use our NSMenuMBS and NSMenuItemMBS class with Xojo MenuItems class.
The NSMenuPopupEventsMBS class allows you to intercept a menu before the system shows it. These events are available:
For a popup menu, the popUpMenuAtPosition method fires first. Then for any context or popup menu, you may see a willOpenMenu event just before the menu shows. Later you get a didCloseMenu event for the menu closing.
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Every January people make a new year resolution and let's think about a few we can suggest to you:
Visit old friends
Make a list of distant relatives and friends you didn't meet in person in 2024. Try to meet them in 2025 and see next Sylvester who you missed. For some of our relatives or old friends in their 70s or 80s, you never know if you have another chance if you don't do a visit this year.
Meet colleagues
Visit a conference in your profession. You regularly interact with various other co-workers over forums, remote meetings and emails.
If you have multiple conferences available to join, pick one where you like the place and you may enjoy a few days of vacation on the same trip.
Delay purchases
Beside maybe your groceries, please consider a wait time for a purchase. Don't instantly buy stuff. Wait a night to see if you really want the item the next day. Take a bit time to tell friends or parents that you think about purchasing something. I was surprised how often parents (in-law) just tell me that they have the item and would love to pass it to me.
For a lot of videos I see online presenting me a product, waiting a day to order can save a lot of money. The next day the excitement is far down or I forgot it already.
Loose weights
Changing habits is difficult, but almost everyone would like to loose some weight.
How about trying to avoid drinking sugar? Order sparkling water in the restaurant. Great if you dine with family. By ordering a bottle of sparking water first, some people in the family may decide to not order a drink and just join using the bottle. And even if someone orders a coke, they may just later join the bottle instead of a second drink. Of course the weight loss can only happen if you don't compensate the saved calories on the drink with some extras like a desert.
More active
Whenever you need to get somewhere, consider walking or take a bike. Try to enjoy the walk to the mailbox or post office to send a letter as time to be active and maybe listen to some podcast on the walk. Try to walk more, take the steps instead of the lift and avoid taking a car for short distances.
Don't waste your money on a gym to do sports. Try to do it everyday as a regular habit.
Your waist will be thankful.
Have a great new year!
In this article I want to introduce you the new functionalities from the MBS Xojo Plugins in version 24.5.
DynaPDF
In this release, DynaPDF once again brings us a number of new features. On the one hand, we have new parser functionality with which we can remove all or individual images from a page of a document. We can also use DynaPDFParserMBS.ListImages to get a list of all images on a page.
Then we have a few new Get methods in the DynaPDFMBS class with which we can query settings. With GetAnnotColor we retrieves the color of an annotation. The function GetAnnotTextAlign returns us the text alignment of an annotation. Last but not least, GetTextBBox calculates the exact bounding box of a text string.
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The January/February (23.1) issue of
xDev Magazine is now available. Here's a quick preview of what's inside:
When It Rains, It Pours by Marc Zeedar
Wondering why this issue was a week late? In November, Marc suffered a retinal detachment in his right eye that required emergency surgery and no computer use for two weeks. Then, just as things were getting better, he broke two ribs!
AI on Pi by Eugene Dakin
How would you like to make your own AI server that runs on a Raspberry Pi? Eugene shows how to set one up using free tools so you can use AI privately on your own equipment. You don't even need internet access!
Image Batcher by Marc Zeedar
With Xojo adding preemptive threads, Marc was prompted to create a program that uses XojoScripts to batch process images. In this early version, you can crop and resize, or add a frame, watermark, and a drop shadow on a batch of dropped images.
Alternative & Supplemental Income by Tim Dietrich
In this issue's "The Business of Xojo" series, Tim explores supplementing your income. He offers tips and suggestions on how to make extra money on the side, using your Xojo skills. Who couldn't use more money?
Plus: An interview with Anthony Cyphers, the genius behind GraffitiSuite; the internals of Xojo; how to add information to an Apple Contact; and how to use ffmpeg to extract frames from videos, and more!
New in this prerelease of the 25.0 plugins:
- Fixed an issue with WebView2ControlMBS control not initializing sometimes.
- Fixed crash with DynaPDFImageMBS destructor.
- Fixed an issue in MemoryBlock.AppendMBS copying wrong data if one of the MemoryBlock has no size set.
- Added more methods to Saxon classes.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
This year in April our company will turn 25 years old.
We'll plan to have a big party here in Germany near our office with over 100 guests.
Invitations went out in several batches. Sadly the web form malfunctioned the last weeks and we may not have all registrations. So we will email everyone who not yet confirmed and ask them again.
If you like to join and you miss an invitation, you can contact us and ask whether your invitation got lost.
As people confirm they are coming, we'll add them to the guest list. If we run out of space, we may put people on the wait list.
If you can't make it, please respond soon, so we don't need to contact you again later.
The hotel has some rooms left and would like to know if someone likes to reserve a room for the night before or after. Otherwise the room allocation expires 25th January.
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You can use the Saxon library in your projects with MBS Plugin to work on XML:
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XSLT 3.0 for transformations
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XQuery 3.1 for queries
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XSD 1.1 for document validation
-
XPath 3.1 for navigation within documents
You can get a Pro or Enterprise Validation license from us.
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New in this prerelease of the 25.0 plugins:
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
Before you install our plugin new or as an update, please make a backup of your databases. Best is to have an automated hourly backup to make sure you have a copy of all the databases, external files and the current software, so in case something breaks, you could go back.
You should have:
- Real Time backups.
An application like Backblaze watches for new files and uploads them directly. This allows you to have it keep multiple versions and provide a history.
- Hourly backups
e.g. Time Machine on a Mac or the built-in backup for FileMaker Server can do an hourly backups to a folder.
- Daily backups
to another computer. In general you should have at least 3 backups in 2 different locations.
- Monthly backups
e.g. rotating various backup disks between a safe in a bank and the office.
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New in this prerelease of the 25.0 plugins:
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.