Girder 3.2 Alpha 15

[Ron]

Girder 3.2 Alpha 15 is the first Girder that has the UI separation completed. There is one delphi related problem that only allows me to start the UI once :( that means once you opened the UI it will not be unloaded merely hidden. If there is some delphi guru out there that has experience with this I'm all ears. I might move the UI into an DLL and be done with this problem, but this is something long term.

About the NT-service topic. I've been experimenting with this all day long. My conclusion: its a big pain in the *ss. Girder runs in the security model of the system forbidding interaction with the desktop. Well you can get limited interaction but that is by far not enough for what Girder needs. Second problem is, as Mark pointed out, the MFC, VCL and-what-not do not like to be ripped from their desktop. Thus all plugins would need a rewrite in plain API, and noone is even thinking about doing this. I might release a Girder-NT-service pack at some point that will allow you to run Girder as a service even though I said you should not, but I'm not making any promises.

Changes

UI separation
NT service implementation (Disabled)
added critical section to the command structure to make it thread safe ( Mark's suggestion)


Todo

Bring back the hide on startup option ( its now set by default )
Load 3.1 .gir files and convert the numbers. ( separate program ?)

[Mark F]

I re-worked the OSD PopUp, Serial and UserEvent plugins to use the critical section in the command structure and they seem to work fine. :)

More testing this week end.

[Ron]

I'm going to release the first beta later today,.. wressling with the website took a lot of time :(

[Ron]

I've updated the developers page with respect to the plugin numbers. I've tried to keep the changes to a minimum. Basically, if you had a plugin number that was 25 of less you'll now have a number 200+original number.
Also plugins that had 2 numbers assigned to them now only have one.

Please hava a look if I didn't forget your plugin.

The conversion tool is also ready, and I'm removing the last rough edges of the distro.

* if you don't see the updated or no developer page at all that means that your DNS hasn't updated yet. Wait a few hours for the DNS changes to trickle through.