On Android...

"You're either buying into a platform or you're buying gadgets."


http://speirs.org/blog/2012/3/6/we-need-to-talk-about-android.html

WIndows 8...

I installed the Windows 8 Developer Preview last week. It lasted about 2 days before I deleted it.

This post is NOT about Windows 8, it's about how EASY it is to test new Windows operating systems on a Bootcamp-ed Mac.

Here are the steps in their entirety:

Step 1: Get WinClone and make a backup disk image of the volume containing the current Windows operating system. This may take about an hour, and most of that will be finding WinClone. LOL.

Step 2: Install the new version of Windows/Linux over the existing Bootcamp volume: boot from the DVD and follow the instructions.

That's it. To roll-back to the previous operating system, open WinClone and restore the backup that was previously made.

Couldn't be simpler.

I just downloaded the Consumer Preview and may give it a whirl on the weekend. Reports from the web indicate there are a few changes from the Dev Prev.

Adventures with FM Go and Script Triggers

I have a file that has both a desktop (FM Pro) and iPad (FM Go) interface. I use a startup script with a conditional that looks at the first word returned form the Get( ApplicationVersion ) function.

This normally works perfectly, and I have been using it to distinguish between desktop, server-side and iwp clients for a couple of years without issue.

Until now.

If I make a compressed copy of the file, load it onto the iPad and open it, it seemed to ignor the fact it was in Go and open to the desktop interface. However if I open the file in FMP, close it, then load it onto the iPad it works.

>look

>You are in a iPad in a maze of twisty compressed copies, all alike.

>

>use script de-bugger.

>That does not work here.

>

>inventory

>You are carrying: a torch, a rusty sword, the show custom dialog.

>

>hello sailor

>nothing happens.

>

OK I have sorted it out. Quite an adventure.

It is a combination of layout-based script triggers and the fact that a file opens in the last layout it was saved in. (I'm not quite prepared to expend the time and energy to determine the exact cause, since I've found a solution.)

When I invoke the save a compressed copy command, the file is in the desktop layouts. These layout have cunning and devilish layout-based script triggers to snsure the correct layouts are selected for mode, view and table occurrance. The new compressed file will, by default, open to the desktop layout when first opened. After that the script triggers seem to prevent the correct iPad layout from being changed to.

Opening the file in FMP Pro "fixes" the problem because I have an onLastWindowClose script that changes to a blank layout with no script triggers, no fields, etc.

The solution to the problem is to set the File Options to "switch to layout" to the minimal balnk layout.