Just a question

[Carlo Didier]

Due to illness I have some time to waste so I'm looking again a bit into the new apps/java/browser/html/json/jquery/whatever scripting jungle. Not getting anywhere yet, even with the sample apps, as I haven't grabbed the whole environment yet: browser debug mode, asynchronicity (aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!), etc. Still seems extremely complicated compared to the good old basic scripts ...

End of rant, back to my question (which is actually another rant  )

My question: Is it bugging me alone that apps are started by just clicking on them instead of double-clicking, which feels more logical to me.
I'm used to click on something to select it and to double-click to open/run/start something. I just keep starting apps I just want to have a look at or hide.
You could say it's muscle memory, but I say it's about standard user interface behaviour.

[thrinn]

Apps are based on Web technology and run in the browser (or in an app window, which you can also see as a kind of browser). And in the WWW, double clicking is definitely not the standard. Clicking once on a link will open it, tapping once on the touch screen of your smartphone will open an app and so on.
Therefore, a single click in this context is pretty much standard, in my opinion.

[Mario]

I have listed some quite good resources for learning about HTML and JavaScript in the Developer Center - this is independent from IMatch and works across all platforms and applications.

Jumping from a programming language like BASIC created ~ 30 years ago to modern programming languages like JavaScript is of course a bit of a leap. But no longer limiting programming in IMatch to what BASIC could do has many, many advantages.

Doing asynchronous web requests is an inherent concept of working with web services. Yes, it takes some re-thinking of old concepts. But it allows to implement one of modern application's core concepts: responsiveness.

Single-clicking is the standard for all web sites and web apps. Hence also for the App Manager.

[Carlo Didier]

Apps are based on Web technology and run in the browser (or in an app window, which you can also see as a kind of browser). And in the WWW, double clicking is definitely not the standard. Clicking once on a link will open it, tapping once on the touch screen of your smartphone will open an app and so on.
Therefore, a single click in this context is pretty much standard, in my opinion.

Yes and no. iMatch is a Windows application, not a web browser and as such I expect it to behave like any normal app, not like a web site (which would be IMWS/iMatch Anywhere).
Oh, just let an old man rant, will you?     

iMatch 2017 is a fantastic piece of software, no doubt about that and Mario does an incredible job developing and maintaining it and I'm absolutely admiring him for that (and his patience with his clients on this forum, especially people like me  ).
I just can't get to grips with the fact that I had, just a few mind you, nice little scripts that worked like a charm for me and now I have to invest probably hundreds of hours to learn all that new stuff just to get maybe 50% of the functionality that I had before. And I don't even know how to start getting the most basic script running.
Yes, there are lots of resources and that's the problem. If it was just a new programming language, I could cope, probably. But it's a new language, a new programming paradigm, new methods, new interfaces, new tools, new limitations ...
So you may understand that I'm a bit p... off.

But don't get too upset about my rants. I'll eventually get over it. Maybe I'll find someone generous who can program all that for me. Any volunteers?

[JohnZeman]

Oh, just let an old man rant, will you?     

iMatch 2017 is a fantastic piece of software, no doubt about that and Mario does an incredible job developing and maintaining it and I'm absolutely admiring him for that (and his patience with his clients on this forum, especially people like me  ).

Like another old man like me who rants a lot too. lol

But I made the switch about 6 months ago and now I am really, REALLY glad that I did.  Am I up to speed on coding these new apps?  Oh my Lord no, just look at the way I drive Mario crazy with my never ending questions that often make no sense to me even after he's patiently answered those questions.

Yet in spite of that I just love 2017 and I am doing more with it than I was in the 2015 version.  I never would have believed it would be possible after I did the upgrade, but I am.

With apps I started out slow, basically just creating simple apps that ran simple commands, such as the category colors app I've attached to this that simply copies some of my favorite predefined category Hex color values to the clipboard so I can paste them into the category color coding properties.

Good luck Carlo, I also hesitated quite a while to upgrade to 2017 but now I'm very glad I did. 

[sinus]

Oh, just let an old man rant, will you?     

iMatch 2017 is a fantastic piece of software, no doubt about that and Mario does an incredible job developing and maintaining it and I'm absolutely admiring him for that (and his patience with his clients on this forum, especially people like me  ).

Like another old man like me who rants a lot too. lol

Well, sometimes men does a bit coquetting with the age, basically they know, they are not more 20, but they know also, they are still not 90 and (mostly) feel quite fit. 

This is not a rant  ... simply a thing, what I observed in the last time several times.

Uhh, and ohh, yes, me too, I am not more 20! 

[Carlo Didier]

Thanks guys. I'm 52 but inside I still feel like 20-30. Sometimes I behave like 10 ...
The worst thing is when I look into the mirror and can't identify myself with what I see. Looks like I'm having my midlife crisis ... 

[sinus]

Thanks guys. I'm 52 but inside I still feel like 20-30. Sometimes I behave like 10 ...
The worst thing is when I look into the mirror and can't identify myself with what I see. Looks like I'm having my midlife crisis ... 

Cool, a very good age! The best will still come ...

[Jingo]

Carlo - please feel free to post you scripts and requests on the script request board... myself and a few others are more than happy to spend the time re-creating (or at least attempting to) for you in the latest version... my vbscript knowledge is still small but thanks to coding some scripts already, the examples provided by Mario and the fact that many of the standard panels (like the MAP) are already written as "apps" - I have gleaned a ton of knowledge in a very limited time.

IM2017 offers so much speed and other refinements - its worth the plunge and if these scripts cannot be replicated by standard functionality - let's us know and we will help out!  Thx - Andy.

[Carlo Didier]

Carlo - please feel free to post you scripts and requests on the script request board... myself and a few others are more than happy to spend the time re-creating (or at least attempting to) for you in the latest version... my vbscript knowledge is still small but thanks to coding some scripts already, the examples provided by Mario and the fact that many of the standard panels (like the MAP) are already written as "apps" - I have gleaned a ton of knowledge in a very limited time.

IM2017 offers so much speed and other refinements - its worth the plunge and if these scripts cannot be replicated by standard functionality - let's us know and we will help out!  Thx - Andy.

Many thanks for the offer, Andy.

I really want to master this myself, but right now I just feel completely lost in new things.
I believe my biggest problem will be asynchronicity. I just can't cope with that.

To explain my situation: Right now, in IM5 I have event driven scripts (triggered by new or updated files). Those, I'll have to replace by manually triggered apps (which is already annoying).
These scripts do the following: For each new/updated file it assigns it to a format category (portrait, landscape, square, panorama) depending on my personal criteria; for stitched files (pano, hdr, focus,...) assign corresponding categories to the stitched file and "part of" categories to the source files and create a stack and copies GPS info from a part file to the stitched file; assigns files to event categories.
Not very complicated in the old IM5 scripting but totally linear. I fear I'll have lots of nested functions in a new app ...

[Mario]

Just give yourself a day or two to get used to the concept.
Sequentializing asynchronous calls is pretty easy using the then() callback. To wait for multiple asynchronous events, you can use the $.when() function of jQuery. You don't need to write tons of code into then() callbacks, just call functions from there. This makes the code better readable.

See the Recipes section in the Developer Center for many other tricks and use cases.

Don't expect to learn a new programming language in a day. If you come from BASIC, you're making a 20 year leap.

If you now use Visual Studio code, did you know that it is written entirely in JavaScript...?

[Carlo Didier]

Just give yourself a day or two to get used to the concept.
Sequentializing asynchronous calls is pretty easy using the then() callback. To wait for multiple asynchronous events, you can use the $.when() function of jQuery. You don't need to write tons of code into then() callbacks, just call functions from there. This makes the code better readable.

See the Recipes section in the Developer Center for many other tricks and use cases.

Don't expect to learn a new programming language in a day. If you come from BASIC, you're making a 20 year leap.

If you now use Visual Studio code, did you know that it is written entirely in JavaScript...?

Well, I've done some C programming back in my youth, before anything got "Visual ..." 
I did some assembler (Motorola 68000), Forth (anyone knows that?), FORTRAN (a real dinosaur that!), Turbo Pascal (loved that!) and later a lot of VBA in MS Office (mostly Access), vbscript and lately a lot of Powershell, all job related.