Help me understand Cloverleaf

Maybe the easiest way to get a competent debugger would be the emulator route. For most things, a pure-interpreter would be fast enough

Or to have another RISC OS session working on another core. When Michael did it, I immediately thought of debugging. JTAG could also be a very cool/unique solution.

But, in fact, second core, emulation or JTAG would be technically the same technology: a hardware level debugging. Can we make something useful with JTAG today on RISC OS?

Hello guys!
Do you agree to open a new topic about a new better Debugger for RISC OS?
So it can be better organized.

Do you agree to open a new topic about a new better Debugger for RISC OS?

Sound like a good idea to me, if there’s further discussion to be had.

Do you agree to open a new topic about a new better Debugger for RISC OS?

Good idea for me as well Stefan, thx

Sound like a good idea to me, if there’s further discussion to be had.

Why would anyone want to discuss a better debugger for RO development?
You’ll be suggesting we do other things to make it easier for new (and existing) developers next…

Just looked for the sarcasm off button and I don’t seem to have one.

Do you agree to open a new topic about a new better Debugger for RISC OS?

Done.

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/15491

@Steve Pampling
bq. (
Why would anyone want to discuss a better debugger for RO development?
You’ll be suggesting we do other things to make it easier for new (and existing) developers next…
)

I totally agree with that. For ChatCube we have used Toolbox and TBX libary to automise the window redraw and GCC on Linux. We found some bugs in the TBX libary and we added PNG support.

I would like a full blown C++ compiler for RISC OS (DDE). And I think that most programmers that use WIndows and Linux will not be happy with StrongED as programming editor.

What I don’t like in currently in RISC OS programs that there is no “Mouse HOVER” to show infos what the icons function. Also many don’t support scrolling by mouse wheel. Also the filer doesn’t support that at the moment.

What I don’t like in currently in RISC OS programs that there is no “Mouse HOVER” to show infos what the icons function.

Interactive Help? It’s part of the OS, and many applications support it.

Also many don’t support scrolling by mouse wheel.

Many apps don’t support scrolling properly, because many developers never read the bit of the PRM¹ about handling scrolling events.

Also the filer doesn’t support that at the moment.

It does here?

¹ Myself included, for many years.

Good point, Steve – I often forget about !Help tucked away in Apps!

In fact, giving it a few minutes of thought, this could probably be improved quite quickly, with only a small improvement to !Help. Indeed, it may already be possible…

1) The easiest bit – load !Help at startup on builds of the OS aimed at newcomers

2) Add new mode to !Help – possible “half and half” coloured icon – for a third (default) state (ie. not off, not on). In this state, rather than showing help immediately, it waits for the pointer to rest in (roughly?) the same space for [insert time – say 4-5 sec]. Ie. much longer than it does now.

3) Default to not showing common help in this mode, to avoid resting over the desktop/filer windows?

An alternative would be to add a help icon to the window furniture in the Wimp, triggering !Help to load, but this might upset existing users. If going this route, it could appear when (say) close icon is present, and maybe be filtered for that application. But that opens another can of worms if users want more widespread help.

Didn’t David Pilling once make something called BubbleHelp?

Can’t find it on his site, but then again I only spent about thirty seconds looking…

Miles Sabin wrote BubbleHelp in 1994,5 . It was 32-bitted by Philip Ludlam (2003-2007). I have version 2.21 (03 March 2003) and, to my amazement, it runs on an Rpi3B+ (RO 5.27). Whoops, I spoke too soon. Selecting Choices.. from its iconbar menu produces Undefined Instruction at &00009FF4. Let us all know if you find a more uptodate version.
It would appear that !BubbleHlp.!Config is the guilty party, with the instruction

LDMIA R13!,{R0,PC}^

Bubblehelp appears to be found at:
http://www.vigay.com/thirdparty/
It seems to work on my ARMX6
There is also Float by Steve Fryatt at: http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/software/float/

Miles Sabin wrote BubbleHelp in 1994,5

Oops, my bad. ‘splains why it’s not on David’s site. ;-)

LDMIA R13!,{R0,PC}^

An easy enough fix. Perhaps worth passing through Armalyser to ensure there aren’t any other errant instructions.

Oops, my bad. ‘splains why it’s not on David’s site.

David used to distribute it, back in the days of buying floppy discs through the post, IIRC.

https://librefree.me/what-is-risc-os-cloverleaf-and-why-you-might-care

Learn all about Cloverleaf from Stefan at the next online ROUGOL meeting on Monday 17th August 2020. Details here – https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/15523