The basics of 3D Canvas .NET are working. It's possible to created/edit models. There are still some things to be done, but I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to release it sometime in the not too distant future.

I just did some testing for memory leaks, and could not find any.

The trick is to force periodic garbage collections. Otherwise, it seems that vb.net doesn't properly release things.

I've been really struggling the last week. I want the older ActiveX components to match the style of the new .NET 3D Canvas shell. It was a bit tricky. I think I'm on track now.

I'm also trying to modernize the look of 3D Canvas. It's not going to be that different, because I simply don't have huge amounts of time to put into it. So far so good.

There is still more to do, but here is 7.1 vs 8.5:



Considering how much effort I've put into it, there really isn't that much difference.

I can't say with 100% certainty that I like 8.5 better than 7.1. I guess it looks a little cleaner with button shadows etc.

I'm quite pleased with how things are going. I have managed to get things looking quite "XP/Vista"-like even with Visual Basic 6. I'm going to spend two or three more days on it, then I'll get back to the actual ".NET" conversion.

One thing I have learned in all of this is to not bother trying to make Microsoft's "controls" work. It is often easier to just make your own.

A new screen capture of 8.0.1.0 (or whatever I decide to call it). Maybe 8.0a?



This is still in Visual Basic 6. I managed to figure out how to achieve an "XP/Vista" look, by a combination of using the right controls, and faking it, where need be.

I'm not quite done. I have a couple of icons to make for the big green buttons on the toolbar, and I'm going to revise a few other icons. Then I have a couple of days worth of work to change the implementation of the undockable panels. Hopefully by the weekend I'll have a beta of the non-.NET version available.

Once I get the beta out, I'll start work on conversion to VB.NET. It should be a breeze now since I've got all the kinks worked out.

After that, I convert from VB.NET to C#.

I plan to have two versions of 3D Canvas available. One version will be in VB6, the other in C#. The VB6 version won't be enhanced much in the future, and eventually will only be used for testing ActiveX controls. But, in the immediate future, it will likely be the more stable of the two.

After I get caught up on everything, I'll start enhancing the C# version to take advantage of the C#/.NET features that aren't available in VB6.

I hadn't done a test conversion for a while, so I thought I would give it a try, since I've made lots of changes recently.

Date|Compile Errors|Design Errors|Warnings|Miscellaneous|Total
2007-06-26|1403|173|2006|14|3596
2008-01-07|1333|151|1669|13|3166
2008-02-25|1244|150|1439|02|2835
2008-03-02|1175|132|0688|01|1996
2008-03-09|0513|039|0365|00|0917
2009-08-31|0327|034|0381|02|0744
2009-09-07|0268|032|0357|02|0659
2009-09-07|0264|032|0347|02|0645
2009-09-08|0261|024|0298|01|0584
2009-09-08|0061|135|0191|01|0388
2009-09-08|0060|135|0180|01|0376
2009-09-09|0060|130|0142|01|0333
2009-10-06|0096|062|0132|01|0291

So, more improvement.

I've been busy trying to make new icons. It's pretty tricky when you only have 16x16 pixels. And, I am definitely NOT an artist. Though, I'm getting better at it.

3D Canvas has a new logo. It is very simple, but I think appropriate. I can't say it is "wonderful" exactly but it is 10x better than the last, which wasn't exactly difficult to achieve.

I'm ready to release a beta, but I'm having a problem where 3D Canvas doesn't shut down properly. I can't really release the beta if it doesn't close and has to be terminated. I'll do some hunting.

I'm still having problems where 3D Canvas doesn't shut down properly. I've been fixing this and that hoping it will magically fix itself, but it seems that it won't. I'll have to look for it. As soon as I find the cause, I'll send out a beta (or an alpha).

In the mean time, here are the new (medium) icons:



The last three (Texture, Material and Component Libraries) are based on Windows 7's "Library" icons. In some wasy this gives a wrong impression, that they are related to the OS, but it seems to me to be a "standard" way to represent "library".

I just discovered something that will reduce the time to load 3D Canvas. On my computer it sped up the load time by five seconds. It was something really dumb on my part. You can get the same effect by clearing out your "Temp" folder frequently.

I can't find the cause of the problem with 3D Canvas not loading properly, so I will be putting out a version that "helps" 3D Canvas unload. A hack, until I find the cause.

So, there should be an ALPHA release today sometime. Unfortunately, it is just not stable enough to be called a Beta release. Basically, the alpha version will be just to show the new look, nothing more.

I found the cause of why 3D Canvas wasn't shutting down. It was one of those "order of execution errors". That was a tough one to fix. It's been causing me problems for a while now.

Still trying to get that Alpha out tonight. Probably late tonight.

I spent the day finishing up the refinements to the new pinnable/unpinnable/dockable/undockable Construction and Properties panels.

I have to say they turned really well, even if I do say so myself.

I've changed them to work a bit more like Internet Explorer's Favourites pinning mechanism.

I also added function keys to have a panel slide down, and to pin/unpin without having to actually hover over, or click on anything. You can also automatically dock a panel that has been undocked.

I also did a fair amount of work on multi-monitor support. The configuraton of the panels is now saved properly including if the panel is on another monitor. They are also resized so they fit on the smallest available monitor.

I even got to TESTING on multiple monitors. That was really nice to see. It makes it clear how useful this new feature is.

There's more, but I can't think of it right now.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Amabilis Support,

Today I am reorganizing menus to make it faster to get to common functions.

I created new "Plug-Ins" and "Scripts" menus.

Both have a "most recently used" list at the top. This makes access to plug-ins a lot faster. The "deepest" plug-in is now 1 submenu vs 2 in the previous release. And, if it is recently used, it is at the very top of the menu.

Here is the new View menu:



In this case the Construction Panel is pinned in place and the Properties Panel is not. The options available on View menu depend on if the panel is docked/undocked/pinned/unpinned.

Also, on the far right top there is a button called "Properties". Hovering over this button extends the properties panel. Clicking on it pins the properties panel (even if it is undocked). If the panel is pinned, this button disappears (since it isn't needed). The same goes for the Construction Panel. Since it is docked, the equivalent button is not visible.

For those of you who haven't tried the Alpha (almost everyone it seems), this is the new look of 3D Canvas. The ".NET"/XP look.

A minor change: the "d" key replaces "g" for group selections. "g" is easier to remember, but "d" is much easier to reach when having to use "ctrl+d" or "shift+d".