Bricksmith and Allen Smith

[Ben Supnik]

Hi Y'all,

I've been in stealth mode for a while now, but I wanted to stick my head up to see if anyone knows how to contact Allen Smith.

I've been steadily maintaining Bricksmith for myself (e.g. fixing crash bugs) and was thinking a point release to update it for modern versions of Mac OS X would be a win. But I haven't heard from Allen in years -- I lost email contact with him around when he stopped posting on these forums.

If anyone who has been around LDraw for a while knows how to reach Allen directly, please contact me. I'd like to ping him before doing anything as drastic as a hard fork of Bricksmith.

Thanks
Ben

[Willy Tschager]

Hi Y'all,

I've been in stealth mode for a while now, but I wanted to stick my head up to see if anyone knows how to contact Allen Smith.

I've been steadily maintaining Bricksmith for myself (e.g. fixing crash bugs) and was thinking a point release to update it for modern versions of Mac OS X would be a win. But I haven't heard from Allen in years -- I lost email contact with him around when he stopped posting on these forums.

If anyone who has been around LDraw for a while knows how to reach Allen directly, please contact me. I'd like to ping him before doing anything as drastic as a hard fork of Bricksmith.

Thanks
Ben

You've got a PM with his email address.

w.

[Manfred Kern]

Hi Y'all,

I've been in stealth mode for a while now, but I wanted to stick my head up to see if anyone knows how to contact Allen Smith.

I've been steadily maintaining Bricksmith for myself (e.g. fixing crash bugs) and was thinking a point release to update it for modern versions of Mac OS X would be a win. But I haven't heard from Allen in years -- I lost email contact with him around when he stopped posting on these forums.

If anyone who has been around LDraw for a while knows how to reach Allen directly, please contact me. I'd like to ping him before doing anything as drastic as a hard fork of Bricksmith.

Thanks
Ben

Hi,

interesting news. I am new to Apple-Development. So, I first thought to do simple technical conversions like converting to ARC and modern Objective-C. But I soon realized that it is not that simple - and because I am a novice, I am stuck.
But I am happy to hear, that I am not the only one interested if Bricksmith development will progress.

Manfred

[Warren Elsmore]

Hi Ben,

Did you ever hear from Allen? We use Bricksmith *heavily* (all the models in all my books are done on Bricksmith) so anything that can increase stability on current versions of OSX I'm really interested in!

Warren

[Jaco van der Molen]

Hi Y'all,

I've been in stealth mode for a while now, but I wanted to stick my head up to see if anyone knows how to contact Allen Smith.

I've been steadily maintaining Bricksmith for myself (e.g. fixing crash bugs) and was thinking a point release to update it for modern versions of Mac OS X would be a win. But I haven't heard from Allen in years -- I lost email contact with him around when he stopped posting on these forums.

If anyone who has been around LDraw for a while knows how to reach Allen directly, please contact me. I'd like to ping him before doing anything as drastic as a hard fork of Bricksmith.

Thanks
Ben

Interesting indead. Though I use LDraw on Windows machines and thus all Windows programs, I do have a Mac too and use Bricksmith sometimes.
Would it be possible to get an updated version to test?

[Warren Elsmore]

Hi Ben,

Just as an update - Bricksmith 3.0 really doesn't work on OS X Mojave. Lots of window handling issues and I've just found out the hard way. Would it be possible to get your latest version to test? 

I think if you want to continue using it a hard fork might be necessary. I'd be happy to help you in that if I can, but my coding skills are next to non-existent sadly.

Warren.

[Orion Pobursky]

Hi Ben,

Just as an update - Bricksmith 3.0 really doesn't work on OS X Mojave. Lots of window handling issues and I've just found out the hard way. Would it be possible to get your latest version to test? 

I think if you want to continue using it a hard fork might be necessary. I'd be happy to help you in that if I can, but my coding skills are next to non-existent sadly.

Warren.

I talked to Allen during BrickCon. Real life has gotten in the way of his development. I plan on asking him if I can fork the project to Githib and release, at the very least, a recompiled version that works. That said, I haven’t had any issues on Mojave but I haven’t really used Bricksmoth in any in depth way since the upgrade

[Warren Elsmore]

Hi Ben,

Just as an update - Bricksmith 3.0 really doesn't work on OS X Mojave. Lots of window handling issues and I've just found out the hard way. Would it be possible to get your latest version to test? 

I think if you want to continue using it a hard fork might be necessary. I'd be happy to help you in that if I can, but my coding skills are next to non-existent sadly.

Warren.

I talked to Allen during BrickCon. Real life has gotten in the way of his development. I plan on asking him if I can fork the project to Githib and release, at the very least, a recompiled version that works. That said, I haven’t had any issues on Mojave but I haven’t really used Bricksmoth in any in depth way since the upgrade

Thankyou - that's completely understandable :-) My main issue on Mojave is that when you open a file, the window never opens! So it's pretty much unusable for me. 

If Allen does agree to fork it onto Github, please let me know if I can help. I don't have any development experience but I do have other resources that I can help out with, I'm sure.

[Ben Supnik]

Hi Y'all,

I'm sorry to have gone AWOL here -- for some reason my forum prefs got zapped to not email me, so I didn't realize there was news.

First, Warren: the good news is the latest tip of Bricksmith -will- run on Mojave.  I have been periodically fixing various breakages due to OS updates, so my guess is you're seeing something I have already fixed when maintaining Bricksmith for my own use.

The bad news is that compiling Bricksmith on Mojave/X-code 10 produces 3-d views where the parts are hidden.  The renderer is working - you can see the model in the debugger, but the scrolling views clip out the results.  I've been working around this by compiling builds on an older version of OS X until I have the patience to figure out what's gone wrong.

Orion, if you have any contact with Allen, the most useful thing would be to find out if we can get his blessing to do an updated release based on latest code; I'm happy to release a binary of what I have (which should work on Mojave) but I had been hoping to hear from him before taking the step of splitting the binary releases.

Regarding github, Bricksmith is already there, twice! I've been using GIT to track the official SVN repository for years, so when I found I had to build on an older Mac that I don't use to model, I got fed up and used github to 'port' the code over.

https://github.com/bsupnik/bricksmith

Turns out I'm not the only Bricksmith developer to do that - Robin beat me to it. :-)

https://github.com/robinmacharg/Bricksmith

From what I can tell, there's nothing stopping us from doing this (or releasing binaries), as the code is under a BSD license.  I would like to get Allen's blessing on a binary release though; Bricksmith is his brain child.

[Orion Pobursky]

Hi Y'all,

I'm sorry to have gone AWOL here -- for some reason my forum prefs got zapped to not email me, so I didn't realize there was news.

First, Warren: the good news is the latest tip of Bricksmith -will- run on Mojave.  I have been periodically fixing various breakages due to OS updates, so my guess is you're seeing something I have already fixed when maintaining Bricksmith for my own use.

The bad news is that compiling Bricksmith on Mojave/X-code 10 produces 3-d views where the parts are hidden.  The renderer is working - you can see the model in the debugger, but the scrolling views clip out the results.  I've been working around this by compiling builds on an older version of OS X until I have the patience to figure out what's gone wrong.

Orion, if you have any contact with Allen, the most useful thing would be to find out if we can get his blessing to do an updated release based on latest code; I'm happy to release a binary of what I have (which should work on Mojave) but I had been hoping to hear from him before taking the step of splitting the binary releases.

Regarding github, Bricksmith is already there, twice! I've been using GIT to track the official SVN repository for years, so when I found I had to build on an older Mac that I don't use to model, I got fed up and used github to 'port' the code over.

https://github.com/bsupnik/bricksmith

Turns out I'm not the only Bricksmith developer to do that - Robin beat me to it. :-)

https://github.com/robinmacharg/Bricksmith

From what I can tell, there's nothing stopping us from doing this (or releasing binaries), as the code is under a BSD license.  I would like to get Allen's blessing on a binary release though; Bricksmith is his brain child.

I forked Bricksmith to GitHub as well but haven't done anything with it. I'll abandon that fork in favor of yours. I do have contact with Allen so I'll message him tomorrow and point him to this post.

[Allen Smith]

Hi everybody! I'm sorry it's been such a long time since I've been able to do anything with Bricksmith, and that I largely vanished. My story is a sadly common one in the LDraw community: when I started my project, I was young and had lots of time. But then the pressing obligations of life crowded in and my hobbies had to be pared down. Bricksmith survived our first child and it survived the babyhood of our second child, but it did not survive her toddlerhood. It became clear that I just didn't have time to do hobby software development anymore, and I had to pull back entirely. Unfortunately, I also enjoy putting words together, which means that responding to e-mails is an involved process for me. So I wound up both abandoning the software and going completely incommunicado. I focused instead on maintaining my involvement in the physical Lego hobby, which is how Orion finally found me alive and well at BrickCon this year.

Way back in 2005, I recognized that my goal of having a family was likely to eventually kill off my software hobby. That is why I chose to release the source code from the beginning. What I did not realize at the time was that a software project isn't just writing and testing code. It's also management. There is feature planning, design work, code reviews, and administrator maintenance. While I got the source code out there, I utterly failed to set up any kind of succession plan for all those other things. And when life did indeed happen as foreseen, I had no plan ready to implement. Consequently, nothing was done.

At this point, what the software clearly needs is for me to hand over the keys. I do so appreciate the contributions others made over the years—Ben and Robin particularly. I cannot contribute anymore, but I hope that someone else can. I granted Ben and Robin admin rights on Sourceforge so now someone else can update the website and control the source code repository. If you can, I would be delighted for you to move the source code over to a system which is friendlier to contributions from others, and hopefully do a better job than I did at welcoming contributions and handing out administrator privilege more freely.

I regularly attend Bricks Cascade, BrickCon, and BrickCan; I would love it if our paths crossed in person. My favorite thing about the Lego hobby is becoming friends with all sorts of random people I would otherwise never encounter. Maybe someday I'll get to a Lego convention outside the Pacific Northwest too!

[Warren Elsmore]

Hi Allen,

You've nothing to apologise for - we need to be thanking you for such a fantastic editor! My whole team relies on it and over the years I must have designed hundreds of models with it - upto 10's of thousands of elements in some models.

I've already offered to Orion any help I can provide. Although I'm no coder, I do have a background in system architecture and I was used to working on the management of development projects before my LEGO career. So please, if there is anything I can do - just ask. I'm very keen to see Bricksmith grow and flourish.

(oh, and I will be at BrickCan next year, so if you're there it would be great to meet in person.)

Warren

[Petrasich]

Hi, now that Allen has given the okay, can someone PLEASE post a beta release with code updates?   I'm pretty desperate to get a working version, even if its not perfect.  I have several projects backed up needing completion.  I'm also happy to provide bug reports to anyone actively working on code updates.  Thanks.  -Jason

[Manfred Kern]

Hello,

did anyone managed to compile one of these two versions and when running put a brick on the model view area. The brick is not shown. The model view area is just the background color.

This area is managed by OpenGL, which seems to be broken with MacOS Mojave.

I created a simple OpenGL program and the screen is also blank It seems to be that with Mojave there is something wrong.
There  are a lot of related posts on Stack Overflow.

[Warren Elsmore]

First, Warren: the good news is the latest tip of Bricksmith -will- run on Mojave.  I have been periodically fixing various breakages due to OS updates, so my guess is you're seeing something I have already fixed when maintaining Bricksmith for my own use.

Hi Ben, 

Whilst we work out a more long term solution, is there a chance you can share the compiled version of Bricksmith you have with us? LeoCAD seems to be getting more and more buggy on Mohave and it's starting to drive me nuts right now! 

I would be more than happy to repay you in beer / LEGO / beer in LEGO / hugs :-)

Warren

[brickmaniac]

First, Warren: the good news is the latest tip of Bricksmith -will- run on Mojave.  I have been periodically fixing various breakages due to OS updates, so my guess is you're seeing something I have already fixed when maintaining Bricksmith for my own use.

Hi gang!

I too am looking for an updated Bricksmith to run on Mojave machine. I would be willing to subsidize the the general release of an updated version (just as I have subsidized Allen's work in the past).  Thanks!  - Dan Siskind for the Brickmania team

[Travis Cobbs]

First, Warren: the good news is the latest tip of Bricksmith -will- run on Mojave.  I have been periodically fixing various breakages due to OS updates, so my guess is you're seeing something I have already fixed when maintaining Bricksmith for my own use.

The bad news is that compiling Bricksmith on Mojave/X-code 10 produces 3-d views where the parts are hidden.  The renderer is working - you can see the model in the debugger, but the scrolling views clip out the results.  I've been working around this by compiling builds on an older version of OS X until I have the patience to figure out what's gone wrong.

I pulled, built, and ran, and the debug build got an assertion failure on line 232 of LDrawGLRender.m:

Code:

    assert(glIsEnabled(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY));

A release build ran fine, but didn't show the model (not surprisingly, given the above assert).

[Travis Cobbs]

I pulled, built, and ran, and the debug build got an assertion failure on line 232 of LDrawGLRender.m:

Code:

    assert(glIsEnabled(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY));

A release build ran fine, but didn't show the model (not surprisingly, given the above assert).

Adding the following to the OverlayWindowHelper initWithFrame: fixed the fact that the 3D views were all covered by another opaque view (which was actually a window, not a view):

Code:

       self.backgroundColor = [NSColor clearColor];

Once I did this, I seem to have gotten to the same point as Ben, which is broken Z Buffering. (It also has some dark mode issues.)

[Warren Elsmore]

First, Warren: the good news is the latest tip of Bricksmith -will- run on Mojave.  I have been periodically fixing various breakages due to OS updates, so my guess is you're seeing something I have already fixed when maintaining Bricksmith for my own use.

Hi gang!

I too am looking for an updated Bricksmith to run on Mojave machine. I would be willing to subsidize the the general release of an updated version (just as I have subsidized Allen's work in the past).  Thanks!  - Dan Siskind for the Brickmania team

That makes two of us ;-)

[brickmaniac]

Hi gang!

I too am looking for an updated Bricksmith to run on Mojave machine. I would be willing to subsidize the the general release of an updated version (just as I have subsidized Allen's work in the past).  Thanks!  - Dan Siskind for the Brickmania team

That makes two of us ;-)

Have two of your books. Very well done, sir!

[Travis Cobbs]

Once I did this, I seem to have gotten to the same point as Ben, which is broken Z Buffering. (It also has some dark mode issues.)

Rereading Ben's post, I think I fixed the problem he had, but as you can see, it's not rendering correctly:

[Oli Hahn]

I pulled, built, and ran, and the debug build got an assertion failure on line 232 of LDrawGLRender.m:

Code:

    assert(glIsEnabled(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY));

A release build ran fine, but didn't show the model (not surprisingly, given the above assert).

I did play around a bit with the code and it turned out, that the LDrawGLRenderer is not initialized at this point. To fix it, I moved the creation of the renderer before the setup of the Open GL Context: 

Code:

renderer = [[LDrawGLRenderer alloc] initWithBounds:NSSizeToSize2([self bounds].size)];
[renderer setDelegate:self withScroller:self];
[renderer setLDrawColor:[[ColorLibrary sharedColorLibrary] colorForCode:LDrawCurrentColor]];
   
// Set up our OpenGL context. We need to base it on a shared context so that
...

 
Also, as Travis Cobbs wrote, OverlayHelperWindow needs a clear background color. 

With this, I see a model, although the aspect ratio is not correct.

[Eugen]

Regarding github, Bricksmith is already there, twice! I've been using GIT to track the official SVN repository for years, so when I found I had to build on an older Mac that I don't use to model, I got fed up and used github to 'port' the code over.

https://github.com/bsupnik/bricksmith

Turns out I'm not the only Bricksmith developer to do that - Robin beat me to it. :-)

https://github.com/robinmacharg/Bricksmith

From what I can tell, there's nothing stopping us from doing this (or releasing binaries), as the code is under a BSD license.  I would like to get Allen's blessing on a binary release though; Bricksmith is his brain child.

I forked Bricksmith to GitHub as well but haven't done anything with it. I'll abandon that fork in favor of yours.

I would duplicate from my previous comment, that Michael Gale also is working on his own fork of Bricksmith, so as for 2024 LeoCAD is not the only actively developed LDraw editor for Mac.

• https://github.com/michaelgale/BricksmithApp
  • support for dark mode theme
    
  • axis lines from origin in all viewers
    
  • different LDraw syntax highlights in model tree view (with differentiation of submodels vs. parts)
    
  • different style for parts browser
    
  • menu command to insert step at current step (rather than append to the end)
    
  • navigating the tree view in step mode also changes the current step
    
  • almost all math computation converted to double precision floating point
    
  • favorite colour list added to colour picker inspector with a button to mark favorite colours
    

   

[Ben Supnik]

I would duplicate from my previous comment, that Michael Gale also is working on its own fork of Bricksmith, so as for 2024 LeoCAD is not the only actively developed LDraw editor for Mac.

• https://github.com/michaelgale/BricksmithApp
  • support for dark mode theme
    
  • axis lines from origin in all viewers
    
  • different LDraw syntax highlights in model tree view (with differentiation of submodels vs. parts)
    
  • different style for parts browser
    
  • menu command to insert step at current step (rather than append to the end)
    
  • navigating the tree view in step mode also changes the current step
    
  • almost all math computation converted to double precision floating point
    
  • favorite colour list added to colour picker inspector with a button to mark favorite colours
    

Hi Y'all,

I am not dead but I just don't have cycles to be a project maintainer on Bricksmith.  I think Allen and I have the same "kids + day job" constraint.

I can look at submitting my changes to Michael's fork...the problem wtih Bricksmith is always keeping up with Apple's morphing of the UI framework behind our back, which tends to break things. So if he has a stable build that runs on modern Macs, that's a good start.

The one local change I'm sitting on that I'm not sure if everyone else has is: I made a mode where nudge keys push along the part's axes and not the global ones. This is really really useful for building off-axis assemblies because once you get the part's rotation right, regularly aligned drawing just works. I coded it to make the lego modular corner garage a tolerable digital build. :-)

The app needs some real architectural work at some point, e.g. cleaning out the dead code paths from when the renderer used to be part of the ObjC code, removing the disabled attempt to use GCD to speed up loading, maybe converting to ARC finally, etc.

cheers
Ben