@trinix, on Aug 28 2007, 10:37 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

The oversized buttons, and the background, it just doesn't look right when you piece it all together the way it has been done on the Mac.

Oh, so you’re talking about the art (or lack thereof in the present alpha), not the functionality. I’m leaving the art for the 4.0 welcome screen until after I’ve decided for certain whether 4.0 will ultimately have a welcome screen, but in the mean time I should point out that the interim screen is made entirely out of standard Macintosh interface elements.

@trinix, on Aug 28 2007, 10:37 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Am I suppose to keep a PPC around just for the purpose of creating plugins for a beloved game?

What would be the point of running MissionComputer on a computer that couldn’t run EV Nova?

@trinix, on Aug 28 2007, 10:37 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

PPC is a dead architecture anyways, SJ said so.

To (it seems) the benefit of Apple’s sales, but the detriment of the Macintosh platform.

There are now no longer exactly 100 replies.

EV Nova will run on the Intel Platform, that is my point. I got the game, I got the computer, I don't have the tool!

You made it (Welcome Screen) in RB for Mac. I doubt anyone would have made that same design in Apple's IB, or even if you had used that. But it is only an interim screen, so all is ok.

@trinix, on Aug 30 2007, 12:05 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

EV Nova will run on the Intel Platform, that is my point. I got the game, I got the computer, I don't have the tool!

EV Nova requires Rosetta to run on an Intel Macintosh, so why should MissionComputer need to be native?

@trinix, on Aug 30 2007, 12:05 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

You made it (Welcome Screen) in RB for Mac. I doubt anyone would have made that same design in Apple's IB, or even if you had used that.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to demonstrate here — Macintosh interface elements are Macintosh interface elements whether you place them using REALbasic, CodeWarrior, or Interface Builder. The screen in 4.0a2 would actually be easier to make in Interface Builder than it was in REALbasic.

Quote

Resource browser: support for selecting/opening/deleting multiple resources at once, new toolbar, selection and scrolling less prone to change/jump, revised image scaling code, disabled zoom rectangles for faster resource opening/closing.

This is a godsend.

Just wish I could copy/paste multiple resources and my happiness would be complete.

I realise this isn't really on topic but since I already mentioned ResKnife once here...
I just noticed something very interesting about the Nova editors ResKnife includes. Apart from the collection being called "NovaTools", which I thought was odd enough when I first saw it, they also include references to w00tware and Sutherland Studios. Were these actually made by R&R? :huh:

@guy, on Sep 1 2007, 06:27 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

I just noticed something very interesting about the Nova editors ResKnife includes.

ResKnife was created by Nicholas Shanks, who used to be a regular around here, so it’s not surprising that he tried to put in EV Nova support — whether the code is related to DrRalph’s, I don’t know.

Okay, so I searched around a bit on the ASW forums it seems he was possibly working with R&R to port the editors over to ResKnife. Zacha, why didn't you help out with this project rather than picking up Rezilla?

On topic, a couple of requests:
- Remember last used window size for the syst, galaxy editors?
- Give an indication of the size of the spobs in the radar? Currently it appears the small dot is placed according to the top-right corner of the spob which is noticeably inaccurate for very large spobs.
- A button or some means to return to the galaxy editor from the syst editor? I can get from the galaxy editor to the syst editor but the galaxy closes behind it with no easy way to return.
- Bug/oddity: In the galaxy editor it appears that links to systems which aren't in the current file all go to the center of the galaxy instead.

@david-arthur, on Aug 27 2007, 04:01 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

@trinix, on Aug 27 2007, 03:32 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:
- The ability to select and copy multiple resources between plugins.

Perhaps, although this would require a re-design of the copy/paste system.

Gah, I didn't realise this didn't work until now. I thought that was half the point of allowing multiple items to be selected. Would be so useful if you could implement this

This post has been edited by Guy : 02 September 2007 - 02:56 AM

EVN isn't native, however, it isn't the tool that is creating the plugins in the first place, just running them. MC is. MC needs the extra umpf to get the job done, or at least partial job done given all the died out TC promises there are.

@trinix, on Sep 4 2007, 11:05 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

EVN isn't native, however, it isn't the tool that is creating the plugins in the first place, just running them. MC is. MC needs the extra umpf to get the job done, or at least partial job done given all the died out TC promises there are.

MC will run in Rosetta (like Nova does) even if it's compiled as PPC-only. Furthermore, you can rest assured that EV Nova will never be Intel-native; nor will any future EV game without a massive (more significant than EVO ==> EVN, if I understand correctly) rewrite of huge parts of the engine. And in the event that there is such a game, it's entirely possible it will abandon resource forks altogether in favor of a less madness-inducing file format. And in that case, you are free to write your own editor for said format without having to worry about all the backwards-compatibility nonsense.

Now please put your seatbelt on and eat lots of pocky.

@ntiozymandias, on Sep 15 2007, 04:36 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Now please put your seatbelt on and eat lots of pocky.

Pocky is overrated.

@orcaloverbri9, on Sep 15 2007, 06:15 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Pocky is overrated.

That post is overrated.

Sorry, but I thought my post clearly implied MC needing to be native, not EVN. Yes, I know EVN isn't going anywhere, nor was I suggesting it would become Intel native since it runs fine on my Intel. My post was about MC4 becoming Intel native, talking of course, in the MC4 thread... :laugh:

I'm quite angry currently.

I used the new beta version to work on some missions. Had to check all the texts for grammar and spelling. As it came to the end (it really was the last text) I wanted to close the currently open ressource and save everything. On closing the told me that he couldn't find the ressource for some reason. Also saving was not going to work because of the same reason.

I was irritated. Mission Computer then crashed. Hm, ok that happened a few time already. Nothing to worry about ... I thought.
As I tried to re-open my plug-in I couldn't find it anymore ... It was gone. Deleted.

-.-

The last security save was before I began working on the corrections.
And now I have to replace all mission texts in the whole plug-in since I can't say which has been altered an which hasn't.

It can't be that a file can be deleted because of a simple crash of the programm. And I did save a lot during my work, cause I knew about the flaws of a beta. But who could imagine a self-deleting ...

EDIT: Ooooookay, if I weren't the person I am I haven't checked the trash twice.

Situation: After realizing that my plug was deleted I checked the trash to be sure it is gone without a trace. The trash was empty!
About 5 minutes later I re-checked the trash (symbol indicated that is was empty) ... And suddenly the plug appeared. In two version Oo

This is sort of confusing to me. I don't get the logical background to this event Oo

Whatever lets a plug send to the trash after 5 minutes of disappearing from the computer is sort of ... Ah,can't find the right words. I think you know what I want to say.

And if you ask "Has it really disappeared?" ... Yes, it has been gone. Even Spotlight hasn't found it (and we all know that Spotlight is also searching in the trash).

Get that fixed.

Someone else might have cleaned the trash a few hours later and really deleted everything.

EDIT 2: Another strange behaviour ... As I dragged one of the two versions (I took the latest one - date & time) to my development folder eveyrthing seemed fine.

Some minutes later I re-checked the trash again cause I wanted to save the mysterious duplicate of the file too. I opened the trash and ... There were two plugs instead of one remaining Oo

Tripples in the trash? Will I have to feed them? OO

It's über-strange!

BTW: By working on all these missions I thought that it's quiet annoying to open every ressource by my own (and to tell the truth it's a bit slow sometimes in MC4 too). Would it be possible to write an importer & exporter for descriptions?

I know ConText and Restore do something simmilar but not how I would suggest it.

If you want to export mission desc's for example he won't search for the desc ID. Instead he searches for mission ID's, check if there are desc's linked to it and get their text in order of the appearing of the text in the game starting by the intro, accept, etc.
The output in the text file should be like

title <--- Mission 1 name

desc ID <--- desc ID of intro

text <--- text of intro

desc ID <--- desc ID of accept.

text <--- text of accept

etc.

title <--- Mission 2 name

and so on ...

This would editing make enormous easy since it can be done in any text editing utility.

Things should be simmilar for outfits and ships too. I think you got the idea ^^

This post has been edited by Terek E`Ban : 16 September 2007 - 08:47 AM

@terek-e-ban, on Sep 17 2007, 12:43 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

BTW: By working on all these missions I thought that it's quiet annoying to open every ressource by my own (and to tell the truth it's a bit slow sometimes in MC4 too). Would it be possible to write an importer & exporter for descriptions?

I know ConText and Restore do something simmilar but not how I would suggest it.

Have you tried Mish Mash?

@guy, on Sep 16 2007, 11:47 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Have you tried Mish Mash?

You're my hero Guy Thanks

Hm, what about an implementation of this in MC4? gg

@terek-e-ban, on Sep 16 2007, 08:43 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Tripples in the trash? Will I have to feed them? OO

When MissionComputer saves, it follows this procedure: first, it moves the old file to the trash to make way for the new one, and second, it writes the new file. If something goes wrong during the writing of the new file, you can easily recover the unmodified version by dragging it out of the trash. This is how it has worked for many versions, and it remains this way in 4.0a2, though I’m considering a revision of the open/save/caching system.

You may find the alpha more stable working on .rez files.

@david-arthur, on Sep 17 2007, 08:07 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

You may find the alpha more stable working on .rez files.

It happended on Mac files for me

I decided to see how MC 4 fares on Leopard

@guy, on Jun 22 2007, 12:34 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Bad PICT/cicn thumbnails still there. Worse, RLEs are now affected too

This no longer happens!

@guy, on Jun 22 2007, 12:34 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Freezes when I try to open a mission now.

Nor does this.

@guy, on Jun 29 2007, 12:14 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Opening without Rosetta, the Help is invisible. I choose help, the frontmost window becomes deactivated but I don't see any help anywhere. This invisible window appears in the window menu and can be closed with cmd+w.

This still does happen, even worse it starts grinding away doing who knows what for ages, rendering my computer virtually inoperable while it does so.

@nil-kimas, on Jun 22 2007, 11:35 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

switching between windows is still pretty slow for the larger resources such as ships and misns.

This is possibly improved, though I don't really recall how long it took before. Missions only take about a second to switch between on my machine (2GHz Core Duo). If you're going to make these not grey out, I'd suggest making it a preference.

@guy, on Nov 2 2007, 11:53 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

I decided to see how MC 4 fares on Leopard

I’m glad to hear things are working better. At some point soon, I think I’ll post a third alpha — there aren’t any groundbreaking new features, but I’ve made some architectural improvements.

@guy, on Nov 2 2007, 11:53 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

If you're going to make these not grey out, I'd suggest making it a preference.

I prefer not to add unnecessary preferences — that road leads to Linux.