An Open Dialogue on Developer Relations and Windows/Mac Development

mrxak

Okay, first off, I've been on a vacation, so I've been a little out of touch for the last couple weeks. Secondly, I only found out yesterday about something very serious and stressful that I won't go into here (see my blog, if you wish), which will occupy a lot of my thoughts and energy for a while. Thirdly, my summer job begins in just over 12 hours, and will occupy more and more time and energy as the days and weeks go by. Okay, now that that's out of the way, I'll address a few posts...

(quote)Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**Just some quick input here. Why not just use .txt formats? I know personally both textedit for the mac and notepad for windows save in this format; anyone should be able to use it. Furthermore, any web browser has the ability to read .txt files. .txt is infinitely easier to do than html, especially for the average newbie. I don't bother with pretty graphics or formatting in my FAQs, so there is no need for html, really.

<snip>

I personally started a (url="http://")plugin guide(/url), but never had any time to play with it. If we ever get a centralized effort, I'd be glad to submit content to that, as well as include what I've done for that guide. Also, ev-nova.net has an faq going, at (url="http://")http://www.ev-nova.net/faq/(/url) , it contains quite a bit of useful information. It's even searchable! However, people do not know about this. I say we should hurry up and get at least some content started at mrxak's assorted webspace, and then have links to all the information here in the EV manual. A lot of information exists, it is only a manner of finding it.

mrxak, if you could get a quick submission and search utility up on your site, people could begin submitting whatever information they have, or what they find. We need FAQs, plugin-creation guides, graphics tutorials, and technical support, all in one place. Easy enough. . Hopefully this topic and the people involved in it will help that happen.

Now, in order to ensure the quality and widespread knowledge of this database, I will require assistance, as you have suggested. If this gets going well enough that people are constantly adding to it, I could quickly get overwhelmed, and certainly I cannot be actively taking care of things all of the time. Therefore, I believe that a series of moderators, a core group of tutorial writers, or whatever else you'd call them, needs to be formed. They would have a certainly level of power over the database. I have a number of ideas on how this could be done, but initially it won't be necessary to get that set in stone, so I'll leave my thoughts until later. However, collecting volunteers now wouldn't be a bad idea. I'd ask that anyone interested email me privately to volunteer. Please give me your forum name, and a reason why you think you'd do a good job.

(quote)Originally posted by SpacePirate:
Well, just because I couldn't sleep, I hunted down some freeware zip and bin utilities, and wrote up a quick readme. It's currently hosted on my webspace from (url="http://")here(/url). Someone please go over the readme, as I did write it at 4 am, and it's almost certainly only partially coherent. Remember, our goal is to make these things as easy to use as possible! Post further suggestions here, or email me at h y p e r m i k e @ a d e l p h i a . n e t . You know, without the extraneous spaces.** (/quote)

Thanks for your efforts, I'll look through it when I get the chance.

(quote)Originally posted by Chuckles:
Primarily because Acrobat is reasonable expensive. (That and Adobe Reader is a hunk of junk.)
I'm surprised that no one has brought up Rich Text Format (.rtf)
RTF's have worked cross-platform fine for me and they have the advantage of being a standard that almost every text editor can read.(/quote)

See above comments. And like I said, .pdf is easily read by most people. I personally prefer .rtf as an ideal solution.

(quote)Originally posted by Zacha Pedro:
Bomb has (url="http://")some info about this(/url), it's a shame it's not more advertised. (/quote)

It's in my sig. It will be linked to in the database.

(quote)Originally posted by Zacha Pedro:
Okay, I just found and posted in this, (url="http://")Aladdin wonders why people need the cross-platform tab(/url). I think I've explained the thing well enough, add your two cents there if you don't think so. (/quote)

I don't think you linked to this topic there. You might want to.

(quote)Originally posted by Zacha Pedro:
**When this package is complete and tested, you, Space Pirate, should email Andrew or TomWoozle and tell them to modify the (url="http://")upload dialog(/url) (I can't actually link to there, just click "submit a file") to tell to upload their plugs in .bin.zip, with instructions and everything necessary included in (url="http://")this package(/url).

By the way, I've tested, and there's no way MacNova accepts the intro music with the .mp3 extension, PC people will have to add it themselves (and that too should be told in the readme, so your instructions should tell to tell it if ever there's an alternate intro music).

**(/quote)

I don't know if he's emailed them yet, but I will do so now, since it hasn't yet been changed.

Having two music files might confuse people, and it will certainly use more space/download-time. Is there any better solutions besides making a person change it themselves or have separate downloads?

(This message has been edited by mrxak (edited 06-21-2004).)

SpacePirate

Heh, I almost forgot about this topic. Zacha, for some odd reason, .zip does work with resource forks, at least in OSX. However, it may not work in OS9, so I'll repackage it as a .sit file.

Available now. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/downloads/binandzip.sit")Click here.(/url)
~ SpacePirate

------------------
Fear the SpacePirate,
He made a (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/search.html")plug-in search page(/url)...
And he'll board your ship! -mrxak
*** (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/")InfernoStudios(/url) was last updated 06 June, 2004. ***

Zacha Pedro

Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**Heh, I almost forgot about this topic. Zacha, for some odd reason, .zip does work with resource forks, at least in OSX. However, it may not work in OS9, so I'll repackage it as a .sit file.

Available now. Click here.
~ SpacePirate

**

Funny thing is that I found it out just yesterday, (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/postdisplay.cgi?forum=Forum64&topic;=002917")read this(/url). But of course that won't work in OS9, since StuffIt Expander is no longer updated for it. Thank for having put it in sit - at least here we don't have to worry about PC compatibility. However, I'm sorry, but I'm back on school, meaning stuck on PCs until the week end. I have both an OS9 and OSX Macs to test once at home, though.

One thing I realise: The only place we are most sure a beginner plug dever will go to is this place, the EVDC. There is no other linked to (save things that will leave him an incomplete feeling, such as the addon files or the plug dever FAQ). If we want people to know about some place, we have to link from here, either in a new topic full of keywords (so that it's found by searching, as the Nova FAQ links to this place indicating it's searchable people may attempt a search), or in our sigs.

Okay, I linked to here there, mrxak. I didn't think of doing it. Funny thing is I found (url="http://"http://support.aladdinsys.com/techsupport/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1649")this topic(/url)...

------------------
The (url="http://"https://secure.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/store/hazel.cgi?action=serve&item;=breakdown.html&BREAKDOWN;_SKUID=1480")Ambrosia Mac CD(/url) with other registrations - 5$. Paying for (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/")EV Nova(/url) as it's such a great game - 30$.
The (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/tshirts.html")1337 EV Nova T-shirt(/url)(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum25/HTML/000003.html#ZachaPedro05-18-200409:42AM") (/url) - 22$. The (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) by wOOtWare to tinker with your Nova - FREE!
The feeling you're a Nova geek - priceless.
There are things money can't buy or that are free, for everything else, there's indeed Mastercard.

(This message has been edited by Zacha Pedro (edited 06-21-2004).)

slouch

Here's a stupid question:

Why isn't a zipped .rez file an acceptable way to distribute plug-ins?

Maybe because MacNova doesn't come with a .rez to Mac-type converter? Are there any future plans for MacNova to include such a utility? It just seems like if Nova is ever to truly be a cross-platform game, this would be necessary. Maybe I'm not understanding all of this...

------------------

(This message has been edited by slouch (edited 06-21-2004).)

Zacha Pedro

There are such converters, but none is distributed with MacNova, and I don't think anyone besides plug devers ever heard of them. That said, if you only have access to a PC and wish to distribute a little plug for which you don't feel like asking a Mac person to convert for you before distribution, feel free, but include a readme in rtf or txt telling that, if by chance the guy is on a Mac, he should convert the REZ (that most of the Mac people using Nova have no clue what the hell this format is) into a Mac plug using one of the two ((url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evn&category;=utilities&display;=date&file;=MacPluginConvertor101.sit")David Arthur's(/url) and (url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com/products/freeware.php#3")Arios Software's(/url)) converters, giving the URL to find them.

------------------
The (url="http://"https://secure.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/store/hazel.cgi?action=serve&item;=breakdown.html&BREAKDOWN;_SKUID=1480")Ambrosia Mac CD(/url) with other registrations - 5$. Paying for (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/")EV Nova(/url) as it's such a great game - 30$.
The (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/tshirts.html")1337 EV Nova T-shirt(/url)(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum25/HTML/000003.html#ZachaPedro05-18-200409:42AM") (/url) - 22$. The (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) by wOOtWare to tinker with your Nova - FREE!
The feeling you're a Nova geek - priceless.
There are things money can't buy or that are free, for everything else, there's indeed Mastercard.

SpacePirate

You would think that MacNova would be able to read .rez files. If Nova had a built-in .rez > mac converter, it would make things much easier for PC developers.

~ SP

------------------
Fear the SpacePirate,
He made a (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/search.html")plug-in search page(/url)...
And he'll board your ship! -mrxak
*** (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/")InfernoStudios(/url) was last updated 06 June, 2004. ***

mrxak

Okay, TomWoozle has been nice enough to change the upload text around a bit. Please check it out, and let me know if it is a satisfactory replacement. Bear in mind that it is used for all uploads, not just Nova.

SpacePirate

Close, but you should actually encode before compressing. At least for mac evn plugins. Is there any way to get a custom dialogue for Nova?

I tried to view the source, but was unable to do so. Come to think of it, if you used javascript, you can dynamically change the content of the page. Perhaps if the EVN method is chosen from the popup menu, it should adjust the text to fit evn's specific needs...

~ SpacePirate

------------------
Fear the SpacePirate,
He made a (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/search.html")plug-in search page(/url)...
And he'll board your ship! -mrxak
*** (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/")InfernoStudios(/url) was last updated 06 June, 2004. ***

Zacha Pedro

At least Compact pro has been removed, it was highly outdated... regardless of Nova, people even on Mac would have had a hard time uncompacting.

It's a good step in the right direction. I tend to think that sit compression should instead be sitx (support for OSX specific thingies, such as permissions), but it has little consequences for the kind of files people (generally) upload, that just need to be read by everyone as far as permissions are concerned, and (not quite sure about it, but) Stuffit 7.5 on Windows won't unstuff sitx. If there was a way to have a Nova-specific dialog, that'd be cool. But if they don't want to make it dfferent for Nova, perhaps it could just have something ("people uploading Nova plugins should read this"), linking to a topic in the EVDC, just like the master plug tester list, that would contain in its first post the definitive Nova file upload instructions: bin.zip for Mac, .rez.zip for PC if you don't feel like asking some Mac person to convert it for you, with a readme telling Mac people how to derez, HTML or RTF for text files (be them plug readmes or standalone guides/helpers), JPEG for images/screenshots that are just to be displayed to the user, PNG for images that are somehow to be processed (such as example files to be imported in a plug if ever someone is to release a guide on that), mp3 for music and sounds, QuickTime format for movies since the guy will have it (or any QT-readable format)... I think I've covered most of the kind of files people may wish to upload ('cept executables/apps, but there's no way the same file can be converted to serve for both).

------------------
The (url="http://"https://secure.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/store/hazel.cgi?action=serve&item;=breakdown.html&BREAKDOWN;_SKUID=1480")Ambrosia Mac CD(/url) with other registrations - 5$. Paying for (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/")EV Nova(/url) as it's such a great game - 30$.
The (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/tshirts.html")1337 EV Nova T-shirt(/url)(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum25/HTML/000003.html#ZachaPedro05-18-200409:42AM") (/url) - 22$. The (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) by wOOtWare to tinker with your Nova - FREE!
The feeling you're a Nova geek - priceless.
There are things money can't buy or that are free, for everything else, there's indeed Mastercard.

(This message has been edited by Zacha Pedro (edited 06-23-2004).)

dp

I'd like to get back to mrxak's proposal for an open-source EVN bible. Speaking as a newbie, the biggest obstacle I've run into thus far is incomplete documentation. (Some of the people who've posted on this thread can testify to that -- they've helped me out.)

It's evident that much is known collectively by the developers that isn't in the bible. Some -- maybe all -- can be uncovered by searching the archives, but this is inefficient and hardly foolproof.

One suggestion I'll make for implementing an open-source bible is that it not be truly open. Some people express themselves more clearly in writing than others, so an open source approach would be apt to yield an uneven product.

I think we should have an editor, who is a solid technical writer and would be responsible for compiling the contributions and deciding how (and where) to incorporate them.

It would also be a good idea to have a quality control system, i.e., a way to ensure the additions are correct, either by independent experimentation or, occasionally, by checking with the EVN programmers. I can easily imagine how some of the things folks think they know, based on past experience, might turn out to be only partly right because they missed some special case in their testing. This QC system could be implemented by a team of volunteers, working in cooperation with the editor.

------------------

Guy

Quote

Originally posted by dp:
**One suggestion I'll make for implementing an open-source bible is that it not be truly open. Some people express themselves more clearly in writing than others, so an open source approach would be apt to yield an uneven product.

I think we should have an editor, who is a solid technical writer and would be responsible for compiling the contributions and deciding how (and where) to incorporate them.

It would also be a good idea to have a quality control system, i.e., a way to ensure the additions are correct, either by independent experimentation or, occasionally, by checking with the EVN programmers. I can easily imagine how some of the things folks think they know, based on past experience, might turn out to be only partly right because they missed some special case in their testing. This QC system could be implemented by a team of volunteers, working in cooperation with the editor.
**

I'll second that. The editor should also choose whether or not to include information based on how important/useful/relevant it is.

------------------
"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." Douglas Adams

Zacha Pedro

Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**Heh, I almost forgot about this topic. Zacha, for some odd reason, .zip does work with resource forks, at least in OSX. However, it may not work in OS9, so I'll repackage it as a .sit file.

Available now. Click here.
~ SpacePirate

**

I've tried it extensively. First off, good job! Finding free zip compressors isn't exactly easy. The things work well for the most part, the basic functionality is there. Let me tell you about the tests I made: I attempted to encode a certain plugin distribution, AAC Paint Station Prime, into a zip archive so that double-clicking on it on a Mac (after having made it "forget" which application created it, just as it does when having run through the Internet) makes Stuffit expander (bundled on all Macs for quite some time) dezip and debin it, and use another unzipper (such as MacZipCrypt) to see what a Windows user would obtain. I compared with the capabilities of DropZip, which has the option of automatically bin file before zipping them. I tried on both OS9 and OSX.

Under OS9, I first tried bining just the plug, then zipping. Then unstuffed with Expander. The folder no longer had a custom icon, the plug worked fine, but the readme wasn't easily opened: OS9 couldn't identify the file. Even dragging it on SimpleText didn't work (but the data was there). I retried with bining the readme, but then the Windows user will obtain garbage at the beginning of the file. The best way is therefore to give the readme an extension that matches the kind of file (txt, html, or rtf), it will be friendlier for the PC user AND will allow OS9 to recognise the kind of file. Using DropZip gave the same results. However, there's no way to obtain the custom icon on the folder, even just on a Mac: the finder flag of the folder that tells it to use a custom icon (an invisible icon file inside the folder) isn't kept when zipping, even if you take care to bin the invisible icon file. That's one little downside of .bin.zip. The results were similar in OSX. One thing that may be confusing is that the OS9 binaries work in the Classic environment of OSX, and MacBinDrop works in OS9! Maybe you could separate (in one folder "OS9", one folder "OSX") then more... One thing is that MacZipCrypt attempts to save the Mac information of files (resource forks and finder info) into a folder "Xtra stuff.mac", that it can use when inzipping, but that only MZC can. Therefore, you should give instructions in the readme to the uploader to give intructions to the user to ignore this folder. And instructions to always give extensions, it even helps Mac downloaders. And instructions not to attempt to give custom folder icons. Notice DropZip (costly, however) provides the same functionality should you choose "smart" in the macbinary tab.

------------------
The (url="http://"https://secure.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/store/hazel.cgi?action=serve&item;=breakdown.html&BREAKDOWN;_SKUID=1480")Ambrosia Mac CD(/url) with other registrations - 5$. Paying for (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/")EV Nova(/url) as it's such a great game - 30$.
The (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/tshirts.html")1337 EV Nova T-shirt(/url)(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum25/HTML/000003.html#ZachaPedro05-18-200409:42AM") (/url) - 22$. The (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) by wOOtWare to tinker with your Nova - FREE!
The feeling you're a Nova geek - priceless.
There are things money can't buy or that are free, for everything else, there's indeed Mastercard.

boot

Quote

Originally posted by dp:
< suggestions for open-source EVN bible>

One word: wiki?

------------------
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, the ceremony of innocence is drowned..."
(url="http://"http://home.pi.be/~psdn0983/hyperionproject/")EV:Hyperion(/url)

mrxak

Okay, I've been tasked with writing a page (text and links to needed software) for a Nova-specific instructions on uploading files for multi-platform use.

So... what are the specific details required in order to get people uploading files correctly? Could somebody provide me with a list of everything needed so I don't forget anything?

Zacha Pedro

First off, congrats! You should tell:
-On a Mac, to .bin the actual plug files (i.e. the ones we edit with a plug editor, which is everything you put in the plug or data folder but the intro music and movies)
-give extensions to everything for file identification (except the intro music, but give instructions on the readme to add it on PCs), helpful even on Macs. Binned files are to be given, if they don't have it already, the .bin one. The others should be:
-the readme should be a Rich Text File (textedit and AppleWorks can save in it), with extension .rtf. If the readme can't be saved in rtf, raw text with extension .txt can be accepted but then the first line should tell "better opened with wordpad" (if opened in notepad or anything else on PC it will have no line return at all). None of these formats support images, but a readme shouldn't contain any as it should be ready to open by anyone (as it may have to contain subsequent instructions for the other files and installation. If you want some nicer format for your preambles or manual, for instance, they should be in PDFs, with extension .pdf, separated from the readme, and the readme should tell how to open them (i.e. with Acrobat Reader).
-any screenshot/image the distribution includes should be in a reasonably common, web-ready format, i.e. PNG with extension .png, JPEG with extension .jpeg, BMP with extension .bmp, or GIF with extension .gif. Anyone has the possibility to save in at least one of these formats.
-any movie, be it to be installed or be some preamble to see outside of the game, should be in QuickTime format, and have the extension .mov. Anyone having Nova has QT installed and can open them.
-Music not intended as an intro music, included for listening while playing on iTunes, for instance, sould be in MP3 with extension .mp3, shorter sounds included for whatever reason should be in AIFF with extension .aiff.

-on PC, people should just put their .rez files instead of the binned plugs, observe the instructions above for other files (WordPad can save in RTF, but raw text is acceptable, and no need for any warning, they will just have some extraneous, illegal chars on Macs)

Then everyone should zip everything, and give the zip archive the extension .zip. Notice you don't need to link to anything else than binning (for Mac folks) and zipping (for both). For zipping on PCs, you should just link to WinZip as the current dialog does, for binning and zipping on Macs link to SpacePirate's stuff (works well).

Now I realise it's a bit long. You may wish to just tell: on a Mac, .bin actual plug files, on a PC, just take the .rez ones. Then add the readme in RTF with extension .rtf, and zip everything. As a rule of thumb, try to open your archive (that has to have the extension .zip) to see if you can access its contents yourself before submitting it. Then submit it.

Unlike the other uploads, the zip shouldn't be hqxed or binned, as we intend PC people just to need a zip uncompressor to be able to play. I think that's all we need to tell them. If they wish to know more, they can ask us.

------------------
The (url="http://"https://secure.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/store/hazel.cgi?action=serve&item;=breakdown.html&BREAKDOWN;_SKUID=1480")Ambrosia Mac CD(/url) with other registrations - 5$. Paying for (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/")EV Nova(/url) as it's such a great game - 30$.
The (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/tshirts.html")1337 EV Nova T-shirt(/url)(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum25/HTML/000003.html#ZachaPedro05-18-200409:42AM") (/url) - 22$. The (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) by wOOtWare to tinker with your Nova - FREE!
The feeling you're a Nova geek - priceless.
There are things money can't buy or that are free, for everything else, there's indeed Mastercard.

mrxak

Can anyone else think of anything else that's needed? If not, I'll get started on it soon.

Guy

As long as there's going to be a 1.0.9 update I think the mac version should be changed to use the mp3 extension on the music filename.

------------------
"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." Douglas Adams

mrxak

Quote

Originally posted by Guy:
**As long as there's going to be a 1.0.9 update I think the mac version should be changed to use the mp3 extension on the music filename.

**

I've made that suggestion on the beta list. Hopefully it will be done.

dp

Quote

Originally posted by boot:
**One word: wiki?

**

Sorry, but I need more words to understand this question.

------------------

what_is_the_matrix

Quote

Originally posted by boot:
**One word: wiki?
**

One word: WHAT?!

Seriously. What the heck is a wiki? Is it tasty?

Matrix

------------------
"Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought -- particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things." - Woody Allen

(url="http://"http://htf.mondominishows.com/valentine/main.asp?seed=7375&serial;=214877")The funniest valentine I've ever gotten.(/url)

Ambrosia Garden Archive

Navigation

Account

Navigation

Account