Open and save in a fraction of the time

Hello, everyone —

Over on EV-Nova.net, I’ve posted a public beta of the next upgrade to MissionComputer, which includes changes answering the requests of a few people on these boards.

David Arthur, on EV-Nova.net, said:

I’d like to present a public beta of MissionComputer 3.3.3. This is not, in the scheme of things, a major upgrade — it adds no new editors — but it does contain a number of small fixes and minor features, as documented in the version history help page.

Of most note is that it is, by popular demand, much faster than 3.3.2 in opening and saving files. I’ve achieved this by (yet again) changing internal file formats so as to eliminate the step of converting to and from .mcbundle format every time you open or save. Because of this change, however, I’d like to ensure that the new version is fully tested before I upload it to Ambrosia’s add-ons directory, which is why I’ve posted it here.

Please try it out, and take advantage of it for your development projects (taking care, of course, to keep backups, though it seems stable for me); let me know through this topic if any problems arise.

MissionComputer 3.3.3 public beta is available at <http://www.ev-nova.n...opic.php?t=1496>.

David Arthur

Bravo, I love it.

Aaaauuugh! Why can't somebody make an awesome EVN editor for PC?

Because Windows sucks. I'll definitely try this though. Some of my data files were taking an annoyingly long time to open and save.

EDIT: And it's awesome. I won't be using it to work on my projects, but the new way of displaying rlës makes editing them a snap. I also like how quickly it opens and saves. Yay!

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja : 05 January 2007 - 04:42 PM

The speed increase in rlë resource saving is incredible. If only this had come out a few days ago ...

This post has been edited by Aelran : 05 January 2007 - 05:02 PM

@masterryan, on Jan 5 2007, 02:23 PM, said in MissionComputer 3.3.3 public beta:

Aaaauuugh! Why can't somebody make an awesome EVN editor for PC?

You can always find a Mac OS emulator, a copy of Mac OS, and in some cases a Mac ROM, so you can emulate MC on your Windows machine. Or you buy a nice Mac to run MC with.

@masterryan, on Jan 5 2007, 03:23 PM, said in MissionComputer 3.3.3 public beta:

Aaaauuugh! Why can't somebody make an awesome EVN editor for PC?

You have EVNew. I used it back when I was on Windows and I will say that its just as powerful as Mission Computer, just not as shiny. All it needs is a graphical galaxy editor so you can see where systems are when placed.

Indeed, compared to what was available to Windows users before it, I’d say that EVNEW is pretty awesome.

EVNEW is awesome, speaking from personal experience. Definately not shiny, but it works extremely well. Though on topic I would have to say that I should probably try out this program.

Thinking about almost makes me want to get back into making plugins again.*

*which would be started by re-fixing my Battle Arena plugin and fully updating it. Alas, hard-drive failures and lost data. I wonder how far I could get on my new Mac...MS Paint really was a good tool.

The money or the bag...

3.3.3 is great. Blazing speed! It's a wonderful tool.

Has anyone experienced data loss in this beta, or received a message telling them that a resource could not be saved?

Hello again —

I’ve updated the public beta to version 3.3.3b2. This version deals with most of the bugs and some of the requests that I’ve received so far; the change list is below. I’d still like to hear about any bugs you experience, especially if they involve data loss or are new to 3.3.3.

At this time I’d also like anyone who has participated in the beta test and would like to be added to the credits list to tell me their name as they would like it to appear in the about box.

Beta 2 can be downloaded here:

• MissionComputer for Mac OS X (3.2 MB)

• MissionComputer for Mac OS 9 and earlier (3.6 MB)

Changes since beta 1 are as follows:

• MissionComputer can now show cicns (so that you can see them, and don’t forget that they’re there. Perhaps an editor at some later date.

• MissionComputer is less aggressive about changing the creator codes of opened files.

• The enter key now behaves the same way as the return key in RDL editors.

• The gövt editor now shows the resource-selection box for the Interface field.

• The ďntf editor now offers a pop-up menu for selecting the status font, and immediately refreshes when it is changed.

• The Make RLE utility will now open JPEG graphics (though PICT, TIFF, or PDF is still preferable, as JPEG causes image degradation).

• The galaxy editor now draws one-way links broadening towards the destination system.

• The galaxy editor now defaults to 1024x768.

• Reinstated the graphical resource picker, with a new version of the creation code not dependent on ResBundle (performance still seems acceptable).

• The about box can now automatically sort and add line breaks to the list of testers.

• Make RLE now applies the chosen resource name to the RLE resources as well as to the spďn/shän.

• Began working on a selector for the EV Nova data files that tells you what resource types are in each file (currently separate from the main code).

I think I may have asked for this at one point, but I'm not sure. In any case, maybe with the new architecture, this will be more possible now than before.....

You know the resource selector lists in various places? They're useless when dealing in resources that exist in a seperate file; you have to find the ID manually. It would be awesome if there were a button you could click to build those lists based on a specified second file. They wouldn't even have to be dynamic; just sort of a "take snapshot" deal, mapping names to IDs.

@lindley, on Jan 17 2007, 02:11 PM, said in MissionComputer 3.3.3 public beta:

You know the resource selector lists in various places? They're useless when dealing in resources that exist in a seperate file; you have to find the ID manually. It would be awesome if there were a button you could click to build those lists based on a specified second file. They wouldn't even have to be dynamic; just sort of a "take snapshot" deal, mapping names to IDs.

The resource selectors already allow you to see the contents of the relevant game's data files with the pop-up menu at the top of the window - are you asking to be able to add your own files to that menu as well? That would probably be possible.

@david-arthur, on Jan 18 2007, 04:50 PM, said in MissionComputer 3.3.3 public beta:

The resource selectors already allow you to see the contents of the relevant game's data files with the pop-up menu at the top of the window - are you asking to be able to add your own files to that menu as well? That would probably be possible.

Essentially, yes. Us TC developers would find that handy.

I tried out 3.3.3 beta 2 for once in a long time- last time was 3.2, and I and seeking to replace the old (and buggy!) 3.0 on my Mac.

"This file could not be opened. The file could not be copied into the cache folder" error when opening Endgame Graphics. Opening Empire of Crime works well; opens lightning-fast, and shows the resources, even the largest instantly. Even the most gigantic resources open quick; the file contains 1570 descs, which is shown with a bit of waiting. Opening a new, saved plug works well. Opening EOC Graphics causes the same could not be copied... error. Opening Endgame Plugin works fine. It seems to mostly happen with big files, and especially with files labelled graphics. That is, 6 MB+ I dont know why. Small files (1.7 MB or less) always work fine. Though there was 4.4 Mb- FOTVE 1.0 b8- file that worked well, even if it is big. However, if I open another file and then the FOTVE file, I get the could not be copied into the cache folder error and when quitting it causes such a fatal crash that I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del and terminate the whole emulator. The desktop icons are never redawn.

I conclude that it crashes or refuses to open on big, multi-megabyte files.

But for the actual reason why its crashing.... Maybe Mission Computer is choking at a lack of some internal kind of memory thing? It cant be actual memory, as I have given it 50 MB. It cant be that System 7.5 is not designed to cope with such files, as ResEdit opens them fine and instantly. I think it is that my OS version is just too old for mission computer to work properly (designed for OS 8).

But I think it still harsh that every version must have some kind of problem under System 7.5 in Basilisk II. I mean, just because its not supported doesnt mean it has to, does it? 3.2 didnt have this kind of problem, but it had problems with saving files crashing badly and totally, which 3.3 thankfully fixes. And opening files took forever; I was a bit skeptic on 3.3.3 actually being completely as fast as advertised, as advertising says things are better than they are, but saw that 3.3 really does open files instantly.

I know that its for OS 8 and up only. I know its done on a PowerPC. But it still seems a bit harsh that you wont fix for 7.5 (Some people have been able to run the Classic Edition on Macintosh System 7.x and on Windows-based Macintosh emulators, but such configurations are unsupported, you say on your site..) After all, emulators wont run anything except 7.5 out of the box, and I certainly arent paying $50 for OS 8. And besides, the main reason was that I wanted to submit something as a bug report. Maybe it happens with the other versions too, then it could be useful to fix the bug, it could be useful in later versions. Or is that it only happens on System 7.5- multi-megabyte files are no problem in 9 and X?

$50 for Mac OS 8? You can find it for ten on eBay...

This post has been edited by JacaByte : 19 January 2007 - 05:47 PM

@general-cade-smart, on Jan 19 2007, 04:25 PM, said in MissionComputer 3.3.3 public beta:

I conclude that it crashes or refuses to open on big, multi-megabyte files.

But for the actual reason why its crashing.... Maybe Mission Computer is choking at a lack of some internal kind of memory thing? It cant be actual memory, as I have given it 50 MB.

MissionComputer stores the files in a cache folder, not in memory, so that isn’t the problem. I and others routinely work on multi-megabyte files — some people are making individual sprites larger than the files you’ve tried — so I suspect the problem must be connected to your unusual set-up.

@general-cade-smart, on Jan 19 2007, 04:25 PM, said in MissionComputer 3.3.3 public beta:

But I think it still harsh that every version must have some kind of problem under System 7.5 in Basilisk II. I mean, just because its not supported doesnt mean it has to, does it? 3.2 didnt have this kind of problem, but it had problems with saving files crashing badly and totally, which 3.3 thankfully fixes. And opening files took forever; I was a bit skeptic on 3.3.3 actually being completely as fast as advertised, as advertising says things are better than they are, but saw that 3.3 really does open files instantly.

I know that its for OS 8 and up only. I know its done on a PowerPC. But it still seems a bit harsh that you wont fix for 7.5 (Some people have been able to run the Classic Edition on Macintosh System 7.x and on Windows-based Macintosh emulators, but such configurations are unsupported, you say on your site..) After all, emulators wont run anything except 7.5 out of the box, and I certainly arent paying $50 for OS 8.

From the start, MissionComputer has been designed for Mac OS 8 and up; I was surprised to discover that people were able to successfully use it in System 7. There have been so many changes in the course of Mac OS updates that there is simply no way I could provide organised support for System 7, and a version that did so would have to be built from the ground up with next to nothing in common with the programme that exists. Mac OS 8 was released ten years ago, and while I have as fond memories of the System 7 era as anyone, I don’t have the resources to accommodate these older versions, and even continuing to support the Classic Mac OS at all has its headaches associated with it.

Mac emulators on Windows have always been dodgy — even more so than Windows emulators on Macintosh — so it’s not possible for me to predict how MissionComputer will react to them, or provide any meaningful support.

Once I had the same problem and General Sundown Smart, but otherwise no data loss or any other sort of problems, of course I'm not doing anything very fancy at this point.