The next version development version of NovaLord will be released shortly to all those on the Alpha list. I would like a broader testing environment this time and hence if there is anyone else interested in helping 'test' NovaLord, email me or reply to this topic.

The latest release has been somewhat revised to behave much like all document-based applications in OS X do. Save As is now fully functional. The new PICT editor allows batch imports from multiple PICT files, multiple resource imports from external files and the usual single file/resource import. Hopefully the RLE editor will also be functional as it is an important precursor to both the ship, weap and galaxy editors, all of which are marked for development asap.

All of the bugs reported in the last release have been fixed. Since the last release the Carbon resource manager has been replaced as far as possible with my own Cocoa version. The Carbon resource manager was very rigid and not suited to the document application model.

There is now an "auto-save" feature in the prefs window. If selected, the plugin is saved to disk whenever it's content changes - this happens when closing an editing window, switching between resources in editors, or when the "update to plugin" button at the top left of the editor is pressed. If auto-save is not enabled, the plugin is only updated, not saved to disk, unless the Save menu item (command-S) or the Save button (on the main plugin window) are used. The Aqua 'unsaved doc window' dot in the red close button of a window indicates the saved/unsaved status of a plugin.

The current version of NovaLord is for OS X only. 10.1 is recommended as a minimum.

Remember to post if you want to test, and of course if you do test, you have an obligation to post comments to this topic.

Thanks!
Kane O'Donnell

Sounds good.

Please don't think we don't like Novalord due to the fact that we seem unenthusiastic. It's just the one you sent out before was extremely stable and executed well, and any bugs that did show up you squashed immediately.

Which didn't leave much to do except eagerly await the next version with brand new things for us to try to break ^_^.

Personally, I'd like a weapon or outfit editor next. They're fun, useful, generally easy to see if what you did works right or not ("Hmm, it doesn't seem to have made a working weapon" compared to "Hmm... I wonder if that flët is gonna show up"). A ship editor, of course, would also be awesome, but that seems to me like something that'd take a lot of time and work to get going, and I think it'd be preferable to get other things out of the way.

Graphical galaxy editing, of course, is something done by EVONE (And apparently still the only thing done by it... cough cough). So that looks like it can wait, at least from a software users perspective.

Auto-save sounds very handy as well, though I imagine at this point it's best for everyone to try it out with a plugin you don't mind losing/corrupting, as the first implementation of auto-save in any software seems to enjoy doing that.

Anyway, keep up the good work ^_^.

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Originally posted by Githon:
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Please don't think we don't like Novalord due to the fact that we seem unenthusiastic. It's just the one you sent out before was extremely stable and executed well, and any bugs that did show up you squashed immediately. **

tear of joy Gee, that's the nicest thing you could ever say to a developer. : )

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Personally, I'd like a weapon or outfit editor next.

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Yeah, you're probably right. In any case outfits is easy and will work much like the govt editor. A weapon editor has all the same problems as the ship editor - I'd like the RLE editor done first. I'm just torn between making it a really decent RLE editor (able to create RLEs frame by frame or from the old style grid sprites) or just an "import from another already created RLE resource" style RLE editor. I know I could do the former, it's just that it might take little more will power!

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Graphical galaxy editing, of course, is something done by EVONE (And apparently still the only thing done by it... cough cough). So that looks like it can wait, at least from a software users perspective.

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Originally posted by Githon:
**Graphical galaxy editing, of course, is something done by EVONE (And apparently still the only thing done by it... cough cough).

**

Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it. At least the one thing it does it does extremely well! The next release should make people much more happy. It is coming along nicely and should not be too long (as soon as I get some of the OS 9 bugs squashed).

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(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com")Arios SoftWare(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com/prgrams/evone/")EVONE 1.0.0 - the plugin editor for EV/EVO/EVN(/url)

Heh, true, it does seem to do what it does well ^_^

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