Hello, everyone. I know I haven't posted lately, but that is because I have been working out issues with this little program of mine. You may recognize it as "Secret Project 392" from my sig at EV-Nova.net, which is only about a month overdue. (That's why Ambrosia doesn't give out release dates folks!) Regardless, this is a good thing, because I was able to put in several useful things, like file restoration and handling multiple document windows. Also, I was able to set it up as a framework for "Secret Project 829", which will not be long in coming.

Well, on to the details. The application, SpaceShip, is a plugin development application for Escape Velocity Nova. SpaceShip boasts an extensive, fully functional ship editor, which easily links all of the resources required to create ships. The application covers the shďp, shän, dësc, PICT, and rlëX resources, and automatically adjusts the resource IDs of these file types to correspond with its shďp resource.

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You can download the file from the following links:

(url="http://"http://evula.org/infernostudios/downloads/SpaceShip.sit")SpaceShip Beta 1(/url)
(url="http://"http://evula.org/infernostudios/downloads/SpaceShip.sit")SpaceShip Beta 2(/url)

Please post any issues in the topic, or feel free to send me an email.

Thank you for testing!
~ SpacePirate

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Known issues in Version 1.0.0 Beta 2:

• No rlëX support has been completed at this time.
• There is no graphical previews for the shďp or shän editors.

These issues do not affect the ability to edit plugins at all, but are only minor conveniences.

It is suggested that you use a backup copy of your plugins while using this beta. You should not have any problems, but this is, just in case.

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Eat blazing electric death!

(This message has been edited by SpacePirate (edited 08-08-2003).)

(This message has been edited by SpacePirate (edited 08-11-2003).)

so far this application is turning out to be really sweet.

theres a bit of a problem with the text boundries in certain areas like the ship descriptions while using system 9.2

i ave not tried it for X yet. but this application is super helpful in giving the ships target, and shipyard picts. i could never really figure it out in res edit.

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A couple of (constructive) criticisms:
• Whatever font you're using for labels is a little on the small size. It looks strange next to the bigger font used for the actual data and is awkward to read. Try making it a point or two bigger.
• Can't seem to drag and drop plug-ins onto the app, though opening from within the app works fine. I use drag and drop for pretty much everything, so support for that would be nice :^)

Other than that, haven't noticed any fatal flaws after a minute of quick testing, though one disadvantage I feel it shares with Mission Computer is that you have to click through so many tabs to view or edit all the data, whereas I can see everything at once in ResEdit. OS X nativeness is nice, but that feature alone makes me want to keep using ResEdit.

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by KarTaniK:
**i ave not tried it for X yet. but this application is super helpful in giving the ships target, and shipyard picts. i could never really figure it out in res edit.
**

It's fairly simple:
Targ ID = 3000 +Ship ID - 128
Ship ID = 5000 +Ship ID - 128

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

Thanks boyd.

i found another problem.
i found that you must save constantly, or else to much editing will cause it to quit. i recommend increasing the prefered Mbs a bit or so. i got in about 12 shipyards picts and target picts before it made me restart.

although, the part where it recognizes the fact that something wrong happened is quite nice, but all it does is restore it back to its normal state. perhaps i should have told it no. hmmmm.... anyways... i have to do the picts over again, but i don't mind. plenty of time to get more familer with the application.

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Thanks for the suggestions so far! A few teensie little problems were found right after I uploaded it, and I just re-uploaded the file with those bugs corrected, to the same location. I'll look into changing the size, Jon, but I think I will stick with the Tabbed interface- it allows you to work with much smaller windows, and it keeps everything nice and organized.

As for drag and drop, it works with documents created with SpaceShip, and I will look into adding support for other file types.

Thanks again!

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Eat blazing electric death!

Quote

Originally posted by KarTaniK:
**i found another problem.
i found that you must save constantly, or else to much editing will cause it to quit. i recommend increasing the prefered Mbs a bit or so. i got in about 12 shipyards picts and target picts before it made me restart.

although, the part where it recognizes the fact that something wrong happened is quite nice, but all it does is restore it back to its normal state. perhaps i should have told it no. hmmmm.... anyways... i have to do the picts over again, but i don't mind. plenty of time to get more familer with the application.

**

Hrm... It is supposed to load the very last changes, but you may be right. I'll increase the memory in a later update.

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Eat blazing electric death!

Quote

Originally posted by KarTaniK:
Thanks boyd.

No problem. There's a bunch of files on the add-ons page and of course the Nova Bible, which give the relevant ID numbers. Though to be honest, I usually do it by looking at what the last target ID was, adding 1 and just using that for the number. As long as I'm on my summer holidays I don't want to be doing amths in my head, no matter how trivial.

Quote

Originally posted by Space Pirate:
Thanks for the suggestions so far! A few teensie little problems were found right after I uploaded it, and I just re-uploaded the file with those bugs corrected, to the same location. I'll look into changing the size, Jon, but I think I will stick with the Tabbed interface- it allows you to work with much smaller windows, and it keeps everything nice and organized.

Well, it's your app. I think I'll be using it to edit ship descriptions, so it's not really a big deal.

Quote

As for drag and drop, it works with documents created with SpaceShip, and I will look into adding support for other file types.

What kind of documents does it create? I thought that Nova plug-ins would have been the standard file type?

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**As for drag and drop, it works with documents created with SpaceShip, and I will look into adding support for other file types.

Thanks again!

**

shoot, i had forgot to mention about that. dragging plugings to the application works fine for me. takes about 4 seconds excatly to load though. but thats fine, and i have no objection too the well worth wait.

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Quote

i found that you must save constantly, or else to much editing will cause it to quit. i recommend increasing the prefered Mbs a bit or so. i got in about 12 shipyards picts and target picts before it made me restart.

Okay, the next update will have 12000 preffered, with 10000 minimum. This should be more than enough to handle large images and several windows.

Quote

Well, it's your app. I think I'll be using it to edit ship descriptions, so it's not really a big deal.

I'm going to guess that you do not use MC too often, you seem to be an avid ResEdit user. Believe me, the taabbed interface grows on you after a while.

Quote

What kind of documents does it create? I thought that Nova plug-ins would have been the standard file type?

SpaceShip creates a new file with a creator of shĎp, and a type of Npďf, so it is still valid in Nova. However, I think you'll be happy to know that I just set it up to open any file, so this will fixed in the next update.

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Eat blazing electric death!

Nice! This is high quality work... up on the level of MissionComputer. Maybe David Arthur would be interested integrating your project into MissionComputer 3.1?

Minor thing to improve interface: the cost field calculates a scientific amount for large numbers (2.014500e+6)... it would be easier to interpret if it just read 2014500.

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Captain Z - Mobile Operations Commander of the (url="http://"http://www.literatureclassics.com/68kmla")68K Macintosh Liberation Army(/url)
32 68K Macintoshes Liberated
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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/captainz")Captain Z's New and Improved Starbase of EV Stuff(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by KarTaniK:
**theres a bit of a problem with the text boundries in certain areas like the ship descriptions while using system 9.2
**

ya, i'l reply to one of my own posts.

anyways. i relized something about the text boundries. theres nothing wrong with them, except that if you want to scroll over, you can to use the blinking text line to go over. theres no side-to-side scroll bar. maybe there is for system X. i don't know, still have not tried it for X yet. i don't like using Nova in X, seems a bit chopy to me. system 9.2 is just so stable. sure theres the freezng problem, but that's only happened 3 times in my entire life. i've had macintoshs for many many years. since Performa 750 was considered New.

shoot, i'm getting off hand.

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Quote

anyways. i relized something about the text boundries. theres nothing wrong with them, except that if you want to scroll over, you can to use the blinking text line to go over. theres no side-to-side scroll bar. maybe there is for system X. i don't know, still have not tried it for X yet. i don't like using Nova in X, seems a bit chopy to me. system 9.2 is just so stable. sure theres the freezng problem, but that's only happened 3 times in my entire life. i've had macintoshs for many many years. since Performa 750 was considered New.

Okay, that's kind of strange. When I tested this in 9, it didn't have that problem. It may just be in your computer, as I didn't change it at all since I tested it, but I know for a fact that doesn't occur in X. The editfield is set to automatically wrap the text. Perhaps you could email me a quick sceenshot?

Quote

Originally posted by Captain Z:
Nice! This is high quality work... up on the level of MissionComputer. Maybe David Arthur would be interested integrating your project into MissionComputer 3.1?

Actually, I plan to continue expanding this project, so I'd like to keep it to myself <selfish grin>. Also, from what I have heard from DA, he uses a custom framework for handling resources in Mission Computer, and I use my own. It would be quite a bit of work to redo all of the code, and I don't exactly have a lot of time on my hands.

Quote

Minor thing to improve interface: the cost field calculates a scientific amount for large numbers (2.014500e+6)... it would be easier to interpret if it just read 2014500.

/me looks into it.

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Eat blazing electric death!

(This message has been edited by SpacePirate (edited 08-08-2003).)

ok, i sent an email with a before and after images attached.

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Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**I'm going to guess that you do not use MC too often, you seem to be an avid ResEdit user. Believe me, the taabbed interface grows on you after a while.

**

I thought you might have been influenced by MC. The Interface is uncannily similar, but if you plan on expanding then more power to you. My personal preference for it would be to cover the miscellaneous things, but thats only 'cause they're the things I'm doing for my TC now

-Starbridge42

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Hey! If I want cheesey poofs, I'll get cheesey poofs!
-Eric Cartman Law Enforcer
"Respect my Authorita!"

Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**SpaceShip creates a new file with a creator of shĎp, and a type of Npďf, so it is still valid in Nova. However, I think you'll be happy to know that I just set it up to open any file, so this will fixed in the next update.
**

Cool, very much appreciated :^)

Quote

Originally posted by Captain Z:
Minor thing to improve interface: the cost field calculates a scientific amount for large numbers (2.014500e+6)... it would be easier to interpret if it just read 2014500.

I actually prefer the scientific notation. Being a Physics student, I think of large numbers in that way and dislike seeing big streams of zeros. 1e+6 seems much better than 1000000 for a million and considerably easier to read. Maybe I'm just strange like that.

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

(quote)Originally Posted by Starbridge42:
**My personal preference for it would be to cover the miscellaneous things, but thats only 'cause they're the things I'm doing for my TC now:D

Okay, I think I'll be able to have an update out monday. It currently allows drag and drop support, 100% functional pasting pictures in the ship editor, and will include various other little things I haven't started yet.

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Eat blazing electric death!
**

i look forward to the update.

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Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by Starbridge42:
My personal preference for it would be to cover the miscellaneous things, but thats only 'cause they're the things I'm doing for my TC now
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Such as? I think all of the little resources are pretty well covered in both MC and EVONE, but it is a bit of a hassle to switch apps... Shouldn't take too long.
**

Well, cicn's? maybe colr's... ok so thats not gonna happen. Problem for me is Res Edit crashes (and being OS 8.6 takes the system with it) whenever I try to change the colour in the cicn resource, dunno why but it does. If I use Iconographer or similiar my computer crashes when I try to change colour. Somethings wrong with my computer. :frown:

But on topic, anything that isn't covered by MC or EVONE really.

-Starbridge42

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Hey! If I want cheesey poofs, I'll get cheesey poofs!
-Eric Cartman Law Enforcer
"Respect my Authorita!"

Quote

Originally posted by Starbridge42:
**Well, cicn's? maybe colr's... ok so thats not gonna happen.

**

The main reason updated editors have not been written for these (say, for EVONE) is because they are more of a general resource than an EV-specific one. On top of that, they have been deprecated by Apple, so there isn't a huge demand for them (yes, I know, except in the EV world ). Maybe one day in the future I'll think about writing one of these, but then it probably wouldn't work in 8.6 either...

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