Hello, once again!

I've just posted the second alpha version of MissionComputer 4.0. This update fixes some issues from the first pre–release you've been using, and makes some minor additions, although I still plan more to come.

As I said when announcing alpha 1, this is still a pre-release version of MissionComputer, so it is incomplete, and you should be sure to keep backups when using it. In particular, when editing a system, you should be careful not to separately edit any of the spöbs included in it, or your changes may be overwritten; the help content is also largely incomplete.

The changes in alpha 2 are as follows:

• 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.

• Get Info: displays the size of the resource.

• System editor: grid lines check box moves appropriately.

• Ship editor: saves changes when only defence status display altered, marks Economy at Work.

• Removed invalid characters from various parts of the interface.

• Resource-reading code slightly improved.

Please report any bugs or usability issues you find - including ones from a1 that are still present - so that I can fix them for the release version. When reporting bugs, please tell me your system version and whether your Macintosh has a PowerPC or Intel processor.

MissionComputer 4.0.02 is an 11.7 MB disk image available from <davidarthur.evula.net/beta/crusoe/MissionComputer400a2.dmg>. It requires Mac OS X 10.3 or greater, and is a universal binary.

So far, it seems to be much more stable than the first alpha; it's only crashed once so far, when I closed a shďp resource that I had edited. OS 10.4.9, PPC.

As suggested before, a Revert command would be nice for the whole plug-in and not just individual resources.

Opening/closing resources is noticeably faster now, but switching between windows is still pretty slow for the larger resources such as ships and misns.

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

There's some sort of crazy window switching going on when I open a second (or more) file.

Freezes when I try to open a mission now.

It seems you've fixed bad characters in some places but here's some more (from the Cloak Scanner popup, which is very cool btw ;)):

Also happens with Map and Marines.

Dude types table in system editor cuts short the 'fleet' column heading.

This post has been edited by Guy : 28 March 2008 - 08:19 PM

Nil'kimas 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.

I see what you mean - I think I’ll turn off automatic deactivation of controls for the larger windows.

@guy, on Jun 21 2007, 07:34 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

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

That would be because it now uses the same scaling code for images with masks as for images without — I still can’t see why any of them should be coming out wrong, though. Does it work properly if you launch MissionComputer with Rosetta instead of natively? (Intel Macs allow this through Get Info, don’t they?)

@guy, on Jun 21 2007, 07:34 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

There's some sort of crazy window switching going on when I open a second (or more) file.

I’m not sure what you mean — could you describe this in more detail?

@guy, on Jun 21 2007, 07:34 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Freezes when I try to open a mission now.

All the time?

@guy, on Jun 21 2007, 07:34 PM, said:

It seems you've fixed bad characters in some places but here's some more

Dude types table in system editor cuts short the 'fleet' column heading.

Fixed, thanks (the latter was caused by an invalid character as well).

@david-arthur, on Jun 23 2007, 03:11 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

That would be because it now uses the same scaling code for images with masks as for images without - I still can't see why any of them should be coming out wrong, though. Does it work properly if you launch MissionComputer with Rosetta instead of natively? (Intel Macs allow this through Get Info, don't they?)

Good question. Yes, it does work fine

@david-arthur, on Jun 23 2007, 03:11 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

I'm not sure what you mean - could you describe this in more detail?

Well it happens really quickly. Difficult to see exactly what's going on. Happens whenever the main window of some file is frontmost and then I open another file.
Ha, I got a screenshot of it part-way through the process.

Here I've opened Override Data 1 and then opened Override Data 2. The first two items in the list there are names of missions present in Override Data 1 (although Aid the Voinians! is actually ID 182 :huh:). I think what's happening is it flashes up this window for a moment, then it disappears again, then the real window opens. Who's Bob?

@david-arthur, on Jun 23 2007, 03:11 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

All the time?

Yup.

This post has been edited by Guy : 28 March 2008 - 08:22 PM

@guy, on Jun 22 2007, 05:10 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Well it happens really quickly. Difficult to see exactly what's going on. Happens whenever the main window of some file is frontmost and then I open another file.
Ha, I got a screenshot of it part-way through the process.
<snip>
Here I've opened Override Data 1 and then opened Override Data 2. The first two items in the list there are names of missions present in Override Data 1 (although Aid the Voinians! is actually ID 182 :huh:). I think what's happening is it flashes up this window for a moment, then it disappears again, then the real window opens. Who's Bob?

Heh. I was just about to post a pic of that.

It shows the same thing no matter what I open, so I guess it's just a coincidence that it showed resources from the file you were opening. I was wondering the same thing about Bob. It's also interesting that the toolbar looks different in that window than in the real ones.
Edit: Hmm, when mine does that, the fake window has a toolbar that's around 15 pixels or so wide, and has no icons in it.

This post has been edited by Nil'kimas : 22 June 2007 - 05:48 PM

@nil-kimas, on Jun 23 2007, 10:37 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

so I guess it's just a coincidence that it showed resources from the file you were opening.

Not quite, they're from the file that is already open
You can't see in the screenshot but the toolbar doesn't have the other buttons it would normally have on the right, only the New Resource button.

This post has been edited by Guy : 22 June 2007 - 05:50 PM

This isn't actually causing me any problems since the icons for MC and plug-ins look fine the rest of the time (e.g. MC looks like it's supposed to in the dock, plug-ins in all formats have the correct icons), but some of the icns files inside MC look funky in the Finder and Preview. PPC G4, OS 10.4.9.
Picture_1.jpg (95.92K)
Number of downloads: 37

@guy, on Jun 22 2007, 06:10 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Here I've opened Override Data 1 and then opened Override Data 2. The first two items in the list there are names of missions present in Override Data 1 (although Aid the Voinians! is actually ID 182 :huh:). I think what's happening is it flashes up this window for a moment, then it disappears again, then the real window opens. Who's Bob?

That’s odd — for some reason, the window is now appearing briefly before it has been populated with the contents of the file you’re opening. I can even reproduce this one, so hopefully I can prevent it.

The fact that you had Override Data 1 open is actually irrelevant. Those strings are what I typed in when I first created the resource list back in 2001, in order to make sure the interface look right (before MissionComputer could actually read real files); the mission names are from EV Override because that was the first game MissionComputer supported. Similarly, the toolbar looks different because the code that gives it the 10.4 look hasn’t executed yet.

Nil'kimas said:

me of the icns files inside MC look funky in the Finder and Preview.

That’s odd, but the icons still seems to be working properly.

Would it be incredibly difficult to allow the addition and deletion of links to/from a system without creating/deleting reciprocal links? I have a specific order I want the links to be in a specific order, and it would be nice if MC didn't force me into a different one. Failing that, would it at least be possible to allow the re-ordering of links?

@orcaloverbri9, on Jun 24 2007, 11:18 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Would it be incredibly difficult to allow the addition and deletion of links to/from a system without creating/deleting reciprocal links?

I don’t want to do this, because it could lead to the creation of one-way links, which EV Nova doesn’t support.

@orcaloverbri9, on Jun 24 2007, 11:18 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

I have a specific order I want the links to be in a specific order, and it would be nice if MC didn't force me into a different one. Failing that, would it at least be possible to allow the re-ordering of links?

I don’t see why not — I’ll work on it for the next alpha, but in the mean time you can edit the links manually, in the traditional ResEdit style, if you open the system itself rather than editing from the star map.

I hope this works better than the last one. It kept crashing for no apparent reason. I cannot describe what I was doing at the time because each crash shared absolutely no common factors. I opened a PICT resource: crash. I uploaded a PICT resource: crash. I moved my mouse up towards the File menu to save my work before the inevitable crash: crash. Mind you, I really like your software, it's just that your first release needed a lot of work.

@scienceguy8, on Jun 25 2007, 10:58 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

I hope this works better than the last one. It kept crashing for no apparent reason.

It’s called an alpha for a reason — in a2, however, I’ve changed something I think might have been involved in the crashes some people have experienced. (Is your Mac PowerPC- or Intel-based?)

There's still some crashes (well, I've had at least one in a2). In the graphical browsers, would it be possible to show the resource names, either instead of (where available, like ResEdit did) or in addition to the IDs?

I'm not sure if this was mentioned anywhere before its happened in both Alpha 1 and Alpha 2 of MC4 when i am editing in the starmap and i move a nebula slightly it creates a new nebula, replacing the next nebula with the new co-ordinates... ie: neb 128 is moved slightly neb 129 is created with the new cordinates of neb128 and it replaces anything that was in neb129 in the first place.

Also

when using the starmap, i've got a neb representing a galaxy and i cannot directly access a star system its like the nebula is leveled above the stars on the map so i have to click in the general vacinity and then click on the menu list to slect the star system.

orcaloverbri9, I’ve added the ability to re-order links to the star map editor.

@guy, on Jun 25 2007, 10:03 PM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

In the graphical browsers, would it be possible to show the resource names, either instead of (where available, like ResEdit did) or in addition to the IDs?

Actually, ResEdit only displays the ID when you’re browsing PICT resources, just like MissionComputer. The problem with displaying the names is that they can potentially be quite long, and the ID is generally more crucial than the name, since you never have to reference a resource by name; also, the picture itself often gives you a good clue to what the resource is, but not to the ID.

@lostpinky, on Jun 26 2007, 05:24 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

i when i am editing in the starmap and i move a nebula slightly it creates a new nebula, replacing the next nebula with the new co-ordinates... ie: neb 128 is moved slightly neb 129 is created with the new cordinates of neb128 and it replaces anything that was in neb129 in the first place.

Fixed – thank you very much.

@lostpinky, on Jun 26 2007, 05:24 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

when using the starmap, i've got a neb representing a galaxy and i cannot directly access a star system its like the nebula is leveled above the stars on the map so i have to click in the general vacinity and then click on the menu list to slect the star system.

MissionComputer is designed so that when you click in an area occupied by more than one system or nebula, it asks you to choose which one you want rather than deciding on its own. Once you have specifically told it which one you meant, it remembers that until you deselect it or click in a different area. Therefore, when the nebula is selected, it becomes effectively ‘above’ the system, but the system does the same thing when it is selected.

I'm using a 2 Ghz Intel-powered iMac.

The new version appears to crash less often, but it's kind of hard to tell.

Thanks David, this program is definately going to rip.

The other question i had was... well excellent idea for the zoom function in the starmap design, is it possible to go further below 42% zoom or are you constrained by whatr Nova can do in game?

I mean the universe we're designing is huge and at 42% i can see about 2/3rds of a galaxy is it possible to zoom down to say 20% or something as well?

@david-arthur, on Jun 27 2007, 06:16 AM, said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

Actually, ResEdit only displays the ID when you’re browsing PICT resources, just like MissionComputer.

Are you sure? I could swear it showed names whenever the name wasn't blank. In any case, long names can always be truncated in the middle or something.

scienceguy8 said in MissionComputer 4.0 second alpha now available:

I'm using a 2 Ghz Intel-powered iMac.

I wonder if the crashes are associated with Intel — I don’t have access to an Intel Mac, so the universal binary is very much experimental. Is MissionComputer any more stable if you launch it through Rosetta instead?

@lostpinky, on Jun 26 2007, 05:54 PM, said:

I mean the universe we're designing is huge and at 42% i can see about 2/3rds of a galaxy is it possible to zoom down to say 20% or something as well?

The zoom ratios that MissionComputer offers are the ones at which EV Nova operates natively, but I suppose there’s no real need to restrict it to that, though I’d be sceptical about lower zooms proving to be genuinely useful; even at 42% things start to run together.

Guy said:

Are you sure? I could swear it showed names whenever the name wasn't blank.

No, just the ID numbers. I’ll take a look at it, but unless I significantly increase the size of the thumbnail, there won’t be room for much text.