Qaanol: I’m glad you find 4.0 useful. The ability to open multiple editors at once has been on my list for a long time, and it took quite a lot of work to allow it without creating risks of data loss. I think many of the bugs you’re experiencing are Intel-related. I’m going to drop the Intel-native code in the next alpha, but in the mean time you should probably switch on Rosetta in MissionComputer’s Get Info window and see if that fixes your problems.

@qaanol, on Dec 30 2007, 02:44 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

However, STR# resources I create with version 4.0 open fine.

Out of curiosity, what happens if you open one of these 4.0-created STR# resources in 3.3.3 or ResEdit?

@qaanol, on Dec 30 2007, 02:44 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

However, there is one particular file I'm working with that has 6 missions which will open properly in Mission Computer 3.3 but DO NOT OPEN in version 4.0. MC4 crashes exactly as it does opening pre-existing STR# resources.

Can you post a copy of these missions?

@qaanol, on Dec 30 2007, 02:44 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

Resizable editor windows. Frankly, this is almost a must-have. It can be very frustrating not to be able to resize windows.

I’m a bit at a loss as to how this would work; most of the editors are arrays of controls, which aren’t really susceptible to resizing (if you made the window larger, it would just leave more blank space). The only editors that where I can see resizing being meaningful are the ones that already have it, like dësc and PICT. Can you give an example of what you want to be able to do?

@qaanol, on Dec 30 2007, 02:44 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

(1) When in the spďn or shän editors, clicking the magnifying glass to select a source image gives a list. I'd like the option to pick from thumbnails as well.
(2) When in that same image selection dialog, as far as I can tell it only lets a PICT be chosen. I'd like to be able to chose an RLE as well.
(3) And when you do assign an RLE to a spďn or shän, it would be nice to have the "Size" fields update automatically.

At the moment the spďn editor gives you thumbnails when selecting a PICT, but only a list for RLEs because I haven’t yet tied the thumbnail code and the RLE decoder together. (2) and the lack of thumbnails when you’re working on a shän both come from the limitations of the RDL language in which the shän editor is written; sometime in the 4.0 process I’ll probably write a real shän editor to bypass this problem. (3) I can probably do.

@qaanol, on Dec 30 2007, 02:44 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

(4) Record directly to snd resource.
(5) Create new PICT resource by pasting from clipboard as well as importing from file.
(6) Be able to change names of fields/create custom editors.
(7) Not have dsďg resource added automatically.

(4) is beyond the scope of MissionCompute. So is (6), except to the extent already allowed by RDL scripts. Have you ever opened up the bundle and looked at them? Only shän, wëap, and shďp(0/1) are left in 4.0, but older versions have a wider selection of examples.

(5) is already there; in fact, it was there before the Import from File button. Are you saying it doesn’t work for you?

(7) is actually necessary for complicated reasons. If I didn’t add the dsďg resource data might be lost. It could be any type, but I chose dsďg because its presence doesn’t change anything (it comes from the old templates circa Escape Velocity 1.0.0, and was never used).

@qaanol, on Dec 30 2007, 02:44 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

(8)Be able to see all resource types (even unsupported ones.)
(9)Be able to copy, paste, and delete unsupported resource types.
(10)Be able to open any resource (supported or unsupported) and edit as straight hex OR text.
(11)Be able to create unsupported resource types and edit as hex or text.

These are on the list of long-term desirable features. The main issue with (8)/(9) is that the current MissionComputer paradigm is to list all types, even if there aren’t any resources of that type in the particular file; obviously this would have to change if MissionComputer supported every type, or there would be 26^4 entries in the type list. (10)/(11) would of course depend on creating a generic editor.

@david-arthur, on Dec 30 2007, 06:52 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

Qaanol: I’m glad you find 4.0 useful. The ability to open multiple editors at once has been on my list for a long time, and it took quite a lot of work to allow it without creating risks of data loss. I think many of the bugs you’re experiencing are Intel-related. I’m going to drop the Intel-native code in the next alpha, but in the mean time you should probably switch on Rosetta in MissionComputer’s Get Info window and see if that fixes your problems.

Out of curiosity, what happens if you open one of these 4.0-created STR# resources in 3.3.3 or ResEdit?

Lemme check...Oh, this is not good. Not good at all. Here's the STR# resources as created in MC4:

...and here's two views of the same file opened in MC 3.3:

There are 768 lines in the MC 3.3 version, and they seem to change every time I resave the 4.0a3 version. And they're different still when I have both open at the same time.

Quote

Can you post a copy of these missions?

I traced the problem. I had STR# resource 4000 (Cargo Types) in the same file as the missions. When I opened a mďsn, MC4 checked for cargo types and crashed when it tried to open the STR#.

Quote

I’m a bit at a loss as to how this would work; most of the editors are arrays of controls, which aren’t really susceptible to resizing (if you made the window larger, it would just leave more blank space). The only editors that where I can see resizing being meaningful are the ones that already have it, like dësc and PICT. Can you give an example of what you want to be able to do?

I want to make windows smaller and scroll around to see different parts of the editor.

Quote

(5) is already there; in fact, it was there before the Import from File button. Are you saying it doesn’t work for you?

Ahh, how right you are. I had been trying to paste directly to the PICT selection screen as I used to do in ResEdit, but I see now I can paste once I create a new resource.

One more thing I'd really like to have is the ability to copy and paste a whole bunch of resources at the same time. Yes, I know the Resource Copier can do this, but it's such a hassle to have to close both files I'm working with in order to copy a lot of resources from one to the other. It's already possible to select more than one resource by shift- or command-clicking, I just want to be able to command-c and command-v once I have them selected.

@qaanol, on Jan 5 2008, 03:21 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

There are 768 lines in the MC 3.3 version, and they seem to change every time I resave the 4.0a3 version. And they're different still when I have both open at the same time.

I can’t reproduce this, so I suspect it may be another Intel problem; does it still occur in 4.0a4?

@qaanol, on Jan 5 2008, 03:21 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

I want to make windows smaller and scroll around to see different parts of the editor.

That’s beyond the scope of MissionComputer’s design (or goals).

@qaanol, on Jan 5 2008, 03:21 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

Ahh, how right you are. I had been trying to paste directly to the PICT selection screen as I used to do in ResEdit, but I see now I can paste once I create a new resource.

Yes, MissionComputer maintains the difference between actual pictures and PICT resources, where ResEdit treats the two as interchangeable.

@qaanol, on Jan 5 2008, 03:21 PM, said in Third alpha of MissionComputer 4.0:

One more thing I'd really like to have is the ability to copy and paste a whole bunch of resources at the same time.

This is on the medium-term desirable list; it may occur in future 4.0 alphas depending on how much work it proves to be.

To avoid confusing, I’m closing this topic; further discussion can take place in the a4 thread.