I have a feature request. Often when looking through someone else's plug-in (whether I'm looking for dirt on what happens in the story, getting specs on ships or weapons for comparison, or just browsing) I find it difficult to find what I'm looking for in larger plug-ins when browsing missions, dëscs, and other list-based resources. It's the same when looking through the original Nova Files. When people show up at the Nova Board asking questions about missions, the missions in Nova are jumbled and it's hard to find where stuff is.

My request is for a 'find' function. Simply hit a shortcut of some kind (probably Command-F) to make a window pop up, type in the name (or part of the name) of a resource, and it'll find that resource. If no resource has that name, it can simply say, "No resource found." It would make things so much easier.

Yes, I know one can simply start typing the name of a resource and MC will find it for you that way, but that only works if you know what the resource's name starts with. Just today I was looking for the first part of the tutorial missions with Barry in EVN. I couldn't remember the name of the mission, though, only that it said, "Tutorial 001" at the end of its name.

So is there any chance you can add a find function?

Searching by resource name may be possible (although by content would be impractical). It would require some revisions to the way the document window works (in terms of interface, but especially rigging), but I'll give it some thought.

That could be a handy feature. What I have been doing when searching for parts of resource names is select all, copy, and paste into a word processing program to do the searching there.

Moreover, if I absolutely need to do find-by-content, I would use ConText. It wouldn’t even necessarily involve using ResStore either, since once the search is done and the resource found, edits can still be made through MissionComputer. This is useful when dealing with dësc resources, for example.

davidarthur.evula.net

New features for MissionComputer 4.0.8:

• The document window now has a Find box for searching resource names.
• The system editor now allows you to move around by dragging the background, and the mini-map displays planets according to their relative sizes.
• The system and star map editor windows now remember their size.
• Zooming is smoother in the star map editor.
• When you open a new resource, it is now created even if you do not input any data to it.
• RDL scripts can now specify default values for particular fields, and the shän template now specifies that several fields default to zero rather than -1 (thanks, Archon).

Fixes in MissionComputer 4.0.8:

• A text-encoding issue which prevented the opening of certain .rez files (such as AbsoluteMinimum.rez) is fixed.
• When creating a new planet, the system editor no longer inadvertently overrides your choice of ID number (thanks, Qaanol). The Undo button is now renamed Cancel to make its function clearer.
• In the spöb editor, the areas related to hypergates, wormholes, and the graphic type are slightly reorganised to make their function clearer.
• The spöb editor's CustPicID, CustSndID, HyperTrans, and HyperAngle fields are not filled if they do not apply, so as to avoid creating incorrect default values.
• The graphical picker no longer crashes if you use the arrow keys in an empty list (thanks, Qaanol).
• The document window's Delete command ignores the Star Map item in the system list when you delete multiple selected resources (thanks, Qaanol).
• STR# resources are no longer padded with blank strings when read from .rez files on an Intel-based Macintosh.
  Improved colour conversions for paint colours in the oütf resource.

QUOTE (David Arthur @ May 8 2010, 12:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

• The document window now has a Find box for searching resource names.

What, no thanks? Looks good, David!

Thanks in the version history go to people whose efforts tracking down bugs save me work, not people who create work with feature requests.

Minor bug report in MC4.0.8: The Use Graphical Picker menu item and its checkmark do not function properly when multiple windows are open that can be set to Use Graphical Picker. Specifically, when a different window becomes active, the menu item does not refresh to reflect the state of the newly-active window.

For example, if I am in one window and I set it to use the graphical picker, then the checkbox in the menu next to Use Graphical Picker appears properly. If I then switch to another window, which is not using the graphical picker, the menu item retains the checkbox, incorrectly. Clicking that menu item once has no effect except to remove the checkbox. Clicking it again then properly works, but if instead I had switched back to the first window then I would be in a place where the graphical picker is used but the menu says it isn’t, and clicking that option again would have no effect except to reinstate the checkbox. Et cetera.

Fixed, thanks.

I have a request about the Syst editor;

In game, you can fly and fly and fly in a straight line for a long time before you hit the edge and wrap around, but in Mission Computer you can't access all that space. The maximum amount of space you can edit in Mission Computer is a tiny area relative to the space actually present in the system. This prevents us from being able to replicate things like the wormholes in stock nova which were placed at the extreme far corners of the map, requiring you to navigate to them carefully or you'd miss them.

If possible, could you please alter the editor to allow us to use more (preferably all) of the available space?

Another small request.

Sometimes I'm copying maybe a few or a dozen of resources from one file to another, but if I'm trying to replace existing resources that have the same idea, I want to have a "Yes to All" optional button available when the MC asks me if I want to replace the existing resources bearing the same I.D. I believe the "Yes to All" feature seems to be available in certain areas of MC but not all.

QUOTE (Shlimazel @ May 18 2010, 11:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If possible, could you please alter the editor to allow us to use more (preferably all) of the available space?

The range of the sÿst editor is calculated when you open it, based on the position of the system's planets. (The star map editor works on much the same principle.) If you use the numerical fields to set a planet's position to (say) 3000,3000, and then close the editor and open it again, the scrollbars will reach out that far.

If, in order to accommodate the rare circumstances where far-away planets are desirable, I had the editor reach to the outer edges no matter what, then the scrollbars would be much less precise and the mini-map almost useless. You can already observe these effects if you open one of the systems with a wormhole on its outskirts.

QUOTE (Coraxus @ May 19 2010, 11:04 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sometimes I'm copying maybe a few or a dozen of resources from one file to another, but if I'm trying to replace existing resources that have the same idea, I want to have a "Yes to All" optional button available when the MC asks me if I want to replace the existing resources bearing the same I.D.

There are already three buttons in the alert box (Unique ID, Don't Paste, and OK), so I can't add another one while still using StandardAlert. I could change this to a custom dialogue box if this is getting in the way.

QUOTE

The range of the sÿst editor is calculated when you open it, based on the position of the system's planets. (The star map editor works on much the same principle.) If you use the numerical fields to set a planet's position to (say) 3000,3000, and then close the editor and open it again, the scrollbars will reach out that far.

Ohhh. I had no idea it did this, thanks. I hope I can think of enough good ways to use this,

QUOTE (David Arthur @ May 19 2010, 11:51 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There are already three buttons in the alert box (Unique ID, Don't Paste, and OK), so I can't add another one while still using StandardAlert. I could change this to a custom dialogue box if this is getting in the way.

I guess we can try that, as long as I'm not having to constantly tapping the "okay" button over and over again.
BTW, I can't recall if you found a way to allow the creation of rlë to override any existing ones instead of having to first go manually delete it and then go try making a new one in place of the one that had to be deleted in the first place.

Bug reports:

Opening a chär resource shows a red X in the “NCB set:” button even when the OnStart string is non-empty. (Editing the OnStart field and then hitting OK does make the green checkbox appear, but closing the resource and opening it again makes it revert to the red X.)

Creating a new Npïf file with a name greater than or equal to 32 characters in length creates a file with the first 31 characters as its name, then produces an error saying “The file ‘<whole filename longer than 31 characters>’ cannot be opened, because it could not be found. However, manually opening the file <name truncated to 31 characters> works fine. (On the other hand, .rez and NDät files can be created with filenames 32 characters or longer, but see below.)

Opening a file with name longer than 32 characters works, but the bar at the top of the window shows the default Folder icon rather than the MissionComputer file icon.

When closing the Get Info window on a resource, the list of resources jumps to show that resource at the bottom of the current window, rather than leaving the list scrolled where it was before.

Feature Requests:

I like that MissionComputer can sort by resource ID or name. However, when I switch from looking at once resource type to another, it always defaults to sorting by ID regardless of my last setting. I would like for MissionComputer to remember the last sort-order that was used for each resource type, and default to that switching to view the list of that resource type. This would not need to be saved, it could just be a per-file, in-memory thing. No need for a preference setting, so opening a file would have everything default to sort-by-ID, and it could be specific to each open file, so the resource sorting in one file doesn’t affect that in another. Or, at the very least, I would like a keyboard shortcut to toggle between sort orders (also, I wouldn’t mind having the sort-by-resource-size option like in ResEdit, and to be able to see the size of resources down to the byte.)

The list boxes used for the default weapons and outfits on ships, for the planets in a system, and so forth, look nice but are a bit of a pain to use. In particular, I have to click once to select a row, then again to select a box, and if I click too quickly it doesn’t work. (It is nice that I can select a row by hitting tab and then the arrow keys.) My big issue is I cannot begin editing a value in such a box without clicking the mouse on that value. I wish that ‘return’ would move focus from the selected row to editing the first box in that row, and that once editing a box, I wish ‘tab’ would move focus to the next box in that row and ‘return’ would move focus out of the editing area back to the whole row. Or at least I wish there were some keyboard shortcuts to begin editing a row, and to move to the next box, and then to finish editing.

Along the same lines as the previous, when cycling through fields with ‘tab’, I wish it would select not just text boxes and lists, but also drop-down menus, checkboxes, radio buttons, and those buttons to switch from one tab to another in an editor.

And I still really wish the resource lists could be opened as separate windows, so I could view, for example, the list of wëap and oütf resources in a file at the same time.

This post has been edited by Qaanol : 21 May 2010 - 11:23 AM

QUOTE (Qaanol @ May 21 2010, 11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Opening a chär resource shows a red X in the “NCB set:” button even when the OnStart string is non-empty.

Fixed, thanks.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ May 21 2010, 11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When closing the Get Info window on a resource, the list of resources jumps to show that resource at the bottom of the current window, rather than leaving the list scrolled where it was before.

This behaviour is necessary. The list has to be reloaded to reflect the changes you made in Get Info, and it can't count on the resource still being in the same place as it was before, since you may have changed its ID and/or name.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ May 21 2010, 11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I like that MissionComputer can sort by resource ID or name. However, when I switch from looking at once resource type to another, it always defaults to sorting by ID regardless of my last setting. I would like for MissionComputer to remember the last sort-order that was used for each resource type, and default to that switching to view the list of that resource type.

Remembering specific settings for each type isn't an option, at least not at the moment, but I've made it preserve the current setting when switching between types.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ May 21 2010, 11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

. . . also, I wouldn’t mind having the sort-by-resource-size option like in ResEdit, and to be able to see the size of resources down to the byte.)

At the moment it isn't possible to list the resource length in the document window without making it substantially slower. New framework developments that are just coming live may change this, and I will add that column as soon as it becomes practical.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ May 21 2010, 11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The list boxes used for the default weapons and outfits on ships, for the planets in a system, and so forth, look nice but are a bit of a pain to use.

Yes, the shïp editor's scrolling lists are inconvenient, but I haven't yet found a better way to fit all the necessary controls into one window. I suppose I may need to boost the required screen resolution again, but windows that large are inelegant even on a large monitor.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ May 21 2010, 11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Along the same lines as the previous, when cycling through fields with ‘tab’, I wish it would select not just text boxes and lists, but also drop-down menus, checkboxes, radio buttons, and those buttons to switch from one tab to another in an editor.

This can be adjusted in System Preferences, in the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' tab under Keyboard & Mouse. It isn't under the control of individual applications.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ May 21 2010, 11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And I still really wish the resource lists could be opened as separate windows, so I could view, for example, the list of wëap and oütf resources in a file at the same time.

I've thought about things like this at various points — it would, after all, be more like ResEdit — but it isn't possible without a fairly substantial re-write of the document window, which isn't happening at the moment.

I'll need to take a closer look at the behaviour of various routines when they encounter extended file names.

deleted

This post has been edited by Coraxus : 24 May 2010 - 02:29 AM

I’m getting another error related to long filenames. When I have an Npïf with a name longer than 32 characters (maybe ≥32, I didn’t test the cutoff point) open in MissionComputer 4.0.8 and I try to open a .rez file with the same beginning of the name (maybe matching for the first 32 characters?) MissionComputer does not open it and presents the error window, “This file could not be opened. MissionComputer could not copy this file into the cache folder. (0)”. Opening the files in the opposite order works fine.

" **Runtime Error 4: Failed Assertion

Location: /Volumes /Rbus /Common /Controls /ATSUEdit /ATSUEdit.cpp:1401
Failure Condition: noErr == status
Failure Message:**

Please report what caused this error along with all of the details above"

That doesn't happen after I create empty dësc, but right after I write anything to that dësc, it displays that error message. This happens also when reading dëscs.

What system version are you using?

Mac OS X 10.6.3