While playing around with the module editor (for the purposes of updating the documentation), I found that if I delete the following components, I can’t find how to add them back:
Help Menu
Definition of Player Sides
Global Options
Global Properties
Game Piece Image Definitions
Translations
Also, I can’t find how to add:
Internet Dice Button
All these items seem to be missing from the context menu of the module.
Also some installation/uninstallation questions, or rather please correct me if my impression is wrong:
If installing from webstart, then VASSAL is installed locally on your system, but every time you start it (and are connected to the internet) it will check for an updated version, and automatically install it?
If installing from manual installer, then a version of your choice is installed locally (again), but there is no automatic updating to most recent version?
To uninstall (on Linux), simply delete the relevant folders: ~/VASSAL/3.0 and ~/VASSAL/lib (I had the lib folder on a previous installation, but it’s not there on my latest reinstallation); I kept ~/VASSAL because my modules and savefiles were in there. What about the cached files in ~/.java? And Windows installations can be removed using Add/Remove Programs if you so choose.
Yes. I was thinking of writing some code for checking for updates for
3.2—something unobtrusive, like what YourKit does—so this might
change sometime in the next few months.
On a non-Web Start install on Linux, there shouldn’t be anything put in
~/.java by VASSAL. (I don’t even have a ~/.java on my system.)
VASSAL isn’t being installed with a Windows installer on Windows, so
I don’t expect it will show up in ‘Add/Remove Programs’.
Anyway, my point is that I suspect many users are going to use an installer rather than a zip archive, so it would be worth documenting how to uninstall cleanly.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that a zip archive is at all difficult, but if VASSAL is going to be available in other “tastier” packages, then I want to know how to uninstall those!
There should be only one instance of any of these components, so that’s why you can’t add them. They shouldn’t even be deletable, but I guess they are.
In the past, there was a manual installer that created a local .jnlp file. That might have created some links to ~/.java, which is I think where Web Start puts its cached filed. That installer has been taken down now and replaced with a .zip archive, which does not have anything to do with ~/.java.
I don’t know where the VASSAL/lib file comes from. You should only have to delete ~/VASSAL/3.0 to uninstall. The files in ~/.java can be cleared via Web Start, where you can uninstall any .jnlp application as well as clear any cached files.
I suppose I could have created “lib” to hold a game module, or some logfiles. That must be the explanation, although for the life of me I can’t recall why I would choose such a dumb name!