On this thread (vassalengine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=264#264), we
started discussing difficulties with launching VASSAL on various platforms,
becuase we were having said difficulties with my development build.
If you’re not using Windows, there’s nothing new to see in this build
beyond what was in svn2727. If you are using Windows, of potential
interest is the VASSAL.exe which is now present, along with VASSAL.sh
and VASSAL.bat.
VASSAL.exe is a JAR launcher I created using JSmooth:
Getting this to work correclty was a five-minute job, and now I
have a configuration file which I can put into the repo if we
end up distributing the Windows executable created this way.
One nice thing which I haven’t tested is that that executable can
download and install Java for you if you don’t already have it,
apparently.
This is the best way I’ve yet seen for handling VASSAL startup for
Windows users. There’s no messing with a batch file, or the classpath
or anything, which means happier users and fewer questions for us to
answer.
Biggest issue will be if users move the exe instead of creating a shortcut or manually unzip the package and dont create the correct folder structure as a result.
Then youll get the darn “Can not find Main Class error” which is not a biggie as we will know exactly what that means
With jokers like me about - yes We like to think we know what we are doing but we’re really just stumbling in the dark and get lucky sometimes…
besides there are still some people that can’t find the ‘any’ key! I dont feel so bad
I just used a simple bat to exe converter that I got from here f2ko.de/English/index.php
Im not ready to jump into the coding stuff yet - only just finished chapter 4 of Introducing Java, 2 more chapters and I graduate to fundamentals
I haven’t tried it yet myself but it sounds like a good solution. I’m not sure I agree with Tim’s assertion that someone other than himself would try moving the exe file. Having said that, it’s probably safer to assume users will do whatever is required to break it
Does the EXE method allow for modules to be specified on the
commandline? How about the “-edit” switch? I’m away from my
computers most of this week so I havent been able to test.
It is supposed to pass on any command-line arguments to VASSAL, but
I haven’t tested this. (It’s also still possible to adjust the initial
and max heap sizes from the command line, also.)
We like to think we know what we are doing but we’re really just stumbling in the dark and get lucky sometimes…
