first "development" build, please try

[uckelman]

Thus spake “Tim M”:

“lib/*” didn’t work for me Joel.

Im back using the long path again

I even tried this on a Windows machine and it worked for me. I’m
stumped.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “bsmith”:

Just gave it a try Joel, looks good!

A couple of things; Now that zooming is fast, what does everyone think about
having it mapped it to the mouse scroll wheel?

I’d hate that. Then I wouldn’t be able to scroll with the scroll wheel,
which is something I do way more often than zooming. The only apps I’ve
used which zoom on the wheel are Google Maps and eog. Every time I use
Google Maps I zoom accidentally the first time I want to scroll.

I suppose we could make it configurable, though. If we can’t already bind
actions to the wheel, maybe we should change whatever configurer is
responsible so that we can.

The initial loading of the map is a little slow, so is there some way we can
show an unobtrusive progress bar somewhere while this is happening (so the us
er can still scroll around)? I’m worried some users will get impatient and r
eport a bug.

Initial map loading takes exactly the same amount of time as it did before,
it’s just that now it happens when the map is first used instead of when
the game is loaded. That could be moved back to happening at game-loadtime
for the main map, at the cost of making loading take longer. Perceptually,
one might be better than the other.

The hooks for monitoring image load progress are already there—if you’re
running VASSAL from a terminal, you’ll see lots of periods printed there
as images load. I was thinking that we could either 1) change the cursor
to the ‘something is happening’ cursor, or 2) add a status bar at the
bottom of the window.

One more thing, when you click on “Load saved game” right after loading a mod
ule, can we have that going straight to the File Select dialog? This is pret
ty much my #1 grievance with Vassal right now, especially with so many PBEM g
ames going.

Er? When I select ‘Load game’ from the File menu, I get a file chooser.

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J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “Rodney Kinney”:

–===============0226535963==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=“----=_Part_25418_31570619.1198110254574”

------=_Part_25418_31570619.1198110254574
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

I suspected that I’d have to add a check at start-up to remove stale
temp files. It’s strange that between setting File.deleteOnExit(true)
and having a finalize() method which calls File.delete() explicitly,
this isn’t sufficient to remove all of the temp files when VASSAL is
exited normally.

Try Runtime.addShutdownHook() It has the advantage of working even if
somebody CTRL-C’s the program. If you create a dedicated sub-directory in
/tmp and put all the temp files in there, you can simply delete the entire
directory on shutdown.

rk

I’ll try the shutdown hook.

We can’t relly on there being sufficient space in /tmp for the temp files.
E.g., my /tmp partition is only about 330MB, which would make it impossible
to load the WiF module, which is my benchmark for hugeness.

–
J.

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[bsmith]

@uckelman

If we can’t already bind
actions to the wheel, maybe we should change whatever configurer is
responsible so that we can.

Zoom is already bind-able to keys so it’s probably OK as-is Joel. I’ve got zoom bound to Cntrl+ and Cntrl- (like the Adobe Suite), it would be nice to standardize these bindings so users get the same behavior no matter which module… it’s nit-picking though.

I was thinking that we could either 1) change the cursor
to the ‘something is happening’ cursor, or 2) add a status bar at the
bottom of the window.

I really like that cursor idea, simple and easy to implement.

Er? When I select ‘Load game’ from the File menu, I get a file chooser.

We may be kicking off Vassal differently, I’m not sure. I mean when you first open Vassal then click on “Play Module”; You get these options:

Start new game offline
Look for a game online
Load saved game

When you select “Load saved game” you then need to hit “Next”, then “Select”, then choose your file and click “Open”, then hit “Next” again! It should really just be: Click “Load saved game”, select the file, then click “Open”.

With PBEM, you almost always close Vassal when you’re done (no point leaving it open, it may be 24 hours before your opponent sends the log back), so PBEM files are almost always loaded this way (as opposed to via the menu).

Let me know your thoughts.

[uckelman]

Thus spake “Tim M”:

Im using XP Pro64 and same Java as you Ben, but it wont launch unless I go wi
th the long path

Tim, are you sure you’re not using Java 1.5? Because 1.5 (and maybe early
versions of 1.6?) doesn’t support wildcards (I think), and that would
explain why you’re seeing what you are.

related - these sh/bat files seem to be problematic at best. Rodney just set
up a stand alone for my latest mod release using these, and while the sh/bat
works fine for some users Im getting lots of emails and reports on CSW it doe
s not for others - they are having to go in and tinker all sorts of ways with
these files till it works on their machine - 1 fix for user A is not neces
sarily the fix that user B needs.

For example, one guy needed to put “” into the sh script around dir$0, while
another guy just had to rename the file so it had no spaces without editing e
tc… - its all greek to me (mac/linux) , but it is causing problems for sure

• Im hesitant to fix or change things because Rodney said the sh script worke
  d for him and i havent changed it - but universal solution would be useful

I can’t speak for the Windows batch files, but there is a way to make
the shell script work for all reasonable installations: Run the scripts
in sh and use only sh-compatible syntax.

I’d like to see what problems these people had. Shell scripts are the
simplest possible solution to the problem of starting VASSAL. Any other
solution will also have to invoke java and get the classpath right, so
if we can’t do it with a shell script, then we’ll have the same problems
with a more complex launcher which on top of that won’t be as easy for
the user to modify if it doesn’t work for them.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “bsmith”:

uckelman wrote:

If we can’t already bind
actions to the wheel, maybe we should change whatever configurer is
responsible so that we can.

Zoom is already bind-able to keys so it’s probably OK as-is Joel. I’ve got z
oom bound to Cntrl+ and Cntrl- (like the Adobe Suite), it would be nice to st
andardize these bindings so users get the same behavior no matter which modul
e… it’s nit-picking though.

Ctrl+ and Ctrl- are very common bindings for zooming. Gimp and Inkscape are
that way. Firefox uses those for changing text size, which is morally
equivalent to zoom in the context of HTML.

Would it be a good thing to have someone make a list of default bindings
that we should have, so that they can be implemented as defaults?

I was thinking that we could either 1) change the cursor
to the ‘something is happening’ cursor, or 2) add a status bar at the
bottom of the window.

I really like that cursor idea, simple and easy to implement.

Ok, I’ll try that. Part of me wants a status bar anyway, though, because
then we could display other useful information there.

Er? When I select ‘Load game’ from the File menu, I get a file chooser.

We may be kicking off Vassal differently, I’m not sure. I mean when you firs
t open Vassal then click on “Play Module”; You get these options:

Start new game offline
Look for a game online
Load saved game

When you select “Load saved game” you then need to hit “Next”, then “Select”,
then choose your file and click “Open”, then hit “Next” again! It should re
ally just be: Click “Load saved game”, select the file, then click “Open”.

With PBEM, you almost always close Vassal when you’re done (no point leaving
it open, it may be 24 hours before your opponent sends the log back), so PBEM
files are almost always loaded this way (as opposed to via the menu).

Let me know your thoughts.

Heh. You’ve omitted one of the options from your list, namely “Cancel”.
I always avoid the wizard and load from the file menu. (Actually, I wish
there were a way to turn off the wizard.)

–
J.

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[bsmith]

Would it be a good thing to have someone make a list of default bindings that we should have, so that they can be implemented as defaults?

It would be better than good!

Ok, I’ll try that. Part of me wants a status bar anyway, though, because
then we could display other useful information there.

A status bar would be cool but what about screen real-estate? Would it be worth the trade-off or would you have it go away when the module has finished loading?

Heh. You’ve omitted one of the options from your list, namely “Cancel”.
I always avoid the wizard and load from the file menu. (Actually, I wish
there were a way to turn off the wizard.)

With the wizard as-is, it’s 6 clicks to load a logfile. Selecting Cancel as you say is 5 clicks (Cancel, File, Load Save Game, Select file, Open). But having the wizard with Open save game, select sile, Open is only… wait for it… 3 clicks!! I would really, really love to have that.

[uckelman]

Thus spake “bsmith”:

Would it be a good thing to have someone make a list of default bindings th

at we should have, so that they can be implemented as defaults?

It would be better than good!

Volunteering?

Ok, I’ll try that. Part of me wants a status bar anyway, though, because
then we could display other useful information there.

A status bar would be cool but what about screen real-estate? Would it be wo
rth the trade-off or would you have it go away when the module has finished l
oading?

I think we could steal that space from something else. For example, if the
log area were hideable, that would gain us far more space than a status
bar would consume.

–
J.

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[bsmith]

By the way, I’ve noticed with this beta release that the default zoom level of the module is not being preserved when you load a logfile. The game opens with the radio button set to the correct zoom level, say 63% (in the zoom toolbar you added), but the actual map is displayed at 160%. It may be a refresh issue or something.

[bsmith]

I think we could steal that space from something else. For example, if the
log area were hideable, that would gain us far more space than a status
bar would consume.

This scares me a little; Isn’t the log area one of the most important things for dice rolls, comments, reports etc? I couldn’t imagine an occassion where I would want to hide it other than for live play with Skype, and even then you still need to see the dice rolls. And as far as PBEM goes, it has been entirely crucial in my games.

[Tim_M]

@uckelman

Tim, are you sure you’re not using Java 1.5? Because 1.5 (and maybe early
versions of 1.6?) doesn’t support wildcards (I think), and that would
explain why you’re seeing what you are.

Positive - I uninstalled and deleted the folders of all the old versions of Java last month

I can’t speak for the Windows batch files, but there is a way to make
the shell script work for all reasonable installations: Run the scripts
in sh and use only sh-compatible syntax.

I’d like to see what problems these people had. Shell scripts are the
simplest possible solution to the problem of starting VASSAL. Any other
solution will also have to invoke java and get the classpath right, so
if we can’t do it with a shell script, then we’ll have the same problems
with a more complex launcher which on top of that won’t be as easy for
the user to modify if it doesn’t work for them.

–
J.

see the CC CSW folder
talk.consimworld.com/WebX?14@414 … 0d2c6/9891

goes on/off till post 9770 (great example)- mostly all about the mac/linux sh file
most common problem : users do not know how to run a sh file or its associated with editor. If users struggle here at this basic stuff, the file is not very useful and I’m not much help not knowing mac/linux syntax/system . Also some talk about syntax and how to resolve

I do know that the windows bat is causing the least problems because I converted it to a exe. Only had 3 people with problems with it. 2 unzipped the package incorrectly and 1 guy had to adjust Xmx to lower amount to make it run so I gave him a new exe

I have a readme pdf. I’ll update it to explain / resolve how to deal with the sh file if I can get a good sequence on what users must do

[tbyrne]

Instead of a status bar, how about something that rolls up from the
bottom right similar to IM notifications? I’m not sure what to call
that type of interface, but I think I’ve seen them called “pop-up
notifications”.

I’m not sure what classes might already be available for this in java.

On Dec 20, 2007, at 7:18 AM, Joel Uckelman uckelman@nomic.net wrote:

Thus spake “bsmith”:

Would it be a good thing to have someone make a list of default
bindings th

at we should have, so that they can be implemented as defaults?

It would be better than good!

Volunteering?

Ok, I’ll try that. Part of me wants a status bar anyway, though,
because
then we could display other useful information there.

A status bar would be cool but what about screen real-estate?
Would it be wo
rth the trade-off or would you have it go away when the module has
finished l
oading?

I think we could steal that space from something else. For example,
if the
log area were hideable, that would gain us far more space than a
status
bar would consume.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “bsmith”:

If only I had a dollar for each time classpaths caused a problem.

Yes, this is such a pain in the ass, and shouldn’t be a problem at all.

We could put the classpath into the Vengine.jar manifest, but that’s just
moving the problem elsewhere, since we still have to maintain it. We
could generate an explicit classpath on the fly in UNIX any number of ways,
e.g.:

-cp echo lib/*.jar | tr ' ' ':'

-cp ls lib/*.jar | sed 's/ /:/'

-cp $(CP=$(echo lib/*.jar) ; echo ${CP// /:})

but the Windows shell is pretty anemic so I don’t expect there will
be any palatable options there.

Aha, now I see why we’re having the problem we are on Windows:

bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bu … id=6510337

Wildcards don’t work with javaw.exe, despite that the documentation
says they do.

Argh! So annoying! How could something this simple be left unfixed
for nearly a year?

Hmm. So, maybe a better solution would be to set the Class-Path
in the Vengine.jar manifest, but have that generated automagically
during the build process… No maintenance, then, and in that
case we just say ‘-cp lib/Vengine.jar’ in the scripts.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “bsmith”:

By the way, I’ve noticed with this beta release that the default zoom level o
f the module is not being preserved when you load a logfile. The game opens
with the radio button set to the correct zoom level, say 63% (in the zoom too
lbar you added), but the actual map is displayed at 160%. It may be a refres
h issue or something.

Can you tell me which version this is? I’ve now put four different ones
on my web site, and there were some major internal changes in Zoomer
between svn2707 and svn2727. If you’re seeing this with one before svn2727,
try that one and tell me if it still occurs.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “bsmith”:

I think we could steal that space from something else. For example, if the
log area were hideable, that would gain us far more space than a status
bar would consume.

This scares me a little; Isn’t the log area one of the most important things
for dice rolls, comments, reports etc? I couldn’t imagine an occassion wher
e I would want to hide it other than for live play with Skype, and even then
you still need to see the dice rolls. And as far as PBEM goes, it has been e
ntirely crucial in my games.

I’m eventually going to make a mock-up of this. I don’t expect that we’ll
be able to tell whether it’s a good idea until we can try it. What I’m
imagining is something semi-transparent that slides down with one keystroke
over part of the map.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “Tim M”:

uckelman wrote:

Tim, are you sure you’re not using Java 1.5? Because 1.5 (and maybe early
versions of 1.6?) doesn’t support wildcards (I think), and that would
explain why you’re seeing what you are.

Positive - I uninstalled and deleted the folders of all the old versions of J
ava last month

It’s not your fault. See this post for what the problem is:

vassalengine.org/forums/view … ?p=256#256

I can’t speak for the Windows batch files, but there is a way to make
the shell script work for all reasonable installations: Run the scripts
in sh and use only sh-compatible syntax.

I’d like to see what problems these people had. Shell scripts are the
simplest possible solution to the problem of starting VASSAL. Any other
solution will also have to invoke java and get the classpath right, so
if we can’t do it with a shell script, then we’ll have the same problems
with a more complex launcher which on top of that won’t be as easy for
the user to modify if it doesn’t work for them.

–
J.

see the CC CSW folder
talk.consimworld.com/WebX?14@414 … 91http://t
alk.consimworld.com/WebX?14@414.fO7odW9WAqT.14@.1dd0d2c6/9891

goes on/off till post 9770 (great example)- mostly all about the mac/linux sh
file
most common problem : users do not know how to run a sh file or its associate
d with editor. If users struggle here at this basic stuff, the file is not ve
ry useful and I’m not much help not knowing mac/linux syntax/system . Also
some talk about syntax and how to resolve

I do know that the windows bat is causing the least problems because I conver
ted it to a exe. Only had 3 people with problems with it. 2 unzipped the pack
age incorrectly and 1 guy had to adjust Xmx to lower amount to make it run so
I gave him a new exe

The confusion about the quoting is due to a mistake on the part of one
of posters:

dirname ‘$0’

can’t possibly work, because single qoutes block varialbe interpolation by
the shell. That should be

dirname “$0”

if you want to to quote the $0.

What kind of files are represented by the icons you see on an OSX desktop?
Whatever those are, we should be providing one for Mac users instead of a
shell script. For Windows, maybe we should be providing a shortcut instead
of a batch file.

–
J.

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[Tim_M]

@uckelman

The confusion about the quoting is due to a mistake on the part of one
of posters:

dirname ‘$0’

can’t possibly work, because single qoutes block varialbe interpolation by
the shell. That should be

dirname “$0”

if you want to to quote the $0.

He notes and fixes this later

What kind of files are represented by the icons you see on an OSX desktop?
Whatever those are, we should be providing one for Mac users instead of a
shell script. )

I have no idea

For Windows, maybe we should be providing a shortcut instead
of a batch file.

–
J.

Bats are pretty standard for Window users, but can be accidently assigned to an editor, Exe’s though are even better understood and cant be associated with anything, so would be the best way to go for windows imo. Creating shortcuts in windows is simple enough but if vassal packages were to have it built in and set it up - even more better

[uckelman]

Thus spake “Tim M”:

What kind of files are represented by the icons you see on an OSX desktop?
Whatever those are, we should be providing one for Mac users instead of a
shell script. )

I have no idea

At least I can mess with my wife’s Windows machine when I need to see
how Windows works. I don’t have access to a Mac at all…

For Windows, maybe we should be providing a shortcut instead
of a batch file.

–
J.

Bats are pretty standard for Window users, but can be accidently assigned to
an editor, Exe’s though are even better understood and cant be associated wit
h anything, so would be the best way to go for windows imo. Creating shortcut
s in windows is simple enough but if vassal packages were to have it built in
and set it up - even more better

I have something I’d like to try… Hmm. More on this later this evening.

–
J.

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[rk1]

I think that putting the classpath in the manifest and invoking the program with "java -Xmx1024M -jar lib/Vengine.jar’ will be the easiest to maintain. It’s robust to adding/removing jars from the classpath and it’s easy to create the correct manifest in the build file. If I recall, jar files listed in the manifest’s classpath are relative to the working directory, so it’s important to have the “cd $dir && java …” part in the the Mac/Unix .sh files and set the “Start in” directory correctly for Windows.

rk

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[bsmith]

Instead of a status bar, how about something that rolls up from the
bottom right similar to IM notifications? I’m not sure what to call
that type of interface, but I think I’ve seen them called “pop-up
notifications”.

I’m not a fan if this idea, simply because it’s not expected behavior, even though it’s kinda cool I think it’s safer if we stick to things users are familiar with, hence the reason I liked the “busy” cursor idea.