Mission Control is back!

Hi Folks,

I've put an update to Mission Control (without the manual and example just yet)
back on out (url="http://"http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/family/evo_software.html")http://www.sutherlan...o_software.html(/url) page.
This one has some minor fixes and deqt support. We'll be posting a public version to the Ambrosia site this weekend, but Dev Corner gets a preview as usual 🙂

Cheers
Ralph

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*** shows appreciation

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Ralph, this one crashes after a few seconds of inactivity in the mission editing window.

I'm using a G3 500 Mhz Powerbook with 128MB RAM. The system doesn't exhibit instabilities of this kind with other software, or with earlier versions of Mission Control.

Just two more things.
It's currently impossible to do a new line in the DESCS section, because MC interprets this as an ENTER to return to the Mission Editing window.

Is there a command to get at the <PSN> etc. I note that there is a menu prepared in the Resource.

Thanks again for great software

Martin

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

Quote

Originally posted by Martin Turner:
**Ralph, this one crashes after a few seconds of inactivity in the mission editing window.

I'm using a G3 500 Mhz Powerbook with 128MB RAM. The system doesn't exhibit instabilities of this kind with other software, or with earlier versions of Mission Control.

Just two more things.
It's currently impossible to do a new line in the DESCS section, because MC interprets this as an ENTER to return to the Mission Editing window.

Is there a command to get at the <PSN> etc. I note that there is a menu prepared in the Resource.

Thanks again for great software

Martin

**

Great, I'll fix those before I put it up for general use. Oh yeah I did do a menu that I didn't use in the end - forgot!
I should put it in. 🙂

The idle crash is odd though, I haven't seen it before. What system version are you using?

Cheers
Ralph
.

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🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Quote

Originally posted by zhouj:
**:) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

**

Ditto.

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Quote

Originally posted by Rodger:
**Great, I'll fix those before I put it up for general use. Oh yeah I did do a menu that I didn't use in the end - forgot!
I should put it in. 🙂

The idle crash is odd though, I haven't seen it before. What system version are you using?

Cheers
Ralph
.

9.0.4

**

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

(QUOTE)Originally posted by Ralph:
(B)Hi Folks,

I've put an update to Mission Control (without the manual and example just yet)
back on out (url="http://"http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/family/evo_software.html")http://www.sutherlan...o_software.html(/url) page.
This one has some minor fixes and deqt support. We'll be posting a public version to the Ambrosia site this weekend, but Dev Corner gets a preview as usual 🙂

Hi Ralph,
I also find that new MC sometimes only gives the "offer" brief in DESCs and none of the other descriptions comes up.
Ater it did it to my plug I tried a few others and it happens on about 50% of all plugs.
Using 5500/250 with 128Mb and sys 8.1.
cheers
Kevin Jordan

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nice. one thing i would suggest: a "save" menu item so that you can save without quitting (maybe i'm just too stupid to find it, but there wasn't one anywhere i thought was a logical place to hide a save command). this goes for shipwrite too, if you're still working on it. it's nothing huge, i'm just paranoid about losing huge amounts of work and it gets annoying having to close and reopen the plug to save it

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if tin whistles are made of tin, what's a fog horn made of?

(quote)Originally posted by Kevin Jordan:
**(QUOTE)Originally posted by Ralph:
(B)Hi Folks,

I've put an update to Mission Control (without the manual and example just yet)
back on out (url="http://")http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/famil...o_software.html(/url) page.
This one has some minor fixes and deqt support. We'll be posting a public version to the Ambrosia site this weekend, but Dev Corner gets a preview as usual

Hi Ralph,
I also find that new MC sometimes only gives the "offer" brief in DESCs and none of the other descriptions comes up.
Ater it did it to my plug I tried a few others and it happens on about 50% of all plugs.
Using 5500/250 with 128Mb and sys 8.1.
cheers
Kevin Jordan
**(/quote)

Thanks, can you send me an example plugin that does this?
Ralph.Sutherland@anu.edu.au

There could be id conflicts, but I'm not sure how since the ids are explicitly in the
misn resources and MC just gets em.

Ralph

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(url="http://"http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/family/evo_software.html")R & R Software(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by nighthawk:
**nice. one thing i would suggest: a "save" menu item so that you can save without quitting (maybe i'm just too stupid to find it, but there wasn't one anywhere i thought was a logical place to hide a save command). this goes for shipwrite too, if you're still working on it. it's nothing huge, i'm just paranoid about losing huge amounts of work and it gets annoying having to close and reopen the plug to save it

**

I sort of agree. There was originally a save button in both. I kept changinf between the two and eventually chose to leave it out for simplicity. The OK button does a save, the cancel doesn't. BTW if you have a long list of misns, cancel with also
mean the list is updated quickly after the editing dialog is close because it doesn't
need to rebuild the list and resort. If you OK then it saves, rebuilds and resorts no matter what.

Cheers
Ralph

PS The feedback is great - the programs can only get better this way.

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(url="http://"http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/family/evo_software.html")R & R Software(/url)

I absolutely love MC. I'm working on a plug which will use a lot of missions (I'm guessing somewhere around 150-200). You're like Santa Claus for me now 🙂

A few remarks gathered while using it:

- A save option would be great... it just make me feel safer (no pun intended)
- When I'm asked to start a new mission i have to enter an ID number and a name... the name is ignored i think (i have to enter it again later, right?) and the ID number is always 0... can't you make this simply the last number + 1? These both seem so simple to implement it would be a shame not to mention it... 🙂
- The description texts: you don't always have to use them all... maybe you could flag 'em?
- A lot harder to implement: something to consider in the long run... maybe you could add a mission tree??

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HI everyone,

WARNING WARNING WARNING! Stop using MC 1.0.2!

I think I have the answer to Martin's problems and others who have had trouble with Mission Control when editing preexisting plugins. Mission Control 1.0.2 had some changes which I thought would make it better, but instead made it worse when used on pre-existing plugins with other id schemes and particularly those with shared desc resoruces.

Please discontinue using Mission Control 1.0.2 unless you are just creating new plugins from scratch. I have 1.0.3 which fixes things and I'll put it up ASAP.

The problem was that I screwed up in multiple ways with allocating resources to descs. v1.0.2 can open the wrong descs and even delete descs that belong to other misns! When several misns SHARE THE SAME DESCs they can be renumbered for the one youare working on and not for the rest! Sharing descs between misns didn't occur to me until I had a closer look at the misns in EVO!

Also, if a new id was allocated and it collided with an existing desc, then the checking was faulty and the desc was overwritten! More collateral damage.

So--- I have a completely new desc allocation method in v1.0.3:

  1. if the desc if is initially -1 (ie new misns and misns without that particular desc) then allocate a new id using :
    Offer Text : id + 4000 no matter what
    Brief Text : id + 5000, or if already used then increase by 1 until the first unused resoruce id is found after the staring point and use that.
    Quick Brief : id + 6000 or next unused id after that
    Load : id + 7000 or next unused after that
    Drop : id + 8000 or next unused after that
    Fail : id + 14000 or next unused
    Refuse : id + 15000 or next unused

This should prevent rampant 'desc'truction!

  1. if the desc id is not -1 then don't change it!, ie if load is 6002 for misn id 24 then just leave it at 6002 as it is probably a shared resource.

Note 2) means that sometimes you will edit a desc and be changing is for many misns. For this reason I recommend not using shared desc ids, and MC will always allocate new missions with independent descs. Space is not really an issue, a typical desc is a hundred bytes or so, so even with 1000s of mission it won't add a lot to a MB sized plugin anyway.

So, my apologies, and if MC has wrecked anyones plugins then I'll help put it back together again 🙂

Embarrassed
Ralph

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(url="http://"http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/family/evo_software.html")R & R Software(/url)

I have never downloaded Mission Control. I had never heard of it until recently. I can't form at negative opinion toward it because I have never used it. This is probably a silly question to ask, but what features does Mision Control have over Schmelta-V? How would they be useful to me? Please don't take insult at this question. I am fairly ignorant and have little plug-in making experiance.

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Signed,
Brian Schack
"DOS Computers, manufactured by millions of companies, are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
--The New York Times, November 26, 1991 (also quoted in MacAddict 4)

Double post

(This message has been edited by Ralph (edited 11-30-2000).)

I have no idea! I just made MC because I had an idea for a list definition function
and I wanted a (mostly) all in one window mission editor.

Cheers
Ralph

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(url="http://"http://www.sutherland-studios.com.au/family/evo_software.html")R & R Software(/url)

If I get I chance I will look at it.

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Signed,
Brian Schack
"DOS Computers, manufactured by millions of companies, are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
--The New York Times, November 26, 1991 (also quoted in MacAddict 4)