MissionComputer: The Saga Continues

@male_valkyrie, on 11 May 2011 - 11:27 AM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

I asked the same question several pages back. David's answer:

Oh well. Guess it's back to proofreading the old-fashioned way.

To be sufficiently spiteful, Apple already did it for him.

Using Cocoa from Carbon, page 20

-rudy

I’m perfectly well aware of those features, but to actually deploy them in MissionComputer would require replacement of various bits of the programme with more complicated (and less elegant) versions. If I were going to put that amount of work into MissionComputer, there are substantially more useful ways that I could do it.

Alright then, proofreading it is. Valkyrie, you're right, I had forgotten you'd already asked about that.

A couple bugs to report on the Windows demo:

  • EVNEW (and the Bible) say that putting 1128 in a SHIP's Government field will make GOVT 128 its inherent attributes GOVT (for INTF resources and the like). When I opened the file in Mission Computer however, it read it as inherent AI and attributes government. I don't want to suffer the issue EVC has where if you capture, say, a Confederate Cruiser but you're playing the Rebel string, the Rebels attack you in their space, meaning I just want to set the inherent attributes GOVT.

  • When I tried to save the file after fiddling with some SHIP resources, I got a NilObjectException. I haven't yet tried to reproduce this bug.

@starsword, on 30 June 2011 - 11:46 PM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

EVNEW (and the Bible) say that putting 1128 in a SHIP's Government field will make GOVT 128 its inherent attributes GOVT (for INTF resources and the like). When I opened the file in Mission Computer however, it read it as inherent AI and attributes government.

There are a few other things I can check, but I can't immediately reproduce any errors in this respect, or spot any obvious trouble spots in the code.

Note that in MissionComputer you should always just type the resource ID — i.e. 128 — and then use the pop-up menus to specify how it's handled, rather than doing such calculations yourself.

@starsword, on 30 June 2011 - 11:46 PM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

When I tried to save the file after fiddling with some SHIP resources, I got a NilObjectException.

Did it tell you the name of the routine in which the error occurred?

@david-arthur, on 01 July 2011 - 09:49 AM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

Did it tell you the name of the routine in which the error occurred?

Reproduced it. It seems to only happen with files originating in EVNEW: I tested with a file created on MC's main menu, and not only did I not get the error message, I didn't even get the Save dialog box (which I did with the EVNEW file).

Mission Computer said:

MissionComputer has encountered a NilObjectException error in the DocWindow:TrySaveAs routine that prevents it from running.

MC closed the file and returned to the main menu, and then...

Mission Computer said:

MissionComputer has encountered a NilObjectException error in the DocWindow:TrySaveAs routine that prevents it from running. An additional error was encountered while trying to display this message. If the problem continues...

Oddly, however, the file appears to have saved okay despite the errors: the changes appeared in both MC and EVNEW, and I had no problems opening or reading them afterwards.

Also, I found another bug: MC's GOVT allegiances dialog is reading a non-xenophobic GOVT as xenophobic. Clicking the Reanalyze button didn't help matters; neither did turning on xenophobia, then turning it back off.

Posted Image
Posted Image

@starsword, on 01 July 2011 - 11:01 AM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

Oddly, however, the file appears to have saved okay despite the errors: the changes appeared in both MC and EVNEW, and I had no problems opening or reading them afterwards.

Thanks, that should help identify exactly where the problem is occurring,

@starsword, on 01 July 2011 - 11:01 AM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

Also, I found another bug: MC's GOVT allegiances dialog is reading a non-xenophobic GOVT as xenophobic.

And gövt 128 'United Galactic Navy' isn't xenophobic either?

@david-arthur, on 01 July 2011 - 11:08 AM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

And gövt 128 'United Galactic Navy' isn't xenophobic either?

It shouldn't be...

tappity tappity tap

Nope. Neither MC or EVNEW reads the glitchy GOVTs as xenophobic in the GOVT dialog.

Could you post a file containing your gövt resources?

The government 'Barney's Bandits' (161), though not xenophobic, appears to be inheriting the enemies of its xenophobic ally 'La Famiglia Rosenberg' (158). I'll have to check whether this accurately represents the way in which the engine itself would parse this relationship.

Minor point here, but the tooltips for resource fields do not change to reflect the current use of that field. For example, when a wëap is flagged as guidance type 99 “Carried Fighter”, the “AmmoType” field of the wëap resource editor in MC has its label changed to “Ship type:” but its tooltip still reads, “The ID of the weapon type whose ammo this weapon uses”. I have not made an exhaustive list of the locations where such discrepancies occur, it was just something I noticed today.

@qaanol, on 08 July 2011 - 03:37 AM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

For example, when a wëap is flagged as guidance type 99 “Carried Fighter”, the “AmmoType” field of the wëap resource editor in MC has its label changed to “Ship type:” but its tooltip still reads, “The ID of the weapon type whose ammo this weapon uses”.

It adapted to shot-based and fuel-based weapons, just not for fighter bays, which I've now fixed.

Any luck yet on the erroneous government alignments?

It turns out there was a bug — which I’ve now fixed, thanks — by which the xenophobia of one government could ‘leak’ over to further ones in the list.

Does this updated summary match your expectations?
Attached File UGF Data 1 govt 128.png (227.17K)
Number of downloads: 16

@david-arthur, on 08 July 2011 - 05:33 PM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

It turns out there was a bug — which I’ve now fixed, thanks — by which the xenophobia of one government could ‘leak’ over to further ones in the list.

Does this updated summary match your expectations?
Attachment UGF Data 1 govt 128.png

Yup, that's exactly what I was hoping for. (I would've been really annoyed, to put it mildly, if the problem was in Nova, not MC. No offense.)

Is there a new WinMC build coming?

@starsword, on 08 July 2011 - 06:12 PM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

Is there a new WinMC build coming?

I'm not in a position to post one at the moment, but I'll give you an update (with some more editors enabled) as soon as it becomes possible to do so.

Great.

By the way, I will say for certain that despite the bugs in WinMC (and I've done some programming myself, so I know bugs are par for the course), MissonComputer is far and away a more user-friendly editor than EVNEW (which is text-only, apart from importing images and sounds). I'm very impressed with the demo and it's obvious how much work you've put into it.

@starsword, on 08 July 2011 - 10:05 PM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

Great.

By the way, I will say for certain that despite the bugs in WinMC (and I've done some programming myself, so I know bugs are par for the course), MissonComputer is far and away a more user-friendly editor than EVNEW (which is text-only, apart from importing images and sounds). I'm very impressed with the demo and it's obvious how much work you've put into it.

Seconded, and thirded and fourthded if it were possible.

Glad to hear it! 🙂

I've never used EVNEW, but it's obvious that Aprosenf was taking on a substantially different problem than the one I did. On the Macintosh, the barrier to entry was much lower; I could rely largely on system routines to handle resources, adding a .rez codec only much later and in stages, whereas he needed a complete one before anything else could work. My users also had the option of resorting to ResEdit for anything I didn't cover, so I could focus on doing a few resource types at a time, but doing them well — he needed to provide basic coverage for everything, and fast.

@starsword, on 08 July 2011 - 10:05 PM, said in MissionComputer: The Saga Continues:

. . . it's obvious how much work you've put into it.

It's actually getting close to ten years now!

Also in the pipeline are a minor update to the Macintosh version of MissionComputer, and an Intel-native Plug-in Convertor (to replace the original, which is rather old code, and won't run at all on the forthcoming 10.7).