Perking up the AI - Page 5

Ballbarian · #41 February 25th, 2009, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

I think what SemiRand really needs (borrowing from the rest of the winding journey of this thread), is a browser based designer. So for example, a page on the dom3minions server might have the same dialogues that are currently found in the downloadable exe, but the overt ease of creation and submission could likely spark a deluge of submissions - I am thinking that many people don't want to bother with it all for 1-2 provinces, but if all of those 1-2 province people were cajoled into submitting through the webservice, it would hugely magnify the number of available provinces.

Jack_Trowell was going to try his hand at adding support for semirand to his online tool a couple of years ago, but I haven't heard anymore about it. I think an online version of the Province & God Editors with a repository of the creations would be a great resource.

Ballbarian · #42 February 25th, 2009, 09:17 AM

So much that I want to respond to, but I am rapidly running out of minutes before I have to get ready for work.

I am currently giving Python another look. Now I remember what held me back before. I think the language itself is not a problem, but I am struggling to decide on a GUI and have not found an IDE yet that peeks my interest. I quickly get frustrated with the minutia of coding UI objects like buttons and frames. I would much prefer to have a WYSIWYG editor for laying out components and generating the code in the background. There is likely a utility out there and I have just overlooked it at this point. Meanwhile, I will keep browsing.

das123,
What tool sets did you find useful when creating Dom3Bak? (Nice app btw!)

pyg · #43 February 25th, 2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ballbarian

SemiRandom is written in Yabasic, which should work in Linux. The RanDom front end that builds the command line for dom3 is written in VB6. SemiRandom is where most of the work was done and is manipulated through an external text/cfg file.

I really wish that I was able to utilize a more advanced cross-platform gui solution, but I get very frustrated with not immediately knowing how to perform simple tasks.

Can anyone recommend the direction of least resistance for an old windows user who started programming in basic on an TRS80 back in the early 80's and now is stuck in VB6 for his GUI needs? Don't get me wrong, I love VB as it is much more powerful than it gets credit for and allows me to generate fairly complex solutions quickly and painlessly for work. I just wish I could compile my work as a functional web page or something along those lines. Guess I should take the time to do some more research. Anybody familiar with VB6's web programming features?

I started with the built in BASIC interpreter on a 3k Commodore Vic-20. Since then I've dabbled in most common languages out there and ended up preferring Python for most tasks. I must have take a different path than you as I don't (if possible) write gui interfaces; preferring the command line instead. I use emacs for an editor so I can't advise you about a Python IDE although there are several out there. They won't be as nice as MS Visual tools though; MS does some things very well.

Anyway, most of my Dom3 experience has been SP and my favorite map is the SemiRand version of AoMOgre although it hosts slow for me because it is so big. Beautiful map, fun and exciting things to run into! I tried a little to get SemiRand to run in Wine but gave up easy. I'm interested in porting it to Python (command line, someone else can gui it) and adding it to dmg although it just changes the .map file right? Like a previous poster said it might be fun to add SemiRand stuff on the fly to MP games and/or make it more accessible. [Un]fortunately winter is nearing the end and I will soon be too busy to fool around on computers as much. Is SemiRand open and can I look at it, port it, etc.?

Gandalf Parker · #44 February 25th, 2009, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

I think what SemiRand really needs (borrowing from the rest of the winding journey of this thread), is a browser based designer. So for example, a page on the dom3minions server might have the same dialogues that are currently found in the downloadable exe, but the overt ease of creation and submission could likely spark a deluge of submissions - I am thinking that many people don't want to bother with it all for 1-2 provinces, but if all of those 1-2 province people were cajoled into submitting through the webservice, it would hugely magnify the number of available provinces.

I would be very interested in hosting this. Well actually in Ballbarians account on my server since all his projects are there already.

Anyone who knows any programming language might want to check and see if there are some available modules for accessing an Open Office spreadsheet. And code for tga2jpg or gif or png (I do have imagemagick on the server which can do that quite nicely). That way a web interface could be written to directly use Edi's database, the library of dom3 sprite images, and Ballbarians source files. Updating would be simple when those libraries are updated.

As a lazy alternative, there are a few people who have volunteered to convert loose ideas into turn-in code. If anyone has an idea for a province or god build (we seem to particularly need early and late era gods) then feel free to PM them to me. I might eventually get them done.

lch · #45 February 25th, 2009, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ballbarian

I am currently giving Python another look. Now I remember what held me back before. I think the language itself is not a problem, but I am struggling to decide on a GUI and have not found an IDE yet that peeks my interest. I quickly get frustrated with the minutia of coding UI objects like buttons and frames. I would much prefer to have a WYSIWYG editor for laying out components and generating the code in the background. There is likely a utility out there and I have just overlooked it at this point.

In my experience, all IDEs fail at some point or the other. They do manage to get something out there quite fast, which looks close to what you want to have. But if you really want to get the GUI together like you imagined, then you won't be able to do that with a WYSIWYG editor alone, or at least not without spending an extreme amount of time to find out about every nook and corner.

That said, I am fairly sure that there should be some kind of GUI designer tool for the Qt port. And getting a GUI together with wx wasn't too hard. You will spend most of the time that you're programming on the GUI of course, no matter how complex the other code may be.

das123 · #46 February 25th, 2009, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ballbarian

das123,
What tool sets did you find useful when creating Dom3Bak? (Nice app btw!)

Thanks

.

I hunted around for a while trying to find something similar to VB where you can just drag and drop components into a frame. Everything I read about GUI and Python was contradictory. I tried placing the components by code but was a pain. There are a number of GUI libraries for Python, but that also makes it tricky. In the end I found what many said was the simplest setup (and I agree with them):

Latest Python
wx Library
Boa Constructor

All the work is done in Boa. You create a new application from the button bar by clicking new wx.App and it automatically brings in what you need. Click on Frame Designer and you're in WYSIWYG mode - dragging and dropping components into a frame. Boa also is a debugger so it becomes a very familiar working environment. There are also some good tutorials and examples that come with Boa that iron out most questions.

lch · #47 February 25th, 2009, 04:05 PM

Oohh, very nice, I'll have a look at that later. As I wrote, I found wx quite good to work with, too, without any IDE or WYSIWYG interface even. I made a GUI for a batch image downloader from hand. The one nuisance that I have with wx: The Python documentation isn't 100% complete. If you really want to know about all the usuable things there are in wx, then you need to look at the non-Python documentation for it. Apart from that, I like it the most from the options there are.

analytic_kernel · #48 February 25th, 2009, 04:24 PM

Boa does indeed look nice. But, it does not appear to have been updated for the past 1.5 years. I guess if what is already there works well, then great. I probably wouldn't want to get too wedded to it though, as it will probably break against newer versions of wx at some point.

das123 · #49 February 25th, 2009, 05:35 PM

Most of the info about wx is available, and for the tricky questions I just asked at http://bytes.com/topic/python/ where the community was very helpful.

As far as Boa not being updated for some time, I remember that that worried me as well. But then I found a post where someone said that it is active but mature and really is a case of 'if it ain't broke - don't fix it.' Even though it looks like it is Alpha or Beta with the version numbering, it really does a very good job - especially for Python newbies like me. I had a quick look at kTinker etc but it looked more complicated. Give me drag and drop any day.

lch · #50 February 25th, 2009, 06:41 PM

Well, yes, the wx information is available... It's just that the docs about the Python bindings for it are lacking! There are whole classes missing or being undocumented how to use them. "Use the source, Luke" is prolly the best answer if you want to know about all there is available. That's pretty much what I was told in the wx IRC channel, too.