The SE4 companion - Why the long wait?.

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
*dogscoff bounces excitedly up and down in his chair...

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I can hardly wait. You have no idea how this program is going to revolutionise my life!

Oh no! All this pressure, I can't take it!!!

Hope you'll like it for real too, so far it looks good though (But I'm a tee bit biased ).

[Fyron]

Could you please move a lot of the extraneous features (such as mp3/midi player) to become plugins/extensions? No need to clutter up the program for those that do not want such features...

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Could you please move a lot of the extraneous features (such as mp3/midi player) to become plugins/extensions? No need to clutter up the program for those that do not want such features...

Sorry, but those functions where already included before I added plug-in capacity, and the current plug-ins are user started, the current in-built features such as event-editor, sidenotes and musiclist can be autostarted when the game starts, that isn't supported by the current plug-in feature either, can be in next Version though...

But the exe will propably be around 6-800 K and these features are only discreete buttons, I can include a "Don't use" setting in the settigns to disable them and not show them at all (some other features have this already), as the settings screen is the Last thing I do, I want to have all variables defined first so I can plan the settings screen from ground up instead of adding things until it's not overseeable, as it was in the Last Version.
This time I've actually given the UI some thought

The current UI is a bit less cluttered than the previous (In my opinon, you are free to disagree when you see it , but I can confess that it's too easy to add "just one more" button, I try to evaluate the use of each button, label before I add them, but still they are too many right now.... Will hear from the Users after next realease which ones should go or be moved ).
I've noted your ideas and think they are valid!

31/7: to do
//Set-up wizard
//Settings page
//Plug-in editor
// More plugin parameters
//Plug-in: empire upload, create new game, host upload, host download, change PBW game password,
//PBW settings from settings page
//?? doesn't count players left to uplaod correctly?
//earlier Versions of exe and savegames/Gam files
//Rewrite OSD to delete text
//Fill in all default values
//Global error handler for download
// om Failed to access web page >5 then quit browse
//move files to resources
//misc mail Messages?

[ July 31, 2004, 15:50: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Ruatha]

Here is the current Version with all features enabled (i e Max clutter Version) if IRC is hidden, the window shrinks in height and fits in a 800x600 resolution now, otherwise 1024x768 is recommended.:

[ August 02, 2004, 07:21: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Ruatha]

And the individual gameCompanions look like this (These aren't needed to run the game but they give you more info and options, it's recommended that one use them) :

[psimancer]

suggestions:
first:
check box "retain old turn zip files "
function saves a copy of each turns zipfile in a subdir of savegame called turns

second:
entrybox "im host maintain turn backups at interval of #
function downloads and saves a copy of each turns host data zipfile in a subdir of savegame called host turns

third:
function to auto scan old turns and auto add all old events to current file in order
(good for starting at turn 48 of a pbw game)

reasons
1st: i like to have backups

2nd: backups are nice for doing turn rollbacks
if needed or going manual if the server goes down etc why pbw doesnt have a function to auto mail each turn to host once all files are uploaded i dont know plus it could eliminate the need of the pbwserver to retain more than 5 turns of zip files

3rd: besides being a good feature for exisating players in long games
it will also be good for a new user who just discovered the program and maybe he got to turn 10 or something before he found the program

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by psimancer:
suggestions:
first:
check box "retain old turn zip files "
function saves a copy of each turns zipfile in a subdir of savegame called turns

second:
entrybox "im host maintain turn backups at interval of #
function downloads and saves a copy of each turns host data zipfile in a subdir of savegame called host turns

third:
function to auto scan old turns and auto add all old events to current file in order
(good for starting at turn 48 of a pbw game)

reasons
1st: i like to have backups

2nd: backups are nice for doing turn rollbacks
if needed or going manual if the server goes down etc why pbw doesnt have a function to auto mail each turn to host once all files are uploaded i dont know plus it could eliminate the need of the pbwserver to retain more than 5 turns of zip files

3rd: besides being a good feature for exisating players in long games
it will also be good for a new user who just discovered the program and maybe he got to turn 10 or something before he found the program

Hi and thanks for the suggestions.

1.If one uses the PBW on-line download mode right now it doesn't download the zipped turns, only the actual files.
But I could make a backup function that zips the files.

2. A problem there is that the turns currently executes when all has uploaded their turns, there is no way that I can get the info that the turn will execute now and grab the files before it executes, so I can never get the complete host files for each turn, there will always be some players missing.
And I f I tell the app to download the hostfiles before the deadline, well if everyone has uploaded before the turn will already have executed, so for no 2 there is a no go, sorry.

3. a no go here too. The Savegames are encrypted and I can't extract the events from them, one has to write one's own events in the event editor, sorry.

But the first suggestion will propably make it to ver 0.9.

[ August 02, 2004, 08:30: Message edited by: Ruatha ]