Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:31 am

If the windows are docked, then they end up tabbed. A docked window always has a parent, and when two windows are docked to the same parent, you get the tabbed windows.

If the windows are floating, then yes, they would both be floating at the same location and would be on top of each other. But I think that is what you'd expect.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Yes, sounds good.

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:38 pm

Still fixing bugs today. I've gotten the session drop-down list working and added a New Session command to the main File menu, along with the Save Session As. The Session dropdown has items for each session icon that is defined, and also items for each hostname/port combination in the Hosts cache. If you select a session, then the entire session is loaded (including layout). Loading multiple sessions seems to work fine. If you just select one of the host/port entries, then it just creates a new window connected to that host/port without loading any layouts or packages. The #SESSION command also works now, and has the same effect of loading something from the sessions pulldown menu, except that if you use a new host/port with #SESSION, it gets added to the cache.

I've played with lots of different window combinations and have fixed a lot of bugs regarding the docking windows and the session stuff. The #WINDOW command now works properly again. And with the new Save Session As menu command you can press ESC from the main character selection window, then use #session or the session pulldown menu to connect to hosts, use the #window command to create various windows, and then dock the windows the way you want them. Then you use Save Session As to save the entire layout to a new session icon.

Or, you can load an existing session as normal, then use the Save Session As to make a copy of a session. Or, load an existing session, then connect to other hosts, add more windows, etc, then use Save Session As to save the new layout to a new session icon.

It all seems to work well, and removes a lot of the confusion from zMUD which had separate "layout" session icon types. It works well for quickly connecting to a different host or session.

Also, each session listed in the pulldown menu is available as a customized menu item. So, you can customize your toolbar, drag an item used to connect to a particular session/host to your toolbar. Then just click the toolbar button to connect to that session/host.

I've also got it so that customized toolbars are saved with sessions. The only downside of this is that with the toolbar loading, it overwrites *all* toolbars with whatever you have saved. So, for example, if I add a new menu item or toolbar item (in the default CMUD.TBZ toolbar file), then when it loads your own customized toolbars, anything that I added will be overwritten with whatever you had saved before. The only way around this is to delete the session specific *.TBZ file, or use the Load Toolbar command to load the default CMUD.TBZ file. It's an unfortunate side effect of how Developer Express saves and loads the toolbar system.

Still left to do: Expression Triggers, testing/fixing issues with Shared Package Library, and fixing the Autolog triggers. Looks pretty good for tomorrow.

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:54 pm

Ick...I hate it when this happens.

I was fixing a bunch of problems in the View/Directions and View/Tabs screen. This screen is like a "mini settings editor". It is set up to use the same edit panels on the right for each setting type, but instead of displaying the full tree view on the left, it just displays a list of the settings in the current module. I was adding a dropdown box to the top to allow you to select which module you are modifying when I ran into problems.

I was getting an error when adding a new record to the database. Now, this is a "filtered" view of the database...it only shows settings of a particular type and records with the correct Module index. Somehow the record wasn't being added to the index properly and after the Post I'd get a crash because it couldn't find the record that was just added.

After several hours of searching for the problem, I came across a line that I had added myself to the kbmMemTable 3rd party component. In the Append method, I was updating the record number of the record just added. This was overwriting the correct record number that was set when the table had a filtered index. So it was working fine without filters, but giving an error when using a filtered index view.

I went searching my old blog entries for where I added this line and in the http://forums.zuggsoft.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=23528&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105 post I came across this:

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:56 pm

Well, a followup to this (and in case I ever need to refer to this later myself).

Seems that the *proper* way to reposition the database to the correct record after an insert is to set the AutoReposition property in the kbmMemTable. After I removed my line to reset the record number, I *did* find problems with the correct record not being set correctly after an Append. But setting the AutoReposition property to True seems to fix this. In fact, the help file for kbmMemTable even says:

Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:46 am

Congrats on finding the bug Zugg.. it sounded like it would have been a nasty one to track down, especially since you couldn't remember why you flagged it the first time.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 5:48 am

While I was implementing the Expression Trigger stuff, I discovered a problem with the reference updating. This is the code that updates stuff like status lines, buttons, etc when a variable changes. Seems that it doesn't work if sometime is compiled *before* the variable exists. For example, if you do this:

Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 10:48 pm

OK, I hate to disappoint everyone, but I'm not going to get 1.06 out today as I planned. It's going to be delayed until Monday.

I know that some people were looking forward to playing with it this weekend, but I've said before that I'm not going to rush this release. And during my testing today I've run into too many problems to allow me to release this with high confidence yet. I've made too many changes to the code today and I don't want to release it without more testing.

Work today is going pretty well, but I keep uncovering more serious bugs.

First, I implemented the "weak variable reference" stuff that I mentioned in the previous blog entry. This allows CMUD to keep a list of variables that have been referenced but not defined. Then, when the variable is defined, those scripts which reference the variable are recompiled with the correct variable reference.

This actually works pretty good. Now the status bar example from the previous blog entry works as expected. While I was at it, I implemented a reference list for system variables. This allows CMUD to respond to system variable changes, such as %mud.hp. I even set it up so that references to %secs are updated each second. For example, if you do:

Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 7:57 am

Hey Zugg... no worries about having to push it back. I was looking forward to it but being a perfectionist too I know you want to put out the best product possible.

Looking forward to Monday.

Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:18 am

Certainly take your time. I wont mind a few days if it means less bugs, definately looking forward to a stable release. And on that note, any chance for another trial reset? Been awhile since last one.

Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:08 am

Well, for better of worse, 1.06 is out now. I got it uploaded at 11:45pm (my time, not the server time). So I barely made it. It was a very annoying day. Each time I thought I was ready for the release I found new bugs. With all of the bug fixes that I did today, it's possible that I screwed something up at the last minute. But I tried to test it before I uploaded it to make sure it mostly worked. If there are major showstopping problems, then I can always do another update later this week.

I seem to be pretty consistent at getting a new version each month (almost exactly to the day). Assuming there are no show-stopping issues, the new version will start adding new features and dealing with stuff in the "Not implemented yet" document. I'll be updating that document later this week with more details on expected schedules for various new features. I'll also be writing some of that promised documentation for the new package/module/window stuff. Although I think it's all working a bit more intuitively now in 1.06.

I'm hoping to get new versions out more often than once a month. At least that's my goal. I have a particular date in mind for the public release that I'd really like to make if at all possible. More on that later.

In any case, this brings the 1.06 blog to a close for me. I'll start a new blog entry for 1.07 when I get going with that. Or, if it has some major new features, I might jump ahead to v1.10.

Hav: No, the trial is not reset in 1.06. Remember that resetting the trial is a very rare occurence. You should never count on it. It's possible that I'll reset the trial for the public version, but I haven't decided yet.

Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:14 am

Thanks for the release Zugg.. I checked and didn't see it and got worried. Smile

I've got to remember you're on mountain time.

Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:26 am

Heh...I almost gave up and delayed it another day. I was really getting frustrated with it. But I have some errands to run tomorrow, so I really wanted to get it out today. So yeah, it's a late night for me Shocked