MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

New build announcements plus site news and changes.

Moderators: dorpond, trevor, Azhrei, Craig

User avatar
RPTroll
TheBard
Posts: 3159
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 7:26 pm
Location: Austin, Tx
Contact:

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by RPTroll »

OK. I'll spew that out to the masses. I loved the bug tracking forum post. You folks are doing an awesome job.

http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=23835
ImageImage ImageImageImageImage
Support RPTools by shopping
Image
Image

User avatar
cydthemagi
Kobold
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:15 am

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by cydthemagi »

wolph42 wrote:what are there motives for not using b90-beta.

If the only remark is because it contains '-beta' then that's (too put it mildly) silly as its way more stable then b89.
these people don't have a lot of Computer knowledge, so when I said it was the Beta, that lost some. But others tried and when it needed a little more then open the box, they go screaming back to b86.

User avatar
wolph42
Winter Wolph
Posts: 9999
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:40 am
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by wolph42 »

cydthemagi wrote:
wolph42 wrote:what are there motives for not using b90-beta.

If the only remark is because it contains '-beta' then that's (too put it mildly) silly as its way more stable then b89.
these people don't have a lot of Computer knowledge, so when I said it was the Beta, that lost some. But others tried and when it needed a little more then open the box, they go screaming back to b86.
LOL, what were the 'extra' actions they had to undertake?

User avatar
Mrugnak
Dragon
Posts: 745
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by Mrugnak »

I'm not in his group, but I suspect I can predict: "What's this launcher? what are all these boxes? What does it WANT FROM ME!!!?!?" *closes program* *goes and plays minecraft*

Incidentally, the launcher really should have labels for the three memory fields, and perhaps move them to the Advanced tab. They're a little hostile looking right now.

User avatar
wolph42
Winter Wolph
Posts: 9999
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:40 am
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by wolph42 »

Mrugnak wrote:I'm not in his group, but I suspect I can predict: "What's this launcher? what are all these boxes? What does it WANT FROM ME!!!?!?" *closes program* *goes and plays minecraft*

Incidentally, the launcher really should have labels for the three memory fields, and perhaps move them to the Advanced tab. They're a little hostile looking right now.
But thats exactly the same with the old launcher?! Why would it first not bother anyone and then all of a sudden it does?

User avatar
CoveredInFish
Demigod
Posts: 3104
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:37 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by CoveredInFish »

I guess people without a certain level of computer knowledge learn to live with specific UIs but cannot transfer their knowledge to a knew UI. I know my familiy is a living proof for that :-/

I have a player I wouldnt want to lead through the installation of b90-beta because it took me a week "hotline" and two visits to teach them how to use maptool-someOlderVersion and I wouldnt want to invest that time again. :roll:

But then most people I know wouldnt have any problem at all.

EDIT: i'm aware that discussions in the announcment board are somewhat uncool. :oops:

Lee
Dragon
Posts: 958
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:07 am

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by Lee »

Mrugnak wrote: launcher really should have labels for the three memory fields, and perhaps move them to the Advanced tab. They're a little hostile looking right now.
What I would suggest would be to up the minimum memory settings, change the empty field tips to something more "human sounding". When I wrote the launcher prior to Azhrei's modifications, I kept it brief on those fields to make the launcher look slim. Since it's now a lot wider, we could use the space.

But I don't believe labels are necessary. Maybe a nicer looking font, and a background color for the text field that is cooler on the eyes. The launcher should also default to a particular instance of MapTool, so all the the user has to do is click launch on the first run. Lastly, some tech-fearing people feel more at ease when an application tells them that they're setting things up for them, even if all it does is set things to default parameters :lol:

User avatar
wolph42
Winter Wolph
Posts: 9999
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:40 am
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by wolph42 »

Lee wrote:
Mrugnak wrote: launcher really should have labels for the three memory fields, and perhaps move them to the Advanced tab. They're a little hostile looking right now.
What I would suggest would be to up the minimum memory settings, change the empty field tips to something more "human sounding". When I wrote the launcher prior to Azhrei's modifications, I kept it brief on those fields to make the launcher look slim. Since it's now a lot wider, we could use the space.

But I don't believe labels are necessary. Maybe a nicer looking font, and a background color for the text field that is cooler on the eyes. The launcher should also default to a particular instance of MapTool, so all the the user has to do is click launch on the first run. Lastly, some tech-fearing people feel more at ease when an application tells them that they're setting things up for them, even if all it does is set things to default parameters :lol:
:D that always works!!

maybe a poll to get the 'ideal' settings. The most I hear (for the last years actually) is 1024, 64, 2 (max, min, stack). Currently the default for the new launcher is 256, 64, 2 to not scare of more ancient PC's. Dependent on (badly/ignorantly written) frameworks and (insanely large used images on) maps a higher stack and or heap is required, but these should be exceptions. So the poll should mainly be about: default max heap size: 256, 512 or 1024.

poll started: http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24886

User avatar
Mrugnak
Dragon
Posts: 745
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by Mrugnak »

I gotta ask: why is labeling fields a bad thing? There is a TON of room in there, and I can't imagine why it's better NOT labeled.

Tooltips are not a substitute for field labels - far from it as you simply can't hover over a box on a tablet touchscreen. It gets worse, in that quite a few people (myself included) don't interact with text boxes except to click on them - which instantly dismisses any tooltip that might have been popping up.

With the amount of complaints about the (lack of) accessibility associated with tooltips in the general Maptools UI, and the addition of accessibility features related to them that were added to the Maptools settings (and bless you guys for doing it), I would have thought that particular lesson would have been learned by now :(

Lee
Dragon
Posts: 958
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:07 am

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by Lee »

It's not that they're a bad thing, when I extended the launcher, I took out the labels and put in embedded labeling into the fields. To see what I mean, erase a field, and leave it blank. These were meant to be seen as the first values on the fields, with default values for the settings hidden. I kept the launcher slim for personal preferences on aesthetics. Those fields look better that way, though I'm guessing Azhrei wanted a more helpful message displayed for users, but it did end up making the numbers look small in all that field of white.

Anyway, once we're all agreed on preferred minimum settings, I'm baking these into Mote itself, so people can launch without need for the launcher. I'm also putting launch controls (e.g. relaunch) and setting fields within the applications itself.

When I made a call to framework designers last year, what I wanted to do at the time was collaborate for a feature I was planning. The feature would ask designers for optimal settings for their framework, save it into the campaign file , where Mote/Launcher will read this info and adjust accordingly during the launch process. I guess I should have stated it more clearly at the time, but I was busy on work to have time to write all that. It will make it into Mote, for sure.

The launcher remains useful for other stuff, so that's not going away.

User avatar
aliasmask
RPTools Team
Posts: 9024
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:11 pm
Location: Bay Area

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by aliasmask »

If you're talking about Frameworks and stack memory sizes, I found the biggest stack hog is the chat buffer (or whatever you call it). For example, if I mix HTML with macros where the html is dumped straight to the chat, then stack size really matters, but if I save the output to a variable and then output it via [r:] then the stack doesn't really seem to matter. I think many of the frameworks that require a high stack (4-8) use the direct to chat HTML method. If this can be reworked somehow, then the stack can be much smaller. Since you're rewriting all the code, I don't know if this will even be an issue for you. Perhaps the only way to output will be with the print command.

Lee
Dragon
Posts: 958
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:07 am

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by Lee »

That's good info. I've never needed more than 3 on my framework, so I didn't have much to work with. Reflecting on it now, it can have a significant impact since the parser employs a recursive scheme. That is, text on top of macro output, and perhaps a lot of macro chaining that rely on output from the furthest called function.

I'll keep an eye out for it. We do plan to separate output into what's for chat (or just let people use the IRC for that), and what is in-character, the latter multi-windowed; I'm not sure though, if it will help ease the recursion load.

User avatar
aliasmask
RPTools Team
Posts: 9024
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:11 pm
Location: Bay Area

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by aliasmask »

I have a question about IRC chat. I like having ooc chat separated from in-character chat and that is something I do in my game. Normal ooc chat uses the MT chat and in-character I have a special frame for and gives special formatted output to chat so the two can be easily distinguished. I like being able to differentiate sarcastic remarks from ooc and icc which may get a player in trouble with an NPC if said aloud. Anyway, back to IRC.

I used to use IRC a longgg time ago and for low level users, it was quite hackable. I take it security has improved since then?

Lee
Dragon
Posts: 958
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:07 am

Re: MapTool 1.3 Final, patch06 (build 89)

Post by Lee »

I'd say yes, but delving deeper into the topic, it depends on the implementation as well. For the project, we'll only be implementing a small set of the available event handlers. Anything else that falls through won't be able to thrive, or gets ignored by the listening server.

Initially, we just want text of discussions, and none of the fancy stuff we are aware that people can do within a channel. I don't think we'll put in DCC, but who knows? I think we have other safer, sharing methods available today to do away with this feature.

What we do want is to inject protocol handlers for entries akin to macrolinks, that contain information to start a service within the application. The first would likely be connection information to a game session that also initiates the connection. Others come to mind, like repo info. It's something good to discuss when we get that far :lol:

Post Reply

Return to “Announcements”