[Nerps!] MapTool Fork based on 1.4.1.x

[wolph42]

Quick question: Do all members in the group need to run your modified version of b89, or will it work if just the GM runs it?

Quite likely not. All participants need to run the same version. IRC lord ashes branch does NOT require this and that is an exception.

[JamzTheMan]

Correct, all people should run the same version of MT regardless. Even within my builds, 1.89k should run with 1.89k and may not run with 1.89f. Although, technically, it is easy to keep multiple versions of MT. Since it doesn't "Install", it's portable. So if other players sill need vanilla 1.89 for other games, they can have both.

[lmarkus001]

One warning, once you move a campaign file to the Nerps! format, it becomes incompatible with any other version of MapTool. So if you want to move to a different version, your GM will have work moving individual maps, tables, campaign macros, and manually recreating any campaign properties.

If you are happy with this version, then that is not an issue. And since MapTool development is at a standstill, this is probably not a huge deal. BUT if you plan on changing to one of the other forks (like Mote, or T3) then this will be an issue.

[JamzTheMan]

It *can* be recoverable. I believe the only issue is due to lumens property in lighting. Since my version will save that in the campaign data, it throws previous versions of MT in a tizzy. You *can* edit the xml in the campaign to remove these props and it'll load into b89.

I'm actually looking into a "Save as" option to save a campaign into previous versions of MT (ie b89) kind of like how Excel lets you save backwards to '97 version. I have a vested interest in this as I will want my campaigns to load into MOTE as well eventually.

If anyone does have an issue, just let me know and I can assist. As soon as I can iron out my new build process (issues with JavaFX now) I'll have a new version out.

[JamzTheMan]

Well, that was sorta easy, not too bad. Could probably go back as far a b84 if needed.

In the next version, the "Save as..." dialog, you can choose from "MapTool Campaign" or "MapTool Campaign (b89 Compatible)" which saves the campaign, wait for it, in a format that's compatible with b89. Which simply means you just loose any lumen definitions for darkness/light in campaign props, which could be saved off.

It saves the file as name.b89.cmpgn for sanity sake. The b89 can be stripped off if needed later.

[lmarkus001]

Awesome!

[Tinalles]

Okay, I've just spent 3 full hours trying to get Maptool Nerps to run on my player's computer, without success. This has been an epic debugging session, including walking my player through the steps to install TightVNC and map ports through her router so I could look at her machine directly, which took 45 minutes by itself (but worked).

Here is an excruciatingly detailed log of what we've tried.

1) My player downloaded Nerps from this link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2c01YG ... sp=sharing

2) She extracted the ZIP file to a new folder.

3) She tried running launch_maptool.bat. It failed with two successive error messages; the problem in this case was that the path to the Maptool folder on her computer contained a space, and launch_maptool.bat did not encapsulate the actual command in quote marks. We added the quote marks and tried again.

4) It failed because her version of Java (JRE 7 update 25 on Windows 64-bit) no longer supports wildcards in the .jar part. I edited the .bat file to just specify the correct file name ("maptool-1.3.b89p_Nerps.jar") and tried again. It failed.

5) I tried working out the correct command to launch it manually. I've tried the following two commands:

Code: Select all

start "MapTool" "C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin\javaw" -Xmx512M -Xms64M -Xss2M -jar "C:\Users\Lacey\Desktop\Will Martin Verdessa campaign\Verdessa\maptool\maptool-1.3.b89p_Nerps.jar" run

javaw -Xmx512M -Xms64M -Xss2M -jar "C:\Users\Lacey\Desktop\Will Martin Verdessa campaign\Verdessa\maptool\maptool-1.3.b89p_Nerps.jar" run

I set the -Xmx parameter to 512M in these samples, but we tried it with 1024M and 2048M too. In all cases, we tried executing it from a Windows command prompt so that any error messages would be displayed. In all cases, the command appeared to execute -- no errors! But also Maptool didn't start. No window was created. I tried watching the task manager while executing these commands: no Java processes were spawned. The same commands work fine on my machine.

6) Her Java version was newer than mine -- she was on JRE 7 update 25, I'm on JRE 7 update 10. So I removed Java from her machine and installed the same version, on the theory that maybe that was the problem. Still no joy; same problem. The command to execute the .jar file fails with no error messages, no window, and no java processes.

7) I tried disabling her antivirus and firewall. Neither had any effect.

We've also tried the launch_maptool_advanced.bat. It doesn't work either, but at least it gives some debug messages. Here's a sample:

Code: Select all

C:\Users\Lacey\Desktop\Will Martin Verdessa campaign\Verdessa\maptool>launch_maptool_advanced.bat
DEBUG:  Reading variables from "C:\Users\Lacey\Desktop\Will Martin Verdessa campaign\Verdessa\maptool\mt.cfg"
DEBUG:  Variables have been updated from mt.cfg they are as follows:
DEBUG:         MAPTOOL_MAX_MEMORY = 2048
DEBUG:         MAPTOOL_MIN_MEMORY = 512
DEBUG:         MAPTOOL_STACKSIZE  = 5
DEBUG:         MAPTOOL_JAVA_PATH  = "javaw.exe"
DEBUG:  After reading mt.cfg, the path to Java = "java.exe"
DEBUG:  Checking Java version in path
DEBUG:  Java Version -- 1.7.0_10
DEBUG:  Java Version (Major) -- 1
DEBUG:  Java Version (Minor) -- 7
DEBUG:  Java Version (Build) -- 0_10
DEBUG:  Checking to see if Java versions match:  1.7==1.7
DEBUG:  Launching Maptool
DEBUG:  Executing command -- START "MapTool" "javaw" -Xms512M -Xmx2048M -Xss5M -jar "C:\Users\Lacey\Desktop\Will Martin Verdessa campaign\Verdessa\maptool\maptool-1.3.b89p_Nerps.jar" -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 -DMAPTOOL_DATADIR="C:\Users\Lacey\Desktop\Will Martin Verdessa campaign\Verdessa\maptool" run
Press any key to continue . . .

C:\Users\Lacey\Desktop\Will Martin Verdessa campaign\Verdessa\maptool>

I've run out of things to try. It just does nothing. No error messages, no process, no window. We need the NERPS version so that tokens generated by hl2mt will work properly. The only other thing I can think of is cracking open the JAR and modifying it to FORCE it to spit out some kind of error message. If I knew Java, I might do so. But I don't.

So ... any suggestions?

This is NOT how I wanted to spend my evening.

[Tinalles]

Figured it out. Disregard previous.

The problem was that she had a non-standard ZIP extracting program that screwed up the LIB directory. Once I re-extracted with Windows Explorer it worked.

[wolph42]

As for the launching issue: see top link in my Sig and then the link at the top, it contains the new launcher.

[Tinalles]

Thanks!

[lmarkus001]

...
In the next version, the "Save as..." dialog, you can choose from "MapTool Campaign" or "MapTool Campaign (b89 Compatible)" which saves the campaign, wait for it, in a format that's compatible with b89. Which simply means you just loose any lumen definitions for darkness/light in campaign props, which could be saved off.
...

What is the manual way of converting to b89 standard from your Nerps! 89p save file? Do I unzip and change the version number and rebuild the light structure? I understand you will eventually put out a Q version that supports the Save As... but in the mean time I have a need to do a conversion...

[JamzTheMan]

The version number really doesn't matter, you'll just get a warning.

You need to open the content.xml file (which could be very large) and find and remove all the <lumens>*</lumens> tags. That should do the trick.


Also, I'll provide a free service, if you send/share your .cmpgn file, I'll import/export it for you on my local version. It'll be a good test.

[Tielc]

Hello,

I know this thread is quite old, but I'm hoping it's still trafficked by the owners. I am currently using MT Build 1.3.b90. If I remember correctly, I needed to switch to this version when I updated my Java installation. Now, I am at a bit of a crossroads. I am looking to use HeroLab2MapTool, and they suggest using this NERPS version to access the linked HTTPS pages that can be created. My concern is this version is based on b89 which I had issues with. Is there anyway to get just those HTTPS pages to work with that version, or do I in fact, need to roll back my Java, and use this version? Sorry, but this is all quite confusing to me at the moment, as I'm not a developer by any stretch. I would really like to have the links to the statsheets, feats, and abilities that HL2MT provides, but I also don't want to mess up what I've gotten working well for me.

Likewise clicking the link in the signature returns a 404 error.

[Full Bleed]

I am currently using MT Build 1.3.b90. If I remember correctly, I needed to switch to this version when I updated my Java installation.

You can use B89 (or, presumably, a b89 fork) with Java 7 so you should not need to roll back.

[JamzTheMan]

Correct, my Nerps fork is indeed Java 1.7 compatible. Also, although it is based on b89, it is closer to b90 as I had incorporated all the fix patches submitted into my build before b90, in fact, maybe a couple from Lee that are not in b90.

You should be able to run both versions (unzip into separate directories) in case you play with other people but the campaigns from my version will not load into other versions without manipulations due to light enhancements that add darkness 'light' sources.