MapTool 1.3 Development Build 41

jfrazierjr · Post by **jfrazierjr** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:40 am

trevor wrote:
jfrazierjr wrote: The reason no one is saying is because it may not actually make it into b42.
And it probably won't be officially in b42, but I have it on good authority that it's not far from completion

As long as there is some docs (even in a thread) that I can play with then thats fine with me. I would just as soon have a non official version or two to play with it and make sure the bugs are ironed out. I know I for one think to many people are playing with development versions and just don't get the fact that things WILL change from release to release and can and will break stuff they did in the previous version. I am not against anyone using the Dev version as long as they understand the possible issues, etc and are ok if they have to rewrite their macros or lose their entire campaign file, or whatever the case may be.

Post by **trevor** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:42 am

I think the key issue is that the main release versions don't come out often enough. I need to make full release builds every 6 months, which would give people access to the latest and greatest without the concern for stability.

jfrazierjr · Post by **jfrazierjr** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:47 am

trevor wrote:I think the key issue is that the main release versions don't come out often enough. I need to make full release builds every 6 months, which would give people access to the latest and greatest without the concern for stability.

THAT sounds like a fairly good idea. How hard is it to roll back and build to a specific build level? Or would you just have two Eclipse workspaces set up and only SVN update one as the "stable build" every few months to to whatever SVN number is solid?

That might also help with documentation (Brad's Video tutorials come to mind) especially if announced far enough in advanced what build you were expecting to target. Then people could write up macros, doco, help and hopefully not worry too super much about stuff getting blown away next week and their work would last at least several solid months.

Post by **trevor** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:01 pm

It wouldn't make much sense to roll back to a previous 1.3 build to release, but could be something to focus on for future builds

Orchard · Post by **Orchard** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:13 pm

trevor wrote:It wouldn't make much sense to roll back to a previous 1.3 build to release, but could be something to focus on for future builds

But for instance, b35 was a very stable build, and would have been a good one for a lot of people to say, "hey, here's a good solid 'release', play with this one"

That way people know that they are getting something solid.

This avoids people that don't want the issues of constantly changing systems while still giving them a fairly frequent set of new features.

I, on the other hand, will always feel compelled to run with the freshest build available, even if it means I need to use arcane arts and my time machine to get it. Wait until you see what you've done with version 4. It rocks. Of course I can't tell you anything about it, not even the barest hint, lest your mind be changed and the universe implode.

[This is a common myth--the universe can't actually implode, but time-travelers like to tell you it can. It's more fun for us to let neophytes think that. That way we can happily go about changing the past as much as we want...]

BigO · Post by **BigO** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:19 pm

Orchard wrote:[This is a common myth--the universe can't actually implode, but time-travelers like to tell you it can. It's more fun for us to let neophytes think that. That way we can happily go about changing the past as much as we want...]

I have to agree. I mean, if that's all it took to implode the Universe then I daresay we wouldn't be reading this forum right now.

jfrazierjr · Post by **jfrazierjr** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:36 pm

Orchard wrote:
trevor wrote:It wouldn't make much sense to roll back to a previous 1.3 build to release, but could be something to focus on for future builds
But for instance, b35 was a very stable build, and would have been a good one for a lot of people to say, "hey, here's a good solid 'release', play with this one"

That way people know that they are getting something solid.

I agree. I would also go as far as saying the webstart version should never point to anything but a stable build, even if it's 3-4 months old. The way I see it, anyone doing a true "beta" on purpose would have no problem downloading the zip file. I think a lot of people just click on the webstart file because it's there and have no clue as to what problems there are in the build itself since they don't read the forums( or at least not regularly.)

jstgtpaid · Post by **jstgtpaid** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:17 pm

I thought I would chime in and give a perspective from a 'dumb user.' Others may not suffer from the severe lack of intelligence that I do... However, when I looked at the downloads for maptools way back when, I saw the stable build was at 1.2 something and the other one was 1.3 something and the build number was fairly high at the time (maybe in the high 20's or low 30's) In any case, it never occurred to me to even try the 1.2. I figured that must be old and stale. I went right to 1.3.

I was also expecting a decent build too when I did it. Everyone else in the world may look at the dev and stable monikers and download 1.2, but personally I don't think so.

Therefore, from a bonehead user perspective, I would say release a stable build at least every six months. Otherwise, silly folks like me are gonna avoid the geriatric build and go straight for the new stuff.

Also, do we really want people's opinion of MT to be based on 1.2? I think that b38 was a darn solid build and has much more features...

Just my humble opinion...

Orchard · Post by **Orchard** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:28 pm

jstgtpaid wrote:I thought I would chime in and give a perspective from a 'dumb user.' Others may not suffer from the severe lack of intelligence that I do... However, when I looked at the downloads for maptools way back when, I saw the stable build was at 1.2 something and the other one was 1.3 something and the build number was fairly high at the time (maybe in the high 20's or low 30's) In any case, it never occurred to me to even try the 1.2. I figured that must be old and stale. I went right to 1.3.

I was also expecting a decent build too when I did it. Everyone else in the world may look at the dev and stable monikers and download 1.2, but personally I don't think so.

Therefore, from a bonehead user perspective, I would say release a stable build at least every six months. Otherwise, silly folks like me are gonna avoid the geriatric build and go straight for the new stuff.

Also, do we really want people's opinion of MT to be based on 1.2? I think that b38 was a darn solid build and has much more features...

Just my humble opinion...

I tend to agree with all that.

Because I did pretty much the same thing.

and it's how I would treat any software that gave me the option

Post by **trevor** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:39 pm

jstgtpaid wrote: Also, do we really want people's opinion of MT to be based on 1.2?

Exactly. Death to 1.2 ! Long live 1.4 ! Oh, wait, dang, gotta get 1.3 out

Azhrei · Post by **Azhrei** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:25 am

Mixtr wrote:I'using java 1.6.0_07 on Linux 2.6.26. But, it could just be a "feature" of java as described by another company when things don't act as they should...

It's possible that your video drivers are the problem. And do you have Compiz turned on? (Or the older Beryl?) They are known to have weird interactions with video drivers that cause "video artifacts" (a euphemism that means, "brokenness").

Mixtr · Post by **Mixtr** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:15 pm

Azhrei wrote:It's possible that your video drivers are the problem. And do you have Compiz turned on? (Or the older Beryl?) They are known to have weird interactions with video drivers that cause "video artifacts" (a euphemism that means, "brokenness").

Nope, I don't like to use eye popping - memory hungry - ressource feeding - candy. My system is pretty plain, but functional. I use Xfce as WM. So it could be a "feature" of ATI's fglrx driver.

Post by **trevor** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 1:49 pm

Mixtr wrote:
Azhrei wrote:It's possible that your video drivers are the problem. And do you have Compiz turned on? (Or the older Beryl?) They are known to have weird interactions with video drivers that cause "video artifacts" (a euphemism that means, "brokenness").
Nope, I don't like to use eye popping - memory hungry - ressource feeding - candy. My system is pretty plain, but functional. I use Xfce as WM. So it could be a "feature" of ATI's fglrx driver.

Hmmm, that's definitely a possibility. for kicks, you might try a different GM (say, gnome, or kde) and see if it behaves the same

Mixtr · Post by **Mixtr** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 2:14 pm

trevor wrote:Hmmm, that's definitely a possibility. for kicks, you might try a different GM (say, gnome, or kde) and see if it behaves the same

I tried MT on another computer with the same setup except it has a NVidia card and it works fine. So I'm filing this behavior under "ATI's feature" and I'm closing the drawer. (Unless you want some debug info..)

almagest · Post by **almagest** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:15 am

trevor wrote:Hmmm, that's definitely a possibility. for kicks, you might try a different GM (say, gnome, or kde) and see if it behaves the same

XFCE uses Metacity/GDM/Mono libraries natively, and is essentially Gnome light.

Mixtr wrote:I tried MT on another computer with the same setup except it has a NVidia card and it works fine. So I'm filing this behavior under "ATI's feature" and I'm closing the drawer. (Unless you want some debug info..)

Mixtr, what chipset does your card use? My laptop runs an old Mobility FireGL 9000, and Maptool runs fine. A friend of mine has a much newer card (forget the chipset), and Maptool runs fine as well. Both of these machines use Compiz Fusion and Java 6.