New File Release: xconq-7.5.0-0pre.0.20041228

New File Release: xconq-7.5.0-0pre.0.20041228

[Eric McDonald]

Hello Xconquerors,

   A new Xconq file release is available at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=124062&package_id=135573&release_id=292824
   Here is the executive summary of changes for this release:
Several significant improvements are in this release:
(1) The unit image scaling bug has been squashed. Unit images should no 
longer be inflated to sizes too large.
(2) The SDL interface now has grouping boxes to indicate a 
transport/occupant relationship. The grouping boxes are essentially 
identical to what the Tcl/Tk interface already had.
(3) The SDL interface now has a unit construction indicator. Uses some 
cool alpha blending.
(4) Much of the unit display code in the SDL and Tcl/Tk interfaces has 
been rewritten and cleaned up tremendously. Although it may not be 
visible to the end user, it has made developer life much simpler.
(5) Bugs pertaining to unit views have been squashed, and a new feature 
has been added regarding unit vision.
(6) Grouping boxes and construction indicators are now somewhat 
customizable by game designers.

Action descriptions are provided in the unit info display in the Tcl/Tk 
interface. (Feature requested by Paul Crespy.)

The Opal and AWLS families of games have been updated by their creator, 
Elijah Meeks.

Networking remains to be fixed.

Note to Windows users: The program with "SETUP" in all uppercase letters 
and ending in ".exe" is an installer program which will install Xconq on 
your computer.

Note to people installing from RPM packages: The 'common' package is a 
prerequisite to the other packages; it contains parts of Xconq in common 
to the interfaces, such as documentation and the games library.
You must have this package in order to install one of the interface 
packages. The interface packages are: 'tcltk', 'sdl', and 'curses'.
You will need to install at least one of them to actually play Xconq.

   Enjoy,
     Eric

Re: New File Release: xconq-7.5.0-0pre.0.20041228

[Bob Beaty]

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Hi,
   I think the new release sounds great.
   I wondered if the support for Mac OSX has simply dried up?
   I see in the SourceForge web site that it's considered "unsupported".  
That would be too bad. I was excited when the port to OS X was done and  
have been keeping up ever since. While I understand the market forces,  
I would have thought that xconq is not so much about market forces as  
the desire by some great guys to do great work and share it with a  
bunch of happy gamers.
   If the Mac OS X support is dead, then I'll live with the last version  
that works for me.
   If not, then maybe a significant release like this needs a companion  
release of the Mac OS X side.

				Bob


On Dec 27, 2004, at 8:02 PM, Eric McDonald wrote:

> Hello Xconquerors,
>
>   A new Xconq file release is available at:
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php? 
> group_id=124062&package_id=135573&release_id=292824
>   Here is the executive summary of changes for this release:
> Several significant improvements are in this release:
> (1) The unit image scaling bug has been squashed. Unit images should  
> no longer be inflated to sizes too large.
> (2) The SDL interface now has grouping boxes to indicate a  
> transport/occupant relationship. The grouping boxes are essentially  
> identical to what the Tcl/Tk interface already had.
> (3) The SDL interface now has a unit construction indicator. Uses some  
> cool alpha blending.
> (4) Much of the unit display code in the SDL and Tcl/Tk interfaces has  
> been rewritten and cleaned up tremendously. Although it may not be  
> visible to the end user, it has made developer life much simpler.
> (5) Bugs pertaining to unit views have been squashed, and a new  
> feature has been added regarding unit vision.
> (6) Grouping boxes and construction indicators are now somewhat  
> customizable by game designers.
>
> Action descriptions are provided in the unit info display in the  
> Tcl/Tk interface. (Feature requested by Paul Crespy.)
>
> The Opal and AWLS families of games have been updated by their  
> creator, Elijah Meeks.
>
> Networking remains to be fixed.
>
> Note to Windows users: The program with "SETUP" in all uppercase  
> letters and ending in ".exe" is an installer program which will  
> install Xconq on your computer.
>
> Note to people installing from RPM packages: The 'common' package is a  
> prerequisite to the other packages; it contains parts of Xconq in  
> common to the interfaces, such as documentation and the games library.
> You must have this package in order to install one of the interface  
> packages. The interface packages are: 'tcltk', 'sdl', and 'curses'.
> You will need to install at least one of them to actually play Xconq.
>
>   Enjoy,
>     Eric
>
>

	Thanks,
		Bob (drbob@TheManFromSPUD.com)
	The Man from S.P.U.D.
	We will write no code before it's designed.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/enriched, Size: 3449 bytes --]

Hi,

  I think the new release sounds great.

  I wondered if the support for Mac OSX has simply dried up?

  I see in the SourceForge web site that it's considered
"unsupported". That would be too bad. I was excited when the port to
OS X was done and have been keeping up ever since. While I understand
the market forces, I would have thought that xconq is not so much
about market forces as the desire by some great guys to do great work
and share it with a bunch of happy gamers.

  If the Mac OS X support is dead, then I'll live with the last
version that works for me.

  If not, then maybe a significant release like this needs a companion
release of the Mac OS X side.


				Bob



On Dec 27, 2004, at 8:02 PM, Eric McDonald wrote:


<excerpt>Hello Xconquerors,


  A new Xconq file release is available at:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=124062&package_id=135573&release_id=292824

  Here is the executive summary of changes for this release:

Several significant improvements are in this release:

(1) The unit image scaling bug has been squashed. Unit images should
no longer be inflated to sizes too large.

(2) The SDL interface now has grouping boxes to indicate a
transport/occupant relationship. The grouping boxes are essentially
identical to what the Tcl/Tk interface already had.

(3) The SDL interface now has a unit construction indicator. Uses some
cool alpha blending.

(4) Much of the unit display code in the SDL and Tcl/Tk interfaces has
been rewritten and cleaned up tremendously. Although it may not be
visible to the end user, it has made developer life much simpler.

(5) Bugs pertaining to unit views have been squashed, and a new
feature has been added regarding unit vision.

(6) Grouping boxes and construction indicators are now somewhat
customizable by game designers.


Action descriptions are provided in the unit info display in the
Tcl/Tk interface. (Feature requested by Paul Crespy.)


The Opal and AWLS families of games have been updated by their
creator, Elijah Meeks.


Networking remains to be fixed.


Note to Windows users: The program with "SETUP" in all uppercase
letters and ending in ".exe" is an installer program which will
install Xconq on your computer.


Note to people installing from RPM packages: The 'common' package is a
prerequisite to the other packages; it contains parts of Xconq in
common to the interfaces, such as documentation and the games library.

You must have this package in order to install one of the interface
packages. The interface packages are: 'tcltk', 'sdl', and 'curses'.

You will need to install at least one of them to actually play Xconq.


  Enjoy,

    Eric



</excerpt><x-tad-bigger>

	</x-tad-bigger><fontfamily><param>Comic Sans MS</param><x-tad-smaller>Thanks,</x-tad-smaller></fontfamily><x-tad-bigger>

		</x-tad-bigger><bold><fontfamily><param>Comic Sans MS</param><bigger><bigger><bigger><bigger><bigger><bigger><x-tad-bigger>Bob</x-tad-bigger></bigger></bigger></bigger></bigger></bigger></bigger></fontfamily></bold><fontfamily><param>Comic Sans MS</param><bigger><bigger><bigger><x-tad-bigger>
</x-tad-bigger></bigger></bigger></bigger></fontfamily><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller>(drbob@TheManFromSPUD.com)

	The Man from S.P.U.D.</smaller></fontfamily><x-tad-bigger>

	</x-tad-bigger><italic><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller>We
will write no code before it's designed.</smaller></fontfamily></italic>

Re: [Xconq-general] Re: New File Release: xconq-7.5.0-0pre.0.20041228

[Lincoln Peters]

On Tue, 2004-12-28 at 12:04 -0600, Bob Beaty wrote:
>   I think the new release sounds great.
>   I wondered if the support for Mac OSX has simply dried up?
>   I see in the SourceForge web site that it's considered
> "unsupported". That would be too bad. I was excited when the port to
> OS X was done and have been keeping up ever since. While I understand
> the market forces, I would have thought that xconq is not so much
> about market forces as the desire by some great guys to do great work
> and share it with a bunch of happy gamers.

As I understand it, the problem is that with the UI code in the state
it's currently in, there is little incentive to continue to support all
of these different operating systems with different UI's.  Hopefully,
when the SDL interface is completed, it will work on all platforms and
this will no longer be an issue.

---
Lincoln Peters
<sampln@sbcglobal.net>

Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of
filename completion.
	-- Discussion on file completion vs. the Mac Finder

Re: New File Release: xconq-7.5.0-0pre.0.20041228

[Eric McDonald]

Hi Bob,

Bob Beaty wrote:

> I think the new release sounds great.
> I wondered if the support for Mac OSX has simply dried up?

The main developer for the Mac native port of Xconq has not been heard 
from for a while. I don't whether this is because he is on sabbatical 
and simply too busy or whether he got upset after a disagreement that I 
had with him. Or maybe some other reason.... I do hope that he wasn't in 
Sri Lanka recently though; that is where he was last Feb or March when 
he disappeared for a while, IIRC.

Sourceforge does have a compile farm which includes a MacOS box or two. 
At some point, I will be attempting to compile Xconq on MacOS using the 
SF farm. However, since I have no MacOS (9 or X) machine at home, I 
cannot test the results. I will need testers. You are only one of two 
MacOS users that I know of (besides Hans).

As Lincoln stated in his reply while I was writing this one, we are 
trying to reduce the number of interfaces officially supported. Since 
the Mac native interface was platform-specific and I had no means of 
building and testing it, I pulled the plug on it. I also pulled the plug 
on the old X11 interface. This leaves the Tcl/Tk, SDL, and Curses 
interfaces. I was planning on getting rid of the Tcl/Tk interface before 
the 7.5.0 release; however, after working with it some more, I am 
willing to commute its death sentence for at least one more release 
cycle. This should make at least one Solaris user happy.

You should note that the Tcl/Tk and SDL interfaces used to work on the 
Mac. It is my hope that if I can get them to compile correctly and have 
some patient testers to work with, I can support your platform again.

Of course, if you know of any willing MacOS developers, that would be 
even better....

   Regards,
     Eric

Re: New File Release: xconq-7.5.0-0pre.0.20041228

[Lincoln Peters]

On Tue, 2004-12-28 at 11:27 -0700, Eric McDonald wrote:
> Sourceforge does have a compile farm which includes a MacOS box or two. 
> At some point, I will be attempting to compile Xconq on MacOS using the 
> SF farm. However, since I have no MacOS (9 or X) machine at home, I 
> cannot test the results. I will need testers. You are only one of two 
> MacOS users that I know of (besides Hans).

I have an iBook running MacOS 10.3.7 "Panther" that I could use for
testing, but I don't have a lot of free time (if I did, I probably would
have finished knightmare.g by now).

---
Lincoln Peters
<sampln@sbcglobal.net>

All warranty and guarantee clauses become null and void upon payment of invoice.