Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - Project Status: Inactive
I don't think it's any surprise, but I'm flagging this project as inactive. With my job and my other side projects, AVAE has fallen to the side, and I simply don't have time to keep working on it. I stopped playing MUD's a while back, and my interest in keeping AVAE going is right now small.I'd say AVAE is stable. There's some minor things missing, but it's good enough to build area files with, which was the initial goal. Should someone wish to pick up where I left off, feel free to contact me.
AVAE never got much attention, and frankly, I didn't expect much either. Perhaps I will continue AVAE in a more generic form later on, who knows. But for now it's Inactive. Hope those of you that use the program enjoy it.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - Back!
Sorry for the lack of news updates, life has been horribly up and down, and AVAE suffered. I have started poking at unfinished stuff again however, and mostly I've focused on the mapper. I've created the base classes for drawing rooms, connections and dragging & dropping rooms to connect them. So far it all works great. The hard part will be to add the logic for actually drawing them in the correct places. Depending on how long it takes to finish it, or at least finish it far enough that it's worth releasing, I'll also look at the object (rooms, items, etc) grouping feature.
Thursday, July 22, 2004 - Another News Update
I just haven't had time to do anything lately =(. I don't know if there's many (any) people waiting on fixes or features, but it will be some time longer until I can focus on AVAE again. Work is kicking my ass, real life is kicking my ass, and none of them are kicking it in any good way. All I can say is I hope AVAE is working for those that are using it, and that I'll get back on the train when I can. Again, if people want to step up and code while I don't have time, or want to be part of the project, let me know. Java skills are an obvious plus. I'm hoping the next news update will be more fun.
Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - News Update
I've poked some at AVAE lately but not a whole lot. The current release feels quite stable, and I've received no word of urgent bug fixes or other problems. I've noticed that AVAE has gotten a ton of downloads lately, which is surprising. I'm guessing quite a few of them are people learning SWT/JFace, that are eager to see how stuff is done, or they're ACK! muds that I had no idea existed. I don't mind the first of those at all, that's part of what sourceforge is for, as long as they stick to the license.I don't know when the next AVAE release or patch will be, as I'm not all set on what I feel like implementing. Grouping is on the menu, and the last things that make it fully ACK! like, things like random doors and such. After that however, I'm not sure. I guess we'll see.
I felt it was time for a news update since it's been a while since the last one. I'm still here, and AVAE is still going. Remember, if you're a Java developer and feel like contributing, drop me an email. And if you find bugs or features you want, do the same. My real job has been quite busy over the last months (also application development), which leaves little time for AVAE, so any other coders that feel like working on it are more than welcome.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - CVS Up to date
I nuked the old CVS repository from Sourceforge and uploaded the new AVAE repository. Sorry for the delay, but Sourceforge's CVS has been playing tricks with me. It looks like ViewCVS is still not "live", so it may be a day or so before that feature shows the correct files (if you're the browsing type =) ). I renamed the root folder to "AVAE" (or "avae" should it be lowercase sensetive for some reason). So to check out the project, just do the usual "cvs co avae" after you've connected and all that.If you're new to CVS or need a refresher, read Sourceforge's info on how to check out modules here. Where it says "modulename", that's where you put "avae". Let me know if you have problems with it.
There's also a few excellent clients that can do all work for you, such as WinCVS (advanced) or TortoiseCVS (very easy to use, and comes with SSH already).
Friday, April 22, 2004 - Busy Busy Busy
Work has been insane, I've worked from early mornings to past midnight almost every day. AVAE has gotten little attention because of that. I wish I had time to work on it, but I just don't right now. There's not much more to say than that, and I'm sorry I don't have more time do AVAE stuff. Once things cool down I'll get back to coding on it again, and I'll make a news update when that happens. As usual, contact me if you find massive bugs, and I'll try to at least fix those. I'll also try to get the source up on CVS.
Monday, March 22, 2004 - News Update
I've been quite busy at work ever since the last patch, and have had almost no time to work on AVAE. I've heard no bad news from the latest release or the latest patch, so I'm assuming everything is working well for those that have downloaded it and are using it. That's good. I will probably be busy with work things until the end of March, and get some more AVAE time after that again. As usual, should anything pop up, such as bugs, features, questions or the like, feel free to contact me.
Sourceforge still has not fixed the Statistics or the CVS issues, so I'm still waiting to be able to put up all source for the new source "tree". If you need the source sooner, drop me an email and I'll send it to you.
Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - Another Update, and Boo LucasArts!
Added a menu bar entry called "Window" that contains 2 things;
Reset Internal Window Sizes - resets "sash weights" (the little bars that allow you to resize internal windows)
Hide/Show Status - Hides/Shows the bottom part where the Find and Status tabs are, so that you can have more space editing text etc.
AVAE will update to the new changes automatically next time you start it (if you allow it).
And in other news. LucasArts has cancelled Sam & Max 2 today, as they basically said the Adventure genre on PC is dead. As a huge fan of the Monkey Island series, Sam & Max 2, DoTT, and all other classic adventure style LucasArts games, I'm massively dissapointed in them. If you care, here's more info: http://www.scummbar.com. And SlashDot http://games.slashdot.org/.../2032200.shtml. They cancelled Grim Fandango 2, now S&M2, and probably Monkey Island 5 and any other such game. I guess Star Wars is all that matters to them, even though 95% of their Star Wars games are flops. Clearly the people who decided the cancellation have never played Monkey Island or any of the other games.
Lastly, Sourceforge seems to have some CVS issues, so I can't get my source code version controlled at the moment. Once it's solved I'm hoping I can get it up.
Monday, March 1, 2004 - Patch Up!
The patch is now available (see below news entry for more info) and next time you start AVAE you should be asked if you want to download it. It's a 1 button operation, so really easy and well worth it. Patch contains:
Search Feature - Edit menu
Search/Replace Feature - Edit menu
Tabbed Search Result Box - Where status box is
Dialog box asking if you wish to save before quitting (as closing AVAE could be by mistake)
A fix to Save As (mostly added some info once area is saved)
Some minor things I ran past while adding the above.
Edit: I had to fix some auto update issues, so if you downloaded the patch in the last hour, you might need to patch twice (this might actually happen twice regardless, altho I tested from the raw install exe and it only patched once and worked right away, so looks good)
Sunday, February 29, 2004 - What's in the next patch?
Now that patching is less painless for me to do (as it's almost 100% scripted on both ends) I feel a bit more at ease when it comes to adding features and fixes.
In the next patch I will have added a Search and Search/Replace feature that's quite extensive as it allows you to select many different options for each. Adding Search and Search/Replace was a bit tricky as the XML defines what the fields are in the Area, but I think I got it done in a good way. Since having search work like a normal search where you can jump back and forward doesn't really make sense in the way the editor is layed out, I have added a Tab folder to the status box at the bottom, where one tab is the normal status box and another is the find results. That way you can easily jump between the matched results.
For some screenshots of all my "yadda yadda" above, see the follwing links:
Search & Replace Dialog
Tabbed Find Result Area (resized it for screenshot) (search was for 'Midgaard'. Double clicking a row opens the associated item)
The odd looking bar at the bottom of the dialog is the progress bar, as it might take a few seconds to search and replace everything.
Friday, February 27, 2004 - New Release! Finally! v1.0.500 is ready for Download.
First and most important, this is a completely new release with a completely different file structure. You will not be able to patch from an old version to the new one, but will have to download the installer and re-install. I suggest you copy out any area files, and settings from root.xml and ack.xml from your existing installation and then move over the changes you want to the new one (and delete the old directory completely before installing), as both root.xml and ack.xml are different from the old ones (mostly additions).
The installer is available in the download section. As I just uploaded it, some of sourceforge's download servers might give a 404 not found, if so, just try a different download server.
For a list of changes, see the old news posts, otherwise I'll update this news entry later with a list, once I've had some lunch :).
For those that use CVS to update their source code, I still need to nuke the old AVAE source on there and submit the new one, I'll have that done soon. For now, you can download the source in the files section as well.
Friday, February 27, 2004 - Updated New Screenshots
Well, I had one of those bursts of last minute ideas and willpower to implement them, so I added a slew of little things, such as:
Mobs that have mobprogs are colored green in tree
Mobs that are unused reset-wise are colored gray in tree
Objects that are unused reset-wise are colored gray in tree
MobProg has the option of turning on/off the code assister
Emotes are now part of ACK.xml and colored green in the mobprog box
Added some more error checking to the MobProg box
Added so you can Auto-indent the MobProg code (toolbar)
Added so you can remove all indentation (toolbar)
Added indicator on MobProg toolbox that says if the current MobProg has been saved or not (Unmodified/Modified)
Added line/column indicator on MobProg toolbar
Added global Copy/Paste/Cut/Select All to the Edit menu
Added progress bar when loading areas (altho it's very fast on most systems it's handy to know something is going on)
Added so you can jump to either the selected item in the tree, or the currently being-edited item
I've updated a few screenshots that I added last night to reflect these changes. I'm hoping they'll add some excitement for the upcoming release!
Thursday, February 26, 2004 - Closer Yet and New Screenshots
As I get AVAE ready for release, I've added some screenshots in the screenshots section. They show some of the new features and as you can see I changed some icons, there's some more toolbar options (auto fix to double newlines, setting lines to 80 char / line etc), tree changes color if mobs have mobprogs, patcher, etc.
You may think the changes aren't huge, and mostly, they're not. But the code layout is now so much better that it's actually a joy to work with it, and there's some good overall changes in there (like, if you didn't save the MobProg and switch items, you'll be asked if you want to save first). I have plenty of features on my mind, like, adding options dialog for saving AVAE settings, grouping items in the tree, allowing colors for unused objects and mobs, and what not. I'm all ears if others have any good ideas as well (create object range was one such idea that's now implemented).
I'm currently QA'ing AVAE to make sure that it's stable, and that I didn't forget some bad code somewhere. So far it looks really good and I'm hoping I'll have a new version up any time now. I'll also make a more final list of what's new so that you know what features are now available (such as, multi selecting items in the tree for deleting etc).
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - Closer
Update: Looks like I got the autopatcher to work now, by having it run when AVAE starts before files start getting in use. This of course raises the issue of patching the patcher :) but I'll leave that for now. I received word of a possible bug that I'll have to investigate before I make any new version available.
Just a short update that I'm getting really close to completion of this round of fixes and features. I'm hoping to have a new installer up pretty soon! I'll update this news entry when I get a chance.
Sunday, February 1, 2004 - Progress
I've gotten time to code some lately, and have finished a big thing, which is to re-organize all the code. It's way more broken out now and much easier for me to work on than it was before. I basically packaged it into a directory structure. Due to this, the next update will be a full download, and not a patch. I'm also changing the patcher to be more "wise" in what it downloads, hopefully using CRC32 or something like that so it can tell what to update by itself, by comparing the local files to what's on the server.
I also finished the in-line table editor, which looks like it works great right now. The "total" updates are not as many either, reducing the flickering and sometimes lost item selection in the tree.
The range creation thing (see below news update) is also done. I guess the dialog could use some beautification, but that's stuff I'll bother with last.
There's still a few more things to make sure they work as intended before I release this one. I also need to re-create the CVS repository on Sourceforge as it no longer has the same directory structure. I'm hoping I'll have the last things done soon so everyone can download.
