395 replies to this topic

[SixstringSamurai]

majora, I love you and all your hard work but your "new" mechlab is kind of a mess. You should check out Smurfy's web based one. I won't stop using your program by any means since you have "unreleased" variants that lets me plan ahead but really I like the easy to navigate old style mechlab you had where I could just place stuff and not have to put it into a que. I just kind of wish it was more user friendly.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

SixStringSamurai, on 28 December 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

majora, I love you and all your hard work but your "new" mechlab is kind of a mess. You should check out Smurfy's web based one. I won't stop using your program by any means since you have "unreleased" variants that lets me plan ahead but really I like the easy to navigate old style mechlab you had where I could just place stuff and not have to put it into a que. I just kind of wish it was more user friendly.

I don't like the non-queue based mechlabs, so that won't be changing. Smurfy's is definitely good, but I still prefer Solaris Skunkwerks as the best mechlab program (just not MWO oriented). The userflow is meant to be more like SSW just with the GUI layout like MW4 (because MW4's was the best). As for Drag and Drop, this is planned after I get save/load working, it is just one of the more difficult items on my to-do list.

[SixstringSamurai]

Ahhh okay that makes more sense now that I see the screenshots:

http://www.solarissk...com/screenshots

So do you plan to place the que inside the program window or is it staying a satellite? Because I think I would be more in love with it if it wasn't floating.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yes, in my dev version have it built in, I believe my last update also made it part of the window. Though honestly I'm a little unsure on where I prefer it placed.

[MasterBLB]

majora incarnate, on 28 December 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

I don't know about it being the best option, because then sharing one variant becomes a huge problem between users, because all variants are in one xml file. Saving isn't a problem, just save all necessary variables to a binary file and your done, it is the loading process that requires more thought.

Sorry,I didn't expained that clearly.I meant not save own mechs like it is now when you press export.
I mean all these data you need to display mechs in the mechs tree on the left in the old mechlab,or in comboboxes in new one as well as any other data.
Right now you have all needed data encoded internally in you application.That's a wrong approach,as each time a new mech is released or a bug in ex hard points location/count is discovered you have to correct your code,recompile it then distribute to users.
I propose to remove all such data and store it in external .xml file.That allow to add mechs easily by anyone (ex I could add Flame/Fang to old lab on my own),correct any founded bugs etc,and all that without any need of bothering you about recompilation and so.

[neviu]

thanks man!

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MasterBLB, on 29 December 2012 - 07:01 AM, said:

Sorry,I didn't expained that clearly.I meant not save own mechs like it is now when you press export.
I mean all these data you need to display mechs in the mechs tree on the left in the old mechlab,or in comboboxes in new one as well as any other data.
Right now you have all needed data encoded internally in you application.That's a wrong approach,as each time a new mech is released or a bug in ex hard points location/count is discovered you have to correct your code,recompile it then distribute to users.
I propose to remove all such data and store it in external .xml file.That allow to add mechs easily by anyone (ex I could add Flame/Fang to old lab on my own),correct any founded bugs etc,and all that without any need of bothering you about recompilation and so.

Then comes the problem of the user having to reDL or fix the stats themselves. They are going to reDL something regardless (how many people are actually going to update the files themselves), especially with all the other bugs that come about outside of the corrections.

Maybe I'll add some spreadsheet files like SSW way later on, but that's far in the future, because it would require a large restructuring of the code (and I mean large).

[MasterBLB]

It would require,I agree.But you're learning how to code,now you know such things like data shouldn't be sewed up deep in source code.
Besides,editing by users is not the main goal (though useful sometimes,ex in thecurrent old mechlab I discovered a bug - Hunchback 4G has 8 energy slots,4 each arm),but it'd make your job easier.Imagine PGI will change ex heat values of the energy weapons and splice ECM into 3 different devices.How much work your code would require now to reflect these changes?I bet quite some.

Ah,**** that,if you are familiar with C++ a bit(and you should if you write in Java) then I'm going to remind my youth when I wrote programs for fun not for money,and offer my help in refactorization of the app.Well,it needs to be re-written to be honest

Edited by MasterBLB, 30 December 2012 - 04:31 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MasterBLB, on 30 December 2012 - 04:28 AM, said:

It would require,I agree.But you're learning how to code,now you know such things like data shouldn't be sewed up deep in source code.
Besides,editing by users is not the main goal (though useful sometimes,ex in thecurrent old mechlab I discovered a bug - Hunchback 4G has 8 energy slots,4 each arm),but it'd make your job easier.Imagine PGI will change ex heat values of the energy weapons and splice ECM into 3 different devices.How much work your code would require now to reflect these changes?I bet quite some.

Ah,**** that,if you are familiar with C++ a bit(and you should if you write in Java) then I'm going to remind my youth when I wrote programs for fun not for money,and offer my help in refactorization of the app.Well,it needs to be re-written to be honest

:-/
I wrote this for fun, and there is no "right" way to code. There are elegant methods of coding this is true, but how to go about handling things is all dependent on what you want to develop. This program was originally meant to be for my lazy clan-mates who didn't want to mess with changing things themselves, and it isn't hard to add source code or change existing source code to deal with new heat values or splitting of ECM.

I am aware that much of it needs to be re-written to be cleaner and remove redundancies in code, but I don't feel like it is that big of a deal.

Edited by majora incarnate, 30 December 2012 - 05:59 AM.

[MadFred26]

majora incarnate, on 27 December 2012 - 06:59 PM, said:

the could not find main class error means you aren't running Java 7.
http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
Download both the 32-bit and 64-bit version installers and see if that fixes anything.

Thanks for your reply,

I had removed all the traces of the previous install. I have installed both versions, and done the verification on the site, it seems all to be in order.

But, when I try to run the application, it opens a window for a split second, but closes right away again, and then nothing..

Not sure what else to try, any more ideas perchance?

Thanks very much!!

Kind Regards,
Fred

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Unfortunately I have none, a clan-mate has suffered from this problem since I created this program. Check to see if you can run other java programs, because he had never run one before. Gotta make sure it is my program, or java itself.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Updated to 2.4.02

New Features
*Save/Load Functions brought online, for realz this time.

Bug Fixes
*A lot of corrections made due to weird IDE problems and bad typing skills.

Known Issues
*Certain items don't update when you load a mech, mainly armor related items.

As I previously posted, the Compact Mechlab will hopefully be in sometime this week, as will merging the Equipment and Weapon tabs (basically a return to the old equipment tabs).
Some saving issues also may have slipped past me, so if you get a Variant was not instanced error, email me your variant file, loadout, and hopefully Ill get the issue ironed out.

Edited by majora incarnate, 31 December 2012 - 02:22 AM.

[MasterBLB]

Majora Incarnate,in case I'd get bored and decided to write my own mechlab app would you like to share all needed formulas?(ex for heat calculation)

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Because of your attitude, not really; were smurfynet or 3rdworld to ask, I would in a heartbeat.

To be honest though, the only semi-complicated calculation is the effective range of a loadout, the others should be fairly easy to figure out.

[SixstringSamurai]

Not going to lie I would love to see a project shared between Smurfy and you. Both have created some very excellent resources for the community. I thing PGI/IGP should let you, Ohms, and Smurfy take a stab at something under the game tab up top. The information there is somewhat lacking. All of you guys have created individual projects that have their strengths and weaknesses. While I myself have said that your program should be more like smurfy's once you showed me what your end game was it game me a much better perspective on the project. While smurfy's is more friendly to the casual user per say it lacks decent outputs like the the MWO:MB. Smurfy's is entirely web based and so a hard copy of a load out is not supported. While with MWO:MB you can send and actual build file as well as copy and paste data from a text based export file that is much easier to digest then the layout of Smurfy's web based design. Personally I make use of both since Smurfy's is limited to existing variants the MWO:MB includes planned variants which allows me to plan ahead.

As always good work Majora and I look forward to seeing the stuff you add in the future.

Edited by SixStringSamurai, 31 December 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[Drathek]

So I am able to get pre-made variants to load, but I still have the same issue as before when trying to save (or export) a variant: "System cannot find the path specified" because its default directory is set to system32 some reason... (C:/Windows/System32/Variants/<NAME>.mbv). Furthermore, even if you put the exact file name (with the mech type before with a space) in that directory it still gives the same error (more than likely because you need admin privledge for that directory even with UAC disabled).

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Odd, Im using a System Property function within Java, so certain version of Windows may not like the use of it. I may need to tweak the System Property.

Edited by majora incarnate, 01 January 2013 - 12:51 AM.

[bantapoo]

i use it for a month and I must pay my respects to the creator, as it is simply the best tool around for it's extensiveness,ease of use, and cool layout.
kudos from a fellow developer.

Edited by bantapoo, 04 January 2013 - 06:48 AM.

[Crashingmail]

MI, will your homepage back online with news ? I saw that the hoster got some problems. Would be nice to see there some news too.

[Josh Davion]

The calculations for Speed Tweak are off by a small percentage. It's only granting 7.5% increase where it should be giving 10%.