Java Jock Wanted to help me figure out Best way to distribute the Clash Demo v2

[Mark_Everson]

See, the problem is that nobody has been able to get the demo to run. Java types have little trouble building and running Clash from the java source, but the demo's another thing. The only non-java types that have tried it (Paul Crocker, and Lord God Jinnai, thanks to them both ) have not been able to get it to run. I have spent a lot of time with Paul trying various tweaks to no avail. It is So Simple it should work, but well, I'm at wits end with it...

My attempt was based on the JRE, java runtime environment, from Sun (free) and a distribution of the class files. I think our main goal should be to get whatever demo to run for Win 95/98 asap. Other platforms would be icing on the cake.

Actually a JAR-Based or Applet-based demo would probably be better than what I sent out, but my limited attempts at both those approaches have failed since I didn't want to sink a lot of time into learning all the details.

I will send whoever would like to do it the whold source and rely on them to figure out how to do the demo, I'll take what I can get at this point.

I'm dying to get Demo v2 out. It has some of the alpha-1 military model in it, and also some of the diplomacy model that Jacobo was working on. It is Tough to beat already, even with the limited AI I have in it so far. (And my AI doesn't Cheat, unlike some games we could mention )


I think its important to get it out Now so people not currently involved can see we're making progress.

Thanks in advance for your help!

-Mark

[mca]

Let me know if this works:

(It has been tested on one Windows NT4 machine only, I don't have easy access to a Win98 or Win95 machine)

[*]Download the ClashDemo_v1.zip file and unzip it. (I assume
you have WinZip installed already.) It is a quite large file
(more than 5 MB) so it might take some time. Downloading and
unzipping will create the folder "Clash Demo".
[*]Open the "Clash Demo" folder and doubleclick the icon named
"Install Clash Now!". This will start the installation of the
Java program, which is needed for Clash. Just click "Yes",
"Next", then wait a few moments for Java to install, then
click "Finish" to reboot your computer (you MUST do this).
[*]Java is now installed, and you can start Clash by
doubleclicking the "Clash Of Civilizations" icon in the
"Clash Demo" folder. [/list=a]

[This message has been edited by mca (edited October 11, 1999).]

[Mark_Everson]

Hi mca:

Thanks for taking a shot at it. I tried it. I got to running the Install batch file and go the following output:

C:\Clash Demo>./java/jre1_2_2-win
Bad command or file name

C:\Clash Demo>
C:\Clash Demo>

I changed the batch file to:
java\jre1_2_2-win

which worked on my computer to install jre.

now I need to reboot...

The play clash batch file didn't work either.

I changed the second line to java Game and it ran OK.

IMO you don't need the "-cp ." because "." is the default classpath for the jre in java 1.2.2 anyway.

But I still don't know if this is a valid test since I was able to get my version of the demo to run on my machine anyway...

Yep, my problem for checking out the demos is a lack of non-java win95 or 98 systems also

Thanks for trying.

Mark
[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited October 11, 1999).]

[Paul Crocker]

I got the same error as Mark - I installed the JRE by going into the Clash_demo directory and clicking on the JRE application file. It installed the JRE (said it did anyway!). When I rebooted and clicked on the clash icon, I got

c:\Clash Demo\java>java -cp . Game
Bad command or file name

C:Clash Demo\java>

[Paul Crocker]

Mark: Not quite sure what just happened here! Feel free to delete a few of those postings if you want to (I don't know how to). LOL getting this thing running! Can't wait to try it out

[Mark_Everson]

Paul: No problemo. I think you can delete your own posts. If you click on the edit post button (looks like a piece of paper with pencil), it gives you a checkbox at the upper left that says delete. Just check it and submit. If you don't get the box let me know and I'll Get them (click), Get them (click), Get them (click) .
[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited October 11, 1999).]

[mca]

Oh well, it worked for me... Just shows how much I _really_ know about Windows I guess...

./java/jre_etc is the Unix way of writing paths. Amazingly, it works on WinNT, too.

The JRE also seems to do something on NT that places the Java.exe in the default path, but doesn't (or can't) do this on Win9x.

The topic of this thread needs to be "Windows Jock Wanted ...", I think, because all this actually has little to do with Java.

If there's any demand for it, I'll try to make a distribution for Linux, which I think I could do a bit better than my feeble attempt at Windows.

Martin

[Mark_Everson]

Yeah, I thought they were Unix-like paths. I have no idea why the -cp command didn't work.

The JRE Is in the default path I believe. That's not the problem. At least with my demo Paul and Lord God Jinnai Both got java to run, but it gave a no-class-found error for Game.class even tho its sitting right there in the directory the batch file was executed from.

Sure, why don't you give Linux a shot. Want me to send you the demo v2 source first?

I think a JRE file is probably the way to go long term. That means all we need to do is send a single new file each update (and of course the JRE or whatever once).

I will write up a set of directions for the demo in the next few days, so those that Can get it to run can play around with it.

-Mark

[Paul Crocker]

Mark: I tried removing the extra posts last night, but got a message saying that only the forum moderator could do it. I guess I was just so excited last night at the prospect of finally seeing the demo that I clicked "submit" a few times too many

I tried running the demo on a NT machine today, and was able to partially install the JRE before the write-protection on the system at the lab aborted the procedure. This leads me to agree with MCA that the problems with (his at least) the demo may also be windows-based. I'm running windows 98 at home and encountered the problems described last night.

MCA: would it be possible to rewrite your batch files for windows 95/98 (even if you can't test it there?) just to see if things work that way? If it's just a matter of path syntax, it sounds like we're almost there Of course, I'm not a true programming guru, so I might be missing something here...