Bug Fix Discussions

[LFS]

edit a post, cool! who came up with such a wierd concept

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by vovansim
Another bug that appears in demo 7.2.1, which I think wasn't there in demo 7.1, but I am not sure about demo 7.2.0, is when you select the Carthago delenda est scenario, it says image not found twice, and then whatever you do with the window, it prints out a bunch of debug information in the command prompt. Maybe find which images are missing, and put them there? Or at least turn off the debug switch to make the rest of the game a little faster?

Hi Vovan, you must be missing some images, because I don't have that problem. Please ID what the images are, and look in the bridge zip I sent yesterday to see if they are there and you just didn't get them in the right place. I can send you the images you need, or the whole package of images again if necessary.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Hi Vovan, you must be missing some images, because I don't have that problem. Please ID what the images are, and look in the bridge zip I sent yesterday to see if they are there and you just didn't get them in the right place. I can send you the images you need, or the whole package of images again if necessary.

Well, since that doesn't happen with any other scenarios, I assume the problem must be with the two scenario-specific images. hannibal.gif, and scipio.gif, which are mentioned in the xml file for the scenario. But they are there. In the same folder as the xml file. And their extension is lower case, and all as required. I can't imagine why the game cannot find them. It is the only scenario that has scenario-specific images though, so maybe they are not loaded correctly, or their path is not correctly stored? Then again, you say you don't have that problem... That is odd. I think I will investigate if / when I have time.

Meanwhile, I am wondering: does anybody else have that problem?

[Jeremy Buloch]

I do have a JVM but it might be out of date, I tried to update it but it said unable to update. I will attempt to reinstall it. BTW I followed the instructions to the letter. I think its the microsoft version of JVM and it has issues.
-J.B.-

[vovan]

Well, it might be the microsoft version that is causing the problem, but I am sure there are other people out there who tried to play the game with it, and they probably would have complained.

Now, the fact that you got an error message when trying to update it, is what bothers me. It might mean that there is some corruption there. Which could lead to all kinds of strange behavior in the game. Try to reinstall it and see if that does any good.

[LFS]

Hi Vovan, you must be missing some images, because I don't have that problem. Please ID what the images are, and look in the bridge zip I sent yesterday to see if they are there and you just didn't get them in the right place. I can send you the images you need, or the whole package of images again if necessary.

I have that problem , I had that problem before as well.

I think its the microsoft version of JVM and it has issues

Question: what version of jave are we targeting, microsoft is 1.14, and won't handle swing on it's own, or a load of other good stuff.

I'm developing with suns 1.4 .

[Jeremy Buloch]

I went to the suns site and downloaded
JavaTM Virtual Machine (JVM) with Automatic Installation.
I then restarted the game and it worked. Thanks for your help guys! It still goes slow but it works!
-J.B.-

[LDiCesare]

Another bug that appears in demo 7.2.1, which I think wasn't there in demo 7.1, but I am not sure about demo 7.2.0, is when you select the Carthago delenda est scenario, it says image not found twice, and then whatever you do with the window, it prints out a bunch of debug information in the command prompt. Maybe find which images are missing, and put them there? Or at least turn off the debug switch to make the rest of the game a little faster?

Yes, the bug is somewhere. I added the message to see what image was missing. An image "services" is missing, and it causes lots of overlay=null messages to be printed (not by me this time). Is that services image in the resources (or scenario) folder, or only on Mark's computer?

[Mark_Everson]

Jeremy, glad it worked out! Please let us know what you think, both good and bad, when you have played it a bit!


On the "services" image. . . I have no idea. There is no file of name services.* anywhere in my clash directory. Presumably some other file is then out of date. Images.xml was my first guess, but it calls for no file like that, at least my version doesn't!

If anyone can give me more hints, I'll do whatever is needed. Should I zip up everything I have right now and send it?

[LDiCesare]

The services stuff happens because of a Feature object (in game/events/features). I don't know what it is used for nor where it comes from, which is why I limited myself to the trace. I think the Feature is called service too (but it is named after the image is attached to it).
I think features are the things like the horse in Dawn.

I can't see why there would be one in Delenda unless the map showed something wrong in it.

The parser somehow calls that but I cannot figure what file it reads that info from. delenda probably.

May be linked to MapFile.setEconomicSiteFeature? It has a f.setImage(sectorName) which smells like it could be the cause of the problem. It is a bit late for me to debug. Mark, do you think it could be that?

[vovan]

Originally posted by LDiCesare May be linked to MapFile.setEconomicSiteFeature? It has a f.setImage(sectorName) which smells like it could be the cause of the problem. It is a bit late for me to debug. Mark, do you think it could be that?

It certainly does smell funky, but I don't think it is THE source of the problem. I put a debug statement in that method, and I saw that it tried opening the following files:

Reading scenario Carthago delenda est (delenda)
Setting economic site feature to: gold mine
Setting economic site feature to: services
Trying to open image: services
Image not found : services for feature null
Setting economic site feature to: cloth
Setting economic site feature to: tin mine
Setting economic site feature to: cloth
Setting economic site feature to: tin mine
Setting economic site feature to: gold mine
Setting economic site feature to: services
Trying to open image: services
Image not found : services for feature null

As you can see, it can find all the images for gold mine, cloth, and such. The only thing that causes poblems is services. We are in the middle of tracking two bugs down right now, though. So I am wondering, Mark, do you want me to investigate the TF popup menu bug further, or keep tracking this one?

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Laurent, that is helpful. I use Features to show the images of the economic specials in delenda. So the error does make some sense. I will look into it as time allows. However if I can't find the problem quick I will just make the D7.2.1 jar file, and if it runs fine, I'll go ahead and release it anyway.

[vovan]

Mark, I have dug further into the thing, and here is what I found:

You know, how the resources are represented in the xml file with one-letter codes? So, for instance G stands for gold, etc.. Well, S translates into services. And the code that translates it that way is SectorInfo.getSectorNameFromAbbreviation.

Also, I looked at the list of file that the game knows of, and the only resource that starts with an S is salt mines. So, maybe that's what it is supposed to mean? Salt mines instead of services?

EDIT: typos

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by vovansim
Mark, I have dug further into the thing, and here is what I found:

Also, I looked aty the list of file that the game knows of, and the only resource that starts with and S is aslt mines. So, maybe that's what it is supposed to mean? Salt mines instead of services?

Good work Vovan, a kludge has come back to haunt me. Or at least you. I thought I could just use the first letters and there would be no conflict. But there is the obvious conflict of Salt, which is what its supposed to be, and Services. I will put a band-aid on it for now. Eventually we need to set explicitly which characters to use for which economic good. That is already on my list of things to do.

I wonder why I don't see the problem???

Anyway a fix is trivial, and I'll send it soon, or failing that tomorrow.

Thanks again!

-Mark

[Gary Thomas]

The Great Kludger strikes again!

Please don't use one letter codes for anything. You save a few keystrokes for the XML file, and lose possibly hundreds of hours debugging.

I do realize that I am guilty of

1. A kludge to get the maps easier to manipulate in the XML files,

2. and one letter codes for that purpose.

It was always my intention to have a proper map editor. However, even with that, to make the map readable in an XML file one letter codes were needed.

Are these economic resources held in the map XML in the same way? I do not believe they should be. I would have thought it better to code them as:

<resource>
<location> ... </location>
<name>Gold</name>
<type> ... </type>
<worth> ... </worth>
</resource>

Cheers

Gary Thomas