Zugg Software :: View topic

Apprentice Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 178

is there any ETA on the new cmud going public?

Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:40 am

Not currently. I'm assuming that Zugg is going to wait a while before it goes public to iron out many of the bugs. It's essentially a new CMUD, really. There are bound to be bugs (and we've found a number of them) that can severely inhibit game play, like deleting settings and whatnot.

Charneus

Apprentice Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 178

dang, shame, I can't get cmud 2.37 's mapper to work at all. :(

Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:19 pm

Then if you are bold enough... come to the world of beta testers... You get all the new goodness, if you the nerve to ride the bleeding-edge of MUD technology...

Very Happy

Enchanter Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 605

My guess that we'll see new public version very soon, because Zugg need to put new default icons to the session screen. Wink

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:48 pm

No, I can add the icons to the session screen for existing versions without making a new public version. All versions of CMUD and zMUD download a file from our server with the latest icon list when you first install them.

A *public* version of 3.x is a long ways off. 3.x won't be public until a lot more is done with the mapper. Even though the next Beta version might be stable enough to be a public version, I still consider the new mapper to be incomplete, and I won't change the status to Public until I think it is more complete.

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:16 pm

Personally, I don't think we should be advising people to try a beta unless they're willing to test. Yeah, it's nice to have the latest, greatest product, but betas are still in the works. All it'll wind up doing is making someone mad when they lose their settings due to a bug, even though the disclaimer says it could happen, more or less. People see beta and think, "Oh! It's safe to use because it's a replica of the old version." Big mistake. But then, that's my opinion. :p

Charneus

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:08 am

In this case, Xon is quite competent enough to be a good beta tester, though your point is definitely a good one in general. In fact, I really hope he does (he's the guy behind the Aetolia-specific upgrades to imapper that I am addicted to. If he gets into cmud mapping then perhaps he'll figure out an imap-to-cmud conversion script.)

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:42 pm

I know it's a bit of topic but I've actually started on an imap conversion script. What I'm waiting on is a way to programmatically create room types so I can finish. Right now for it to work you'd have to have manually created the different room types then run the script.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:46 am

Oh wow :D

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:27 pm

Back to the main topic...

I am giving some more thought to this. Since the mapper in 2.37 is very poor, and the 3.04 version contains a lot of general bug fixes, it might be worthwhile to release a 3.x Public version *before* I get into the graphics rewrite of the mapper engine. In other words, even though it doesn't have some of the fancy graphics features that I'm planning, the mapper in 3.04 generally does work better than the mapper in v2.37. Yes, there are beta bugs, but maybe after fixing the beta bugs people would be better served by getting a 3.x public version, rather than waiting many months for one.

I am interested in your opinions on this.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:32 pm

I'd agree. The beta version works just as well for me as the last public version, if not better. All the bug fixes I've posted about exist in both the latest public and the latest beta.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 9:40 pm

I guess it depends on whether or not you think the lack of optimisation in the new mapper is enough of an obstacle to normal play. I haven't been using the beta for general playing, so I don't know how much of an issue that is - if the general improvements in the mapper counterbalance those in normal use, then it should be alright for a public version. But as far as I'm aware, that's the major drawback of the updated mapper.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:03 pm

My only concern would be the loss of settings when closing out CMUD, or the moving of settings to root. If 3.04 comes out and all is well, I'm all for a public version. But people want their settings to be safe without having to export their settings every time they change a script, which is what I've had to do recently. I'm still working on a reliable way to reproduce this bug, but no way yet. Best I can do is give you my current setup, maps and all, and have you muck around with it with adding scripts and closing out CMUD to see if you can narrow it down.

Other than that, I'm fine with a public release.

Charneus

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:10 pm

Charneus: I understand your concern, but with the limited amount of information I have been able to gather in the other thread, the problem seems very limited to certain people and very hard to reproduce. While the bug with moving settings to another module is being fixed in 3.04, I am still not aware of any procedure that demonstrates the loss of settings. The original poster in that thread admitted that he was having problems in both 2.37 and 3.04 and his scripts were complex and could have even been the result of bugs in the 2.37 mapper. Until I get a more reliable procedure from you, there isn't much I can do. I certainly can't just "muck around" with your scripts hoping to see the problem.

Fang: I don't think there is any optimization issues in the new mapper. I've been using it in my testing and haven't run into any performance issues. If I'm missing something, post a link to the issue. The main problem with the mapper is that there are some "scoping" issues that prevent the mapper scripts from running when in another package, and prevent the mapper from seeing variables and other settings within the main session window. Those problems should be addresses in 3.04.

What I'll probably do is wait until 3.04 is released and then try to get opinions from people on what other problems need to be fixed for a public release. But as long as the mapper in a 3.x public release works as well as the mapper in 2.37, or works how the mapper in 2.37 *should* work, then it's probably a good idea.

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:14 pm

How about this then? Release 3.04 as Beta and after a week or two of heavy testing, if no major issues crop up and you can release it as a public version.

[Edit] Err.... what he said. Razz

Enchanter Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 605

In would be nice to get any version, because there were many bugs reported since 3.03a. And how to test further if one can't tell for sure is it a new bug or something been reported several months ago? Wink

And about a public version - I would suggest to release 3.05 and, after a week, 3.06 both as Public. Having 3.05 public version there will be more users than 3.03 has now, and 3.06 will address issues they (possibly) find in 3.05. This fix-all-founded-bugs-in-3.05 release will help to keep good reputation for CMUD. Otherwise I fear that with next public version somewhere closer Xmas (sorry, but I'm looking at how long Phase 1 was) possible bugs may anger public version users.

Wizard Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 1201

I just want the Lua fixes!

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:59 pm

I think Arde has the right idea on the version schedule. 3.04 would still be Beta because there are *lots* of changes. Then several more weeks of bug fixes with 3.05 being public. And then several more weeks with 3.06 fixing the new problems that were found in 3.05 from the larger user base.

But 3.05 still won't fix "all founded bugs". At least not what I personally call "bugs", which includes "rumors" of things that are hard or impossible to reproduce. I probably have several hundred "issues" in the tracking database for CMUD. Some of these are very minor, some of them were reported for old versions and I haven't had the time to see if they are really fixed in newer versions, some of these are duplicates, some have not been reproduced at all, etc.

Whenever I work on new versions, I try to go through this huge list and prioritize which issues to fix. More recently reported issues usually get some priority over old issues that are either already fixed, or only effect a very small number of people. The easier an "issue" is to reproduce and the more people it effects, the higher the priority.

Some day in my "copious spare time" I need to go through my bug database and really clean it up so I can get a better sense for how many issues there really are. But I'm having a hard enough time getting enough time to fix all of the high-priority stuff.

For example, yesterday I spent most all of the day on this obscure problem of dragging a large number of settings to a different module where some of them don't seem to get moved. This one is driving me crazy because it potentially effects all CMUD users, and is a serious way to screw up settings. But I'm having a heck of a time tracking down the cause. So while some bugs only take 10 minutes to fix (test to reproduce, add fix, test to confirm fixed), some of these others take *days* to track down and fix.

On the positive side, I did add a new feature two-days ago for "Automatic Backups", and "Backup Depth". With "Backup Depth" you can specify how many backup copies you want to keep. For example, if you set this to 3, then you get settings_1.pkg, settings_2.pkg, and settings_3.pkg backup copies, where the settings_1.pkg file is the more recent backup, and the settings_3.pkg is the oldest backup. With "Automatic Backups" enabled, the backups are created everytime you close the Package Editor (when saving new changes), or everytime you open CMUD, and everytime you close CMUD. And even with "Automatic Backups" disabled, doing a manual #SAVE command will *always* create a new backup file.

So, to help with debugging some of the intermittent problems with settings mysteriously disappearing, you'll be able to set the "Backup Depth" to a large number, and then create an alarm like #ALARM *10:00 {#SAVE} to save your settings and create a new backup file every 10 minutes (or whatever you want). Then when a setting disappears, we'll be able to look back through the backup files to determine if and when it really got deleted.

Anyway, that's the status. With the poor progress on this high-priority drag/drop bug yesterday, I really doubt I'll get a release done today. So now it's looking like next week. I know some of you are getting impatient for this new version, but all I can say is that I'm working on it as hard as I can, and will release it when it's ready.

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 8:00 pm

Damnit, now the powered speakers on my computer have died. How can I program without my music. I really hate computers. It's not Vista this time...I've rebooted and verified that sound is coming out of the sound card jacks. My earbuds work, but not the powered speakers. They are a set of surround speakers with subwoofer (by Klipsch) that came with my gaming computer about 5 years ago. The external control box that sets the master volume has power (it has a led volume indicator), but absolutely nothing is going to the speakers. Even connecting and disconnecting the speakers doesn't give any "popping" sound like normal. It's as if they are not getting anything at all, like the main amp in the subwoofer died.

Yeah, totally off topic, but this is NOT what I needed today!

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:04 pm

But then again, five years is a good innings for speakers, I think. It should only cost you £25 or so to replace them. Sure, you could splash out, but I don't think it's really worth the extra cash. Mine were only £30 and have fine audio quality.

Enchanter Joined: 11 Feb 2003 Posts: 511 Location: USA

Sadly, when you say 30 pounds, we have to think $50+. :)

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:07 am

Yes, but your median household income is "higher" to offset the difference. £30 may be $50, but if an hour of work earns you $50, it only earns us £30. The differences work out.

Sorry if that comes across as a little snippy, but I'm pretty tired of that now :(

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:43 pm

Totally off topic, but yes, there is a pretty cheap Logitech set that I'm going to look at Best Buy today. Unfortunately, I don't think their "volume pod" wired module detaches from the subwoofer, which means I won't be able to feed the wire through the hole from the area under my desk where the subwoofer sits to the desktop where I want the control pod to be. I don't know why Logitech doesn't have detachable control pods on most of their speaker systems. Makes the speakers useless if something happens to the pod.

I found a replacement subwoofer for the Klipsh ProMedia 5.1 system that died on eBay, but the auction was already up to like $90 with lots of bidders, and that's a lot more than I need to spend on speakers. Something around $50 is what I'll probably go with.

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:08 am

If it's not detachable, you could always just splice in a ps/2 connector or something. Depends on the particular model and whether or not it sends the audio signal down the pod or not, I guess, because you might lose some sound quality. Also, if it turns out to need warranty repair they might not look too kindly on a hack like that.

But then again it does seem pretty thick that they'd do that, so it might be wise to ask if you can see one first and check.