Hi Mike, That's funny you should ask as I was about an hour away from writing a dev list email about a whole bunch of things haha. Here's a big update! :) 1. Yeah I noticed you smashing bugs this weekend, awesome stuff! There's one ticket issue I 'resurrected' (but maybe should have created a new ticket sorry?) that I'm not sure if you looked at while smashing bugs (as I noticed that the SF notification system works differently on ticket convos and also ticket threads are not bumped by comments). There are 2 maps in Mazim's map pack that refuse to fully load in the map editor.. they get the old hanging black screen error where the map doesn't load up properly but still kinda loads as when you click on menus suddenly you can see a bit of the map behind where the menu was lol. I got the same results with all recent versions and I see someone else has commented on the ticket about having problems too, all since the original issue was fixed so presumably there's still some sort of issue there. The original fix definitely made things way better than they were in 2018 as I couldn't load any large maps back then whereas I can load most maps just fine now. To help you guys replicate the problem I've zipped and attached the 2 maps that cause the bug to this post here:https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/bugs/3147/#dff3
2. As for Rafael's changes and storing Author and description in the map file.. Now that I understand the map loading system I know the game wouldn't use these fields however purely for 'record keeping' sake it would be good if map authors could enter their name and a description into 2 text fields (in a loadable window in the map editor) that then get stored in the map file (somewhere out of the way that doesn't mess up any of your map loading stuff of course lol). That way third party maps that don't make it into the main game still have identifiable author & about info in them if they get passed around peoples machines. 3. Speaking of Mazim's maps and 3rd party map collections lol, 2 or 3 weeks ago I was all set to put in a pull request with the new re-organised maps (& the river bug corrected Aus & Africa maps) with the nice loading screen text corrections (thanks to your help Mike) and then Marcin said "are you planning on including Mazim's other maps?" and to my horror I realised I'd missed his original map pack which contains 41 friggin maps!!! So last weekend I one by one loaded all of his maps into the map editor to try and decide which ones I should add to the main game. Not easy as I certainly don't claim to be an expert on what makes a good Col map lol! However I posted a preliminary results list in the forums for people to give feedback on. Now I don't expect anyone to sit there loading the 41 maps like I did but I could really use everyone's opinion on a few general things. Eg should European maps be included in the main game? and should weather/climate variants be included (eg hot America, ice age america etc)? You guys can see my post with the list of my YES/NO/UNDECIDED verdict on each map here: https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/141200/thread/9eb4fbdf/?page=1&limit=25#9e90 4. Regarding Sourceforge improvements I've added that feature list I worked on last year to the welcome thread here:https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/719661/thread/2d0063a3bc/Which should once again better sell the product and help turn lurkers into players! As always I'm open to corrections/additions etc from people.As previously discussed I would LOVE to add this feature list to the sourceforge FreeCol project front page (so that lurkers see it the second they first arrive). However I know you don't wanna be bothered about that stuff Mike so I was hoping Dave could help me. However he reported problems with editing the front page in the comments just below my original features list post here:https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/719661/thread/42b0844f/#a702/9e85 There was a theory that maybe it related to him trying on a phone instead of a PC however I don't know if he ever tried on a PC or not. I've been waiting for him to 'return from the ether' lol so I can try and sort this out with him without bothering you. It's only a 2min job max as it just requires copying and pasting each of my features into the feature boxes on the admin page as demonstrated in the BOTTOM of this picture here: https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/719661/thread/42b0844f/a702/9e85/attachment/Guide.png I would also LOVE to update your SF front page screenshots here:https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/admin/screenshotsAs the ones you guys have are so old (version 0.9.0 so that's gotta be at least 10-15 years old) and I've got some really nice HD screenshots from a year or so ago that I can replace them with. However I haven't really pushed this one since that's a bigger job for an admin than the feature list one. SF front page supports up to 6 screenshots and 1 linked youtube video, if we use my HD tour video its sadly not ready yet sorry (I'll talk more about that later) so that's why I'm only talking about screenshots for the moment. 5. You guys are probably thinking "we spent all that effort teaching Blake how to edit the new freecol.org website and he hasn't done a darn thing" lol! Truth be told I wanted to sort out the map situation above before messing with the website as the last time I tried to lodge 2 different pull requests they suddenly got merged into one (cause I'm such a noob with that stuff lol) and I don't want website changes getting mixed with game changes. So don't worry I haven't backed out of my promises of overhauling your screenshots section and making a new videos section. That work is just on hold until I've sorted out the maps and making my video tour. 6. As discussed in past emails I overhauled your old FreeCol ModDB page as best as I could (without admin access) and it looks much nicer now with those HD screenshots (eg some of these babies are the ones I wanna put on your SF front page and main website). I haven't been constantly updating the downloads section but I try to slap a new nightly release on there every few months! https://www.moddb.com/games/freecolI've recently updated all the download file descriptions to include the feature list and helpful links (copied from the SF welcome thread). Oh and I also gave you guys a 10 star review on there too haha! ;) I'm holding off posting any articles on the page (as that's the real attention getter) until my tour video is done. 7. And finally a small update on my ongoing plans to create Colonization social media communities to promote FreeCol in. Things are going well and they've been growing each week!Whenever someone talks about wanting to play a 'game like Colonization' I recommend FreeCol haha. I've still got to reshoot some parts of My FreeCol HD tour video so thats not ready to use anywhere just yet sadly, but once its done I'll be able to use it to heavily promote FreeCol not just in these groups but at many other forums and social media groups too! https://www.facebook.com/groups/ColonizationGame/ has passed the 50 members mark!https://www.reddit.com/r/ColonizationGame/ is much more recent but is now up to 24 members. https://discord.gg/CHcH75s is brand new but is already up to 11 members! (I've created a dedicated FreeCol sub chat channel in there too should anyone want to hang out there and have direct chats about development etc). Regards Blake On Sunday, 26 April 2020, 05:56:41 pm ACST, Michael T. Pope <mp...@computer.org> wrote: Productive (for freecol) day for the first time this month. I have fixed merged or at least reviewed all the new bugs since I last had a chance to look, all the github issues, and all the github merge requests. As usual there are cases where we need more information, but hopefully the bad ones like the native settlement name fail are sorted. Outstanding is Rafael Oliviera's patch allowing the author and description to be added to the map. I could not accept the patch as is, and commented that the author could probably be an optional field in Map, but the description needs to be translatable. I believe this can work with the wrangling Blake has been doing... so how is it going Blake? Hope everyone is well, and have stabilized their work arrangements now. Cheers, Mike Pope_______________________________________________ Freecol-developers mailing list Freecol-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freecol-developers
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