[WIP] ToEE Front-End X 5.0 Progress Report

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

@ Gehennis: It might be. Anyhow, the correct order for installation would be:

1) Install ToEE, patch it up to patch 2 if necessary.
2) Install the Co8 modpack 7.8.0 (you don't need to activate it via the old front-end).
3) Install the new front-end by dropping the archive into the game folder and extracting it there, overwriting the old front-end with it.
4) Start the new front-end, let it deploy itself, etc. Enjoy! (hopefully you won't encounter any serious bugs )

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

I was thinking that too (or 'deactivate'), because like above, we do from time to time tell users to deactivate/reactivate the module.

'Deactivating' would probably need be nothing more than activating vanilla, but there would be a button for it instead of us having to tell people specifically to activate vanilla. So e.g., users could clearly see a path for deactivation instructions by simply clicking a button rather than figuring out what we were trying to say, even though the outcomes would be the same.

'Reactivating' would I assume mean activating vanilla and then activating the previously active module. I would have no objection to that either if you want to do it, although the presence of both options might seem a little odd and would be superfluous to a degree. (Also it would take a long time for what would appear to be a single operation, thus risking the "nothing seemed to be happening despite what TFE-X was telling me so I ignored all the warnings/instructions and terminated the process and now my game doesn't work - what happened?" reaction.)

Personally I wouldn't have a problem with this chain of events:

1. user reports a problem.
2. we tell him first to deactivate the module (by simply clicking the deactivate button, not by selecting vanilla and activating that).
3. we tell him next to activate the module he wants to play again.

In the end, 'deactivate' would just be a ringer for 'activate vanilla,' but vanilla is sort of the default condition anyway.

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

I think the simplest and most intuitive way to go here is make the "Reactivate" button replace the "Activate" button if the module is already active - if clicked, after a confirmation that'll do all the necessary housekeeping in case of emergency when you need to reinstall the module from scratch. It can also skip the extra step of activating vanilla which will conserve both time and hard drive writes (thus being lighter on disk fragmentation and stuff). And in addition to that, it'll nicely separate two different operations - activating the vanilla module (in case someone wants to do exactly that) vs. reactivating the current module to clean it up (in case of an emergency).

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

UPDATE: Updated to Release Candidate 10. Added a way to revert the current module to its default state by clicking the "Revert" button which replaces the "Activate" button when the currently active module is selected in the module list. Fixed a bug that could have, under rather rare circumstances, caused a crash when trying to open a dummy zip archive. Added some information to the documentation (the FAQ, in particular). Performed some minor source code cleanup.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

Sounds good to me ^, except for a minor concern that players might think 'revert' will take them back to vanilla. Could we call it 'reactivate?'

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

Yeah, that might sound like a better name for it, I'll probably rename it in the next build!

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

Cool. btw I've installed RC10, seems to work fine so far. (I launched the game successfully anyway. ) One request: could we make the RNG selector a push-over list too, where the dropdown field reads 'Random Number Generator' and the push-over fields read 'Quick and Dirty' and 'Mersenne Twister?' You could retain the warning popup text upon selecting Quick and Dirty. If we really want to advise against the Quick and Dirty, we could have the selections be

Quick and Dirty (original)
Mersenne Twister (official)

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

@ Gaear: Sounds like a good idea, will do!

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

UPDATE: Updated to Release Candidate 11. Modified the random number generator switch to use a submenu. Renamed the module reset button to "Reactivate". Disabled the functionality to set up a custom videomode, at least for now (according to the latest discussion). Some documentation and FAQ updates.

UPDATE: Updated to Release Candidate 12. Some last minute documentation changes were omitted from rc11.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

Hey Ag, my dreams of a cool black icon didn't work out, so here's the standard one with the blue washed out of it. The .ico is in the zip.



The updates in rc12 look good.

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

@ Gaear: Nice icon there, G! Thanks a lot! Do you want me to try to add some extra shininess to it? I can try if you want, I'm not super great with digital graphics but I can see what I can come up with!

For now, will add your icon to the next round of updates to TFE-X - I guess we'll do away with the RC numbering scheme and call the next update "prerelease", btw.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

UPDATE: Updated to Prerelease 1. This may be one of the final builds before the official public release. Updated the icon to the one provided by Gaear. Added some extra precaution in the form of auto-correction of resolution (if an illegal/unsupported resolution is detected, the front-end will automatically reset the resolution to 800x600).

Please test this release well. It works perfectly fine on my system, but you never know.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

I've found that detail like shine (and pretty much anything else but the vaguest semblance of depth) just don't pan out on these tiny little images, which is why they almost always just look like cartoons. (I suppose that's really as it should be anyway.) But have a go at it if you like.