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[hermes]

Great idea, glad to see that something like this exists, especially with lots of DF bugfix incremental releases recently. A couple of things:

* Is there a way to have it automatically version check on launch to see if a new version of DF is available?
* When's auto-update for the Vanilla DF Launcher itself coming? I didn't even notice there was a new version until I went hunting for it.

Thanks for all the great work, though! It's been very appreciated.

Thanks, glad you find this useful

1) It could automatically check for a new DF, but unlike the devlog, game updates are, comparatively, very rare.  I am trying to be careful with this whole updating thing since I don't want to spam the DF site with checks on the RSS feeds, or downloads, all the time.  It isn't a problem ATM though since very few people are using this program, but I feel every little helps and it isn't difficult to know when a release is out or to just click the button if you're not sure.  But I do agree an autocheck might be cool...

2) I was thinking about an auto-update for the VL itself, but that would require web hosting and such and such which is too much hassle for me   Also, unlike the other launchers, this one shall hopefully have far fewer updates once its stable.  If there aren't any major bug reports, the only updates from now on shall involve major feature additions.  (Looking at worldgen tab and a succession fort manager, but not sure how useful anybody would find either of those things).

[Scarpa]

Thank you, Scarpa.  Was your install (the exe file) in the df dir?  I think I've fixed this, the launcher is designed to handle multiple installs so I had only accounted for each install to be in its own subdirectory of the df folder.  Thus, if you upgraded with the install in the df dir it would delete that dir and then have no place to unpack to.  Doh  .  Spotted this yesterday, will upload tonight.

Just realized there was a new version, used it to upgrade to the .05 release no problem. Working great for me now, thanks! Would like a feature to archive any world info in the df executable directory, into a folder with the world name. XML, txt, bmp stuff generated after world gen or in legends mode.

[hermes]

Just realized there was a new version, used it to upgrade to the .05 release no problem. Working great for me now, thanks! Would like a feature to archive any world info in the df executable directory, into a folder with the world name. XML, txt, bmp stuff generated after world gen or in legends mode.

Thanks for the report, glad it worked 

What would you need that archive for?  Should it include saves?  My only criteria for feature inclusion is it should be a relatively common action that is marginally tedious to do manually.

[Scarpa]

Well currently it seems to clean those files out, and the detailed exports are rather tedious to create. Would just like them not to disappear on upgrade is all. Carrying them forward would be fine too.

[Tharwen]

I just tried it on a mac, and it crashed. Running it in Terminal gave this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: VanillaLauncher/jar

If it makes a difference, I'm using OS X 10.5, so I'm limited to Java 1.6

[zombie urist]

2) I was thinking about an auto-update for the VL itself, but that would require web hosting and such and such which is too much hassle for me   Also, unlike the other launchers, this one shall hopefully have far fewer updates once its stable.  If there aren't any major bug reports, the only updates from now on shall involve major feature additions.  (Looking at worldgen tab and a succession fort manager, but not sure how useful anybody would find either of those things).

You could potentially have the program check this topic for a version string, and notify that a new version is available if the strings don't match.

[hermes]

Well currently it seems to clean those files out, and the detailed exports are rather tedious to create. Would just like them not to disappear on upgrade is all. Carrying them forward would be fine too.

Oh sorry, my bad.  That's a good idea and I'll put that in for the next version.

I just tried it on a mac, and it crashed. Running it in Terminal gave this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: VanillaLauncher/jar

If it makes a difference, I'm using OS X 10.5, so I'm limited to Java 1.6

Thanks for the mac report .  Just to make sure I'd like to know how you tried to run the program.  On linux, if I try to run the .jar file with "java VanillaLauncher.jar" I can reproduce the same error you got.  But if I use "java -jar VanillaLauncher.jar" or the VL_Linux script it works OK.  Did you try running from the VL_Mac script?  Does the VL_Linux script work?  If you ran from the terminal, what command did you use?

2) I was thinking about an auto-update for the VL itself, but that would require web hosting and such and such which is too much hassle for me   Also, unlike the other launchers, this one shall hopefully have far fewer updates once its stable.  If there aren't any major bug reports, the only updates from now on shall involve major feature additions.  (Looking at worldgen tab and a succession fort manager, but not sure how useful anybody would find either of those things).

You could potentially have the program check this topic for a version string, and notify that a new version is available if the strings don't match.

Not a bad idea, but if I had web hosting then it would be simple enough to have a text file there to check.  The main obstacle here is finding someplace to store it online with direct link downloads (which the DFFD doesn't seem to have as far as I can tell).  If you know any decent free places please let me know.

[Scarpa]

You could potentially have the program check this topic for a version string, and notify that a new version is available if the strings don't match.

Not a bad idea, but if I had web hosting then it would be simple enough to have a text file there to check.  The main obstacle here is finding someplace to store it online with direct link downloads (which the DFFD doesn't seem to have as far as I can tell).  If you know any decent free places please let me know.

The DFFD download page has a last modified timestamp and a version field you could check on start. Then just throw up a little info text that a new version is up.

[Tharwen]

Oh, sorry. I was using the wrong Java command. Here's what I get when I run 'java -jar VanillaLauncher.jar' (The same message appears in the console if I run it from Finder, or if I try to run VL_Mac.sh or VL_Linux.sh)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: Bad version number in .class file
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:676)
   at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:124)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:260)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:56)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:195)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:188)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:317)
   at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:280)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:252)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(ClassLoader.java:375)

It looks to me like it might just be a problem with my outdated java version...

P.S. The windows executable doesn't seem to work through Wine either

[hermes]

The DFFD download page has a last modified timestamp and a version field you could check on start. Then just throw up a little info text that a new version is up.

Yes....  Possibly.  Will consider it.  I'm not sure what the net-etiquette for accessing other people's sites automatically for information is.  I feel that since sites are providing information, provided a user explicitly requests that information there can be no qualms, but programs automatically checking stuff behind the scenes feels a bit metacrawler-esque to me, even if the bandwidth is really small.  Thus, I feel if the user has to press a button to check, that's alright, but autochecking other people's sites, I dunno.     What do you think?

Oh, sorry. I was using the wrong Java command. Here's what I get when I run 'java -jar VanillaLauncher.jar' (The same message appears in the console if I run it from Finder, or if I try to run VL_Mac.sh or VL_Linux.sh)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: Bad version number in .class file
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:676)
   at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:124)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:260)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:56)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:195)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:188)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:317)
   at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:280)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:252)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(ClassLoader.java:375)

It looks to me like it might just be a problem with my outdated java version...

P.S. The windows executable doesn't seem to work through Wine either

Thanks, again.  I agree, a google search seems to indicate that you could be getting this because of an incompatible Java version.  What does "java -version" give you?  The Launcher is in Java 1.6, my java -version gives 'java version "1.6.0_18"'.

[Steb]

Wow.... this is.... something that I've always needed but never knew I needed. I'm very picky about my settings, graphics and so on, but I find it such a hassle to update every time.
Following with interest.

[Tharwen]

Thanks, again.  I agree, a google search seems to indicate that you could be getting this because of an incompatible Java version.  What does "java -version" give you?  The Launcher is in Java 1.6, my java -version gives 'java version "1.6.0_18"'.

1.5.0_30

Could you compile it in 1.5? There aren't any major changes between the two versions, are there?

[Scarpa]

The DFFD download page has a last modified timestamp and a version field you could check on start. Then just throw up a little info text that a new version is up.

Yes....  Possibly.  Will consider it.  I'm not sure what the net-etiquette for accessing other people's sites automatically for information is.  I feel that since sites are providing information, provided a user explicitly requests that information there can be no qualms, but programs automatically checking stuff behind the scenes feels a bit metacrawler-esque to me, even if the bandwidth is really small.  Thus, I feel if the user has to press a button to check, that's alright, but autochecking other people's sites, I dunno.     What do you think?

Heh well I work for a company that has web crawling as a central component of our service offering so my opinion may be biased but I don't think hitting a dynamic page every once in awhile is a big deal. Also, there are already RSS feeds for DFFD in general, so one option could be just parsing the 'Utilities' feed (http://dffd.wimbli.com/rss/cat_15.xml) to see if the launcher shows up. Of course this would be less effective for those who aren't checking often as it would fall off the RSS feed eventually.

I also sent in a question to the site admin to see what their point of view was about automated checking.

Edit:
And got a response.. basically there is a page just for checking file versions: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file_version.php?id=5663
This is preferred over the main download page as that page causes statistics to be updated and will artificially inflate the view stats.

[hermes]

1.5.0_30

Could you compile it in 1.5? There aren't any major changes between the two versions, are there?

Well I have tried, but unfortunately it's a no go   Aside from the various Swing and graphics acceleration issues that might arise, the launcher uses some classes that require 1.6 and, curiously, there seems to be a discrepancy in the way 1.5 and 1.6 handle @Overrides of classes and interfaces which means I would have to make not quite a few changes to the code or maintain two versions.  Sorry.  Upgrading to 1.6 is really a rather good idea though, it is several years old now and even the mythical 1.7 is available.

Heh well I work for a company that has web crawling as a central component of our service offering so my opinion may be biased but I don't think hitting a dynamic page every once in awhile is a big deal. Also, there are already RSS feeds for DFFD in general, so one option could be just parsing the 'Utilities' feed (http://dffd.wimbli.com/rss/cat_15.xml) to see if the launcher shows up. Of course this would be less effective for those who aren't checking often as it would fall off the RSS feed eventually.

I also sent in a question to the site admin to see what their point of view was about automated checking.

Edit:
And got a response.. basically there is a page just for checking file versions: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file_version.php?id=5663
This is preferred over the main download page as that page causes statistics to be updated and will artificially inflate the view stats.

That's great info, thanks, Scarpa.  I'll try to put something in that checks once a week or something not so frequently.  The version page looks great and the RSS feed seems to go back a month so either should be easy enough to use

[Tharwen]

1.5.0_30

Could you compile it in 1.5? There aren't any major changes between the two versions, are there?

Well I have tried, but unfortunately it's a no go   Aside from the various Swing and graphics acceleration issues that might arise, the launcher uses some classes that require 1.6 and, curiously, there seems to be a discrepancy in the way 1.5 and 1.6 handle @Overrides of classes and interfaces which means I would have to make not quite a few changes to the code or maintain two versions.  Sorry.  Upgrading to 1.6 is really a rather good idea though, it is several years old now and even the mythical 1.7 is available.

If your OS X version is Leopard or earlier (like mine), Apple locks your computer to use their own distribution of Java 1.5 as an incentive to upgrade, so that's not really an option.