Openarena Name Changer??

[Cacatoes]

Hmm, I meant, "it's up to the user to be able to move the window and not lose it". Right now I can't move the window at all, the "move" option of my Gnome environment is greyed out for this particular window, and I can't move the window by mouse either when I click on its top. It may be a problem with my setup ... It only happens with the "Load name(s)" window.

[dbX]

Hmm, I meant, "it's up to the user to be able to move the window and not lose it". Right now I can't move the window at all, the "move" option of my Gnome environment is greyed out for this particular window, and I can't move the window by mouse either when I click on its top. It may be a problem with my setup ... It only happens with the "Load name(s)" window.

I've never experienced this problem on Windows XP, Windows 7, Fedora 14 with Gnome 2 or Fedora 15 with Gnome 3. If you can move the "Save to mods" window then you should also be able to do the same with the "Load name(s)" window as it's basically the same window, only reused so I don't duplicate window functionality.

[Gig]

i still dont have the buttons

What buttons?

I think swaggerall is talking about "quick load" buttons. Strange, could you please upload a screenshot, Swaggerall?

@Cacatoes: well, when you close and open the program again, it remembers the last name you were editing, even if you did not save it to any OA config. Clicking "quick load oa", it reads your current name from baseoa. Clicking "quick load cfg", it reads again the name that you were editing when you last closed the program (maybe like some sort of undo).

I don't think it would be necessary to radically change program UI. I like the current one, I simply suggested some little clarifications in buttons.

[Cacatoes]

Problem also happens with "Save mods" window (but doesn't happen with "Favorites")

[Gig]

About the bug reported by Swaggerall, I have done a test. It does affect symbols, those that in the "source" field are shown as squares. You can notice the problem closing and opening the program again: those symbols disappear from the name. It seems that they are removed when saved in the oanc configuration file in the "favorites" section (this may even bring to duplicate entries in favorites list), while written in the "last used name" section (but then not re-loaded anyway, for some unknown reason).
Maybe Lazarus implementation of special characters has got some flaw with Windows... or maybe there is something different, since the name is correctly stored and loaded from OpenArena configuration files. Is it possible that q3config.cfg has got a different encoding than oanc.ini?

Wait, there is some problem also with names saved/loaded in OA config, depending from which is the symbol used: e.g. the "lower right corner" symbol is not shown when re-loading the name from OA config, and makes even the character before it disappear! It was not so easy to notice such important problems, because you see them only after closing and opening the program again.

Note: I just checked, and symbols disappearing from favorites affect the "old" 1.3.0 version of OANC, too. Maybe that problem has always been there, and we didn't notice it...

Problem also happens with "Save mods" window (but doesn't happen with "Favorites")

Uhm... maybe this problem affects the OANC windows that are not sizeable, for some reason in your system? Under Windows XP, all OANC windows are movable (unless there are lower level dialogs/windows open!), while only some of them are sizeable.


Off-topic: is it normal that "deleted" favorites aren't really deleted from the configuration file, but simply ignored? Not the maximum of privacy...

[dbX]

I've released a new version. Hopefully I've fixed all of the bugs mentioned, except that window move bug which I do not know why it's happening (it could be a problem with the Lazarus GTK2 widgetset, or with Cacatoes system).

Here is a rundown of changes:
 - It should be possible to save OANC configuration file locally now.
 - Settings and favorites should be preserved now when changing the "Save OANC configuration to i'ts own directory" checkbox in configuration.
 - Mod selection windows are now sizeable.
 - Name and favorites are now url encoded in the OANC configuration file, since the INI file parser did not support symbols used. This is the bug swaggerall reported.
 - Favorites are no longer preserved in the OANC configuration file, but are now permanently removed when removed by user from favorites.
 - Some other changes and bugfixes.

I've uploaded the archive to rapidshare and to tuxfamily, though as I understand this will be a temporary location on tuxfamily.

I'll fix bugs if there are any, just no new features.

[Gig]

OKay, I have to go bed so I can't test it now (and I will be quite busy in RL for the next two days).
I will need some time to check which bugs have been really fixed and which not (e.g. you mentioned URL encoding for fixing the bug affecting favorites stored in ini file, but did not mention the problems with loading certain symbols from q3config.cfg and the fact that non-us characters in path didn't work as expected).

And there are a couple of things in the changelog that I'm not sure about.

- Settings and favorites should be preserved now when changing the "Save OANC configuration to i'ts own directory" checkbox in configuration.

Why this? I've said it seemed a little dangerous to me, and that a simple notice could have been enough. Well, it can go in this way, too... but I suggest to you to add something to the quick help, where you talk about that checkbox, like: "Setting off or on the feature will copy your OANC configuration from program folder (shared between computer users) to data folder (specific for each user) or vice-versa: rember that changing this option you may overwrite one user's configuration with the settings of another one. In a multi-user machine, it is advisable to immediately select for a shared or user-specific configuration, just after program installation."
... what about creating a backup file, when overwriting program configuration?

Anyway, I'm too anxious to test this new version of this very nice tool...  

UPDATE:
- I've done a little test and I'm happy that url encoding seems to have fixed the problem with favorites... but the one with managing some symbols (like the "lower right corner") from q3config.cfg is still there. URL encoding will not help us in that, I fear... (unless OpenArena itself may read url encoded names?) Anyway, I don't understand why does this happen only after closing and opening the program again, considering that q3config.cfg is instantly updated when you hit "save".

- For some reason, "favorites" button appears a little wider than the other buttons above and below it.

- What did you mean with "It should be possible to save OANC configuration file locally now."? Under Windows XP, versions up to 1.4.0 used "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application data\.oanc", while 1.5.0 and 1.6.0 use "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local settings\Application data\.oanc". What should have changed with 1.6.0? PS: for me, you can save it to the folder you wish, if you can inform the user displaying that path in the GUI (but I already told this, and I don't want you to get angry with me if I repeat it too much :p)
---Update, the following day. Reading the changelog in the program, I see that you fixed a bug that did not allow to save to the same folder as oanc executable. I suppose you were referring to this, now.

And now, goodnight (really).

[Gig]

Hi, I just noticed a small problem: in a double-monitor Windows XP environment, OANC windows are placed in the middle of the two monitors (half in one and half in the other). For most screens, it is not a big problem, seeing that their coordinates are stored (after you move them to somewhere once, you will find them there the next time)... but some screens (help window, about, name preview) do not store their position and thus you will find them in the middle of the two monitors each time you will access them, that is a little uncomfortable. Windows that contain text files (quick help, changelog, etc) are always opened in the middle of the main monitor, instead.

[dbX]

Hi, I just noticed a small problem: in a double-monitor Windows XP environment, OANC windows are placed in the middle of the two monitors (half in one and half in the other). For most screens, it is not a big problem, seeing that their coordinates are stored (after you move them to somewhere once, you will find them there the next time)... but some screens (help window, about, name preview) do not store their position and thus you will find them in the middle of the two screens each time you will access them, that is a little uncomfortable. Windows that contain text files (quick help, changelog, etc) are always opened in the middle of the main screen, instead.

I just set windows positions to desktop center. I'll see if I can change this to be monitor center. I hope there's an easy way to do this in Lazarus, otherwise I am not sure what I can do about it, aside from positioning windows at some fixed initial position. I'll research into this.

[Gig]

Two more things tested under 1.6.0:

- "backspace" virtual button always deletes the last character of the name, without considering the place of the cursor!
- in my system, paths with special characters continue to do not work: in this case, it does not even create the "writeconfighere" file if I check the option. (Tested under both FAT32 and NTFS, same behavior)

[dbX]

Two more things tested under 1.6.0:

- "backspace" virtual button always deletes the last character of the name, without considering the place of the cursor!
- in my system, paths with special characters continue to do not work: in this case, it does not even create the "writeconfighere" file if I check the option. (Tested under both FAT32 and NTFS, same behavior)

Crap, I hoped I fixed that. The problem with the backspace key is that there is no way to figoure out the caret position in the input, so I can`t really tell what character to delete. I`ll look into this some more when I get some free time, as this would also be useful for other applications I write.

[swaggerall]

What buttons?

the 2 buttons in the right upper corner it says CFG and OA

i dont have them


And Btw dbx is there away you can make oanc hold ,store and create configs?


and possibly save a specfic config to all mods?

[Gig]

the 2 buttons in the right upper corner it says CFG and OA

i dont have them

And Btw dbx is there away you can make oanc hold ,store and create configs?

and possibly save a specfic config to all mods?

I really don't understand how it is possible you don't have them, if you are using the latest version. Are you sure you used a "clean" installation of OANC? I mean, decompressing the zip to a new folder, instead over a previosly created OANC folder?

About configurations, if you mean settings like network settings, key bindings, graphic options... it would be out from the program's meaning. It is a "name changer", and it works with names only. dbX will not implement my idea of managing name bindings "bind <key> set name <name>" (to allow people to quikly switch names from inside the game)... do you imagine the work needed to manage all settings?

However, I'm not sure, but I think there have been some threads that mentioned other tools that tried to work with configurations... maybe, trying some search on the forum, you may find something....

[dbX]

the 2 buttons in the right upper corner it says CFG and OA

i dont have them

And Btw dbx is there away you can make oanc hold ,store and create configs?

and possibly save a specfic config to all mods?

Try to download the program again and delete your previous OANC directory. You should have the button, check if the version is 1.6.0 in the help menu, click about.

About configurations, if you mean settings like network settings, key bindings, graphic options... it would be out from the program's meaning. It is a "name changer", and it works with names only. dbX will not implement my idea of managing name bindings "bind <key> set name <name>" (to allow people to quikly switch names from inside the game)... do you imagine the work needed to manage all settings?

However, I'm not sure, but I think there have been some threads that mentioned other tools that tried to work with configurations... maybe, trying some search on the forum, you may find something....

The base I made for OANC could be used to make a tool that manages OA configuration files, allows to edit them, also add some kind of panel to change settings without the need to edit the config files, make backups, not only of config files, but also make backups of mods. I will probably integrate OANC into this tool. This will require quite some work, and I'll try to work on this when in my spare time, and development will probably be slow. It's just an idea for now, and I won't make any promises.

[Gig]

That would be interesting.
It could be a fork, so who will simply have an easy-to-use name changer tool, would download OANC, and who will want a complex OA configurator, would download that new tool.

But before that, let's try to fix the bugs that affect this tool (or they could affect the new tool, too).

[dbX]

But before that, let's try to fix the bugs that affect this tool (or they could affect the new tool, too).

Definitely.

[Gig]

Hi dbX.. do you remember where I mentioned that exporting a name to a key binding could have been very useful, but also a little "dangerous"? I've had an alternative idea... what about exporting a name to a .cfg file (that only contains the "name" command)? In that way, the user should use commands like /exec name1, /exec name2, /exec coolname to switch from a name to the other, from inside OpenArena (without the risk of pressing a wrong key during playing). A such cfg file could simply be placed inside baseoa folder and it would automatically be available from all mods. Program should ask for confiirmation before overwriting an existing cfg file, and should refuse to overwrite "q3config.cfg", "q3config_server.cfg" and "autoexec.cfg" files.

[Gig]

Hi dbX, any news? Any idea of how to resolve the special characters in player name problem?

This page says something about Lazarus and Unicode support: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/LCL_Unicode_Support
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/LCL_Unicode_Support#Unicode-enabling_the_win32_interface

[dbX]

Hey Gig. Sorry, I did not have a lot of time lately,

Do you mean special characters in the players user profile path? I think I do not handle these properly at a certain point, I'll look into this some more when I have the time, but for now I have other more critical personal things to do.

[Gig]

I should check again, but if I remember correctly, you already fixed the problem with special ("accented"?) characters in program/save data paths. But I'm not completely sure (a couple of times, you thought you succeded in fixing it, but then we discovered that it did not work yet).

The problem that is surely still there is with symbols that you can place in the OA nickname (the first two lines of the available characters grid): they seem to work correctly, as long as they are in the program memory... but if you use them, save them to OA config, close OANC and then open it again and re-load names... you find out strange behaviors.
You did a "workaround" to save such special characters to oanc ini file ("url encoding" them), but this is not applied to q3config.cfg file, where they are still incorrectly stored (I haven't tried yet if OpenArena would parse URL encoded names, but I suppose not... probably that workaround would not work there!).

Anyway, no matter. Real Life is far more important! Just remember, when you will have some time, that this nice program has still got this bug that prevents from using symbols in player name.

[dbX]

I'll look into how OA saves those characters into the .cfg file and try to do the same. I'll try to do so this weekend.

[Gig]

I found a previous post that means that also the special characters in paths does not work yet (take a look):
http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=4083.msg39727#msg39727
It referrers to 1.6.0, that is the current release...

Another post referring to 1.6.0 (take a look, too):
http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=4083.msg39693#msg39693

I've just done some more tests, and many of the symbols work (are shown in OA and OANC can read them from q3config.cfg after being closed and opened again, then pressing "quick load OA"), but some symbols have problems (like the triangle and the underscore).

Tried, OA does not parse URL encoded names (sequences like %12%13 are shown as you see them here): the workaround you used for storing them in oanc.ini is not appliable to q3config.cfg.... I fear we have to find a way to have Lazarus support the few missing characters...

Another problem was about some windows positions in a multiple monitor environment:
http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=4083.msg39697#msg39697

And we were talking if it is better to have the data path in %appdata% (under Windows XP, user\application data) or in the other folder (under Windows XP, user\local settings\application data)... I suggest the first one, that is the same used by OpenArena...

PS: one of the download links on your site is broken.

[dbX]

I never used url encoded names in .cfg files as, only in program .ini files. I store the names as is, that is with the same ASCII codes as they are in memory, i never encoded them in the .cfg files. I am not sure why some symbols have problems, but I'll look into it. The broken download link must be for the archive on my site. Even though the link was valid, the hosting company seems to removed my .7z files. They even seem to refuse me to make an FTP connection. I'll look up into better hosting once I determine I can set aside some money for it.

[Gig]

I know you did not use url encoded names in q3config.cfg, I simply warned you that trying (in the previous post, you said you would have made the same thing you did for oanc config file) would have been a lost of time.  I did the test manually editing q3config.cfg file, and seeing the result.

[Gig]

dbX, sorry for the off-topic... did you see the PMs I wrote you on 15 october (and some days before) with feedback for that small tool?