[Epigrass-users] Re: Epigrass

[<fcc...@fi...>]

> Hi Flavio,
>
> How are you doing? Dinis and I have been busy installing your epigrass
1.4.0

Cool! I am working at updating the userguide so that it covers the latest
features. I hope you guys don't get scared of the bugs that are still to
be found and eliminated in the software. I will work closely with you to
solve them as they show up.

>
> I have it running on Ubuntu Breezy.
>
> There are a few (solved and unsolved) problems with it so far:
>
>   * for the program to save its data in the database, the program
> assumes that the mysql-user root has a password mysql. This should all
be transformed to the given user in the interface.

OK, on a first install ( by running python setup.py install as root) a
user epigrass with a password epigrass should be automatically created.
However, for this to happen you have to edit setup.py and set the variable
"upgrade" to  0 (zero) on line 10. Please check also on lines 6 and 7 if
the root user and password correspond to that of your installation of
MySQL. I suppose I can automate this for a future release, i.e., query the
user for this information to avoid complications...


>
>   * The demo files do not work as provided. It give syntax errors and
> I had to add the lines like  "models = [ ]" to make it work

Ok fixed this. This is an old variable that is no longer required. But I
forgot to removed the line in the code that checks for it in the .epg
file. it will in the CVS today. Meawhile your workaround will work.


>   * If I play an animation, after the last step the program hangs. The
> animation window is still responsive, the interface crashed
> (completely gray), and there is a lot of CPU used. No error is
> displayed on the terminal. If I close the animation window, the
> program exits completely.

Well, this is actually two issues:
1) the gray interface does not mean it's crashed, it is only that the
animation is running on the same thread as the GUI so until it finishes,
the GUI will be unresponsive. That's not pretty but  does not hurt since
there is no use to the GUI during animation. To fix that I will have to
launch the animation as a separate thread. I have considered this but its
not high on my todo list. I'll get to it eventually.

2)The crash when the animation window is closed is a bug of vpython, the
3d animation library I use. I had reported this bug to its developers a
while ago, and it appears that the latest version of vpython doesn't do
that anymore, but I haven't tested. go to www.vpython.org and check if you
have the latest version. If you don't , it would be just a matter of
installing
 the latest vpython to get rid of that bug. No need to reinstall
Epigrass.

>
> Do you have some kind of instant messenger account, so that maybe we
could have a joint debug session to solve these things.

its fcc...@gm... on either google-talk or MSN

as for e-mails, I would like to suggest that we continue this and future
discussions on the epigrass mailing list 
(epi...@li...)to serve as references to other
potential users. you will have to subscribe to it.

good luck and let us keep talking.

take care,

Flavio



>