Feudalistic Dynasties / News: Recent posts

Half a year passed again since last news item. Next week I can spend some time developing fDynasties. Last half year I had to spend too much time for my studies, job and had to recover from sanitary problems.
Within next week documentation, design review and development and development of the game engine are going to be the next steps. Next weekend there will be a summary about what was achieved.

deathmor

Half a year passed since last news item. According to this long period development had almost no progress. I had too much to do for my studies. Unfortunately I suppose it will be very hard to spend significant more time for developing fDynasties. However I hope I can spend enough time to provide at least a slow but continuous progress.
In April the documentation was further developed and the message structure was simplified. The message structure was too complex before as I noticed while documenting it. When the documentation was almost finished I was unsatisfied with the way of the documentation. Last semester I learned among other things how to write a better documentation and to reach a better design. So I started one month ago to reengineer the documentation and the design of fDynasties. There will be three main parts: Analysis, Draft and Detailed Draft. At the moment the Analysis is in progress and a first outline will be finished and published within the next week.... read more

The native language support (NLS) is now ready. At the moment German and English are supported.
So further developing of the documentation, setting up a test suite and reintegrating and revising the Game Engine are still left. Afterwards fDynasties-0.0.4.0 is ready.

deathmor

The documentation is almost ready. Besides the native language support (NLS) is under progress.
The sourceforge.net logo on the project website is now linked to the sourceforge project page of fDynasties according to the new way of logo display required by sourceforge.net. Therefore the fDynasties logo which was linked to the sourceforge project page of fDynasties isn't needed anymore.

deathmor

I wish you all a happy new year. Since last time I had very few time for development and this will go on up to the end of February.
Nevertheless there are some news. The most important is that fDynasties does now support different resolutions. Widescreen resolutions are included. Furthermore we started to set up a complete documentation of fDynasties including class structure, processes and so on. This will help us to improve fDynasties and document what the current structure of fDynasties is. When the documentation will be once almost complete it will be published.
The next steps are further developing of the documentation, adding support for different languages (as a start German and English) via GNU gettext and starting to set up a test suite. This test suite should test as much as possible and help us improving the code. Afterwards it is time to reintegrate the Game Engine. In this process the Game Engine will be fundamental revised.... read more

After fDynasties-0.0.3.0 was released we started to test fDynasties on Windows. It needed some time and experience to get all of the prerequisites work on Windows. As a result we found out a straightforward way for installing all prerequisites. Testing fDynasties on Windows we found bugs which didn't occur testing fDynasties on Linux before. With fDynasties-0.0.3.1 these bugs are all fixed and everything works fine both on Windows and Linux. Furthermore the libconfig version needed by fDynasties was updated, because libconfig-1.2.0 couldn't be compiled on Windows. Besides with libconfig-1.3.0 the name of an exception changed, so we decided to update to the latest libconfig. fDynasties needs now libconfig >= 1.3.0. The internal libconfig of fDynasties is updated to libconfig-1.3.1. The problem that the namespace SigC was used, which is not anymore supported by libsigc++ > 2.0.x branch, was also fixed. Now sigc is used, which is supported by libsigc++ >=2.0.0. Other minor bugs were fixed, too.
The fDynasties-0.0.3.1 release supports two versions: source and pre-compiled Win32. The pre-compiled Win32 version was tested on Windows 2000 and XP.
Due to the fact that the physfs download page is down at the moment and the source version of the mercurial repository needs some preparation a ready to compile source of physfs is supported within the Dependencies section in the release fDynasties >=0.0.3.0 on our download page.... read more

Finally I can announce the release of fDynasties-0.0.3.0, the third pre-alpha release of feudalistic Dynasties. Please test it and tell me all about bugs and your opinions about fDynasties.

deathmor

The documentation is almost finished. At the moment we test the release candidate and fix bugs. Unfortunately have really few spare time for development because of my studies. So development is very slow. Besides the screenshot of the map editor and the startwindow are updated.

deathmor

The settings window so far ready. You can change between edge and no edge for displaying the fields of a map and between fullscreen and windowed mode. The edge setting can also be changed from within the map editor if a map is opened. Besides changes of the settings are saved. Apart from that some bugs were fixed and the "About" section has now a more detailed description of feudalistic Dynasties.
Finally the versioning will differ as it was planned before. The first prototype will not version 0.0.3.0 as it was mentioned in the news item of 10.8.2008. Instead the prototype will get the version number 0.1.0.0. Therefore the next release will be version 0.0.3.0 instead of some 0.0.2.X. The visible changes are indeed small. However the new implementing structure and the changed GUI are really major changes. So all in all the changes to the last release 0.0.2.0 significant.
On the way to the first prototype the game engine will be mainly developed. This will need some work and take some time. Therefore there will be a few more releases up to then. New developers of different types (such as graphic designer,tester,programmer) are at any time welcomed.
The next step is to update the documentation and to test the release candidate. After that fDynasties-0.0.3.0 will be ready!... read more

The map editor ready again. The following features the map editor supports: creating, loading and saving maps, editing the terrain and player startpositions of a map. The screenshot of the map editor (0.0.2.X) is updated showing an example map.
So now its time to set up the settings window. Besides the structure for saving changes from within the settings window needs to be set up.

deathmor

The FTK is now completely revised. The core fDynasties part is already updated accordingly. Thus the screenshots section is updated with two new screenshots of the current 0.0.3.0 candidate.
As mentioned in the last announcement the implementation design was started to be revised. This was not finished yet completely and will be continued now. Above all the map editor needs some work to be again full functioning. After that the settings window will be set up. At the beginning changing between fullscreen and windowed mode and changing between edge and no edge for displaying the fields of a map will be supported.
Anyway a new announcement will be done before further development will be started.... read more

We reflected the development of the past years and we came to the decision to do a great revision. First of all we worked a design document out. This characterizes fDynasties in brief containing all relevant mechanisms which made up fDynasties. So we have now a more precise goal and way for the development. We also decided that fDynasties-0.0.3 will be the first playable prototype of fDynasties. All features to be implemented and how deep were determined. The implementation design was revised too.
Since then we made good progress. However we recognized that the FTK needed to be revised too. This is what we are doing at the moment. The structure of handling events and drawing is completely rewritten and improved. FKmenu, FKmenubar, FKtextfield, FKmessageDialog, FKselectfield and FKfileDialog are the last widgets which need to be reintegrated and revised. This was for all other widgets already done. Besides a new widget named FKscrollbar was added. A FKscrollbar is a vertical scrollbar. This replaces the scroll items on the upside and downside mentioned in the news item of 24.2.2008. Furthermore the cleanup is not any longer circumvented as mentioned in the last news item.
As soon as the revision of the FTK is finished we will publish screenshots of the new fDynasties version.... read more

The editor is now ready. Creating, loading and saving a map is now done via graphical dialogs. Besides adding a playerstartposition is done via a graphical dialog too. There you can choose the player whose startposition should be set out of a list of players who do not have already a startposition. Furthermore changing between edges and no edges within the options window is ready. The next step is that changes update the setting within the corresponding config file. At the moment only the in-game variable is changed. In addition a few bugfixes were made.
However we recognized that the cleanup at the end of the program is circumvented by the way of exit the event loop. Even if the memory the program used is typically freed we will fix this.... read more

The directory accessing structure is now ready, called FKfilesystem. Besides the file structure was changed. Now you can open, close etc. files only via the FKfilesystem. Furthermore the FKfile class is no longer a static class. So you have now your own file handle. This has an impact to the core fDynasties part. Therefore the next step will be to update the core fDynasties part according to the latest changes of the tool-kit. Besides the fileDialog is now ready.
In addition to updating the core fDynasties part the next tasks are integrating the fileDialog into the editor and finishing the integration of graphical dialogs in general into the editor for replacing the last command-line dialogs.... read more

The website is now based on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and frames are not needed anymore. Furthermore the language could now be changed on every page, not only at the index page as it was before. The index page has changed, too. Besides the download page was updated with the presumably prerequisites for the next releases after the reconstruction.
Here we come to the current state of development. Since last time the development of the directory accessing structure was started, but not yet finished. Besides the autotool scripts where updated. This is an important step for the next release.
Here are some details of the next release, which will be the first one after restructuring was started. The release will be the version 0.0.3.0. The main features will be a full functioned map editor and an options window where you can change between edges and no edges visible. Other options like changing the language will follow in following releases. As you can see the game window with its basic game engine will be not part of the next release, which it was in the last two ones. The reason is that the restructuring of the game engine is at the moment not beyond the concept phase.... read more

The listbox and the menu are now scrollable. However not with a scrollbar. Either on the upside or on the downside appears an item with an arrow if you can scroll in the certain direction. If you click on one of these both items the scrolling will be done in the according direction. As soon as you cannot scroll anymore into this direction the item disappears. The scrolling of the listbox is activated whenever the listbox has more items than could be displayed within it. In contrast the scrolling of the menu is activated, whenever the menu would otherwise overlap the screen. Furthermore a fileDialog was added. However there is up to now no possibility for accessing the directory structure, because of that the fileDialog has no real use. So it is necessary to implement a way for accessing the directory structure. This will be the next step. Afterwards the fileDialog could be finished. Then the editor can use a dialog for loading and saving a map as mentioned at the beginning of this year.... read more

The tool-kit is by now enabled for UTF-8 text, e.g. the German umlauts can now be shown. Furthermore the lineedit is now scrollable whenever the contained text is larger than the area for showing the text. Besides inserting and deleting acts according to this. Therefore the lineedit is so far ready.

deathmor

I wish you all a happy and healthy new year! The tool-kit is now an important step further. The following widgets are new: dialog, messageDialog, textfield, menu, selectfield and listbox. The other changes are less visible, so I don't mention them here. The next step is to make the listbox and menu scrollable. This means for the listbox that a scrollbar appears whenever the listbox has more items than fit into it and for the menu that a scrollbar appears whenever the menu does not fit completly into the application window, which will occur mainly for the selectfield. Furthermore it should be possible to scroll with the cursor through a lineedit. The map editor uses now the new menu widget instead of the commandline menu. Besides the commandline dialog for creating a new map was replaced by a dialog. As soon as the listbox and lineedit are further developed as mentioned before and a fileDialog was added the commandline dialog for loading and saving a map will be replaced by this fileDialog. Not till then the feature of setting the options will be further developed. Besides the concept of the new game-engine is strongly planned. However this is a good peace of craftsmanship. After all the new game-engine should be well planned so that in the future no such extensive restructuring will be necessary.... read more

The map editor is now ready. There is a new icon
for the player startpositions too. The new one is a sign containing the color of the player whose startposition it is. The icons of the buttons on the sidebar have the sign with a color which is not used for players. So it works as a general player startposition sign. The settings resolution and edges are part of the configuration files. The next step will be to make changing the settings available. Besides I will add dialogs and menus to the tool-kit. At the moment the menu of the map editor is command-line based, which will be changed as soon as dialogs and menus are available. Primary I hoped to finish a first development release at the end of this year. Unfortunately there are only two weeks left. So I cannot promise anything. Besides the progress is at the moment really slow because I have very little time during the week. So there is only the weekend left. However there is other work on
weekends too. So I try to make much progress as possible.... read more

The new structure of feudalistic Dynasties is ready for the central parts. For the game engine part exists a draft and for some detailed parts the structure will be created short time before they are needed. The reimplementing of feudalistic Dynasties is still in progress. The map editor is nearly ready. The next step will be to set up an options window where some settings can be set like resolution, edges and no edges etc. . After that the game engine will be implemented. The game engine will implement some old things in a new structure, but also some new things. So all in all there is still quite a lot of work. I think there will be a few development releases before the next full release.... read more

Once again I will anounce some news after a long time. The tool-kit is now based on SDL_sge in addition to SDL, SDL_image and libsigc++. For that the SDL_ttf library isn't used anymore, because SDL_sge supports in addition to some graphical things also TTF fonts. The available widgets of the tool-kit are: button, label and a lineedit. Other widgets will be added when needed while reimplementing of the game. The game will be reimplemented after it will be restructured. At the moment we focus on restructuring of the game.
We already made some UML diagrams about the old structure. With the help of these diagrams we develop at the moment a new better structure, which will be easier to understand and to handle. ... read more

After a long time I will announce some news. Last month the development of a tool-kit was started. This tool-kit will replace Paragui and the internal library The_Gui. So the announced restructering from 29.4.2007 has already been started. The basic structure is already finished. Now it is time to add bit by bit the several widgets. At the moment label and button are available. The rest will follow within the next one or to months. After the tool-kit will be finished the game itself will be restructured. Details will follow then. Besides I would like to note that the tool-kit is still based on SDL and libsigc++. Therefore the game will still be based on these two libraries.... read more

The website structure has now changed. For the information of each site is used an embedded frame. This was done, because there was in the news section in some browsers large space between the links (vertical direction). Furthermore the german umlauts are now set in the rigth form (e.g. ä instead of ae) in the german part of the website.

deathmor

We decided to restructure feudalistic Dynasties. First of all we are searching for an alternative GUI for paragui. This GUI should use SDL too. We made this decision because paragui is not developed anymore. So we cannot expect that there will be a new stable release after the 1.0.4 release. The 1.0.4 release is provided by many distributions. However from 1.0.4 to 1.1.8 there are many major enhancements. This is why we use 1.1.8. Unfortunately as I said there will be most likely no new stable release and because of that distributions will not provide a newer version than 1.0.4. Furthermore there are a few problems with paragui. The other part of restructering is the game itself. The new structure of the game should contain of an engine and data files. So it is much easier and faster to add new items, make scenarios etc. . So it will consist of two parts: engine and data files. Unfortunately I'm bogged down with exams up to the middle of June.... read more

Finally I can announce the release of fDynasties-0.0.2, the second pre-alpha release of feudalistic Dynasties. Please test it and tell me all about bugs and your opinions of the gameplay.

deathmor