[Freeorion-programmers] Re: Please report your status

[Geoff T. <geo...@gm...>]

I'm not officially a porgrammer, but I figure I should still fill you
in on what I have been doing for development recently...

From December to early February, I was doing a lot of testing mostly. 
Most of the "recent" bug reports and feature requests on sourceforge
were made by me.  There are also at least as many bug reports that I
didn't put on sourceforge, but which I did email to tzlaine, most of
which were related to the effects system.  He was slowly and
intermittantly working away at these.  I basically made up a slew of
effects test cases and reported to tzlaine whenever I found something
that wasn't working.  I also made a brief (and incomplete) list of
what was working, which I put here:

http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Testing_Notepad

There's no compiled list of what *isn't* working though... tzlaine
said he was keeping track of my emails, which I figured was
sufficient.  I could sift through the pile of them and try to find
what hasn't been dealt with, but it'll take a while, I don't
especially want to, and it hopefully won't be necessary (ie. when
tzlaine reappears).

Some other emailed bugs were were UI issues like windows getting off
the screen or the sidepanel moving around and such, most of which
tzlaine did fix before he disappeared (see CVS logs for details...).

I also made up the new empire_colors.xml, which tzlaine committed.

What I'd like to be doing right now is more testing... though in order
to do this, someone will need to fix all or many of the current
effects problems.  We also need buildings code and a building UI to be
tested, and building with effects code to test that.  tzlaine wasn't
going to add buildings stuff until we had a buildings UI, so I started
working on that a bit last month since nobody in graphics seemed
interested.

In the last month or so, mainly since tzlaine disappared, I haven't
really been working much of FO, aside from the buildings UI, due to a
thesis, midterms, applications, assignments, etc.  I don't really have
time for any major commitments until May (as mentioned in the art
forum about writing tech descriptions...)

In May, I should probably look over the aforementioned starlanes code,
as there's probly a few cases in which it will fail that I didn't take
into account.

I'd also like to look into fixing up the galaxy map so that fleet
icons don't change size, and maybe putting some limits on the scaling
of stars at extreme zoom levels, and making starlanes not change in
size while zooming.

I'd also like to start making up the non-theory techs and such, with
associated buildings and effects and such.  This depends on there
being buildings code though...

One thing that could be done now is to add in the tech category icons
to the UI, and add in the boxes on tech descriptions for individual
techs on the tech UI.  This way the graphics people will be able to
see their stuff in the game... which they've been keen on for some
time.  I'd suggest replacing the text of the tech categories on the
tech screen with the icons, and having much smaller text below the
icons for clarity.  A problem now is that if we have more than 5
categories, the individual buttons get too small and the text
overflows the button at 1024 x 768.  Also, it'd be good if the buttons
were in fact tabs, as in BreadMan's original mockups (see graphics
forum... ask me if you can't find the relevant thread / post and are
interested...)

Another graphical touch would be to add some improved feedback about
fleet movement.  There have been some threads post about this as
well... such as colouring the currently selected fleet's path (as they
all blur together now) and indicating how far per turn the fleet will
move on the map.

Also, some mouseover feedback on the galaxy map would be good for
systems... ie. highlight, encircle or somesuch a star if the mouse is
close enough that clicking will assign move orders or open that system
in the sidepanel.

Someone else could also take a swing at the zoom scaling limits on
stars, and make fleet icons not change size with zoom (nor starlane
lines).

I was also asking noelte to make up a v0.25 (or somesuch) release,
since it's been about 8 months since v0.2, and few non-programmers
have seen most of the more recent improvements, especially the tech
screen, in action.  He started at that, but had some compile problems,
and then I haven't hread anything since... so... that should be done I
think.

Geoff

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:19:06 +0100, Dennis Brakhane
<de...@fs...> wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> As you already might know, I've taken over programming lead until Zach 
> returns.
> To get things rolling again, could every programmer tell me (and the
> others)
> 1. what they are working on
> 2. what they want to work on
> 3. what they think needs to be done and isn't specified in the wiki.
> 
> Either post it to this list, or, preferably, to the Programming Work 
> section in the Wiki.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
>   Dennis (Yoghurt)
> 
> PS: I don't run windows, so if the code doesn't compile ATM or at any 
> future time, don't hesitate to contact me.
> PPS: What's the status with OSX?