Several recent attempts to update desktop LINUX systems that had been running LAC splendidly have resulted in a terrible problem. SHORT SUMMARY: LAC's menus become useless. Although all of the menus and their buttons are DISPLAYED as expected, clicking on them has absolutely no effect.
New version Lac09p37 fixes this problem with a unique approach: As an option, users can completely bypass use of LAC's menus using any combination of these two tools:
1 of 2: Users can edit the LacConfig.txt configuration file to designate absolutely everything that they ever might want to specify through LAC's menus, including designation of a "DefaultMission". When a DefaultMission is specified, LAC runs it immediately without demanding any input through any of its menus.
2 of 2: Users can provide any combination of the following details on the command line when invoking LAC from a bash shell:
DefaultAircraft
DefaultMission
Team Affiliation
All of these new command-line options are described in response to any command that invokes LAC with any command-line arguments that LAC cannot understand. For example, THIS command:
lac --HelpMePlease
Yields THIS text on the invoking console:
Usage:Lac[-h][-m][-nMissionNumber][-pPlaneNumber][-tTEAM][-v][-dLEVEL]-h:Displaythishelpscreenandquit-m:RequestMousecontrolinsteadofjoystick.-nMissionNumber:SetDefaultMissionforautomaticactivation,bypassingmenus,whereMissionNumberisoneof:Tutorial1(GettingStartedwiththeBasics)8Tutorial2(GroundAttackBasics)12Tutorial3(FighterTactics)10Tutorial4(FreeFlightwithnoopposition)31NetworkH2H:(TwoPlayersonly)32NetworkBattle0120NetworkBattle0221NetworkBattle0323Hyrum's Mission 24 Blake'sMission25Peabody's Mission 26 Net Mission 07 27 Net Mission 08 28 Net Mission 09 29 Net Mission 10 30-pPlaneNumber: Configure default airplane, where PlaneNumber is one of:Whimsical jet Hawk: 201 Fiat G55 Centauro: 202Messerschmidt ME109 Bf109 203 Curtis P40 Warhawk 204Hawker Hurricane 205 Nakajima KI43 Oscar 206Supermarine: Spitfire 207 Polykarpov I-16 Horsefly: 208Junkers JU87 Stuka: 209 Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero: 210Chance Vought F4U Corsair: 211 Grumman F6F Hellcat: 212Lockheed P38 Lightning: 213 Republic P47 Thunderbolt: 214North American P51 Mustang: 215 Boeing B17 Flying Fortress: 216Focke-Wulf FW190 Butcherbird: 217 Yakolev YAK9: 218Nakajima N1K1 Shiden: 219 Consolidated B24 Liberator: 220Bell P39 Airacobra: 221 Mitsubishi G4M Betty: 222North American B25 Mitchell: 223 Martin B26 Marauder: 224Grumman F4F Wildcat: 225 Lavochkin LA5 Fantail: 226Lavochkin LA7 Fin: 227 Ilyushin IL2 Sturmovik: 228Machi C.202 Folgore: 229 Avro Lancaster: 230De Haviland DH.98 MosquitoB: 231 Hawker Typhoon: 232Yakovlev Yak1: 233 Boeing B29 Superfortress: 234Dewoitine D.320: 235 Curtiss SB2C Helldiver: 236Grumman TBF Avenger: 237 Messerschmidt ME163 Komet: 238Hawker Tempest: 239 Aichi D3A Val: 240Nakajima B5N Kate: 241 Douglas SBD5 Dauntless: 242Messerschmidt ME110 Zerstorer: 243 Dornier DO17: 244Heinkel HE111: 245 Junkers JU88: 246Nakajima KI84 Hayate: 247 Kawasaki KI61 Hien: 248Generic Fighter Generic01: 249 Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero: 250Supermarine MK5 Spitfire: 251 North American P51B Mustang: 252Republic P47B Thunderbolt: 253 Messerschmidt ME109F: 254Lockheed P38F Lightning: 255-tTEAM: Configure Team, where TEAM = r or b (red or blue).-v: Display version string and quit-dLEVEL: Set debug LEVEL to 0=silent... 4= show Network-related logs... 5=log all For help configuring joystick and keyboard, we recommend avoiding full-screen mode so you can see status messages, and running at debug level 4. Status messages in your main window will then show the value of keypresses and joystick buttons as they are detected during the game. Use those values as you edit the file named LacControls.txt which you will find in your home folder's.LACdirectory.Editthatfilewithasimpletexteditor.Retainthegeneralformatofthefilewhilechangingthenumericvaluesassociatedwithkeyboardkeycommandsorjoystickbuttoncommands.Thiswillallowyoutoassociateanykeyboardkeyoranyjoystickbuttonwithanysupportedflightfunction.bash-5.1$
As you can see, users wishing to drive LAC from the command line can now bypass all of the most common needs for LAC's menus.
This new version of LAC (Lac09p37) is now available for download from our SourceForge beta-test Downloads page. Beta testers are enthusiastic, so it is likely that we will move it to our "Production" download pages soon, but as of today (04Aug2023) you can find it through THIS LINK:
Update from Oct2023: We've made further progress. New version 9.48, now available for beta testing, allows command-line configuration of EVERYTHING that could ever be configured from LAC's menus. Although those legacy menus are retained and still work for most people, if you are among those for whom our menus stopped working after a recent LINUX update, you don't need our menus anymore and it's easy to invoke LAC from a bash shell, appending command-line arguments to configure aircraft, mission, team, video resolution, graphic detail, acoustic levels, etc. You can learn the required command-line syntax by issuing the following command line from a bash shell:
lac -help
To make your life even easier, we are also beta-testing a new, companion utility, named "LacMenuLauncher". This optional utility, not needed by most players, displays text-based menus that look a lot like LAC's legacy menus. As selections are made from the displayed menu options according to long-standing text menu norms, they automatically build up a corresponding lac command line. Once all desired menu options have been chosen and the new lac command line is completed accordingly, a prominent LacMenuLauncher menu item will execute that command line and immediately invoke LAC with all of the chosen options. Within just a few seconds and with no need for exercising LAC's built-in menus, the player is placed into his desired aircraft, flying for his designated team, in the designated mission, configured for the video resolution and audio levels that he designated from the menus. After the resulting LAC session completes, control is immediately returned back to LACMenuLauncher for further action according to the same set of menu options. This pattern can continue indefinitely, essentially duplicating the LAC experience that our veteran users have come to expect.
This facility requires LAC Version 9.48 or later, and we intend to make it available for all future versions of LAC.
Here's a direct link to our beta-test downloads page where Lac9.48 and the LacMenuLauncher will be available for downloading until these facilities are promoted to "production" status:
Furthermore, we just published a comprehensive new YouTube PlayList with 11 short video clips showing EXACTLY how we downloaded, installed, configured, and used all of these facilities. We even integrated LAC version 9.48 and the new LacMenuLauncher into the desktop LINUX menus. Accordingly, we can now invoke LAC from our desktop with just one or two mouse clicks, whether we want to use its internal menus or the optional, new, text-based menus.
As of Nov2023 we've published production-quality version 9.48 to solve the problem. No more "Trouble Ahead for LAC"! If your desktop LINUX distro refuses to respond to LAC's internally displayed menu buttons, you can now just download our LacMenuLauncher utility from our production archives. It will always be available here:
You will need to compile the LacMenuLauncher from source code. Fortunately, this is VERY easy to do. Full instructions are published in the page referenced in the download link above. For further help, watch this YouTube PlayList which demonstrates, in eleven short video clips, exactly how we did it. The PlayList also shows you how we integrated the LacMenuLauncher into our desktop LINUX menus for easy "one-click" activation. Here's the playlist:
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
As of this writing in Dec2024, we note that complaints about LINUX distros that fail to activate LAC's built-in menus have become less and less frequent. It's been several months since we heard any such complaint. None of our lab-based testing activities have run into this problem either.
Accordingly, we now suspect that whatever was causing some distros to fail to respond to LAC's menus has generally been fixed.
Downloads of our "LacMenuLauncher" have diminished correspondingly. Perhaps our LacMenuLauncher won't be needed at all in the future, but we are maintaining compatibility with it just in case it is ever needed.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Several recent attempts to update desktop LINUX systems that had been running LAC splendidly have resulted in a terrible problem. SHORT SUMMARY: LAC's menus become useless. Although all of the menus and their buttons are DISPLAYED as expected, clicking on them has absolutely no effect.
We're working on this, as described HERE:
https://sourceforge.net/p/linuxaircombat/discussion/lacbugtracking/thread/7cd5b8379a/#8524
For a little more history on the discovery and evolution of this approach, read THIS:
https://sourceforge.net/p/linuxaircombat/discussion/lacbugtracking/thread/7cd5b8379a/
Last edit: bbosen 2023-07-31
New version Lac09p37 fixes this problem with a unique approach: As an option, users can completely bypass use of LAC's menus using any combination of these two tools:
1 of 2: Users can edit the LacConfig.txt configuration file to designate absolutely everything that they ever might want to specify through LAC's menus, including designation of a "DefaultMission". When a DefaultMission is specified, LAC runs it immediately without demanding any input through any of its menus.
2 of 2: Users can provide any combination of the following details on the command line when invoking LAC from a bash shell:
All of these new command-line options are described in response to any command that invokes LAC with any command-line arguments that LAC cannot understand. For example, THIS command:
Yields THIS text on the invoking console:
As you can see, users wishing to drive LAC from the command line can now bypass all of the most common needs for LAC's menus.
This new version of LAC (Lac09p37) is now available for download from our SourceForge beta-test Downloads page. Beta testers are enthusiastic, so it is likely that we will move it to our "Production" download pages soon, but as of today (04Aug2023) you can find it through THIS LINK:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxaircombat/files/Choose%20Your%20Platform/BetaTestVersions/
As always, you can learn details about what's new with each published version of LAC from our online ChangeLog page here:
http://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombatChangeLog.htm
Last edit: bbosen 2023-12-17
Update from Oct2023: We've made further progress. New version 9.48, now available for beta testing, allows command-line configuration of EVERYTHING that could ever be configured from LAC's menus. Although those legacy menus are retained and still work for most people, if you are among those for whom our menus stopped working after a recent LINUX update, you don't need our menus anymore and it's easy to invoke LAC from a bash shell, appending command-line arguments to configure aircraft, mission, team, video resolution, graphic detail, acoustic levels, etc. You can learn the required command-line syntax by issuing the following command line from a bash shell:
lac -help
To make your life even easier, we are also beta-testing a new, companion utility, named "LacMenuLauncher". This optional utility, not needed by most players, displays text-based menus that look a lot like LAC's legacy menus. As selections are made from the displayed menu options according to long-standing text menu norms, they automatically build up a corresponding lac command line. Once all desired menu options have been chosen and the new lac command line is completed accordingly, a prominent LacMenuLauncher menu item will execute that command line and immediately invoke LAC with all of the chosen options. Within just a few seconds and with no need for exercising LAC's built-in menus, the player is placed into his desired aircraft, flying for his designated team, in the designated mission, configured for the video resolution and audio levels that he designated from the menus. After the resulting LAC session completes, control is immediately returned back to LACMenuLauncher for further action according to the same set of menu options. This pattern can continue indefinitely, essentially duplicating the LAC experience that our veteran users have come to expect.
This facility requires LAC Version 9.48 or later, and we intend to make it available for all future versions of LAC.
Here's a direct link to our beta-test downloads page where Lac9.48 and the LacMenuLauncher will be available for downloading until these facilities are promoted to "production" status:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxaircombat/files/Choose%20Your%20Platform/BetaTestVersions/
As always, you can learn more details about these new items from our online ChangeLog page. Here's the link:
http://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombatChangeLog.htm
Furthermore, we just published a comprehensive new YouTube PlayList with 11 short video clips showing EXACTLY how we downloaded, installed, configured, and used all of these facilities. We even integrated LAC version 9.48 and the new LacMenuLauncher into the desktop LINUX menus. Accordingly, we can now invoke LAC from our desktop with just one or two mouse clicks, whether we want to use its internal menus or the optional, new, text-based menus.
Here's the link to that new YouTube PlayList:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H03frBW1YjQ&list=PL1IYes9MY6lIw1rq19ewc5siwHg8u8NX3
Last edit: bbosen 2023-12-17
As of Nov2023 we've published production-quality version 9.48 to solve the problem. No more "Trouble Ahead for LAC"! If your desktop LINUX distro refuses to respond to LAC's internally displayed menu buttons, you can now just download our LacMenuLauncher utility from our production archives. It will always be available here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxaircombat/files/Choose%20Your%20Platform/LacMenuLauncher/
Last edit: bbosen 2023-11-18
You will need to compile the LacMenuLauncher from source code. Fortunately, this is VERY easy to do. Full instructions are published in the page referenced in the download link above. For further help, watch this YouTube PlayList which demonstrates, in eleven short video clips, exactly how we did it. The PlayList also shows you how we integrated the LacMenuLauncher into our desktop LINUX menus for easy "one-click" activation. Here's the playlist:
As of this writing in Dec2024, we note that complaints about LINUX distros that fail to activate LAC's built-in menus have become less and less frequent. It's been several months since we heard any such complaint. None of our lab-based testing activities have run into this problem either.
Accordingly, we now suspect that whatever was causing some distros to fail to respond to LAC's menus has generally been fixed.
Downloads of our "LacMenuLauncher" have diminished correspondingly. Perhaps our LacMenuLauncher won't be needed at all in the future, but we are maintaining compatibility with it just in case it is ever needed.