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From: Larry Y. <la...@in...> - 2009-12-29 04:43:47
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A hard-won lesson: Do not put Polyworld into the background while it is running, ever, if you care about the results, at least on Macintoshes. All but the main overview window, including the agents' POV window, are "tool" windows. When an app stops being frontmost, tool windows are automatically hidden. That means the agent POV rendering and subsequent pixel reading to produce their vision inputs are being done to a hidden window, which does not produce valid results, at least under some conditions on some machines. I've confirmed that making the POV window a normal (as opposed to tool) window eliminates the problem, but it raises other UI issues I don't want to solve right now. If there's a way to not hide tool windows, that might be the easiest fix. But the best fix would be to make the POV rendering work correctly whether the POV window is hidden or not. Someday... This probably does not affect Linux boxes, because I don't think Linux auto-hides tool windows. Or perhaps rendering to hidden windows is no different than rendering to visible windows on Linux. In any event, putting Polyworld into the background on at least one Linux box did not affect the simulation. The simulation is also unaffected by manipulating (closing, opening, moving) other windows in Polyworld, including on a Mac, even if they overlap the POV window. Just don't close the POV window. - larryy |