[Rails-devel] Rails 2.0 update: new TableUI, 18NL, new alpha release next weekend

[Stefan F. <ste...@we...>]

Some of you might have wondered, when the next alpha release is due?
Actually I focussed on the UI generation of UI tables that are used both 
in the Status (ShareRound) and Map (OperatingRound) windows.

In Rails 1.x they are wired by a lot of manually written code with lots 
of code duplication. My target was to create a encapsulated approach to 
generate those tables using a fluent interface (API) similar to the ones 
of that used by Google's Guava library, which I really love to use.

I have now reached a state, where I am able to duplicate the 
StartRoundWindow using only a few lines of code (everything else done by 
the generic table classes): Someone interested in details can have a 
look at StartRoundStatus class in package rails.ui.swing how to create 
such a table. All implementing classes for such a table are in 
rails.ui.swing.core.

However it will still take some time to get everything rewritten using 
the new approach and I do not want to delay the Rails 2.0 releases 
further. So I will refocus on getting Rails 2.0 out-of-the-door and 
continue fixing the open issues already reported.

For testing the new UI creation I needed a game similar to 1830, however 
1830 is now pretty complex beast due to the variants.

I could have used 18Kaas, however after all the generic programming, I 
preferred to work a little closer to 18xx and decided to implement 18NL 
(an 1830 adaptation to the Netherlands, a very early design of Helmut 
Ohley, rules and pieces available to download on his webpage).

So expect in the next alpha release a working version of 18NL, which 
will be used for testing the new UI elements. All other 18xx of Rails 
will keep using the old UI until the new works reliable.

I expect the next alpha release of Rails 2.0 the upcoming weekend, so if 
someone has something close to finish, consider to merge it to 
rails_2_develop.

Stefan