Additional Action Groups Development Thread (Now with Progress Screenshot)

[Mulbin]

His plugin is here, its fantastic, I already have some features up and running on the first switch panel

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66393-Hardware-Plugin-Arduino-based-physical-display-serial-port-io-tutorial-%2825-Feb%29

Nicest feature is it runs fuel dials etc

[Diazo]

Alright.

Realistically it is going to be this weekend before I have even an early alpha build ready for other people to look at.

Once I can get something into your hands we'll figure something out.

D.

[zitronen]

Um so all I'm doing in my plugin right now is calling:

ActiveVessel.ActionGroups.SetGroup(KSPActionGroup.Custom01, true);

And there are 10 of those. How would I use 260 added by your plugin?

[Diazo]

Keeping in mind I have not written the actual method yet so the exact method name will potentially change, but because I'm required to write my own manager, you will have to call something like:

ActionGroupsExtended.ActivateGroup(GroupNum); //GroupNum will be an int

which is going to get into dependencies and/or reflection for our plugins to interact.

I'll update this as soon as I have the actual code written and know the exact deatils, I'm starting with the GUI so I have something to interact with to test the code as I write it.

D.

[Mulbin]

Alright.

Realistically it is going to be this weekend before I have even an early alpha build ready for other people to look at.

Once I can get something into your hands we'll figure something out.

D.

Great news! I look forward to testing it out

[Diazo]

Okay. Progress report.

Well, I don't think I'll have the Alpha out this weekend. If I run into no more big issues I think Monday evening is certainly possible. However if more stuff ambushes me it might be Tuesday or Wednesday still.

After all, I thought figuring out how to manipulate the action groups was the hard part, turns out getting the GUI to cooperate is taking me at least twice as long.

Having said that, I do have a screen shot:

so progress is really happening!

Although I do have a question for everyone, what screen resolutions do you guys run? Meaning how big can I make my GUI windows? The above screenshot is my full monitor at 1920x1200 resolution.

The two boxes are 400x600 pixels and 365x270 pixels. I'm going to make the 400x600 one optionally a pop-up that is hidden most of the time for smaller screen resolutions, but even the one at 365x270 alone is 30% of the screen for someone running at 1024x768 resolution.

I could squeeze them down more, but I'd like some feedback before I start making tweaks like that.

D.

[Nuke]

reduce your button width a lot and add a couple more columns and you could compress that AGExt Groups window down much smaller than it is. the other window looks fine.

[diomedea]

Although I do have a question for everyone, what screen resolutions do you guys run? Meaning how big can I make my GUI windows? The above screenshot is my full monitor at 1920x1200 resolution.

In my case, I run on 1280x960.

Many thanks for showing what you're doing, very good progress. Take your time, though I can't wait for your mod to be available .

[Mulbin]

fantastic! can't wait.

I'm running on 4320x900.... the joys of monitor spanning

[Diazo]

Sounds like I don't have to be as worried about resolution as I thought I would be.

Probably no serious tweaks to the size then.

reduce your button width a lot and add a couple more columns and you could compress that AGExt Groups window down much smaller than it is. the other window looks fine.

That blank space is for the group names that the player can set for each group.

Having said that, I probably will slim it down some, keeping the button height but making the buttons as wide as the Group Button in the AGExt Selected Parts window (the lower right one with the "1:" on it.)

D.

[CaptainKipard]

1600*900 here

[Diazo]

Well, I'm getting so close I can smell it!

I have one window left to make for the Editor that shows all the existing action groups. All the code and everything needed otherwise is there, I just have to make the GUI windows.

After that it's copy-paste everything to flight mode and we should be good to go.

Unfortunately the Editor and Flight mode use different names for the same variables so I have to essentially make two copies of the mod in the plug in and tweak the references. I'm hoping tracking everything down will be easy but we will see how it goes.

Monday has gotten busy also, so we are probably looking at Tuesday for the initial release.

D.

[Diazo]

And the editor is functionally complete.

I'm still worried about space issues on the screen but note that the mod's GUI only displays in action groups mode. In parts placement mode they hide themselves.

I've also been able to disable click-through so clicking on the buttons will not be selecting parts behind them so that's one less worry also.

I'll copy-paste everything to flight mode tomorrow and hopefully that will go smooth.

D.

[Mulbin]

Hurry up and release an Alpha before my head explodes with anticipation!... seriously, in your own time... no pressure... well maybe just a little!

[Diazo]

Heh.

Well, I have everything "working".

I'm currently squashing nullref errors and bugs to make it actually usable though.

The fact that the copy-paste from the editor to flight mode turned into what is essentially a total rewrite does not help either.

Having said that we are close, but I can't be any more specific as release will be when I can get enough of these bugs squashed.

D.

[diomedea]

Thanks for keeping us updated on progress. My expectations keep growing about your mod, but do as you feel better . And certainly, thanks for squashing bugs before uploading.

[Diazo]

It is needed on this mod more then most.

To handle all the different groups, I have to use conditionals inside the GUI calls. The problem is that if those conditionals nullref, the GUI call just stops without exiting so the windows start doing weird things like vanishing, locking up and so on.

I just need to mess around enough that I get enough error traps present that I stop this from happening and I'll be comfortable releasing the mod to you guys.

D.

[KerbMav]

Uh, shiny! For (feels like) ages I am waiting for more than ten AGs!

Will it be possible to change AGs during flight, too?

(The AGM killed science stored in pods under certain circumstances, please make sure yours ... you know ... )

[Diazo]

Yes, you can change action groups in flight.

As for the science thing, I can't imagine I would affect that, the only code in KSP.exe I'm touching is the ActionGroups value on a partModule, everything else is handled by my own action group manager I wrote to handle the extra groups.

Looking at AGM's thread I see instructions for reproducing the bug, I'll add that to my test list just to make sure.

As for a status update, all I can say is almost.

I've pretty much got the bugs squashed that need squashing, the last major issue I've got is I need to tweak how I save the groups and then we should be ready to go.

Having said that, I don't know if I will have any free time to work on this until Saturday, so the release date is still a huge question mark.

D.

[Diazo]

/sigh

Why can things never work smoothly?

Testing last night turned up problems in the method I was using to save the action groups. It's looking like I'm going to have to re-do my data storage method from scratch.

At this point, release on this is "when it's done".

I'll update Sunday evening with another progress report on where I get after this weekend.

D.

[Mulbin]

It will be worth the wait!

[Diazo]

Well, it's Sunday evening and things are looking up.

I'm doing one final testing pass from top to bottom to make sure I've missed nothing in the piecemeal checking I've been doing as I add features, but if nothing new turns up I may even have this out tonight.

Testing from the top will take a couple hours though, this mod is doing a lot to make this work smoothly.

Let's hope no new bugs pop up.

D.

edit: So ya, I'm finding stuff that still needs tweaking. It's all been small stuff thankfully but release will be tomorrow for sure.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Diazo

[Mulbin]

Any news? I'm guessing there were more problems than expected!

[Diazo]

To say the least.

I posted some questions, and got the answers I needed, in the Plugin development forum if you want more details, but I had to rip my entire save/load routine apart and re-do it pretty much from scratch.

The implementation I had last week that I was originally going to release with had an unfortunate tendency to just lose actions. No errors or anything, but that ship with 10 configured actions would end up with only 9 actions after a while. So, not releaseable.

Having said, I think I've got the save part working and have one bug left to squash in the rewritten load code so I'm hopeful for a release this weekend.

We all know how promised release dates go though so we'll see what actually happens.

D.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Diazo

[Mulbin]

Great to hear you're making progress... stick to the squad release schedule - it's ready when it's ready!