General request for mods to provide an alternative to bilzzy`s toolbar (for 64 bit)

[John FX]

I am putting out a general request for mod devs to support the new official toolbar (like KER does) as an alternative.

Any comments are welcome.

Edited September 20, 2014 by John FX
toned down

[Majiir]

64-bit KSP itself is broken. Please don't blame blizzy. Instead, avoid using 64-bit KSP until it becomes more stable. In its current state, it doesn't actually provide any benefit, because exceeding the 32-bit address space will cause regular crashes, so you effectively gain nothing from it.

[NathanKell]

Yes, that.

Also, blizzy said he's not supporting (i.e. helping people with) KSP Windows x64. If you have linux x64, that's stable; and there's nothing stopping you from running toolbar in KSP Win x64, just don't ask for help.

(Also, this "Unfortunately this also means his mod is especially bad at playing well in 64 bit and will remain so for the foreseeable future.." just means you really don't understand the 64bit issues at all. They are not mod related, and toolbar has nothing to do with them.)

[John FX]

What a nice response. I`m not blaming blizzy and I only stated in the OP that he is not supporting 64 bit until it becomes more stable and that it would be UNITY that would need attention for that to happen. I should have explicitly mentioned windows 64 bit it seems. Whether I understand that the issues are with unity and the 64 bit windows client would seem irrelevant to my point which is that if blizzys toolbar fails to work for whatever reason it takes a lot of mods down with it and an alternative just makes sense especially as we have a stock implementation now.

The issue still remains that if there are any windows 64 bit issues they are not supported by blizzy and without blizzys toolbar a lot of mods do not have any way to access them or their settings. Not using a distributed client is not a solution.

I STILL would like to make a general call for an alternative method for mods to interact with the user even after reading your comments.

KER seems to have done it nicely, you can choose to either use blizzys toolbar or the stock one. I think it would be nice for other mod devs to follow what I see as a good example IMHO.

tl;dr I wasn`t blaming blizzy, windows 64 bit is inherently unstable, an alternative method of interacting with the user would still be good.

[Guest]

tbh it would be nice if more authors who used blizzy's toolbar would also support the in-game app launcher if for no other reason than some users like the in-game app launcher better.

[magico13]

I think a lot more mod developers will start using the Stock Toolbar if it had some improvements. I still prefer Blizzy's (being able to hide buttons, create folders, not take up half the screen) but my mods can use either. They use Blizzy's if that's installed or the stock one if it isn't. Wasn't hard to support, so I'm not sure why more modders don't use it as a back up. Even better is letting users choose which they prefer.

[John FX]

tbh it would be nice if more authors who used blizzy's toolbar would also support the in-game app launcher if for no other reason than some users like the in-game app launcher better.

Also this. There doesn`t need to be a game breaking reason to use a stock alternative to using a third party mod to access another third party mod. It just makes sense.

In the same way that the toolbar from blizzy was a game changer and showed a way to have multiple icons presented neatly on the screen and because of this was widely adopted (and rightly so), it would be nice for the in game toolbar (now we have one) to be widely adopted as a stock way to get much of the functionality present in blizzys toolbar.

I think a lot more mod developers will start using the Stock Toolbar if it had some improvements. I still prefer Blizzy's (being able to hide buttons, create folders, not take up half the screen) but my mods can use either. They use Blizzy's if that's installed or the stock one if it isn't. Wasn't hard to support, so I'm not sure why more modders don't use it as a back up. Even better is letting users choose which they prefer.

As is the case with KER. It works quite well and, like you, I don`t see why more mod makers don`t adopt the policy of giving the choice.

I completely agree that the stock toolbar could do with more features, like being smaller, hiding unwanted icons n stuff though.

Edited September 20, 2014 by John FX

[Guest]

I think a lot more mod developers will start using the Stock Toolbar if it had some improvements.

I don't imagine it's all that hard to hook into it, though. Anyway, I find blizzy's toolbar to be sort of cumbersome in that it's just so much work setting it up, and you have to set it up on every screen. On most of my installs it just sits there on most screens like a little wart with an update icon because I don't want to bother with it unless I have to. I spin up new and cycle through old installs regularly so this gets tiresome quite quickly. I I suppose I could try moving the .dat file to a new install but I'm just so tired of setting up the toolbar that I haven't tried getting a default going.

[acc]

I use toolbar on win64 and the toolbar is working fine without any issue.

[Xaiier]

tbh it would be nice if more authors who used blizzy's toolbar would also support the in-game app launcher if for no other reason than some users like the in-game app launcher better.

I think a lot more mod developers will start using the Stock Toolbar if it had some improvements.

I would love to provide stock toolbar support, however the stock toolbar does not provide the same level of functionality (ex. no tracking station, no choosing buttons) as Blizzy's and adds more complexity to the system by forcing me to deal with it being loaded/unloaded in the main menu. I cannot justify spending my time adding support for the stock toolbar until it has enough functionality to replace Blizzy's, and I think a lot of other mod authors would agree.

[Majiir]

I STILL would like to make a general call for an alternative method for mods to interact with the user even after reading your comments.

You're trying to solve the wrong problem. It's not that Toolbar breaks on Win64; it's that Win64 is broken. You're asking mods to change so they will run better on Win64, but that's pointless because Win64 is broken and mods can't change that. Sure, Toolbar might mildly exacerbate the issue, but at the end of the day, Win64 is broken. Nobody should be using Win64 KSP.

I cannot justify spending my time adding support for the stock toolbar until it has enough functionality to replace Blizzy's, and I think a lot of other mod authors would agree.

Yes, I have these same issues. I've been asking Squad to make improvements to the stock AppLauncher since it first entered experimentals, and those changes have yet to come. Kethane, for example, requires tracking station support. Toolbar is an optional dependency, but I can't support AppLauncher at all because it simply doesn't do the job.

[John FX]

You're trying to solve the wrong problem. It's not that Toolbar breaks on Win64; it's that Win64 is broken. You're asking mods to change so they will run better on Win64, but that's pointless because Win64 is broken and mods can't change that. Sure, Toolbar might mildly exacerbate the issue, but at the end of the day, Win64 is broken. Nobody should be using Win64 KSP.

Yes, I have these same issues. I've been asking Squad to make improvements to the stock AppLauncher since it first entered experimentals, and those changes have yet to come. Kethane, for example, requires tracking station support. Toolbar is an optional dependency, but I can't support AppLauncher at all because it simply doesn't do the job.

Fair enough, I guess I`m looking at the problem from the wrong end.

[okan170]

You're trying to solve the wrong problem. It's not that Toolbar breaks on Win64; it's that Win64 is broken. You're asking mods to change so they will run better on Win64, but that's pointless because Win64 is broken and mods can't change that. Sure, Toolbar might mildly exacerbate the issue, but at the end of the day, Win64 is broken. Nobody should be using Win64 KSP.

Yes, I have these same issues. I've been asking Squad to make improvements to the stock AppLauncher since it first entered experimentals, and those changes have yet to come. Kethane, for example, requires tracking station support. Toolbar is an optional dependency, but I can't support AppLauncher at all because it simply doesn't do the job.

I wouldn't go that far! I've been playing Win x64 with few if any problems though I'm aware this is unusual. Still, its far from "totally broken" and to suggest that nobody should ever use it is a bit extreme.

[blizzy78]

I've been playing Win x64 with few if any problems though I'm aware this is unusual. Still, its far from "totally broken" and to suggest that nobody should ever use it is a bit extreme.

Actually, modders have gone to great lengths to prove its inherent instability. Have you?

[Majiir]

I wouldn't go that far! I've been playing Win x64 with few if any problems though I'm aware this is unusual. Still, its far from "totally broken" and to suggest that nobody should ever use it is a bit extreme.

Win64 is stable in the same situations where Win32 is stable. If you never exceed the 32-bit address space, you likely won't run into problems with Win64, but you also aren't deriving any benefit from Win64. In other words, Win64 is only even moderately stable in situations where you might as well just use Win32 anyway.