Data Workstation 0.5d Released~ 21st June 2009

[no one]

EDIT: never mind.

[Wind]

I found this quite useful to use. Ability to see the sprite I'm working with really helps.
Only problem I have is the Reference doesn't load anything, and Ctrl+space doesn't work for me since it was already a shortcut key for Chinese input for my laptop.
Is it possible to change the shortcut key Ctrl+space to something else?

[Azriel]

@Wind
http://www.lf-empire.de/azriel/DCv0.5b.jar
stick that in the app folder.

The reference panel loads only if the "ext" folder is inside the "app" folder as well (has to be in the same place as the jar file)

that one has [Ctrl] + [R] set as the refresh shortcut. I'll post this on the chinese forum as well.

@topic
most I can promise all of you in the short term are the bug fixes + 8-bit bitmap loading (I have to write my own code to decode bitmaps; all the ones i find online can't read compressed bitmaps (LF2's use BI_RLE8 encoding)). 2 weeks till the next update I guess (got lotsa work to catch up for uni; may be earlier but don't bet on it).



Azriel~

[XV86ƒ]

This has to be the most useful thing for LF2 since jiquera's data changer. I LOVE it. Excellent job!

[Wind]

Thanks for the quick response Azriel
Ctrl + R works for me, and the reference is very detailed (with some informations I didn't know before).
I think I can get my mod done quicker now.

It would be nice if the frame maker can show the sprite numbers so I don't need to count them. Can't really tell the sprite number with the slider. It would also be nice if I could draw boxes or points on the frame maker and it would display the x, y, w, h values. That would make it much more helpful.

As for loading 8-bit bitmaps, I have quite a long time haven't code in Java. But according to my knowledge, reading bitmap with Java is not officially supported by Sun. Which I think reading 8-bit is still possible, but not reading a compressed bitmap. However, I do have a spritesheet generator I coded a while ago with C++ that able to read compressed bitmaps and create uncompressed spritesheets. It can be quick for me to modify the code so it functions to convert group of compressed bitmap spritesheets into uncompressed ones, which could then be read by your Data Workstation. Is this an option? Or you prefer to figure out how to load compressed bitmaps.

Anyway, thanks for the Workstation, it works very well

[Alblaka]

It would be nice if the frame maker can show the sprite numbers so I don't need to count them. Can't really tell the sprite number with the slider. It would also be nice if I could draw boxes or points on the frame maker and it would display the x, y, w, h values. That would make it much more helpful.

ULTRA-agreed to this 2 points... it would be great to "draw" itr's/bdy's instead messing around with the values...

[Azriel]

@Wind - the 8 bit thing
yea I know, I've spent a few hours of my "free" time (homework time essentially) trying to uncompress it. I've managed to make it read the bitmap header, and could pass it to sun's API if it says no compression, but with compression, I get errors which I still haven't been able to fix. The c++ thing you mentioned sounds useful; I may be able to translate it into java, so would be good if you could post it here.

drawing on the FM as I've said is a huge load of work, and I don't have the time to do it. have to catch up on half a year's worth of math (this one will be hard) and also learn a programming language (that one shouldn't be too hard).

I know what you all want, but I have something called "real life" where I actually do work off the computer, so please keep the requests for new features to a minimum coz there's already a whole heap of them. You may post bugs, or stuff like the Ctrl + Space thing that people using chinese software have clashes with.



Azriel~

[Wind]

@Wind - the 8 bit thing
yea I know, I've spent a few hours of my "free" time (homework time essentially) trying to uncompress it. I've managed to make it read the bitmap header, and could pass it to sun's API if it says no compression, but with compression, I get errors which I still haven't been able to fix. The c++ thing you mentioned sounds useful; I may be able to translate it into java, so would be good if you could post it here.

drawing on the FM as I've said is a huge load of work, and I don't have the time to do it. have to catch up on half a year's worth of math (this one will be hard) and also learn a programming language (that one shouldn't be too hard).

I know what you all want, but I have something called "real life" where I actually do work off the computer, so please keep the requests for new features to a minimum coz there's already a whole heap of them. You may post bugs, or stuff like the Ctrl + Space thing that people using chinese software have clashes with.

Azriel~

You will not able to translate the code into Java due to the program is written with Allegro API which is only for C++.
But I got the sprite converter done for you. I don't know if you can run a exe file with your Java application, but this converter will accept the directory of the bitmap and bitmap names as arguments.
For example, to execute in cmd will be:

Code:

wind_spriteconvertor c://LF2/sprite/sys/  davis_0  henry_0

It will output uncompressed bitmaps in a "temp" folder in the exe directory.
If you can execute it with Java and pass in the argument, you will be able to load the uncompressed bitmaps.

Getting the mouse location and display its x and y values with Java is much easier than using C++. Drawing a rectangle also only requires a few lines of codes. I could implement for you if you really don't have time to code it in. I will have some free time next week after finish my midterm exams.

[Faidan]

so will this make the dc compatible with other bmps?

[Azriel]

updated.

@Wind
I managed to make the jar file run your prog. Now the thing can work with 8 bit bitmaps. (passes the spritesheets in, waits for them to be converted, then loads from the temp folder). The mouse listener stuff yea it's pretty easy, just time consuming (coz of the possibility of large sprites, need to write auto scroller stuff).

@Alblaka
the world's greatest problem is solved.


Azriel~