ZDLSharp and Mono

I was able to compile the nightly build of the Mono 2.0 beta the other day, and actually get ZDLSharp running in Linux! There are also a slew of new bugs found in both the Mono version and the Windows version. I’m hoping to make a change to the release schedule and actually release 3.0.5.3 this weekend, and then start work on 3.0.6.0. I feel the bugs are severe enough I need to make a bug fix release. I invite all Linux users to try out ZDLSharp in Mono. I have a precompiled and packaged tar of mono for extraction to your home directory.

Also, thanks to Siggi who helped me find all kinds of bugs, and making ZDLSharp even better!

And finally, I’ve attached a screenshot of ZDLSharp running on my Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon.

I want your feedback!

If you’re a ZDLSharp user, please take a look at this page, and tell me what you think! Feel free to write directly into the wiki in a way that isn’t destructive. Alternatively, you can leave your comments on the blog.

Edit: ZDLSharp has had over 310 downloads to date! There’s over 30 installations of 3.0.5.2 to date as well. For more information on ZDLSharp, please visit the ZDLSharp wiki.

ZDLSharp Shift in Focus

I know, I know, ZDLSharp 3.0.5.0 offers a lot of features that you all really want. But first, I need to write some semi-related code. I’ve been starting on ZDL Sidekick, a cross platform console and GUI based ZDLSharp configuration launcher. It doesn’t offer the same GUI features of ZDLSharp, but will be cross platform (wx or console based) to provide everybody with access to ZDLSharp files.

There are some unique challenges that I proposed for ZDLSharp in the future, and required for ZDL Sidekick. Firstly, a non-destructive configuration reader. I’ve already started work on that, and it’s going really smoothly. I’m bringing in a few new features in ZDL Sidekick, like an enhanced ZDL configuration format called Extended ZDL Configuration. I’m going to try my best to provide backwards and forwards compatibility with ZDL, which should prove to be a challenge.

ZDLSharp 3.0.5.0

Tommorow night I should be releasing ZDLSharp 3.0.5.0, although no promises. While it’s been a week or so to do some minor fixes, it’s been a very busy week. I’m going to dedicate a large chunk of time tommorow to finishing of 3.0.5.0.

I’ve launched a new wiki website, at zdlsharp.vectec.net. Check it out, it has all kinds of interesting information, plus roadmaps. If you have any extra information to add, please feel free, or if you have any questions or suggestions, edit the talk/discussion pages.

I bought a $70 C# book a couple weeks ago. Unfortunatly I havn’t had a chance to look at it. Hopefully it’ll give me a few good tips on how to make ZDLSharp your favourite ZDoom program!

ZDLSharp and Mono

I tried to run ZDLSharp with Mono today. Unfortunatly, Mono won’t have support for Winforms until Q3 2007, so Linux users at locked out until then. Sorry!

That being said, once Winforms 2.0 is supported in Mono, I will be doing semi-regular tests in Linux to make sure everything is going fine. I also implemented a primitive Update Manager. Right now it only prompts the user if there’s a new version, but in the future it will be more complex. I have higher priorities with ZDLSharp right now :D.

ZDLSharp Design Goals

Currently in the pipeline for ZDLSharp, is:

• Add DMFlags generator to the interface
• Finish adding current ZDL features (multiplayer)
• Do code cleanup and refactoring/debugging
• Implement file hashing system
• Start implementation of ZDLNet
• Redesign the interface

Things will pretty much happen in that order. Bio and I will be working hard on ZDLNet, to make it as smooth and user friendly as possible. We’re going to open the actual protocol. The main protocol is going to be a centralized TCP server, and use UDP for connection testing and file transfers between users.

BioHazard adds:

My pipeline is:

• Read up again on network programming.
• Set up project server and backend server.
• Write central server software.
• Write a GTKmm client for ZDLNet. (Yay Linux support!)

I’ll be writing the server software since I have a bunch of servers floating around.
I’m really looking forward to seriously working with Q on a project.

Yay I’m back!

Hey everyone! /me waves
Now that I’ve returned from wherever I was at, I’m free to do cool stuff again.

I’m going to help Q with his ZDLNet thing. Q is cool. Yeah.
Heh, I’m not much of a blog writer. Does it show?

Oh, Q wanted me to tell all of you that I ate a cookie yesterday. It was a cheap house-brand generic chocolate chip cookie. I actually had 4 of them. Yum.

ZDLSharp Design Ideas

Well, I’ve started hacking away at ZDLSharp, so I figure I’d get some input from the people that will actually use it.

I’m announcing a network manager that will let people on the same LAN (and eventually across the internet) easily host and join games. To help keep file dependancies as easy a possible, I figure that I could index all the files in a certain directory, and keep an MD5 hash of the file (only rehashing if the modification times change). When a host creates a game, it can send that MD5 hash to the other users, and automatically select the files. If the correct hashes can’t be found, search by filename, and if that can’t be found, ask the user where to find the file. This should make it fairly painless if multiple people want to join a game.

What do you guys think? Any ideas you could contribute?

Online Comics

I enjoy comics as much as the next guy, in particular, I enjoy Ctrl+Alt+Del and VGCats. As for print comics, I like all the usuals: Dilbert, Jumpstart, Herman, etc. They just crack me up.

Stressful day at work today, for the most post, everything failed to compile correctly, and I found I didn’t actually have a version of a Java Compiler that… you know… worked. Sigh! That’s one of the reasons I like C so much.

I’m going to be working on ZDLSharp again soon in the near future. I’m aiming to get a release in the next 2 weeks, but we’ll see how that goes. Oh, and by release, I mean beta. There’s a lot of work to do, and I’d like to incorperate some interesting LAN features. Hopefully it will make a few… operations easier to do.

ZDLSharp

Well I have a pretty free weekend, so I plan to work on ZDLSharp. I have some new ideas I can put into it to make it work a bit better.

I’m also thinking of redesigning the interface. The old one is optimized for space, not for usability.

And also my factor program should be posted tommorow too. I made a lot of optimizations, so it factors really quickly.