This is something I should have made a long time ago. You know, back when I still made caves and it'd actually be useful to me. Anyway, I posted the link a little below, and I'd appreciate it if you all'd download it, play around with it, and tell me what you think. I don't want you guys to mention any potential new features just yet, I just want to know if you can find any bugs, or anything that doesn't function in the way that you would perhaps expect it to.
Due to a forum bug, you'll probably have to copy that and paste it into your address bar.
To run that, you'll first have to extract that all into the same folder. If you can't extract zip files, download WinRAR: http://www.win-rar.com/download.html
You'll also need to make sure you have the latest version of Java: http://www.java.com
Inside, there's a file named cavemaker.bat, which you will double-click on the run the program. A cmd window will pop up and hang around with you the whole time as you use the cavemaker. Close it, and you close the cavemaker with it, so, just ignore it for now. If it comes up and then just goes away, then you (probably) have not, either, followed these steps properly, or you do not have the latest version of java on your computer. I'm working on a way to make it stand-alone, but for now this will suffice. Also, you can make a short-cut of the .bat file (right-click create shortcut, probably) and then you can paste that into wherever you'd like to be able to open the cavemaker from. Also note that, since this was coded in java, it should be able to run on systems other than Windows. I haven't seen fungus in a while, but if you see him, direct him here so I can get that straightened out. We might have to jump through a few hoops, but it should be able to run on his mac. Update: The cavemaker program is now in a jar file. You should be able to run it by double clicking but, if not, set java as the default program from opening jar files. The .bat is still there if needed.
I'm going to attempt to list some of the changes that I've made from the Neopets version. Here's what I could think of, in no particular order:
Spoiler:''List of Changes from the Neopets Version''
1 - You may open multiple caves at the same time within the same cavemaker window. This was done mainly done to help with copy/pasting between two caves, which, in the old cavemaker, was an absolute pain. I haven't done anything to prevent you from opening infinite windows just yet, and doing so will likely crash the program before too long. I did a test, and under the worst possible situation (1x8000 caves using all of their undo stack -- more on that in a sec), 10 open caves would function properly, but when you tried doing it to an 11th, boom! it explodes in an out-of-memory-error for the ages. Under normal situations, you will likely not see this occur (and if it does, let me know).
2 - The level properties were moved into their own separate window in the file menu. I mainly did this because, honestly, how often do you change the title, terrain, and water types? Like, once a cave, usually, right? It was just taking up space that could have been used to give you a larger grid. (BTW, I know the window is ugly.) I also moved width and height to this window. Width and Height get changed more often, and I hope people aren't too upset about this change. Ctrl+L brings up the level properties, if you need a shortcut.
3 - On the subject of changing dimensions, you can now make caves with dimensions larger than 1000. I didn't want to limit the size of a cave that you could make. Unfortunately, having an 8000x8000 grid is an insta-crash. So, I've made it so that, if you try to make a grid with more than 8000 tiles, it just won't go through. I can't see this being a problem, since 8000 tiles is bigger than you can upload anyway. Also as a consequence of this change, something likely less welcome -- stuff that you cut out of the cave in a dimension change will not be saved, and subsequently enlarging the cave will reveal only emptiness where cave used to be. It was necessary in order to allow very tall or skinny caves to be made. Also unfortunate, there's no easy way to change the dimensions to a specific size to combat the usual dimension changing guess-work, so I've both added a tooltip (where you hover your mouse for a bit and text shows up) showing the mouse's position in the grid (it goes row, column, and is zero-based, so add 1 to get the smallest width/height that will still include a certain tile), and I've made dimension changes undo-able. That paragraph verged on babble, so I hope you caught the gist of it.
4 - You can no longer set the background type. YAY!
5 - Multi-undo. You can now undo up to thirty times! I'd allow, say, infinite undo, but then, even under fairly normal conditions, you could crash the program in around 2500 edits (which isn't unreasonable for an 8000-tile cave).
6 - Support for Select All (ctrl-a), has been added.
7 - Save As!
8 - If you have modified the cave, you will be asked if you wish to save before closing!
9 - Water flow has been removed. Tutorial arrows' pictures have been fixed, and the code for water tap crates and water crates has been straightened out.
10 - New Tiles, clone and shockwave error, have been added. I'd suggest not using the latter particularly often, lol.
11 - You can now put multiple gems, hearts, and doors, and they will upload properly. You can also, however, put multiple water levels (still) and starting positions. I plan on making changes to this system later (noticed the greyed-out "options" menu?), but I've yet to decide what to do. How many settings should there be? Allow multiple gems/hearts/doors/water levels/starting positions, allow multiple gems/hearts/doors, allow multiple gems/hearts, and disallow multiples? Those could all have their uses, but I'd rather not make all of them. Maybe a separate "allow multiple" option for each tile would be best? Anyway, remember that, if you change the starting position, you have to go back and remove the old one.
12 - A border of terrain is not added by the view-text window. This is planned to be part of the options menu as well. There's a lot of things like this that are definitely things I'd like to include in the future, but put on hold until after I released it with at least the core-features intact.
13 - Not really a change, but I've yet to code allowing for caves that are too small or lack doors and starting positions. If you try to load such caves you will be told that the cavemaker doesn't yet support "ragged" caves (caves with different amounts of text on each line). Also, if you load a cave that has lines that are of different lengths, it will not be loaded. I'll also mention that I haven't added any checking to ensure that your cave will be accepted by the uploader, but I may add this in the future.
14 - There may also be some other, more subtle changes to the way that the interface works, that I hope you'll be able to get used to. If you can't, I may consider fixing them, but for now I think they're live-withable. For example, in the Neopet's cavemaker, pressing arrows keys will move you away from the anchor point, but in mine, you move from the lead (where you last ended your selection). Lots of "little" things like that.
15 - Stalagmite is now spelled correctly! WAHOO!
So yeah, try it out, and if there's anything that gets on your nerves, let me know I'll try making changes to it. I'll work on adding new features at an unspecified point in the future. For now, I'd like to ensure that this is working properly and there's nothing about it that people just hate to death.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 1''
- Changing dimensions would cause the grid to disappear until you move the frame.
- Saving a cave would not flag the cave as saved or modified. Meaning, if you tried to close the cave just after saving, it'd tell you it was modified when it wasn't, and, clicking save (not save as), after already saving the file, would one again bring up a save dialog.
- Clicking the x on an internal frame after modifying a cave, clicking cancel when asked to save, and then closing all windows (or the whole cavemaker, which closes all windows) would cause only one internal frame to be closed.
- Opening the level properties window and clicking OK after not changing any properties will no longer flag the cave as modified.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 2''
- After opening a level, subsequently undoing the very first edit no longer causes to default cave to appear, rather than the cave you loaded.
- The background behind the internal frames was darkened at acce's request.
- Loading/Saving caves was not properly closing the file stream, meaning you wouldn't be able to edit/delete the file that you loaded/saved until closing the cavemaker.
- Caves with a width of 0 could be loaded, even though the level properties window does not permit this. I disallowed it, but size 0 caves don't seem to crash... I may reallow it. The real bug was loading large caves, which was also still allowed. Yeah, I forgot the check the dimensions. You could probably cause an out of memory error pretty quick with this.
- The file chooser now asks you to confirm before saving over an existing file.
- You can no longer use enter to set tiles . There may be an alternative way of doing this soon.
- You can now choose whether or not to allow yourself to set multiple copies of gems, hearts, starting positions, doors, and water levels. Multiple Gems and Hearts are allowed by default, and, also unlike in the original cavemaker, having multiple water levels is disabled by default. Multiple doors does have it's purposes (I used it in Cherries Rock!, if you look closely), but it's disabled by default. Starting positions were included just because everything else needed to be.
- You can now choose to add a border around your cave when viewing the text. This and all other text-formatting options are not saved into the text file. To upload them, you'll have to view it through the cavemaker. Enabled by default.
- You can now choose to append additional text to the bottom of caves that would be too small to upload normally. I might not have the minimum set right just yet (I have to look it up in the manual, lol -- Acce, are you SURE you got the minimum and maximum right?), but it seems to be working. Enabled by default.
- You can now choose to append Doors and/or Starting Positions to the bottom of caves that do not contain them in order to get past the uploader. Enabled by default. This and other options do not save and will need to be reset upon each load of the cavemaker. I will likely change this in the future.
- The loader now ignores lines that aren't the same length as the first. If you save after loading a cave like this, those lines will be lost. The only purpose of lines of different lengths is to get caves past the uploader that the new options now account for.
- Black background behind some tiles has been removed. You can now tell the platforms apart! Well, unless they're in the black grid, in which case, you'll have to highlight to see.
- The previous function of enter has been moved to insert (or shift insert, if you prefer).
- Forgot/didn't know to remove JTable's default function for SHIFT+ENTER.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 3''
- You can now press alt+character to set any tile except for empty tiles. Alt+Space conflicts with a combination used by all windows. It's not too bad, 'cause you can already use backspace or delete, and other of those are easier than alt+space. I also had to take away mnemonics for the menus, since, say, Alt+W would bring up the window menu instead of setting a spike.
- Fixed major bug with undo/redo where it wouldn't work if the width was smaller than the height.
- Pressing Enter from anywhere in the level properties window now acts the same as pressing the OK button.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 4''
- The cavemaker now saves the directory where you last opened/saved a cave. Next time you open the cavemaker, open and save will default to the location.
- The cavemaker also saves the file paths of every open cave with an associated file path. Next time you open the cavemaker, the cavemaker will attempt to open all of these cave.
- Options can now be set individually for each cave. Currently, openning a new cave gives you the default options, and there is still no way to change what these defaults are.
- The options are now saved along with the file paths to the open caves. This means that, as long as you don't close the cave's window inside the cavemaker, the options will be retained for as long as needed.
- I have added tooltips to the tile select bar that tell you the key-combination that would result in those tiles being set.
- I have expanded the memory afforded to my program, and I'm now allowing 10 open caves with 100 undos. Let me know if your computer has problems handling this amount of memory.
- I added a new feature called "Load From Username". If you're connected to the internet, you just type in a username, and the level currently uploaded to that account is loaded directly into the cavemaker. Neat! You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
- In a similar vein, "Load From Gallery". Type in the gallery ID number (check the end of the URL when viewing the cave in the gallery) to have the cave, once again, loaded directly into the cavemaker. WOAH!
- Fixed a minor bug that would prevent strange, but still valid, water/terrain/background types from being accepted.
- The scroller should stay in place now, when undoing and changing dimensions. Let me know if anything weird happens with the scroller, particularly when making the dimensions smaller while viewing the farther reaches of the cave.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 5''
- Fixed a bug where pasting between different terrain types were messing up.
- Fixed a bug where caves opened automatically when loading the cavemaker weren't having their frames initially focused. This also fixed bugs (but I fixed it another way too, so it can't happen again) where you could do strange things with the options before bringing a frame into focus.
- The code is now included, so you can take a look at it and barf at its disgusting.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 6''
- Fixed a bug where saving using a save-as dialog wouldn't probably set the current directory for the next time that you loaded the cavemaker and used a load/save dialog.
- Fixed a bug where the program wouldn't load on anything but pretty-much Windows.
- Fixed a bug where, even with its "allow multiple" unchecked, you could set multiples by setting a rectangle's-worth of them instead of just a single tile.
- Livio just made a bunch of changes to the level galleries, and as such, the "load from gallery" option is now broken. This has been fixed, and as well, it has been renamed to "load from user-level database", with the mnemonic changed from "g" to "d".
- When you save a cave, the title of the cave, plus ".txt" is now defaulted into the box, as long as the cave hasn't been saved already. I mainly did this so that, when I add "Save All", you'll know (or at least have a better chance of knowing -- hopefully you don't have a bunch of open caves with the same name) what cave you are saving?
- Apparently, clicking the x on the dialog that asks you if you want to save when you cave was modified, is the same as clicking no? I changed that, anyway, so now it's the same as clicking cancel. Also, clicking the x on the dialog that asks you if you want to overwrite a file in the save-as dialog, was the same a clicking yes, so I changed that to be the same as clicking no. I -thought- I'd tested this, but I guess I was wrong...
- Fixed a bug where terrain types would revert to what you originally set them as, when doing dimension changes.
- It should now no longer be possible to set disallowed multiples using copy/pasting, as it was in the original cavemaker. To get multiples, allow it in the "Allow Muliples" menu. If copy/pasting multiple disallowed multiples, the first one that's pasted, in reading order, will be the only one to remain.
- Added a Save All feature, which attempts to save all open caves. If a cave does not have a filepath, you will be presented with a save dialog.
- Because of the weird behaviour that could arise when combined with Save All, it is no longer possible to save over a file that is currently open in the cavemaker.
- Related, you may no longer open a second copy of the same file, when it is already open in the cavemaker. If you try to, you will be informed of this, and the currently-open version will be brought into focus.
- A mangled error message that occurred when opening real but non-txt files (you have to manually type in the path for this to happen) has been corrected. With all these changes to how saving works, I highly suggest exercising caution when using this update. I know I accidentally erased several files (like my back-up copy of "Trapped in the dark") while I was first testing the save all feature.
- Added an "Allow Multiple" for the ghost enemy, since at most one will ever appear in the level. Defaulted to disallowed, I guess. It is useless, but it could throw people off who don't know only one can ever appear.
- Fixed a bug where it was possible to add tiles to a cave while it was minimized.
- When redoing/undoing/changing dimensions, the currently-selected area's anchor point remains selected. When it is dimension-changed offscreen, the anchor point is moved to the position closest to where it used to be. This is also what happens in the Neopet's cavemaker. The main reason it was added was so that, after you redo/undo/change dimensions, and then if you pressed the arrow keys to move around, you don't get warped to the upper-left corner.
- The cavemaker now remembers if it was maximized the last time it was closed and sets it to continue to be maximized when opened again. I decided against going through the hassle to also remember unmaximized size, screen position, as well as all of this properties of the internal frames.
- Fixed a bug where, in the level properties window, pressing enter to select a terrain/water type is the same as pressing OK on the whole window, and not just the terrain/water type selection.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 7''
- I completely forgot to disable/enable the save all button. It shouldn't matter too much, since, if there's no caves open (which is when it'd be disabled), there's nothing it can do anyway.
- Fixed a bug where the close all button would disable if all the open windows were minimized.
- Slightly changed the way the view text window is created. With that change, I am now able to manually set the font type, without causing any layout problems. Now, people who's textareas didn't use a mono-space font, by default, should now see the cavecode in mono-space.
- At last, the terrain type combo box displays (almost) correctly! You have no idea how long this has alluded me...
- I removed the restrictions that limited the size of the cave that you were allowed to make. Every time you attempt to load or create a cave larger than 8000 tiles (or increase the size of an already opened cave that is above that limit) you will be asked to confirm before doing so. The warning (that there could be slow performance or that you could get an out of memory error, which could result in the loss of data) is to be heeded.
- Attempted to improve the performance of the cave saving and view map as text operations. I don't think there are any problems but you might want to back up caves that you save in this version until you feel comfortable that there aren't. View map as Text is very prone to out of memory errors with larger caves and can still take a semi-long time to appear -- with especially large caves I recommend saving and opening the text file, as saving is nearly instantaneous and shouldn't crash the program.
- Fixed a couple typos with the word "Openning".
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 8''
- I'm using something called a .jar file. It should hopefully be double-click runnable but, if it's not, I've changed the .bat so that should be able to run the jar file. If it doesn't double-click run, it should be possible for you to set it up so that it does, but when I tried just setting Java as the default program for a .jar, I couldn't get it to work for some reason? Anyway, now the cmd window won't be hanging around in the background. It should double-click run on other systems too, maybe? So test that out and let me know if the .jar is giving you any problems. I moved the .java file with the code into the .jar file too just so there's less files floating around.
- I added zoom. 100%, 75%, 50%, 37.5%, and 25% options. I put zoom in and zoom out options too so you can use the keyboard shortcuts for those. I caused some memory leak or something with the images so I had to add something to manually clear those out. It was a bit buggy at first, so let me know if you get any weird problems.
- I had to change the text-based images over to a single letter so that you could still read them while zoomed out. It might take some adjusting to get used to seeing "S" instead of "secretsecretsecretsecret". The rest of the text images are single letters now too.
- I changed the way the cavemaker displays clone objects. They now appear as what they will appear as in-game, only transparent. If you highlight them they will just show up as clone objects. Maybe that might be a little weird but at least how you can easily tell what your fake crates are doing. If you place one in the top left it'll show up as a shockwave error instead.
Spoiler:''Changes in Update 9 (Current Version)''
- I'm clearly not going to make some weird hybrid pirate/ice cavemaker, so I've decided to just leave them separate, but from now on they'll at least be zipped up together. Also, I moved the images inside the .jar files so that's one less folder floating around.
- Undo/Redo now flags the cave as modified.
- The zoom level in the options menu could sometimes display an incorrect level of zoom when switching between open caves.
- The Cavemaker mistakenly believed that Air Pockets could be cloned.
- Fixed an oversight where a clone in the top-left showed a shockwave error instead of terrain if Add Terrain Border is selected.
- Fixed bug where open/save wasn't defaulting to the caves folder at first.
- The words "terrain", "water", and "background" are actually not required to be spelled correctly by the game, so I decided to allow them to load. (Quick aside, in HATPC, invalid water types can sometimes function if used in a certain way, but I've opted not to support this. It's a quick manual edit if you need it.)
- K and V are now capitalized in the cave text, to increase compatibility with Neopets' Cavemaker. The first instance of L and G will also be capitalized from now on.
- Added Ctrl+0 shortcut for 100% zoom. Added a couple minor menu shortcuts you won't notice.
- Got rid of the 20-character limit for titles. (Uploader might complain if you go for it.)
- (HATPC Only) I got rid of some outdated code that put an apostrophe for your title in if you didn't put one in yourself. That trick stopped working ages ago. It defaults to "Untitled" from now on.
- I decided to move all of the enemies to the bottom of the tile list so that, when I add tutorial messages in HATPC, all of those Shockwave Error tiles won't get in the way as much. Applied that change to HATIC for no real reason.
- (HATPC Only) Added Tutorial Message capability.
-- That ugly level properties window is even worse now that there are 10 more textboxes in it. I decided to just let you save tutorial messages even if the cave isn't a tutorial.
-- There's a box where you can set how many tutorial messages your cave has. This was my way of telling the difference between having tutorial messages with nothing in them, and tutorial messages that crash the game. Who am I to tell you that shockwave errors that pop up if you get too close isn't legitimate gameplay? The textboxes will enable and disable based on that number. Any text in disabled boxes will be cleared if you hit OK. It defaults to 10 but if your cave isn't a tutorial and you don't bother to fill in any messages, the number will be ignored and taken as 0.
-- The tile select bar and the tiles in your cave update to reflect whether or not the title contains the string "tutorial" (case insensitive) and how many tutorial messages your cave is set to have. If you have messages configured, it'll write them into the tile selector so you don't have to constantly check which message is which.
-- To add tutorial messages to cavecode, you must put a ? at the start of any line. From then on, as long as the line for the tutorial message exists, you won't get a shockwave error. For the message itself, the first string of non-whitespace characters until the next whitespace on each line is removed (similar to what is done for the words "terrain", "background", and "water"), and what's left is trimmed of whitespace to become your tutorial message.
-- I mean I had to adjust a few more things to get the messages to work properly but it's not worth listing every minor thing.
- (HATIC Only) If a ? is encountered at the start of a line when loading a cave, all remaining text is ignored.
- Changes made to tutorial messages, but also the title, terrain type, and water type now go onto the undo stack and can be undone/redone.
I've uploaded a new update at the usual link: http://www.freewebs.com/cavehelp/cavemaker.zip
There wasn't anything particularly major in this update, but all the small changes were starting to add up. I think the biggest change was probably to fix the "load from gallery" feature, which has been broken ever since Livio revamped the galleries.
Here's a complete list of he changes, per the log I keep in the first post:
- Fixed a bug where saving using a save-as dialog wouldn't probably set the current directory for the next time that you loaded the cavemaker and used a load/save dialog.
- Fixed a bug where the program wouldn't load on anything but pretty-much Windows.
- Fixed a bug where, even with its "allow multiple" unchecked, you could set multiples by setting a rectangle's-worth of them instead of just a single tile.
- Livio just made a bunch of changes to the level galleries, and as such, the "load from gallery" option is now broken. This has been fixed, and as well, it has been renamed to "load from user-level database", with the mnemonic changed from "g" to "d".
- When you save a cave, the title of the cave, plus ".txt" is now defaulted into the box, as long as the cave hasn't been saved already. I mainly did this so that, when I add "Save All", you'll know (or at least have a better chance of knowing -- hopefully you don't have a bunch of open caves with the same name) what cave you are saving?
- Apparently, clicking the x on the dialog that asks you if you want to save when you cave was modified, is the same as clicking no? I changed that, anyway, so now it's the same as clicking cancel. Also, clicking the x on the dialog that asks you if you want to overwrite a file in the save-as dialog, was the same a clicking yes, so I changed that to be the same as clicking no. I -thought- I'd tested this, but I guess I was wrong...
- Fixed a bug where terrain types would revert to what you originally set them as, when doing dimension changes.
- It should now no longer be possible to set disallowed multiples using copy/pasting, as it was in the original cavemaker. To get multiples, allow it in the "Allow Muliples" menu. If copy/pasting multiple disallowed multiples, the first one that's pasted, in reading order, will be the only one to remain.
- Added a Save All feature, which attempts to save all open caves. If a cave does not have a filepath, you will be presented with a save dialog.
- Because of the weird behaviour that could arise when combined with Save All, it is no longer possible to save over a file that is currently open in the cavemaker.
- Related, you may no longer open a second copy of the same file, when it is already open in the cavemaker. If you try to, you will be informed of this, and the currently-open version will be brought into focus.
- A mangled error message that occurred when opening real but non-txt files (you have to manually type in the path for this to happen) has been corrected. With all these changes to how saving works, I highly suggest exercising caution when using this update. I know I accidentally erased several files (like my back-up copy of "Trapped in the dark") while I was first testing the save all feature.
- Added an "Allow Multiple" for the ghost enemy, since at most one will ever appear in the level. Defaulted to disallowed, I guess. It is useless, but it could throw people off who don't know only one can ever appear.
- Fixed a bug where it was possible to add tiles to a cave while it was minimized.
- When redoing/undoing/changing dimensions, the currently-selected area's anchor point remains selected. When it is dimension-changed offscreen, the anchor point is moved to the position closest to where it used to be. This is also what happens in the Neopet's cavemaker. The main reason it was added was so that, after you redo/undo/change dimensions, and then if you pressed the arrow keys to move around, you don't get warped to the upper-left corner.
- The cavemaker now remembers if it was maximized the last time it was closed and sets it to continue to be maximized when opened again. I decided against going through the hassle to also remember unmaximized size, screen position, as well as all of this properties of the internal frames.
- Fixed a bug where, in the level properties window, pressing enter to select a terrain/water type is the same as pressing OK on the whole window, and not just the terrain/water type selection.
I know I accidentally erased several files (like my back-up copy of "Trapped in the dark") while I was first testing the save all feature.
OH NOES!
Quote:
- When redoing/undoing/changing dimensions, the currently-selected area's anchor point remains selected. When it is dimension-changed offscreen, the anchor point is moved to the position closest to where it used to be. This is also what happens in the Neopet's cavemaker. The main reason it was added was so that, after you redo/undo/change dimensions, and then if you pressed the arrow keys to move around, you don't get warped to the upper-left corner.
What would you say to me adding a key-combination to increase/decrease the dimensions by one? I'm not sure how well it'd work, since changing dimensions is probably the most expensive operation there is, and you shouldn't do large changes with it, since each change would take another slot in your undos. And then if you mess up, just changing the dimensions back wouldn't cut it; you'd actually have to undo... But it'd help with the annoying trips to the level properties menu that you have to keep making.
If I add it, what should the key-combination be? I don't know if I could make it listed anywhere, so it'd have to be obscure enough that you don't use it accidentally. I was thinking the arrow keys could work; left is -1 width, right is +1 width, up is -1 height, and down is +1 height, but then, whatever the key-combination is, you might accidentally use it when trying to move around the grid, since shift and control actually do stuff when you hold them down and navigate around the grid. Alt is usually used to set tiles, but I guess it could be alt...
If possible I'd rather see a slightly reworked dimensions system, based on an anchor point, like in this picture:
Spoiler:
The standard acnhor point in the current Cavemaker is top-left corner. However, pretend that I wanted to extend the cave to the left, then I'd have to cut and paste the whole cave to the right to get the same effect. If you're able to change the anchor point it'd be easier - just set the anchor point to somewhere like middle-right, and you can change the width to the left without problems.
That's... ummm... Complicated. What I was suggesting is almost a simple as a method call to setDimensions(). Even with your system, though, you still need to either visit a dialog of take up valuable space in the main window. I think I know what you mean, though. For even-numbered-lengthed caves, with the anchors in the center, and I extend the length by one, where will the new tiles be appearing? At the left or the right?
The shortcuts (alt+up, perhaps) could instead open a input box where you enter the amount of tiles to extend the cave in that direction by, allowing negative numbers. That's not much better, honestly, but at least I don't have to make this crazy dialog.
I'll think about your idea, but still, right now, I'm talking about these shortcuts to the dimensions, so that you can make some d-changes without having to pull up the level properties dialog. Would you like being about to change dimensions in this manner? What key-combination should be used?
talking about teh version uploaded to the side - I think we should add a 'download cavemaker' link in the left sidebar. see, if you don't remember exactly where it is(like me) and you don't wanna use this thread in order to get to the download, you may have alittle problem finding it. try it now, if you don't remember where it is...
If it comes up and then just goes away, then you (probably) have not, either, followed these steps properly, or you do not have the latest version of java on your computer
Ok, this is really making me mad. Ever since this has been released I've always had the problem of the box dissipearing when I try to run the batch file. Since I'm not getting anywhere alone I'll describe in detail what I'm doing.
1. Downloaded it.
2. Went in Zip Folder I clicked on batch file. Clicked on extract all and put everything in a folder called "cavemaker x"
3. To even increase my chances of making it work, I went staight to www.java.com and downloaded the newest version right on the homepage.
4. In the extracted folder with the newest java I clicked on the batch file and pressed run.
5. The black window comes up and quickly dissipears. Then I start imagining my computer maniacly laughing at me.
So dare I ask, am I missing something? I'd hate to make this long post for some stupid mistake, but I really do need help on this. Even with following the instructions and the newest Java the black box went away. What the **** am I doing wrong? Please enlighten me.
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Yep I did this today too. The only thing that is sometimes different for me is when I haven't tried it for a while and it waits quite a while with one line of writing then after half a minute about 5 more lines quickly appear and the box closes and then after that it seems to ralise it has already done it and goes away faster.
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Ok, this is really making me mad. Ever since this has been released I've always had the problem of the box dissipearing when I try to run the batch file. Since I'm not getting anywhere alone I'll describe in detail what I'm doing.
When that box disappears, it's because the program has ended. You will notice that the same thing happens when you close the cavemaker -- the box disappears. In this case, though, the program is ending because of some error. What would be really helpful is if you could tell me what this error is. The only problem with that is, the box disappears way to quickly for you to have any chance of reading the output.
I have a procedure for you to follow in order to obtain this error. These instructions only apply if you are using windows, which, if that bat file is double-click-runnable, I'd be willing to bet you are. These instructions will work best if you're using a more recent version of windows, but they might work as far back as XP. I have XP at hand, in case I need to double-check.
Instead of double-clicking the batch file, open command prompt. If the drive that is displayed is not the same as the drive where the cavemaker is stored, typed the name of the drive where the cavemaker is stored (like "C:" for example). Then, type cd (stands for "change directory") followed by a space, and then followed by the full path of the directory where the file is located (in your case, this path ends with the "cavemaker x" directory that you mentioned, but what you can do is, right-click on any file in the cavemaker x directory, go to properties, and then copy the entire contents of the "location" field, and paste that in after the cd -- note, to paste, you will likely have to go right-click/paste instead of using, say, Ctrl+V). Finally, copy/paste "java -Xms32m -Xmx200m Cavemaker" into the cmd window (again, likely, you'll have to right-click/paste) and press enter. At this point the Cavemaker should run (or not run, in your case).
Copy/paste to me the error that occurs. One complication is, if you didn't follow these steps correctly, the error that occurs will not be the error that is stopping the batch file from working. An alternate idea could be to run the batch file, and then take a screenshot at the precise moment before the window disappears (good luck with that), paste that into paint, and then type up the error that you see.
'Harumbai' said:
Yep I did this today too. The only thing that is sometimes different for me is when I haven't tried it for a while and it waits quite a while with one line of writing then after half a minute about 5 more lines quickly appear and the box closes and then after that it seems to realize it has already done it and goes away faster.
So it's not working for you either? Try following the same process that I described for Yaya, and tell me the error that occurs. Also, that "realizing it's already done it before" thing is actually something that happens, and it's pretty much just how you described it. I don't really know enough about how it works to accurately describe what's happening, but after running the Cavemaker for the first time, it should load faster on subsequent loads, at least until you turn off your computer.
Ok I managed to Screenshot it, it didn't actually take very long.
The Box reads just before it closes:
D:\Xander\cavemaker>java -Xms32m -Xmx200m Cavemaker
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Cavemaker
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Cavemaker
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)
Yep I really have no idea what that means, but hopefully it makes sense to you .
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I deleted the Cavemaker.class file from my own directory, and the following error occurred:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Cavemaker
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Cavemaker
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)
Look familiar? Since it's not a problem caused within my own program, that stack trace isn't very helpful. The most important part is "java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Cavemaker". What it's saying is it can't find the Cavemaker.class file. Check the cavemaker folder, and ensure that, within it (and not within any further folders or zip files and the like), there exists a file named "Cavemaker.class". It has to be named exactly like that. You also can't have edited the contents in any way, but I doubt you've even gone anywhere near it. Most likely, what's happened is that you have not properly extracted the contents of the cavemaker zip file into the same folder. Make sure that every file that existed within the zip file now exists within the cavemaker folder.
If that folder really does contain a Cavemaker.class file, then, well... *hides*.
Lol, programming isn't my pile of **** to be messing around with. I was just pretty proud of myself for finding the command prompt, lol. I tried following your instructions and every tome either came up with "system path can't be specified" or "java isn't runnable and a internal/external/batch file. I'm doing something wrong aren't I?
COMING SOON: A giant meteor. Please.
Give me +karma. Give me +karma.
Yaya:
That "system path can't be specified" thing confused me, until I realized it was probably supposed to have said "system cannot find the path specified", which I imagine would have occurred during the changing directory aspect of the instructions. Once you're in the correct drive, type cd, followed by a space, and then the "location" of the file (found by right-clicking on any file in the cavemaker folder, clicking on "properties", and copy/pasting the "location" from there). If it STILL tells you that it can't find the path, maybe tell me exactly what you're typing. Typically, it'd be something like "cd C:\iambeowulf\cavemaker\".
I never managed to get quite the same error you reported with that whole "java isn't runnable" thing, but when I type something other than java (and by that I mean, something that doesn't exist), like, dkjhdf, for example, I get the following error: "'dkjhdf' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." If that's the same error that you were getting, but in different words, it could mean that you don't have java installed on your computer. You downloaded java, but are you sure it's installed? If you go to java.com, click download now, and you're not told that you have the recommended version of java installed on your computer, then java has not been installed.
Harumbai:
I just noticed, that instead of typing that garbage that I told you to type before, once navigating to the correct folder, you can just type "Cavemaker.bat" to get the same results. If doing this gives you a different error than what you were getting when you typed out the whole thing (like, instead it says "Cavemaker.bat is not a recognized blahblahblah"), then most certainly you've not extracted the files correctly or you're in the wrong folder or something. The good news for you is that you do have java on your computer. I can't really say whether or not it's a new enough version, but if you'd just downloaded, I don't see why it wouldn't be. Anyway, if you can get the same error as before, I guess all I can ask for is a screenshot of your cavemaker folder? Actually, even if you don't get the same error, then a screenshot might help in identifying what part of the extracting of the files has gone awry.