Ok, I will think about that. While I could write a (text/audio/video) tutorial I'd prefer if the UI would provide enough guidance so one of the dumb pilots you are referring to can sort it out. Am a bit surprised that so many buttons might go missing, but then it is liikely to be a cause of not having Oolite Starter properly configured. You would need to select something from the list to get the details pane, and on the details pane there are some of the buttons.
I encourage you to prove me wrong: A screenshot with "then" and "now" side by side will help my decaying memory.
When I tried to start a new game (without a link to Oolite) I got a message saying:
Terminal ReadOut: [...]
Thank you for these details. They are all a direct consequence of OoliteStarter not being properly configured.
Similar to the first versions where we had to setup some file locations so that OoliteStarter knew where to find and how to start Oolite, this has to be done via the GUI. But you can create multiple such file location sets - called an Installation. And one of them as to be the active one.
Translation for you:
- Add at least one Oolite Installation (press the 'Add' button, fill in the paths and click ok').
- Select that installation and click the 'Activate' button.
Now when you go back to the 'Start Game' panel and hit the run button, you should either get Oolite running or get a different error message.
Maybe one of the items that might create confusion: I ordered the tabs by how often you would need them. Not in the sequence of the next steps.
Currently a novice user would have to start at the right and end up on the left side.
When I clicked on "Installations" and tried "Add", things started going weird! Oolite icons started appearing all over the jolly place, but not for any of my various Oolite versions themselves, and it seemed to be impossible to select any of them. Having failed there, I did not bother with trying to add in my various oxp and saved game folders.
Actually by the icons OoliteStarter tries to guide you where you can find Oolite related stuff. If that is everywhere for you, maybe select one of these items and some text should appear telling you why it relates to Oolite.
1) the folders with the Oolite applications don't light up with the Oolite logo (a very nice touch, by the way)
2) and this might be related to the fact that when I dig around inside the Oolite game "wrapper" (if that is the right word), the application itself is invisible.
I'm using a Macbook Air with MacOS Catalina (10.15.3)
Maybe Mr Gimlet could come to rescue here. We might want Disembodied's opinion and support in this case. He seems to know this guy quite well.
An example of this is Mr Gimlet, who is not a native of Lave, yet is the Dock Master on the Lave Coriolis.
It's always possible that Mr Gimlet is a native of Lave - just not a member of the majority species. A planet is a large place, and even the smallest backwater will not be as monolithically monocultural as it might appear on the F7 screen.
There is a chance that this is a trust problem which I cannot resolve Your Mac simply warns you that code, downloaded from the internet, can be malicious so the file gets quarantined. It needs to be addressed on user side.
When googling for the error message you mentioned I found these pages:
I tried the .pkg and it started normally! I am still in a state of shock!!
Your Mr Gimlet is a hoot! And his patter seems spot on!
It would help if he stayed up when I was trying to configure Oolite Starter (to remind me when I get so befuddled trying to find things that I forget the overall list of things to do). I think Office carried on working while Mr Clippy stayed up.
It might also be an idea to get Mr Gimlet to suggest where things might be lurking in the entrails of the AppleMac (if he stays up, that is).
BUT: Problems finding things to get OS running properly. Again, failed to locate the real Oolite application, and on locating the various folders, the Saved Games/OXPs therein were not registered by OS.
I tried the .pkg and it started normally! I am still in a state of shock!!
Oh, that is very welcome feedback. Finally we have something for the Apple Mac.
It means I can remove the zip file and we continue with this real pkg style distribution.
It would help if he stayed up when I was trying to configure Oolite Starter (to remind me when I get so befuddled trying to find things that I forget the overall list of things to do). I think Office carried on working while Mr Clippy stayed up.
It might also be an idea to get Mr Gimlet to suggest where things might be lurking in the entrails of the AppleMac (if he stays up, that is).
BUT: Problems finding things to get OS running properly. Again, failed to locate the real Oolite application, and on locating the various folders, the Saved Games/OXPs therein were not registered by OS.
Let's have a look together so I learn about the potential problem and we can brainstorm how to address that.
To rejig your in-game Expansions Manager to the new address, see here and a_c's following post.
(Cholmondeley 13:36, 29 March 2023 (BST))
Alternatively you can use Oolite Starter which updates the oxz list automatically
(and which also manages your oxps, and marries different cocktails of oxps and oxzs to your various saved games).
To rejig your in-game Expansions Manager to the new address, see here and a_c's following post.
(Cholmondeley 13:36, 29 March 2023 (BST))
Alternatively you can use Oolite Starter which updates the oxz list automatically
(and which also manages your oxps, and marries different cocktails of oxps and oxzs to your various saved games).
Now that we've got the Mac installer running it is worth testing Uninstall and Upgrade.
I've done a little demo of the Starter at the beginning of this week's Oolite episode, which comes out at noon US Pacific on Saturday 7/15.
Nice to hear. I take it that the project must have worked for you - at least to some degree. And I am interested to how you used it.
Why is there such a long lead time until the video is out?
It worked fairly well. The default directory locations didn't match the defaults for the game but I was able to point back to them easily enough. The starter did crash once when I was using Resume to start the game - I alt-tabbed away while it was loading Oolite and then Oolite crashed with an error (I can try to reproduce sometime this week). But if I didn't touch anything, it worked fine. I have some questions that I pose in the video, stuff I'm not certain about with how the Starter works so I didn't want to speculate or guess.
I recorded using the Starter as the first half of my regularly scheduled Oolite video, and I have those always scheduled to come out on Saturdays. I could have recorded it as a separate video and released it immediately, but I didn't really have time to do both the Starter and the regular video separately.
I'll link to the video when it comes out.
Here is my YouTube channel, where I play poorly: Arquebus X
It worked fairly well. The default directory locations didn't match the defaults for the game but I was able to point back to them easily enough.
That highly depends on the version and OS you ran on. I spent time during the last few releases to stabilize the detection of directories. They are different across operating systems. I do not know how Oolite configures itself.
The starter did crash once when I was using Resume to start the game - I alt-tabbed away while it was loading Oolite and then Oolite crashed with an error (I can try to reproduce sometime this week). But if I didn't touch anything, it worked fine.
I am pretty sure the issue is based on the Oolite wrapper script going interactive - this presumes you were running on Linux.
I found two such patterns in the script and created a PR - so far it is uncommented.
I have some questions that I pose in the video, stuff I'm not certain about with how the Starter works so I didn't want to speculate or guess.
I recorded using the Starter as the first half of my regularly scheduled Oolite video, and I have those always scheduled to come out on Saturdays. I could have recorded it as a separate video and released it immediately, but I didn't really have time to do both the Starter and the regular video separately.
@Cholmondely: Could you confirm that v0.1.15-xenoc.14 guesses the correct savegame directory on the Apple Mac?
Yes, it does...
The configuration is now so much easier than v.0.1.6...
- There is still no icon identifying the folders with the game applications inside. But the new "scan" button makes this less important. It is strange to see the icon for the saved games and the oxp's but not for the game itself! Mysteries of the wrapping, one presumes...
- There is still no icon identifying the folders with the game applications inside. But the new "scan" button makes this less important. It is strange to see the icon for the saved games and the oxp's but not for the game itself! Mysteries of the wrapping, one presumes...
Oh yes, that one should be fixed as well. I will look into it.
- There is still no icon identifying the folders with the game applications inside. But the new "scan" button makes this less important. It is strange to see the icon for the saved games and the oxp's but not for the game itself! Mysteries of the wrapping, one presumes...
Oh yes, that one should be fixed as well. I will look into it.
It does. Your renamed wrappers now come up with the icon (eg: Oolite 1.77.app). But the encompassing Oolite folder on my desktop does not.
And I wonder if it might make sense to add an "open" button beside the "select" button on the window for searching for the Oolite version's "Home Directory", etc.
