Oolite Bulletins

skodarap wrote:

Anyway, as far as compatibility goes, things are pretty unclear (or hidden) - that column is not really that obvious to the new person,

Feedback like this is very helpful as we need to convey information in a clear and useful manner. I wonder if it would be possible to colour the row based on compatibility or something more obvious?

maik wrote:

skodarap wrote:

From a perspective of new player that done the same mistake (downloaded couple of oxp's that weren't compatible with 1.74.2) - I only noticed that C column after I read posts in this thread.

When you say "weren't compatible with 1.74.2", does that mean that they indeed did not work or only that they were not clearly marked as compatible with 1.74.2?

Well, when I first started oolite after installing it I got a message "Total Patrol not compatible with this version" (or something similar) and after that I removed it.

skodarap wrote:

Anyway, as far as compatibility goes, things are pretty unclear (or hidden) - that column is not really that obvious to the new person, and in the oxp page you can usually see only versions that are supported; for example "Total Patrol" - on wiki page it says: "Total_patrol oxp v 1.2 runs on Oolite 1.73." but it doesn't say it's not compatible with 1.74.2.

I agree it is confusing. How is a new player to know that OXPs which work with 1.73 are most likely going to work with 1.74 as well?

Yeah, that's the logic I was using when browsing trough the OXP's. Even downloaded couple of old versions since my graphic card doesn't support shaders to find out they don't work - after that I just updated it to the newest version and everything was ok.

Well, as far as notifying new users which OXP's may not be compatible, why don't you just add warning to the top of the wiki page - just like that one that says that some OXP's were made obsolete by armory oxp. I think that's the most obvious way to do it and most difficult to ignore.

mcarans wrote:

skodarap wrote:

Anyway, as far as compatibility goes, things are pretty unclear (or hidden) - that column is not really that obvious to the new person,

Feedback like this is very helpful as we need to convey information in a clear and useful manner. I wonder if it would be possible to colour the row based on compatibility or something more obvious?

I was thinking in the same direction. Then again, we have our table section for problematic OXPs. Moving incompatible ones down there should be obvious enough.

skodarap wrote:

Well, when I first started oolite after installing it I got a message "Total Patrol not compatible with this version" (or something similar) and after that I removed it.

Thanks, I added this information to its Wiki page and also moved the OXP from the main OXP list to the problematic OXPs section.

skodarap wrote:

Well, as far as notifying new users which OXP's may not be compatible, why don't you just add warning to the top of the wiki page - just like that one that says that some OXP's were made obsolete by armory oxp. I think that's the most obvious way to do it and most difficult to ignore.

True. Just let us know if you find more incompatibilities and we'll add appropriate warnings for the unsuspecting downloader.

maik wrote:

skodarap wrote:

Well, when I first started oolite after installing it I got a message "Total Patrol not compatible with this version" (or something similar) and after that I removed it.

Thanks, I added this information to its Wiki page and also moved the OXP from the main OXP list to the problematic OXPs section.

Why have I bothered to write a lengthy explanation about why the message on the Oolite start screen is not related to compatibility in any way, and that there is not the slightest problem as such with Total Patrol.oxp just a couple of posts above here (ten, to be precise; and it wasn't in the mythical past, but yesterday)? At least the maintainers of the OXP list could be expected to actually read this thread and remember what they read until the very next day, couldn't they?

Commander McLane wrote:

maik wrote:

skodarap wrote:

Well, when I first started oolite after installing it I got a message "Total Patrol not compatible with this version" (or something similar) and after that I removed it.

Thanks, I added this information to its Wiki page and also moved the OXP from the main OXP list to the problematic OXPs section.

Why have I bothered to write a lengthy explanation about why the message on the Oolite start screen is not related to compatibility in any way, and that there is not the slightest problem as such with Total Patrol.oxp just a couple of posts above here (ten, to be precise; and it wasn't in the mythical past, but yesterday)? At least the maintainers of the OXP list could be expected to actually read this thread and remember what they read until the very next day, couldn't they?

In fact, I did. I went back to your post to read the explanation again to make sure what I do is right. If I may quote yourself back to you:

Commander McLane wrote:

The side effect is that you can't use it in 1.74

There is no ambiguity in this sentence. Even if the OXP would work under 1.74 when the limitation inside the OXP were removed it doesn't at the moment. So it doesn't belong to the main OXP list but into the list of problematic OXPs until there is a fixed version available.

Commander McLane wrote:

maik wrote:

skodarap wrote:

Well, when I first started oolite after installing it I got a message "Total Patrol not compatible with this version" (or something similar) and after that I removed it.

Thanks, I added this information to its Wiki page and also moved the OXP from the main OXP list to the problematic OXPs section.

Why have I bothered to write a lengthy explanation about why the message on the Oolite start screen is not related to compatibility in any way, and that there is not the slightest problem as such with Total Patrol.oxp just a couple of posts above here (ten, to be precise; and it wasn't in the mythical past, but yesterday)? At least the maintainers of the OXP list could be expected to actually read this thread and remember what they read until the very next day, couldn't they?

Well, I installed it and tried it out long before I found this forum ("useful").

I just stumbled across the fact that almost none of Sabre's OXPs are on the list. He is credited as the original author of Dredgers.oxp, and Velocity.oxp can be found in the list. But that's it.

What about such once-famous ship OXPs as the Tardis, Shreddies (I am reasonably certain that those two were on the ship list at some time; Shreddies still is in two tables, but without a link), or The Liberator? Or the Biosphere station?

If somebody could be so good as to include them, that would be very nice. All of Sabre's OXPs can be found for download on his site, which I happened to re-discover today. Much of the info here on the boards has unfortunately vanished due to the dreaded auto-deletion mechanism (which is no longer in place, for those of you who get afraid now). The bits that still exist can be found through the search function, or through Sabre's user page.

The reason they were not included is that they did not appear in the previous OXP list/table, on which the current one was based.
There do not seem to be Wiki entries for any of them, and the download site you've linked to has no information other than the links. Also Sabre seems to have been inactive since July 2007 when he made his last BB post.

As we have no information regarding the OXPs , their compatibility with Oolite v1.74.2, or any indication they are being maintained, I feel they should not be added to the main table at this time.
I will PM Sabre to see if I get any response, and take it from there. They could perhaps be listed in the 'OXPs with problems' table.

Smivs wrote:

.... Also Sabre seems to have been inactive since July 2007 when he made his last BB post.

As we have no information regarding the OXPs , their compatibility with Oolite v1.74.2, or any indication they are being maintained, I feel they should not be added to the main table at this time.
I will PM Sabre to see if I get any response, and take it from there. They could perhaps be listed in the 'OXPs with problems' table.

Sabre mailed me a PM last at june 2008, so though he didn't post anything after July 2007, he still might be following things.

About not publishing his work on the wiki, you are right. The wiki should only contain tested work. The stuff on his site is mostly alpha work. Although the models are nice, the code was full off bugs. e,g. the dredgers version there needed some work to get a correct working version.
Also the Liberator.oxp had several bugs. In the version added in RS, these bugs were fixed.

Mind you, it would be a great opportunity to create a work in progress OXP page on the wiki, specifically for stuff their author is quite happy for other people to finish off...

Kaks wrote:

Mind you, it would be a great opportunity to create a work in progress OXP page on the wiki, specifically for stuff their author is quite happy for other people to finish off...

There is a section on the table for WIP OXPs, but this is mainly for Beta releases etc. The concept of an 'adoption' page is a good one, but of course the author would need to give consent and where the author has disappeared this may be a problem.

Resurrecting an old thread...

As I proposed here, I would like to clean up the [wiki]OXP List[/wiki] again, namely

• removing the "Licensing Problems" section and putting the OXPs in its list back into the main list
• removing the "OXP difficulty" section and instead joining content with the "OXP difficulties" section on the [wiki]OXP[/wiki] page
• additionally I propose to move the "OXP Categories" section to the bottom of the page and mention it at the top. That way, the actually important content (the list) moves directly to the top. Alternative: move the OXP Categories to their own page.

Comments?

maik wrote:

... additionally I propose to move the "OXP Categories" section to the bottom of the page and mention it at the top.

I'd agree with that, master wizard - my first stop for OXP info is always the list itself.

I agree and propose to move the "Work in Progress" and "OXPs with Problems" sections to another page and leave a link here only due to these are not usable ones.