Oolite Bulletins

Hello,JUST downloaded the game and am in TOTAL retroheaven...I had Elite on the Electron,and feel 7 years old again.

Im trying to install the oxps and am having difficulty,as the add ons folder says it cant be modified or somthing,Im not a IT expert by a LOOOOOOOOOng shot,Im a thickie when It comes to techie stuff. (Hey Im a musician,if it has strings,I can play it for you!)

clear help needed please,the Black Monks oxp,looks great fun!

(loving how this game has grown in the 20 years since I 1st played it!..any chance it will become online?)

Are you on the Mac?

Sorry I'm on the PC, but there can be a problem on the Mac installing your first OXP, due to some Mac-ish OS settings thing! Go to the bottom of the OXP page on the Wiki and there are some trouble shooting instructions.

Im on a Mac running OSX 10.4.10

Hi Commander, and welcome! You can find some troubleshooting tops on the OXP Wiki page. It sounds like you're having a Mac problem: the tip on the page reads:

Troubleshooting: If you get an error saying "The item could not be moved because "AddOns" cannot be modified", that can happen if you weren't the user that installed Oolite. The solution is to put the OXP's of your choice in ~/Library/Application Support/Oolite/AddOns/ instead (you may need to create this folder). The error could also be triggered because you’re running from the disk image, you’ll need to copy the game somewhere else. Having done so, if you still get the error, use the Get Info command on the AddOns folder, open the Ownership & Permissions pane and check that it says You Can: Read & Write.

Edit: Dang, LittleBear is fast!

Hi, Commander Adams, and welcome to the boards and of course to this great game! And, in your case, to retroheaven!

In order to help you we need to know what computer are you on? PC, Mac, Linux? In some cases you will need administrator rights to modify a folder. Also try to find the answer in the respective section of the board. EDIT: Hey, there are some pretty fast guys here!

As for Oolite becoming online, this is the most frequently asked question on the board, and the answer is: No. (As long as nobody takes on the gigantesque task to re-program it completely for that purpose.) Have you already had a look at the Oolite FAQ - New Forum Members Please Read......-Sticky, the topmost thread in the Discussion section? This will lead you to the FAQ-section in the Oolite-Wiki, where you will find the appropriate answers to this and other questions. On top of that, the wiki is the source of knowledge and trivia about Oolite. It is very worthwhile browsing through.

While you are doing that I wish you a lot of fun playing as well. Right On, Commander!

Maybe. But Commander McLane would be better to talk you through the problem. PC users don't get this - its one of those Mac only problems! If you follow the tip and get your first OXP installed, then the problem is fixed and you can install all OXPs realy quickly.

As Disembodied says there it can be one of a couple of issues.

The most basic question is: Where is your Oolite-folder located? If it is still on the disk-image it came on, then you should move it to an appropriate place (namely the Applications-folder) as soon as possible. If it's your private computer and you have the administrator access, this should already solve it. The disk-image is read-only, so no changes can be made on it at all (also you can't save your commander).

If it's not your computer, but you are just a user with no administrator access, the best way is the one suggested by Disembodied. Create the AddOns-folder in ~yourusername/Library/Application Support/Oolite/, which is the Library-folder accessible by you.

Is anyone willing to go through this step by step,Ive created the folder,labelled it correctly,but it still...the game...refuses modification.

Via msn....

msg me....

Thankyou for all the help so far.

Commander Adams wrote:

Hello,JUST downloaded the game and am in TOTAL retroheaven...I had Elite on the Electron,and feel 7 years old again.

Hi, come right in, welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat. Just please don't mind the dead spammer nailed to the wall, it's a souvenir.

Im trying to install the oxps and am having difficulty,as the add ons folder says it cant be modified or somthing,Im not a IT expert by a LOOOOOOOOOng shot,Im a thickie when It comes to techie stuff. (Hey Im a musician,if it has strings,I can play it for you!)

clear help needed please,the Black Monks oxp,looks great fun!

I was beaten on greeting you. I can't help with Mac stuff. I can, however, crack puns...

<Ahem>

As a musician, I'm certain you won't be having so much fun if the Black Monks play the strings off this key:

(loving how this game has grown in the 20 years since I 1st played it!..any chance it will become online?)

Nope. Sorry...
Before you ask why, read the FAQ , then check this, this and this...

Hi, Commander Adams, have you sorted out your problem?

Sorry, I've been on the board very unpredictably, and that isn't going to change over the next few days. But if I get some time I would try to help you through the process. Of course only if you still need it. Just PM me (click on the 'pm'-button bottom left of this post to get there) or post here.

late in coming. but your best bet is to log in as the admin account, and then set the permissions of the folder by using the (open-apple)-i command to pull up the info window. at the bottom of that window, there should be a section labeled "ownership & permissions", set all of them to read and write. that should help that.

try reinstalling if still stuck. and then ask me if there is still issues. =D

LittleBear wrote:

PC users don't get this - its one of those Mac only problems! If you follow the tip and get your first OXP installed, then the problem is fixed and you can install all OXPs realy quickly.

If it is a mac problem or feature you may argue. Most programs that are distributed for the mac have the privileges set to read/write if you are administrator, Oolite has all its privileges set to read only by default. So even with administrator rights you can't change folders without changing privileges first. A lot of mac users are not used to this.

It's is however a feature if you share your mac. You don't have to change the contents of the addOns folder in the program area every time, but every user can create an addOns folder in his private area and use his own set of OXP's.

Actually Commander Adams' problem was that he never had installed Oolite on his harddisk, but had played it from the diskimage it came on. And that of course doesn't work, as soon as it comes to saving something. I figured that out with him in an exchange of a couple of PMs. Unfortunately I haven't yet got a response by him whether he finally got it up and running now. But at least I hope so.

The pros and cons of disk images are a perennial subject of debate. Given that they obviously confuse a lot of people, and are by nature a horrible security hole, I expect to distribute the next stable release as a ZIP archive.