Finally Progressing - The Graphics Plugin

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Published: Thursday, 10 September 2009 00:00
Hits: 1529

Its been a long time since the last update so here are some news. The assembler and editor part is almost complete with many major and minor improvements especially regarding MADS. The whole project has been restructured to allow the addition of C64 assemblers and the the new "Graphics" plugin. This plugin is what I've always wanted to have ever since I started cross-platform development back in 1990. Since almost 20 years now I've been converting graphics to and from my Atari using "for" loops and any language you can think of. But I never got to complete the interactive converter with parameters I dreamed of. The first trial was done in the language "E" on my Amiga, the next was done in Delphi on my PC both never could be finished. But now there Eclipse and SWT and finally there is a first working version. To be honest some parts of SWT are far more complex than back in the days on my Amiga or with Delphi controls. For example it took me 3 days and 2 tutorials to get a properly scrolling and resizing image area. But on the other hand you get really high execution speed, flexibility and it will run under any operating system.
The alpha version will be part of WUDSN IDE 1.4.0. It includes loading and displaying fonts, bitmaps and sprites from Atari and C64 and the creation of ".cnv" conversion parameter files so you can repeat the conversion for example when the original files have changed. The conversion will also work in the other direction of course. New converters are pluggable via an extension point.

The graphics editor

WUDSN IDE update 1.3.2 released

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Published: Sunday, 26 July 2009 00:00
Hits: 2531

Welcome to the "M&M" release featuring support for Mac OS X and MADS content outline You can use the menu entry "Help/Software updates/Available Software" to update from version 1.2.0 to 1.3.2. Note you have to uninstall version 1.2.0 explicitly before installing version 1.3.2 this time because of the restructuring of the packages and extended preferences settings. After the installation the have to set some of the preferences again, since there are more options available now and some options have moved.

WUDSN IDE on Mac OS X
Features: See the tab "Features" on WUDSN IDE for screen shots

  • Support for Mac OS X consists of the corresponding binaries for Mac OS X (Intel and PowerPC) contained in the updated download package and the support for Mac OS X default application. This means that by default the same application is used to open the output file as is normally used when you open the file in the Finder. See the news from 2009-07-22 for the details on the binaries.
  • Support for MADS content outline currently handles labels, equates, "ORG", ".PROC", ".MACRO", ".LOCAL" and ".IF" directives as well as all binary and source include directives. You can open the view via the menu "Window/Show View/Outline", in case it is not open yet. The parsing support is not complete yet but usable already. Completing it is my next major task. There also is one restriction which should not disturb: If you place opcodes or directives in the first column, they are consider labels. This is for performance reasons to keep parsing fast and will probably remain for performance reasons also in subsequent releases. But as mentioned before, this is not the case in normal source anyway, so it should not hinder you from anything.
  • Split preferences pages for editor setting and compiler plus emulator settings.
  • Dedicated support for Atari++, Atari800MacX, Atari800Win in the preferences including download link, default command line and explicitly specified command line to open the output file.
  • Application or emulator to open the output file can be configured per compiler.
  • When using "Compile and Run", the application used is output as info message.
  • Configurations for different emulators and one user defined application can be maintained in parallel, which is useful for testing.
  • Support for zero-configuration start of the emulator based on the default application based the file extension specified for the output file.

Fixes:

  • Content outline sometimes only found the first macro definition.
  • Folding did not show up in all situations.
  • Under Mac OS X, the file select dialog can now choose an "*.app" application like "Atari800MacX.app" even though this is folder. The solution is a workaround for a general Eclipse problem under MacOS X, see BUG 82155.

Site Update:

  • Section "Preferences" split into "Preferences for editing" and "Preferences for compiling.
  • Section "Installing Atar800Win" renamed to "Installing Atari800Win and other emulators", rewritten and extended"
  • Feature section updated with new screen shots.

Site Update

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Published: Wednesday, 22 July 2009 00:00
Hits: 1507
  • The archive containing all supported Atari compilers has been updated. It now includes the Linux versions provided by me and CAS and the Mac OS X versions provided by Spookt. Thanks a lot to Tebe for the update of MADS so it runs smoothly under Mac OS X and Linux now. The most recent version of the following table is available on the tab "Installation" on WUDSN IDE from now on.

    CompilerOperating SystemArchitectureCompiler VersionExecutable Path
    ATASM Windows Intel - 32 bit 1.06 ATASM / atasm.exe
    ATASM Mac OS X Intel 1.06 ATASM / atasm.macosx-intel
    ATASM Mac OS X PowerPC 1.06 ATASM / atasm.macosx-powerpc
    ATASM Linux Intel - 32 bit 1.06 ATASM / atasm.linux-i386
    MADS Windows Intel - 32 bit 1.8.8 MADS / mads.exe
    MADS Mac OS X Intel 1.8.8 MADS / mads.macosx-intel
    MADS Mac OS X PowerPC 1.8.8 MADS / mads.macosx-powerpc
    MADS Linux Intel - 32 bit 1.8.8 MADS / mads.linux-i386
    XASM Windows Intel - 32 bit 3.0.1 XASM / xasm.exe
  • The description on how to configure the "Problems" view correctly is now included in the section "Installing Eclipse" and in the FAQ. This step has to be performed once after the installation since the default configuration is not suitable for assembler files.

WUDSN IDE update 1.2.0 released

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Published: Sunday, 12 July 2009 00:00
Hits: 2353

After a major rework a lot of new features were added and the first usable version of the MADS integration is available now. Now "only" content outline and label file creation are not available yet. I know may people are waiting for the content outline, but I first had to get the syntax for all definitions of pseudo opcodes and directives straight and had to extend the parsing to block comments. Otherwise parsing for a content outline is simply not possible. And comparing the 61 definitions in ATASM (described in an English manual) to the 168 (!) definitions in MADS (described in a Polish manual) you may understand what kept me busy in the past weeks. And without the great support from Tebe for the technical details it would surely not have been possible! Also my wife did a great job in translating the relevant sections of the MADS manual for me, so thanks for that!

Unfortunately the starting the emulator automatically on Mac OS X does not work yet. At least if have Mac OS X emulation up and running now for my tests and found out that the problem is passing parameters to the "open" command in addition to the binary file name.

You can use the menu entry "Help/Software updates/Available Software" to update from version 1.1.0 to 1.2.0.

Features: See the tab "Features" on WUDSN IDE for screen shots

  • Syntax highlighting complete for all MADS pseudo opcodes and directives.
  • Compiler log parsing and source positioning complete for MADS including recognition of errors from source include files.
  • New menu entries to directly open the source and the output folder.
  • New Console view with original compiler output opens automatically in the background after compiling which useful in cases where the plugin is not yet complete.
  • ATASM ".bank" warnings are mapped to info messages.
  • Size of output file now also given in hexa-decimal notation.
  • Support for several single line comment delimiters per compiler.
  • Support for several multiple lines comment delimiters per compiler.
  • Support for several string delimiters per compiler.
  • Automatic append of ".asm" extension for "ICL" source includes in MADS, if extension is missing.
  • Automatic append of ".asx" extension for "ICL" source includes in XASM, if extension is missing.
  • New "Open Folder" context menu available for all folders and files.
  • New "Sort" context menu with sub-menu available for all text files.
  • "Open with Hex Editor" context menu entry now also supports multi-file selection.
  • Preferences automatically activate the tab for the compiler of the active editor upon opening.
  • Improved handling and message for misconfiguration and errors during launching of compiler and emulator.

Fixes:

  • The "OK" and "Apply" buttons in the preferences are now always enabled, irrespective of the specified compiler and emulator paths.
  • Focus back in editor window after compiling.
  • Automatic positioning to line of the first error or warning after compiling.
  • Syntax highlighting of illegal opcodes fixed, now also uses the preferences setting.

Site Update:

  • New section "Is there source version control?" added to FAQ.
  • New section "Why is ATASM the primary compiler?" added to FAQ.
  • Feature section updated with new screen shots.
  • Configuration of file associations added to section "Installation".

Visdom Logo

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Published: Friday, 10 July 2009 00:00
Hits: 1720

Thanks to Thorsten, the web-master of www.nizagam.org for creating the following absolutely cool impression of this historical moment of 1992. Funny, when I first created this site, I tried to do exactly the same using a face-morphing program. Well, the result was an epic fail. So I have added Thorsten's excellent version to the FAQ section.

VISDOM becomes WUDSN