WUDSN IDE update 1.4.2 announced

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Published: Friday, 09 October 2009 00:00

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As you can see it took far more time but now the features tab is updated. I have added all the new features of version 1.4.0 and also the features from version 1.4.2 which is going to be released next weekend. Originally I had planned to use "PNG" as the file format for the conversion files of the graphics editor. The idea was to store the converted image as thumbnail in the conversion file itself. This way you could have watched the conversion files in the Explorer directly without creating separate image files. I got the idea from the nice game Crayon Physics which I bought some time ago. There they use the "tEXt" chunks of the PNG file to store the level information together with the level map thumbnail. Unfortunately it turned out that - even after tweaking the registry - Windows refused to display thumbnails of PNG files if the file extensions was ".cnv" and not ".png". And since I want to keep the focus of this project I decided not to start creating C# code or DLLs to make that work. So I had to revert all my changes for the file format and that is the reason why there is no official version 1.4.1.
A major enhancement of the forthcoming version is the result of the past two HomeCon parties where I met many very nice people using Commodore machines. Some of them were very interested in WUDSN IDE an Draco provided me the ACME compiler and samples source (after he actually bought an Atari 800 XL, too ;-). So I added the support for multiple types of hardware, i.e. besides Atari 8-bit compilers now also C64 compilers and emulators can be added.

WUDSN IDE update 1.4.0 released

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Published: Sunday, 13 September 2009 00:00

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It's 4 am and the new release is finally out. I'll just summarize the new features and updates here and update the "Features" tab tomorrow since I really feel like I ought to be in bed now ;-)

Features:

• Support for MADS and XASM directives is complete now. The definitions of folding and outline sections are now based on a descriptive configuration which can be easily adapted. This will make is quite easy to add additional platforms and compiler in the future with reasonable effort. The remaining coding for the parsing of MADS source for example is now down to 16 (!) lines.
  
• Every type of section now has an own type icon in the content outline and the content outline now also recursively parses source include files on the fly. This allows the drill down into include files without even opening them. It is also the basis for the planned future features macro syntax highlighting and forward navigation. In the toolbar of the content outline, there is a toggle button for sorting the sections and labels. The state of the button is persisted automatically along with the respective source file. For files which do not have a setting yet, the setting from the currently opened file will be used.
  
• The content outline folding and positioning now remains stable as you type. For example if you introduce a new label in a local section which is open, the tree will insert that label in the correct position and will keep the opened sections as they are.
• The restriction that opcodes or directives must not start in the first column no longer applies.
• The console for the compiler now has a localized title "Compiler Console" and is brought to front automatically when the compiler is started. This prevents the compiler output from being hidden behind other consoles in the console view.
• Single line comment for the current line selection can be toggled using "CTRL-7" or the context menu entry "Toggle Comments".
• The "Open With Hex Editor" menu entry now closes an existing editor in case the file is already opened and thereby forces the file to be opened with the hex editor. In addition the hex editor is set as the default editor this one file. As a consequence double clicking the file in the package explorer will open it automatically with the hex editor, no matter which type of file is actually is. This saves you from always using the context menu, just because the file has no known file type. You can change the default editor again by just using the "Open With" context menu entry.
• The new graphics plugin is included as alpha-version. You can open the "Graphics Editor" via the context menu entry "Open with Graphics Editor" just as for the hex editor. Saving images and conversion from an image to files is no supported yet. The editor will try to default to a suitable converter based on the file size, file name and content. For example files of size 1024 and 2048 are assumed to be fonts. Files of size 7680 or 7684 bytes are assumed to be MicroPainter pictures. I even hacked in a support for opening compressed MicroPainter images based on the source of the excellent "FAIL (First Atari Image Library)" tool by FOX and his friends. Note that it works only for opening by now, not for conversion. I really like to say thanks a lot to FOX for the tips and the example files.
  

Fixes:

• The "Assembler" menu is visible now only if an Assembler editor is active. The contained entries and their short cuts are disabled if no Assembler editor is active.
• The output file is not deleted anymore before the compiler is started, instead it is only checked for being writeable. This allows for direct compilation into an existing ATR image.
• The name of the application used to open the output file is now included in the info message.

Finally Progressing - The Graphics Plugin

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Published: Thursday, 10 September 2009 00:00

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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.

WUDSN IDE update 1.3.2 released

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Published: Sunday, 26 July 2009 00:00

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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.


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.