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A new version of the IDE is available via the update site and as zero installation download. When I started recording the 7th part of the Programming the Atari XL/XE video tutorial, I found that the graphics editor and hex editor were not as usable as they should be. So I decided to implement some improvements and fixes first. At the same time, several OS X users reported issues with installing Java 1.7 on their machines, making it difficult for them to use WUDSN IDE. Hence I invested quite some time in reworking the code to run appropriately with "good old" Java 1.6.
General:
- This version can run with Java 1.6 (JRE/JDK), so also a vanilla OS X Snow Leopard (10.6), Lion (10.7), Mountain Lion (10.8), and Mavericks (10.9) can run it out of the box.
- Improved handling of relative file paths in source and binary includes.
- Zero installation download now uses Eclipse 4.3.2. Of course, you can keep using Eclipse 4.3.1 if you already have it installed.
Graphics Editor:
- All buttons now have icons with tooltips.
- Enabling input fields and change detection is consistent now.
- Typing into any file path of a text field updates the dirty indicator immediately, so you see if there are unsaved changes.
- Toggling the "Shrink" and "Zoom" buttons updates the image size correctly now.
- Line numbers have been added in the script editor.
- The line with the cursor is highlighted in the script editor.
- New default converter scripts for converting character sets have been added.
- Error messages in case of script errors have been improved, and the cursor is positioned to the error location in the source.
Hex Editor:
- When opening a file with the Hex Editor, performance improved by 10 to 20 times. Now a file with 1 MB is opened in less than 1 second.
- Allowed maximum file size has been increased to 8 MB.
- ATR files with 256 bytes boot sectors are now handled correctly because they are relatively common even though they violate the ATR specification
- ATR files created from single Atari COM files, so-called "k-files", are now detected automatically. The ATR's sectors are displayed for them, and the segments of the contained Atari COM file are shown in the outline and the editor.
- C64-PRG files are now detected automatically.
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- Compilers download archives updated with new versions and more host platforms:
- ATASM 1.07 recompiled for Linux (32 & 64 bit) and Mac OS X (Intel & PPC)
- DASM 2.20.11 recompiled for Linux (32 & 64 bit) and Mac OS X (Intel & PPC)
- MADS 1.9.8 compiled for Windows, Linux (32 & 64 bit), and Mac OS X (Intel & PPC)
- KickAss 3.34 included
- Zero-distribution installation updated:
- Download for Windows 32-bit now contains Vice for 32-bit and not for 64-bit.
- Source code examples and the latest compilers for Programming the Atari XL/XE video tutorials are now included.
- Two new videos have been added to the video tutorials for Programming the Atari XL/XE:
- System Characters Sets
- Modified Character Sets
- A new page for my VCS demo ISO was added with information on how the logo was created in "just" 6 weeks.
- New page Tutorials added where I describe how you can easily create good video tutorials using free software.
- The remaining broken links in the articles should now be fixed.
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After a long struggle with hardware, codecs, and recording & editing software, I finally managed to have a system setup where recording videos is as easy as I always wanted to have it. So I decided to finally start the tutorial series on Programming the Atari XL/XE that I had always planned.
This tutorial series complements the general tutorial on using WUDSN IDE with the Atari XL/XE computer knowledge. The purpose of the tutorial is to show interested people how easy it is to control the text screen, character set, colors, graphics screen, and sound with just a few lines of code. Starting is very easy.
The tutorial series consists of short (5-10 minute) videos. In each video, I develop and explain the code live to show you the evolution of the source and the immediate result on the Atari. Seven videos of the about 12 planned videos are now available. You can ask questions and post feedback via this thread on AtariAge, youtube comments, or e-mail. Once I finish the basic stuff, I'll create individual videos for the topics you ask for.
The following videos are now available on the youtube playlist:
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Canan Hastik of the MEGA Museum of Electronics Games and Art released an excellent article on the analysis and classification of demos. It contains the example analysis of the VCS demos Stella Lives! and Beam Racer. It yielded, for example, that BeamRacer ".. shows a massive presence of so-called "coder colors", meaning the programmer of the demo probably chose the colour scheme and visuals himself instead of relying on a graphics artist. This often results in very colourful screens using the whole RGB spectrum." And as the coder, I can confirm that this is true :-) You can read the full article on Widescreen.
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My brand new demo RebbStars, created with Premium from Paradise and Rebb from TRSI, was released in the Oldschool Demo competition at the Revision 2014 demo party in Saarbrücken. It is a port of the Old Cranky Style Amiga intro by Genesis Projects. On the left, you can see the port; on the right, you can see the original. I also created a little 1k compo filler named Boom!k for the Oldschool 4k Intro competition at the party because SvOlli was afraid there wouldn't be enough entries. It is based on some unreleased code hanging around on my drive since 1991 due to missing an idea of what to do with it. You can find the downloads and the sources for both releases on the Atari page.