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News: A short update to current development state


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A short update to current development state

As many things are happening in our svn-repository lately, I did not want to withhold you the current status. And yes only sixteen days have past since our last official version was released. Anyway there where already a whole bunch of visible changes and additions to Widelands' source and data.

Read on to see what I am talking about !

First of all, Erik implemented a UI allowing the player to set a target quantity for each ware for each self-sufficient economy (each connected street net). This allows a much better control on the wares available in the economy and again enables the player to produce all needed wares from the outset - long before a building or a construction side requests the wares. To access this menu in current SVN, simply click on one flag of the economy and select "configure economy"

Further Nicolai took some time for improving the in game user interface. Now in game windows that are bigger than the resolution will automatically be scaled down to fit the screen and will have a scrollbar so every part of the window stays usable. Two other in game UI changes are, that CTRL + S will bring up the save game menu, and that the mini map now remembers the set flags.

Already a lot isn't it? Anyway there is more:

Erik implemented a script that generates a html-documentation for each available tribe. Until now this is done everytime a tribe is loaded and the documentation is automatically saved to the data directory. As good as it already is and as good as it sounds, unfortunally it leads Widelands to crash, if the user doesn't have write access on those directories (like in a system wide install), so be aware, that current development versions aren't able to run from system wide installs. Anyway this problem will surely be fixed soon and the autogenerated documentation is more than just worth the current problem.

Another outcome of the html generation code is, that Erik cleand up all config files of the worlds and tribes. Now everything follows ONE STANDARD

Nicolai and Dwarik were very active on bug trapping front. And after fixing some bugs, Nicolai implemented an in game console allowing our testers (only in debug builds) to get some more information about the game and the other players. And as one big "bug" is our current computer player implementation (until now we never trusted to name it AI ) he changed the source code that way, that different computer player implementation can be used and can work side by side.

So what have I done since Build13? Well in last weeks my free time for Widelands was (and still is) very rare. Anyway - at least I got a patch ready, that improves the main menu. Anyone who asked his-/herself, why the main menu always staied in 800x600 resolution, even if the in game resolution was different, do not have to ask again... from now on the main menu uses the resolution set by the options menu and so allows to use Widelands on smaller devices like the maemo or the eePC the commandline/config option"ui_font_style" further allows to switch the used font in main menu. This might be useful, when working with a very small screen and the standard serif font is hard readable. For now "widelands --ui_font_style=sans" switches the font to a sans serif font.

Okay that's it until now... anyway I think we are able to at least show off a bit with these changes


1 comment Posted by Nasenbaer on 2008-12-11, 16:50

Comments on this Post:

Spiceskull

Blimey - I have been looking everywhere to find out how to "Configure Economy" - as mentioned in the start up tips ... I didn't find it anywhere in the help (offline)

Thank heavens for this post ... and the advice to click on a flag. Could I make a suggestion for a future build:

Have the "Configure Economy" option available as a button/link within the Headquarters and/or Warehouses.

Keep up the great work - WL is my favourite game ever, and whilst I loved v12, it has taken me a while to get used to v14 ... but now I understand how it works on the inside I love it even more.

Cheers, Adam.


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