Okay, so another update on the plight of my brainchild, Turn Watcher, version 2.0. With the conversion to wxWidgets, I find I am staring at a nasty bug deep within the wxWidgets code that I am having a tough time overcoming, and that is putting the project on hold until I can figure out how to fix it. Apparently it was patched and somehow cropped back up again.
In that spirit, I have decided that I do not want to hold up a new release, so I’ve delved back into our source code archives and resurrected the code I actually had finished for version 1.4 (bear in mind, the last release was version 1.3). This code is still based on gtkmm, so a quick addition to the sandbox allows us to fly with it once again.
The idea is that I had added the code already to support “soft columns,” i.e custom columns that you, the GM, can add and customize. You can add your own roll columns, plus add “info” columns as well. One thing I’ve been asked about repeatedly was the ability to have a column for armor class. This new update will allow you to do such a thing. Now version 2.0 will have better bells and whistles, but I figure 1.4 needs to get out the door to help those GMs wanting to use it with Wizard’s new 4th edition system.
We will be making a release soon. I have to patch an old bug first which prevented the stabilization feature to work correctly. So you’ll have the bug fix, plus a cool new feature. Oh, and for those customers who have the year update for version 1.3, I’m going to ask Alexis to extend your update life and have access to this new update. I do this because I feel a bit bad for holding up version 2.0 for so long, and many customers have expressed concern that they have not received and update for a long time.
So, keep an eye on this blog and on the main site–we will be announcing a release soon!
Happy Gaming,
Doug Barbieri
About six months ago (or has it been longer? I dunno–time flies when you’re having fun!) I finally decided I’d had enough of Gtkmm and Gtk+. I had been working to port our D&D initiative tracking (and more!) application Turn Watcher to Mac OS/X. And I had been spending quite a lot of time on it too. But everything I did resulted in undefined behavior and crashes when it didn’t work, to ugly looking screens when it did. When I looked back on all the work it took us just to get Gtkmm compiled and working for Windows, let alone Mac, I realized that Alexis and I had been flatly wasting our time.
Now this is not to denigrate the extraordinary efforts of the Gtk+ and Gtkmm teams. Their library is top notch, and I’m glad it’s available for GNU/Linux-based applications. I also am a Gimp and Pidgin user, so I can’t complain too loudly. Their library is great for what it is. But it’s a real pain to port to platforms other than GNU/Linux.
Enter wxWidgets.
…more
Eweek reports:
“A recent survey shows that 44 percent of businesses are considering Mac OS and Linux rather than switching to Vista.”
We are seeing the barbarians at the gate now, and the MS empire begins to show its first signs of crumbling. And it’s been a long time coming, I’m afraid. It goes to show you how ineffective the US anti-trust laws are, and how the free market is self-regulating.
It seems that Microsoft is very out of touch of what their customers really want, and is full steam ahead using its outdated business model of forced upgrading. Looks like business aren’t biting now, because there has to be a good business reason to upgrade. If MS were smart, they’d have dropped Vista and concentrated on just keeping their current customers happy. By forcing an “upgrade”, they are causing their customers to reassess the need for Microsoft in their business, or at least, on their employees’ desktops.
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