AGEMAME Layout Editor

Available:

- Via Software Updates/Find and Install menu option within AGEMAME Layout Editor (v0.7.2a onwards).

Or from the downloads page in the following formats:

- Binary (Windows Installer)
- Binary (Zip)
- Source (Zip)

Upgrade to JRE 1.6. The WIN32 installer has also been changed to include the JRE installation that downloads rather than the full installer. This has knocked about 15MB off the size of the win32 setup download! I’ve not been able to test this works so please let me know if there are any issues.

As per usual - this version is still very alpha and is a way off a full beta release.

So, ALE has stalled for a while due to various reasons:
- I’ve been overloaded at work
- Family Reasons
- PC Problems

So the family reasons have now gone away, and the PC problems resulted in me being the proud owner of a Quad Core Machine with 8GB of memory. Theres nothing I can do about work!

So I’ve finally got eclipse installed on my new PC - the very latest version, have pulled out my code from CVS and fixed a few build type issues, and I’m now ready to go again. Lets see where things go.

On a positive side - ALE works on Vista with no issues. I didn’t expect any it being a java application, but you never know - I’m also running it against the latest JVM (java 6) and all seems to be well!

Unfortunately, life has been getting in the way of ALE, so there hasn’t been much progress in the last few months. 

One thing I have done is moved all the source to a CVS repository to allow me to track the changes better, and more importantly, undo the changes when it all goes pear shaped!

I’ll try and get back into this soon.  I probably need to do another layout to give me some inspiration to do changes in the editor again!  Doing the sidewinder layout brought the project forward a massive amount!

ALE 0.8.3a has now been made available as a binary (zip), installer (win32) and source from the downloads page.

I’ve corrected one issue in the installer script, removing a hard coded path from the batch file that starts the java program.

- Via Software Updates/Find and Install menu option within AGEMAME Layout Editor only

Numerous changes in this build:

Preliminary implemention of Explorer Tree

• This shows the files associated with the layout
• Allows you to add new files (context menu)
• Rename files (context menu)
• Refresh the file list (to synchronise if changed outside of ALE) (context menu)
• Delete files (context menu)

Drag and Drop Changes

• I’ve removed the drag and drop  code from the hierarchy tree whilst I rewrite it.
• You can drag image(s) from the explorer to the hierarchy, dropping them on either the elements tab or an individual element.  This will create either a series of elements for the image, or add the image to the element.

Source View Synchronisation

• You can now change the XML source within the editor, and the changes will be reflected in the hierarchy and preview window when you change between the 2 tabs.

Save Correction

• I’ve resolved a bug with the save layout code - this now works again!

 

As per usual - this version is still very alpha.  I’ll try and get around to building the other distributions within the next couple of days.

I’m continuing to develop the file/project explorer by adding in context menus to perform a number of operations.  Currently, as you’ll see in the screen shot, you can refresh the list, should you copy files in the OS, you can add new files to the project, and rename and delete existing files.

I’m in the process of writing the drag/drop code so you can grab a number of images and drag them onto either an individual element in the hierarchy, or onto the elements node, to create new elements for the selected images.

These changes will be released as v0.8.3a once they are complete.

I’ve now started work on implementing more useful editing features into the editor to try and make it more useful than a glorified preview tool.  The first step towards that is the implementation of the explorer tab, where the files that make up the project are displayed.

You can see an early version of this in the attached screenshot.

- Via Software Updates/Find and Install menu option within AGEMAME Layout Editor only

One change to this version - when building the sidewinder layout, I realised that if the graphics are larger than the preview area, the canvas dimensions were not being set correctly, so you only saw a small portion of the layout.

I’m now setting this, and you now get scrollbars to move around a layout larger than the preview window size.

So the first layout created with the AGEMAME Layout Editor is now running. 
The layout is for the ACE Sidewinder machine (SIDEWNDR).

You can download the layout from here.

I cannot take credit for the excellent artwork.  This was completed by ‘tiburoned’. 

Hopefully, the layout will be improved by making the lamps better and implementing any missing lamps, plus they could do with slightly better alignment.  Still, this is a landmark day for ALE, even if the XML for the layout was edited by hand.  The very fact I could preview the layout without having to fire up the emulator meant that it was much quicker to do.

Available:

- Via Software Updates/Find and Install menu option within AGEMAME Layout Editor (v0.7.2a onwards).

Or from the downloads page in the following formats:

- Binary (Windows Installer)
- Binary (Zip)
- Source (Zip)

 Very few visible changes in this -there was a bug with the JAXB classloader which has been rectified by setting a JAXB property, plus I’ve added a refresh button to the toolbar so you can reload the layout and regenerate the preview if you are editing it in another program.

Source code - there has been a whole raft of changes - I’ve now removed all the Castor Jar files and the generated classes, plus those which used the generated classes.  This has knocked 100KB of the source zip, and about 3MB from the binary/setup release, and its helped to simplify the source and made it easier to understand.

 As per usual - this version is still very alpha and is a way off a full beta release.