First of all, we were lied to! This is NOT a minor release! It's a MAJOR release!
I want my money back!
Truth in advertising and all that.
I only have a couple of minutes to look at things now, but one change I noticed that I don't think was covered by the release notes (by the way there's no link to the download page on the What's New notice):
Suddenly the font used for text in the text view is much nicer. Like it wasn't a TrueType font before and now it is or something. Anyway now my big jaggy letters have been replaced by smooth readable letters.
On the downside, my browser has forgotten about .dms files. (Hmm wonder if I had the browser running when I did the install...)
ID:138368
 Oct 4 2000, 8:41 am
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Okay next level of comments...
The build EXE stuff is incredibly cool. In one fell swoop we can distribute games without having to explain all the BYOND stuff. Now, I haven't tried it from a fresh system yet, so I don't know exactly what the experience is if you don't have BYOND installed -- it will be cool if we can evolve that to directly downloading rather than pointing people to the page. Probably we'll have to see what makes sense for users. This will also lead to more thinking about how to handle the BYOND logo, since now it might actively confuse users..."Hey I downloaded Living & Dead but somehow I got this BYOND game instead!" A note of caution about building an executable...if you have external resources that your game relies on (such as text files that are not treated as a resource) you need to copy those into the executable directory, given that BYOND doesn't magically know it's supposed to include them. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that this gives us a natural way to distribute the resources along with the game. Now users will have a lot less little download things happening when they first run a game from the server. One comment about the self-installing executable: I'm very happy to finally have that, as it meets people's Windows expectations. However, I would recommend switching from the custom icon to the standard installer.exe icon on Windows. When I opened the directory to install BYOND, my eye naturally searched for the .exe icon and didn't find it, and I was momentarily confused. It was only then that I realized that Windows apps are actually very consistent about this. More as they come! | |
On 10/4/00 6:34 pm Deadron wrote:
The build EXE stuff is incredibly cool. In one fell swoop we can distribute games without having to explain all the BYOND stuff. Now, I haven't tried it from a fresh system yet, so I don't know exactly what the experience is if you don't have BYOND installed -- it will be cool if we can evolve that to directly downloading rather than pointing people to the page. It should popup a little dialog saying that you need BYOND to play this, and then give them an option to download it (by simply linking to the setup.exe file). Eventually we're going to embed a referral tag in this link, so that when you distribute an EXE and a user downloads BYOND through it, you'll get some sort of credit. With the new self-extracting installation this means that it's only one or two clicks for users to play your games, even if they don't have BYOND. Once we have the new pager/server system running the step with the most remaining confusion-- obtaining a key -- will also become quite simple, since new users will boot up the BYOND browser to a page that explains everything. Probably we'll have to see what makes sense for users. This will also lead to more thinking about how to handle the BYOND logo, since now it might actively confuse users..."Hey I downloaded Living & Dead but somehow I got this BYOND game instead!" We think that the best solution here is to simply have a client.banner variable that allows you to set the banner to your own BMP, perhaps with an option to have it change (to other people's banners) whilst online. That way designers can decide if they want to promote other games (and possibly cash in on miniscule ad revenues) as well. A note of caution about building an executable...if you have external resources that your game relies on (such as text files that are not treated as a resource) you need to copy those into the executable directory, given that BYOND doesn't magically know it's supposed to include them. Good point. Perhaps we should build some option into the dialog. In general if you are going to build-in fixed resources, though, you should probably put them in the cache with 'file' instead of file("file"). Then you won't have to worry about distributing anything. I'm sure there are some good exceptions to the rule, though. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that this gives us a natural way to distribute the resources along with the game. Now users will have a lot less little download things happening when they first run a game from the server. Good to hear. I think it makes more sense too. One comment about the self-installing executable: I'm very happy to finally have that, as it meets people's Windows expectations. However, I would recommend switching from the custom icon to the standard installer.exe icon on Windows. When I opened the directory to install BYOND, my eye naturally searched for the .exe icon and didn't find it, and I was momentarily confused. It was only then that I realized that Windows apps are actually very consistent about this. Ah, you think? I partially ruined Guy's original setup icon to get it into the correct .ico format required by the installer, so it's no big deal to me. Maybe the consistency is a good thing. | |
:)
Now that's just weird. I can't imagine what we did to fix that. Well, I'll take it.
Hmm. It's possible that got screwed up again with the new registry changes. I never have had it working on my browser, so it's been hard for me to tell!