SHIPSHAPER (http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-jsv/xpilot/sshaper)
   
© Jonny Svärling a.k.a. HeadAce/Gnilravs

ShipShaper is a freeware shipshape editor for the game XPilot.


 
    NEWS
   
  • ShipShaper 1.0 released!

 
 
    FEATURES

Click here to see a big screenshoot of ShipShaper running in Unix
  
  • Written in Java. This means it should run on all platforms with a Java virtual machine (at least in theory).
  • Nice, easy to use graphical interface (I hope).
  • You can draw ship edges one by one. When saving a ship the program calculated the minimum number of "real" edges needed to create a ship made up of a single polyline.
  • Cut, copy, and paste.
  • Operations like moving, splitting, and joining on vertices (ship nodes) and ship edges.
  • Operations like scrolling, rotating and flipping on ships.
  • Possible to edit ships in two directions. With the nose facing up, and with the nose facing right.

 
 
    PLATFORMS
   
Since ShipShaper is a 100% pure Java application it should run on every platform with a Java virtual machine installed.

I have not even tried it on the Machintosh (I am too lazy :-) or other systems. But it should work in Windows with JDK 1.1.5 or higher.

This is some kind of a beta version so do not be too surprised if you find some bugs. Actually, I have not tested it very much so it is more like a alpha version...:-)
 
 

    DOWNLOAD
   
Download the latest version, v1.0.

Please read the installation instructions in the next section!
 
 

    INSTALL
   
I assume you have a working JDK or JRE installation... The JDK (Java Developer Kit) is the developer version of Java and the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) is a minimal Java installation for running Java applications. So if you do not already have the JDK, I recommend that you install the JRE. Version 1.1.5 or higher is required.

  • To install, unzip the zip-file with a unzipp:er that can handle long file-names. A directory called "ShipShaper" will automatically be created so you don't have to create one before unzipping the file.

  • After unzipping the files it can be convinient to create script/batch files to run ShipShaper.

    In Windows 95, you can create a batch file similar to this one: 

      set CLASSPATH=C:\Apps\ShipShaper\ss.jar
  C:\
  cd \Apps\ShipShaper
  javaw shipshaper.ShipShaper

    The "cd" is needed to make sure that ShipShaper can find its files (graphics + config). Does anybody know a better way to do this? There must be one...hmm...maybe it is possible to use the new resource stuff in JDK1.1+...

    In Unix, you can make a script that looks something like this: 

      cd /foo/ShipShaper
  java -classpath /foo/ShipShaper/ss.jar:$CLASSPATH shipshaper.ShipShaper

    Note: You can use javaw (or jrew) if you do not want to see a console window...
     
     

    •     NOTES
    		 
    • Click on the right mouse button to end drawing operations.
    • The numbers displayed in the Tool panel when the Edge tool is used are the number of "visible" edges, and the number of "true" edges respectively. For example, "13 (15)" means you have used 13 edges, but 15 is required to make a "draw the whole figure without lifting the pen" ship.
    • To be able to load the ship in XPilot it must be fully connected (no "islands"). The number of "true" edges will be displayed as "(-)" if it is not connected. It is possible to save the ship in that situation, but only ShipShaper will be able to load it.
    • You can use your XPilot configuration file (xpilotrc) for loading/saving ships in addition to "stand-alone" shipshape files. But take backup copies of your xpilotrc before trying to use it with ShipShaper beacause this function has not been tested very much... :-)
    • The preferences are saved in a file called ss.cfg in the directory you started ShipShaper from. So make sure you start ShipShaper from the ShipShaper directory (for example by using scripts like the ones in the INSTALL section).
    • If you hold the mouse pointer over a miniature ship view the ship starts to rotate!

     
     
        CHANGES
       

    Version 1.0 (1998-06-01)

    • Made a workaround for the Unix dialog bug. I found out that non-resizable dialogs doesn't work on Unix system. So if you are running ShipShaper on a Unix system the dialogs will be resizable.

    Version 0.91 (1998-02-01)

    • Fixed some ship definition string parsing errors (not real errors actually, now the parser is more forgiving to errors in the definition string). Also improved the parsing error messages.
    • Fixed a bug which caused the ship to appear mirrored. Stupid me.
    • Added a "mirror marker".
    • Some minor improvements.

    Version 0.9 (1998-01-26)

    • The first released version. Full with bugs! :-)

     
     
        KNOWN BUGS & PROBLEMS
    		 
    • Only works properly in Windows (due to AWT errors) [Fixed in 1.0].
    • When loading big (huge) shipshape files it is easy to run out of memory.
    • Get parsing errors when parsing ships which are not following the "specification" exactly. [Fixed in v0.91]
    • The ship equipment (guns, lights, etc.) appears to be "mirrored" [Fixed in v0.91]

     
     
        SEE ALSO
       
    Here are some links related to ShipShaper:
     
     
        CONTACT THE AUTHOR
       
    If you have any comments, suggestions, bug reports, send an email to my address at school:

       d93-jsv@nada.kth.se

    Then of course, you can always look at this page to get the latest information:

       http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-jsv/xpilot/sshaper
     
     

        A SHORT STORY
       
    I started working on ShipShaper in 1996 because I wanted to learn some Java. I also wanted to do something "real", and I decided to do this editor for my favourite game XPilot!

    In a few weeks I had something that looked like an editor but had a lot of problems to get rid of all bugs (actually, later on I found out that many of them was in Java itself). So I got tired of it and did not touch it for two years... :-)

    Ok, two years later with more Java skills, I rewrote the whole program. Now it was almost, almost finished. Actually, it worked almost perfectly (for beeing a beta) on Windows 95, but not on Unix. "Write once, run everywhere" Hmm... :-) I even a description plus snapshots on my XPilot homepage. I could have released it but did not because I wanted to fix the Unix bugs first. And the Winddows 95 version had a nasty AWT bug to. But I had my hands full with other things and forgot about it....:-)

    Later (in 1998), when developing another Java application, I found that the (mostly AWT related) problems I had with ShipShaper was gone in newer versions of the Java JDK. So, I recompiled ShipShaper with the new JDK and it worked! At least on Windows 95....

    Now you know what happened to the "almost" finished ShipShaper I talked with some people about earlier... Hehe... :-)

    I am not sure if I want to spend any more time on developing this program any more, but I can at least fix any major bugs that turns up (and hopefully get the Unix version working).