Mac OS X support

[BenKimball]

I've just purchased HD and am quite pleased with it. I'm currently running it on my dual G4 PowerMac under Virtual PC, and its speed is acceptable. Since it's a Java app, though, I ought to be able to run it under Mac OS X (10.2.4). When I try just copying my Windows HD folder to my Mac and double-clicking the Hero Designer.jar file, I get a message saying: "The jar file 'Hero Designer.jar' couldn't be launched. It probably doesn't contain a 'Main-Class' definition in the manifest. To be able to launch this jar, you will need to add one."

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Ben

[Simon]

There's a reason that we haven't included a Mac installer yet

Apple needs to get off of their collective butts and release Java2 1.4.1 for OSX before HD will be able to run natively on the Mac. Until then, you'll have to keep on using VirtualPC.

[BenKimball]

Thanks for the info. It looks like Apple is up to developer release 10 of Java2 1.4.1 (see http://www.apple.com/java/ for details). If you're interested in checking it out, I'm interested in testing for you...

Cheers!
Ben

[Simon]

I'm not really intending to do anything on mac until they get the final release in place.

Once they do, it should just be a matter of a quick verification before we can release HD out into the world of Apple.

[BenKimball]

I'm looking forward to it. Thanks again.

Cheers,
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by dsimon
I'm not really intending to do anything on mac until they get the final release in place.

Once they do, it should just be a matter of a quick verification before we can release HD out into the world of Apple.

Supposedly The current 1.4.1 release will be out today, we'll see. In the meantime: I can get the app started, but it doesn't see the update.jar or for that matter anything in the directory, so I was wondering if I needed to do anything to set a path or whatever for the app to see the directory it's in... If you can help, please do.

[Simon]

You'll need to set the classpath during launch to explicitly include update.jar

The command line that the launcher uses is something akin to the following:

java -cp update.jar:HeroDesigner.jar -Xmx128m com.hero.HeroDesigner

[BenKimball]

Getting closer!

After installing Java 1.4.1DP10 on my G4 (MDD) under Mac OS 10.2.4 and using the above-mentioned command line, I got the app running. It displayed the splash screen, then the main screen. It wouldn't actually display a character, though; when I tried "New Character" it made one but didn't draw anything under the menu bar of the window.

Still, encouraging progress.

Cheers,
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
Getting closer!

After installing Java 1.4.1DP10 on my G4 (MDD) under Mac OS 10.2.4 and using the above-mentioned command line, I got the app running. It displayed the splash screen, then the main screen. It wouldn't actually display a character, though; when I tried "New Character" it made one but didn't draw anything under the menu bar of the window.

Still, encouraging progress.

Cheers,
Ben

Ben -- between the two of us (I'm running a 12" powerbook G4) and Dan, we'll get this up and running in no time!

[keithcurtis]

Originally posted by BenKimball
Getting closer!

After installing Java 1.4.1DP10 on my G4 (MDD) under Mac OS 10.2.4 and using the above-mentioned command line, I got the app running. It displayed the splash screen, then the main screen. It wouldn't actually display a character, though; when I tried "New Character" it made one but didn't draw anything under the menu bar of the window.

Still, encouraging progress.

Cheers,
Ben

I think there is a display/re-draw problem. Catseye clued me in on this. Just re-size your window slightly after you start to force a re-draw.

Keith "Hopefully helping" Curtis

[BenKimball]

It's working!

You were right, Keith; when I resized the screen, HD drew in all of the appropriate fields. It looks good in Aqua!

I haven't tried out all of the functionality yet, but here's what was needed:

1) Download and install Java 1.4.1DP10 (or later, presumably) from Apple's developer web site.
2) Copy your Windows HeroDesigner folder to your Mac, excluding the "jre" directory, which is unnecessary.
3) From a command line, cd to your HeroDesigner directory and type:

java -cp "update.jar:Hero Designer.jar" -Xmx128m com.Hero.HeroDesigner

I'm now going to play around with the command line options that provide a different application name for the menu bar ("Hero Designer" instead of "com.Hero.HeroDesigner") and add a custom icon for the Dock. Then I'll save the document as a shell script and drop it in the dock... and hopefully I'll be good until Dan can get a real OS X installer ready.

Thanks everyone!
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
It's working!

You were right, Keith; when I resized the screen, HD drew in all of the appropriate fields. It looks good in Aqua!

I haven't tried out all of the functionality yet, but here's what was needed:

1) Download and install Java 1.4.1DP10 (or later, presumably) from Apple's developer web site.
2) Copy your Windows HeroDesigner folder to your Mac, excluding the "jre" directory, which is unnecessary.
3) From a command line, cd to your HeroDesigner directory and type:

java -cp "update.jar:Hero Designer.jar" -Xmx128m com.Hero.HeroDesigner

I'm now going to play around with the command line options that provide a different application name for the menu bar ("Hero Designer" instead of "com.Hero.HeroDesigner") and add a custom icon for the Dock. Then I'll save the document as a shell script and drop it in the dock... and hopefully I'll be good until Dan can get a real OS X installer ready.

Thanks everyone!
Ben

I get this error message:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/Hero/HeroDesigner

Is this normal?

[Simon]

Case sensitivity.

It's not "com.Hero.HeroDesigner", it's "com.hero.HeroDesigner"

[BenKimball]

My bad. Use:

java -cp "update.jar:Hero Designer.jar" -Xmx128m -Xdock:name=HeroDesigner:icon=/Applications/HeroDesigner/HeroDesigner.ico com.hero.HeroDesigner

Note that the path to your HeroDesigner.ico file may differ. The error I made previously was capitalizing "hero" in the "com.hero.HeroDesigner" part.

Now I'm working on making the shell script double-clickable from the Finder.

Cheers!
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by dsimon
Case sensitivity.

It's not "com.Hero.HeroDesigner", it's "com.hero.HeroDesigner"

Thanks! DAN, that did it! And Ben, when you do that dock thingie... please post it!

[BenKimball]

The enclosed file is double-clickable from the Finder. It will launch HeroDesigner in Mac OS X assuming you've followed the above instructions, and assuming you've installed it, along with your HeroDesigner directory, in /Applications/HeroDesigner.

NOTE: The forums will only allow me to upload a .txt file. You MUST rename the file by replacing the .txt extension with .command, i.e., "HeroDesigner.command". Also, you can copy the contents of the HeroDesigner.ico file and paste it into the icon for this file in its Get Info dialog box to make it look nicer.

Let me know how it works for you!

Cheers,
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
The enclosed file is double-clickable from the Finder. It will launch HeroDesigner in Mac OS X assuming you've followed the above instructions, and assuming you've installed it, along with your HeroDesigner directory, in /Applications/HeroDesigner.

NOTE: The forums will only allow me to upload a .txt file. You MUST rename the file by replacing the .txt extension with .command, i.e., "HeroDesigner.command". Also, you can copy the contents of the HeroDesigner.ico file and paste it into the icon for this file in its Get Info dialog box to make it look nicer.

Let me know how it works for you!

Cheers,
Ben

It's downloading as attachment.php and gets corrupted. Can you binhex it with Stuffit and then change the .bin to .text or can you email it to me at albertATactionstudiosDOTcom?

Thanks!

[BenKimball]

I was able to simply rename the attachment.php document to HeroDesigner.command, but on the other hand I didn't test it afterwards. So I'll email it to you.

Cheers!
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
I was able to simply rename the attachment.php document to HeroDesigner.command, but on the other hand I didn't test it afterwards. So I'll email it to you.

Cheers!
Ben

Thanks for the email -- I'm posting this instead of emailing it so other can benefit. It didn't work... Is it a binary file (resource fork/data fork)? If so maybe it needs to be stuffed or zipped before being sent across the 'net.

This is the Error message:

The .command file '/Applications/HeroDesigner/HeroDesigner.command' could not open. Most likely it is not executable.

Now this was with me double clicking it. It also won't go into the apps side of the dock, only the doc side, was it supposed to?

Thanks again!

[BenKimball]

Tell you what, I'll just tell you how to create the file.

In your favorite text editor, enter the following. I'm marking end of lines with [enter].

#!/bin/tsch[enter]
cd /Applications/HeroDesigner/[enter]
java -cp "update.jar:Hero Designer.jar" -Xmx128m -Xdock:name=HeroDesigner:icon=/Applications/HeroDesigner/HeroDesigner.ico com.hero.HeroDesigner &[enter]

Save the file as HeroDesigner.command. When you drag it into your dock it will go into the documents side, since it isn't actually an app, just a shell script. I use DragThing (http://www.dragthing.com/), an indispensible app launcher utility, which lets me put it with all my other apps and name it "HeroDesigner," but that's just me. =)

Any luck?
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

BTW I tried the export to RTF function and it seems to work just fine! Woo-hoo now we just need a real installer and Apple to release the GM version of their Java inplementation!

Sniff... it's a happy day.:cool:

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
Tell you what, I'll just tell you how to create the file.

In your favorite text editor, enter the following. I'm marking end of lines with [enter].

#!/bin/tsch[enter]
cd /Applications/HeroDesigner/[enter]
java -cp "update.jar:Hero Designer.jar" -Xmx128m -Xdock:name=HeroDesigner:icon=/Applications/HeroDesigner/HeroDesigner.ico com.hero.HeroDesigner &[enter]

Save the file as HeroDesigner.command. When you drag it into your dock it will go into the documents side, since it isn't actually an app, just a shell script. I use DragThing (http://www.dragthing.com/), an indispensible app launcher utility, which lets me put it with all my other apps and name it "HeroDesigner," but that's just me. =)

Any luck?
Ben

Okay -- I did it just like you note above -- and it still isn't working, which is strange since I assume you've tested it and it works on your system... Well, at least I can get it to work with the terminal.

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
#!/bin/tsch[enter]
cd /Applications/HeroDesigner/[enter]
java -cp "update.jar:Hero Designer.jar" -Xmx128m -Xdock:name=HeroDesigner:icon=/Applications/HeroDesigner/HeroDesigner.ico com.hero.HeroDesigner &[enter]

BTW -- doesn't it need to have this line completely?

java -cp "update.jar:Hero Designer.jar" -Xmx128m com.Hero.HeroDesigner

as opposed to what you have above? Thanks again!

[BenKimball]

The line that starts with "java" is the last line in the file and there's no break in it at all. It's quite long.

One thing I forgot: you'll want to make the shell script executable, with the command

chmod +x HeroDesigner.command

Cheers!
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
The line that starts with "java" is the last line in the file and there's no break in it at all. It's quite long.

One thing I forgot: you'll want to make the shell script executable, with the command

chmod +x HeroDesigner.command

Cheers!
Ben

THAT was the equation! (10 ep to anyone who recognizes that line) Now your original file worked fine... thanks! New to all this terminal stuff, don'tcha know.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Originally posted by AlbertDeschesne
THAT was the equation! (10 ep to anyone who recognizes that line).Ted Cassidy as Rukk, in the Star Trek Original Series episode What Are Little Girls Made Of?.

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by Derek Hiemforth
Ted Cassidy as Rukk, in the Star Trek Original Series episode What Are Little Girls Made Of?.

LOL! Okay, you get the EP! Wow, I truly thought that line was short enough to be obscure.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Originally posted by AlbertDeschesne
LOL! Okay, you get the EP! Wow, I truly thought that line was short enough to be obscure.Tremble before the awesome power of my geekitude! ;)

[ritter]

Has anyone else noticed that when you run herodesigner like this and you click on one of the question mark boxes in one of the power windows that the popup box is displayed behind the window that conatins the the power selections?

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by ritter
Has anyone else noticed that when you run herodesigner like this and you click on one of the question mark boxes in one of the power windows that the popup box is displayed behind the window that conatins the the power selections?

Now that you mention it... I wonder why it does that? Can it be that this is still an unfinshed Java implementation? Or is it because of a coding issue?

[Simon]

It's Apple's Java implementation that's doing it.

[BenKimball]

Or perhaps, just maybe, because we're playing around with Apple's beta-level code using Java binaries tested on a completely different platform with hacks added by yours truly... =)

But seriously, I consider it a miracle we've gotten this far with it, and a testament to Dan's code and the Java platform. I'm sure that once an official Mac OS X release of Hero Designer is available all of these wrinkles will be ironed out. In the meantime, major kudos to Dan to putting up with us and our unsupported hacks.

Cheers!
Ben

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
Or perhaps, just maybe, because we're playing around with Apple's beta-level code using Java binaries tested on a completely different platform with hacks added by yours truly... =)

But seriously, I consider it a miracle we've gotten this far with it, and a testament to Dan's code and the Java platform. I'm sure that once an official Mac OS X release of Hero Designer is available all of these wrinkles will be ironed out. In the meantime, major kudos to Dan to putting up with us and our unsupported hacks.

Cheers!
Ben

Yeah! Thanks Dan -- Now I get to work on the HERO side of the Metaverse Book!

[DocMan]

So, now that Apple has released the 1.4.1 Java, will there be a new CD with the Mac OS installer, or will we buy the same CD, but download the Mac installer?

Doc

[Simon]

Originally posted by DocMan
So, now that Apple has released the 1.4.1 Java, will there be a new CD with the Mac OS installer, or will we buy the same CD, but download the Mac installer?

Doc

Well, first, I'm going to have to make a Mac installer....then we'll do some testing to make sure that it works. Then I'll let Hero Games decide how they want to handle it. Most likely, they'll produce a new CD with all four installers on it.

[DocMan]

Originally posted by dsimon
Well, first, I'm going to have to make a Mac installer....then we'll do some testing to make sure that it works. Then I'll let Hero Games decide how they want to handle it. Most likely, they'll produce a new CD with all four installers on it.

That possibility is why I haven't bought the CD yet. <sigh> More waiting...

Doc

[Robert Harrison]

Hello,
With the news that there won't be a Mac installer coming anytime soon, I went ahead and purchased the CD-ROM. I installed the program on Windows 2000, then put my Windows HeroDesigner folder (sans jre directory) and the shell script that Ben produced into my Applications folder on my G4 PowerBook hard disk (OS X 10.2.4 with Java 1.4.1).

I renamed the shell script as per Ben's instructions, changed the file's info so that it would open up with Terminal when clicked, typed in the command on Terminal to make it executable, and put it into the Dock.

However, when I click on it, HeroDesigner doesn't start up - instead, I get the following:

% /Applications/HeroDesigner.command; exit
% /Applications/HeroDesigner.command: Command not found
logout
[Process completed]

I can get HD to start up from the Terminal command line - it's just this Dock executable that I'm having problems with. Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanx in advance

[BenKimball]

The HeroDesigner.command file needs to know where your HeroDesigner folder is.

Here's how mine is set up: inside my Applications folder is a folder named "HeroDesigner". Inside that are my Hero Designer.jar and update.jar files, along with the rest of the HD distribution.

So, if you open HeroDesigner.command in TextEdit, you'll see that its first command is 'cd /Applications/HeroDesigner/'. If your installation folder is different, you'll need to change the script (or your install folder) so that they match.

Cheers!
Ben

[Simon]

Ben...I just wanted to take a moment to say "thanks" for all the help with Mac users. It's been much appreciated.

Not having a Mac myself, it's difficult to help people out on that end ;)

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by BenKimball
The HeroDesigner.command file needs to know where your HeroDesigner folder is.

Here's how mine is set up: inside my Applications folder is a folder named "HeroDesigner". Inside that are my Hero Designer.jar and update.jar files, along with the rest of the HD distribution.

So, if you open HeroDesigner.command in TextEdit, you'll see that its first command is 'cd /Applications/HeroDesigner/'. If your installation folder is different, you'll need to change the script (or your install folder) so that they match.

Cheers!
Ben
Darn -- Ben beat me to it! Anyway, what he said... BTW, other than the minor issues that we're having with HD on the MAc platform, I must say it's actually faster on my 867Mhz Powerbook than on my 1.3 Ghz Athlon system. It may be that I have slightly more RAM on my Powerbook (640 vs. 512), but if that's it, that's very interesting.

[Robert Harrison]

I tried downloading Ben's script file again, and this time the download worked as a Dock executable. Thanks Ben and Albert for your assistance.

[AlbertDeschesne]

Originally posted by Robert Harrison
I tried downloading Ben's script file again, and this time the download worked as a Dock executable. Thanks Ben and Albert for your assistance. You're very welcome. But there's no need to thank me, Ben's done most of the work... I can only prove that it works on systems other than his... :D