Looking for Beta Testers for Computer Graphics Program

I'm releasing an application I've been working on for years and I thought I would try to get a reaction to the application.

Here's the page on my website that describes my application.
http://www.taylorentertainment.biz/RayRoverPage.aspx

Go to Download Ray Rover to download my application.
http://www.taylorentertainment.biz/R...rDownload.aspx

Here's what I want to know from the Beta Testers.

1. Approximately what percentage of the Preset Screens did you find interesting to watch? (You don't have to watch every screen from start to finish. Some screens last as long as 30 minutes but that is rare. Most screens last less than half a minute. If you watched 100 screens a day it would take you 31 days to see them all. You could break it down and report on your watching of the first 40 screens or 60 or whatever number you like and tell me, "In this group of x number of screens which are numbered from x1 to x2 I found approximately 60 % interesting to watch." or something like that.) Whatever input you provide here will be appreciated. You can also just make one report of a certain number of the screens and then that's it because you don't want to be burdened with the thought of having to report on all 3047 screens.

2. Did you find any bugs in it?

3. Did you find any typographical or grammatical errors in the instructions or explanations, etc ?

4. Do you have any suggestions for improving it?

5. Did you find errors in the explanation of settings or did you find them difficult to understand.

6. Are there Preset Screens that you think should be eliminated because they just aren't good enough? If so which ones. You could give me a rating on a scale of 1 to 10 and use a decimal point if you like (i.e. 3.5) with 1 being terrible and 10 being perfect. You may have a lot of screens that you think should be eliminated so if you rate them I can prioritize and look at those that you think are the worst or the least good first. A rating of 5 would be ok so I would think anything that you think should be eliminated would be rated below 5. There might be screens that you think should be eliminated because it's too much of the same thing. So you could add any comments that you think makes sense when suggesting that some screen should be eliminated.

If you want to forget the rating system completely that's ok too. You could just say I though Preset screen ### wasn't very good and should be eliminated.

I think users are going to judge Ray Rover largely by how much they like the Preset Screens. They'll figure whoever created Ray Rover is going to be able to use it better than they can so if the creator can't make any screens they like then they probably won't be interested in it.

7. Go ahead and try out the Freestyle Mode and the Personal Screens Mode. If you create some screen or screens that you think deserve to be in the Presets you can let me know and I'll take a look at it or them. You can email me either the list of settings or you can go to the folder that holds that Personal Screen and send me an email with an attachment that has the screen you created. If I decide to use it I'll give you credit if you want and even if you don't want credit I'll make it known that an anonymous user created Preset Screen number so and so.

8. Give me your overall rating of Ray Rover on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being perfect and you can use a decimal point if you like just like with the Preset Screens rating.

9. Do you have any suggestions about my website's description and explanation, etc of Ray Rover?

10. I plan on selling it for not more than $ 18 and not less than $ 14. What would you sell it for?

11. What were your favorite Preset Screens. You can give me just 1 or maybe 5 or 10 or whatever you like.

I plan on working to see if I can do something about the messages you get when you attempt to download Ray Rover.

I've given everyone 180 free trial minutes. When those expire you can go through the same process a purchaser of Ray Rover would except you won't have to purchase it. That way I'll make sure the activation process is working ok. It works ok on my computer but I should test it out for others. The trial minutes count actual use not 180 minutes from the time you start to use it. So if you used it for 10 minutes a day you'd have 18 days of use before the trial minutes expire. You can force the Activation Screen to open by hitting 1 on the number pad to the right of and not above the letters. Make sure Num Lock is on or else it won't work.

I thought that I would add that Ray Rover is capable of creating a lot of really dull and boring and lousy screens but in my opinion it can also create some pretty good stuff but you might have to do a lot of work to get something that you really like.

Let me know if you have any problems downloading it or whatever else. I'm sure of course you will if you do have problems.

Don't feel that you have to answer all the question in post #1 if you don't feel like it. Just participate in the Beta Testing to the degree that you want to. I don't want to place any kind of burden on anyone.


When viewing the Preset Screens use n(lowercase n) to immediately start the next screen if you've had your fill of the present screen. Hit j to jump to the next jump point. The jump points are spaced 100 screens apart. You can make a list of the Preset Screens that you think are no good and rate them or not like I said before.

That's cool :thumb:

When I installed it and ran it for the first time, it showed an out of bounds error:

Code:

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See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array.
  at WindowsApplication1.DisplayGraphics.Timer1_Tick(Object sender, EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.OnTick(EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.TimerNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
Ray Rover Computer Graphics Program
    Assembly Version: 1.0.12.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.12.0
    CodeBase: file:///G:/Program%20Files/Taylor%20Entertainment/Ray%20Rover%20%20Computer%20Graphics%20Program/Ray%20Rover%20Computer%20Graphics%20Program.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.VisualBasic
    Assembly Version: 8.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 8.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.VisualBasic/8.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.

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And the mouse arrow was not visible !

But I was able to view the animated screens.

:wave:

Hi Entity, congratulations on getting the beta version out into the world. I've downloaded it, installed it and taken a quick look. I think I will have plenty to say about it, but that will have to wait for now.

I get the same Out of Bounds error as Akhilesbc on startup. This proves one of two things:

a. Akhilesbc is not insane, orelse
b. I am insane and so is Akhilesbc.:wave:

In fact I spent a few minutes watching the screens with the stupid dialog box on top. Since the mouse was inactive I couldn't select it to close it. Then I discovered that showing and then closing the Task Manager gave it focus so I could close the box with Alt-C.

BB

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Originally Posted by boops boops

I get the same Out of Bounds error as Akhilesbc on startup. This proves one of two things:

a. Akhilesbc is not insane, orelse
b. I am insane and so is Akhilesbc.:wave:

BB

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:p

I did tested it again. And some animations was very slow after a certain extent.

Those are some cool stuff. I liked the 29th one. It's like a lotus blossoming. :)

:wave:

I was not too long ago adjusting the size of the arrays down for a number of the variables because I thought I was using up too many resources. I ran into the same error you guys are getting and tried to adjust them up again where it was necessary and to the extent necessary. I elimnated the problems I thought but apparently not completely.

I'll dig into that problem again. Hit Num Lock so Num Lock is on and then hit 9 on the number pad to make the mouse pointer visible. Were you seeing that error from screen # 0? I don't see it. I ran all the screens just going IC = 0 to 10 without any errors but some screens change settings part way through and then perhaps the error appears. If you let me know what screen you saw it on that would be good but it's curious as to why you guys get the problem and not me unless like it said it is part way through some screen. If I find out what screen that is then I can zero in on the problem more easily.


Edit Entry :

I just uninstalled Ray Rover and then reinstalled from my website's download link and it still runs ok for me. Hard to debug when I get no problem on my end. I was looking at all the arrayed variables I have for my application and there are a lot.

Boops Boops I noticed you said you get the problem on startup so that tells me something. There are a certain number of variables that I set to certain values at the start so it should be among them that I have the problem. Why I don't see the problem on my computer still doesn't make sense to me though.

Go back to my site and try another download. What I was seeing is that you weren't getting the latest version. The setup project for installation didn't have the latest .exe in it. I'm still learning stuff about how the setup project that is attached to my application works. Still weird that I didn't get the same problem you guys got since I uninstalled Ray Rover from my computer and then did an install from my website yesterday. Anyway do another install from my site and let me know what happens.

I selected Remove Previous Version : True for one of the installer properties, so you shouldn't have to uninstall the application. When you install the new version it should uninstall the last version for you automatically.

Unfortunately the unhandled exception still appears on starting, even with the new version. BB

ok thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

I'm thinking I haven't got the setup project correct. It works ok for me for some reason but not for everyone. I'll keep working on it.

I have my computer set up for triple boot and I tried installing my application from my website into XP, Vista and Windows 7 and it works fine in every case.

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I get the same Out of Bounds error as Akhilesbc on startup. This proves one of two things:

a. Akhilesbc is not insane, orelse
b. I am insane and so is Akhilesbc.

---

So now I know you're both insane. Just joking but it's hard to work on a problem I don't see.

Ok I put up a different download on my download page for my application. Give it another try. When it starts it's not going to run a section that initializes a large number of variables many of which are arrayed variables. If it starts and you still get the problem let me know. If it starts and you don't get the problem then hit "Enter" on the keyboard. I'm guessing that you will then see the problem you did before because then the initialization section will run. After you hit "Enter" on the keyboard you'll see the lines get skinny if you're running screen 0 because the settings will change.

If you still get the problem at startup then I'll chop out some more stuff at the start but it's weird that I'm troubleshooting through other peoples computers because I don't see any problem on mine. Maybe my application is biased against people who live in India and Europe.

I've been studying the setup project more and it appears that I should actually have the setup project run and then that will access the msi file if I set things up correctly but if you have the prerequisites installed which most VBForums members would then the msi "should" run ok or at least that's what I would think. Once we get that working ok then I'll try to get it setup so someone who doesn't have the prerequisites installed will get a good download or set of downloads for my application.

Edit entry :
I've replaced the download a couple more times since I first posted this post #11. Found an arrayed variable that had too low of a maximum index and increased it though it shouldn't have caused a problem on startup. It was causing me a problem at screen 442. I should have been more careful about adjusting those arrays. Found another less vital mistake concerning the keyboard control list for j and J.

The last download for Ray Rover that I put up on the site last night would still run the initialization section at the start though one of the ones before that didn't. The one I just put up now doesn't run the initialization section that has many arrayed variables in it. It will only do so if you hit "Enter" on the keyboard. Ray Rover version 1.0.21.

Screen 64 will freeze if you haven't hit "Enter" before you get to it because the initialization section hasn't run.

I created an alternate download page.

http://www.taylorentertainment.biz/D...RayRover2.aspx

Use the page DownloadRayRover that you get to with the link Download Ray Rover if you want the version designed for debugging that doesn't run the initialization section at startup. Use DownloadRayRover2.aspx if you want a version that works ok for me but not certain others like Boops Boops and Akeleshbc and does do the initialization of variables so you don't get screen freezing on certain screens like screen 64.

I switched the names around on my website. Use the Download Ray Rover Debugging page if you want that or else Download Ray Rover for the non debugging versions that work just fine on my computer. There's a .NET Framework 3.0 and .NET Framework 2.0 version on that page. I was running the 2.0 version and it looks just as good to me as when I was using a 3.5 version.

If I have any new beta testers out there let me know. If anyone knows a good place to subscribe beta testers let me know.

Hi Entity, I installed the "debugging" version and at last it starts without an error message:).

Here's some initial comments, mostly about the about the general design of the program. Perhaps this is not the usual purpose of beta-testing, but I hope you will find them useful.

THE S and s LISTS
1. I hope you will soon provide some kind of GUI or at least a menu for the key functions (the "S list"). Keys are only useful when you already know the program fairly well.

2. 8 seconds is far too short to view the S list when you are unfamiliar with the program. Wouldn't it be more convenient to toggle the display on and off, instead of auto-closing? This may apply to other info screens too.

3. The S list is sometimes truncated at the bottom and wiggles while an animation is playing. Perhaps this depends on screen dimensions (1680 * 1080 in my case).

4. The settings list (s) has similar problems. On my PC it is crowded up in the top right hand corner and is severely truncated, which makes it impossible to use. Also, it doesn't show you how to change the settings, so perhaps you need to view it at the same time as the S list. A GUI would be really nice here.

PRESET SCREENS
1. I hope it is your intention to provide a more limited introduction -- say 10 or 15 carefully chosen examples. Showing 2500 preset screens sequentially is impressive but it is far too many, particularly since most of them take several minutes. Jumping through the list (j) doesn't help because you don't know what you are missing. This makes it hard to choose "favorites".

2. I dislike it when a display suddenly clears itself while the animation is running (e.g. preset 0). Often it's the buildup process that is most interesting, and you don't get time to appreciate the results.

3. I would prefer it if you allow presets to run until the user presses a key. Sometimes they end suddenly just when you want to admire the results (e.g. preset 7). Would it be possible to fade instead of switching suddenly?


WINDOWING
1. Is there a reason you can't provide an option to display the program in a standard window? Full screen is obviously the best way to appreciate the animations, but there are times when you want to switch contexts. At the moment you have to close the program before you can do anything else.

I guess that's enough for now. Maybe it will take several entity-years to satisfy all those wishes;). BB

Boops Boops I am indebted to you. Thanks for running my debug version and for the feedback. I was thinking I had become a beta testerless EntityX.

Did you go through the instructions? Press w to get the instructions. After you hit s or S you can pause the screen with a right mouse click and get either the settings display or keyboard control list to remain as long as you like. You can also pause the screen first with a right mouse click and then hit s or S. You can also switch between them or make them disappear while paused. Hit s or S a second time to make them disappear.

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3. The S list is sometimes truncated at the bottom and wiggles while an animation is playing. Perhaps this depends on screen dimensions (1680 * 1080 in my case).

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When you say truncated at the bottom is it cutting off anything. It usually doesn't go the full height of the screen. I created Ray Rover using a screen resolution of 1152 x 864 so you should be able to see the full list with the resolution you're using. It would sometimes wiggle because the list depends upon what's happening and sometimes that changes but you can always pause the screen with a right mouse click to get any wiggling to stop.

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4. The settings list (s) has similar problems. On my PC it is crowded up in the top right hand corner and is severely truncated, which makes it impossible to use. Also, it doesn't show you how to change the settings, so perhaps you need to view it at the same time as the S list. A GUI would be really nice here.

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I meant for the settings list to be crowded up in the top right hand corner. It should always be showing all of the settings that are turned on. It doesn't always show every setting but if it is cutting stuff out that's not good. I've been doing all of my recent testing in Windows 7 and I noticed before that the text can space itself out differently in different OS's. You could let me know what OS you're using and also a screenshot of it truncating. Is it chopping some of the text off because it doesn't extend far enough down? I haven't seen that in a while but maybe in something other than Windows 7 I wouldn't be too surprised if that was happening.

When you say a GUI would you be talking about another floating window? Maybe one of these days perhaps.

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PRESET SCREENS
1. I hope it is your intention to provide a more limited introduction -- say 10 or 15 carefully chosen examples. Showing 2500 preset screens sequentially is impressive but it is far too many, particularly since most of them take several minutes. Jumping through the list (j) doesn't help because you don't know what you are missing. This makes it hard to choose "favorites".

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The Preset screens aren't supposed to be an introduction. You can exit them at any time. If you hit f while in the Preset Mode you'll put yourself in the Freestyle Mode. You can then play around with the settings however you like without having to deal with what the Presets give you. Hit f again and you're in Personal Screens mode. Press m for the Settings Control Screen. That's all in the instructions which you get from pressing "w". There's a big library of Presets but you can exit the Preset Mode at any time and play around in the other modes whenever you like.

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2. I dislike it when a display suddenly clears itself while the animation is running (e.g. preset 0). Often it's the buildup process that is most interesting, and you don't get time to appreciate the results.

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That's just my personal preference. Sometimes I like to periodically clear the screen. But if you want after any Preset screen starts you can hit f to go into Freestyle Mode and then set CSR = 0. Bring up the Settings Control Screen to do that the long way by pressing "m" on the keyboard. CSR is at the top and used by all phases or the quick way is to press and release the F1 key while your seeing the graphics and then hit "o" within 3 seconds. o is for off. You can then start a new screen just like you do in Presets mode by pressing "n" and see that screen again from the start without the periodic clearing. You could then return to the Presets mode by pressing f 2 more times and then press n to start the next Preset Screen. Another thing you can always do is create your own improved version of any Preset by saving the improved group of settings as a Personal Screen. I'll take your input about screen 0 into consideration and perhaps change that screen or perhaps use periodic clearing less frequently for other screens.

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3. I would prefer it if you allow presets to run until the user presses a key. Sometimes they end suddenly just when you want to admire the results (e.g. preset 7). Would it be possible to fade instead of switching suddenly?

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I think I'll probably leave each Preset screen with a definite length but I address what you are talking about in the instruction for Ray Rover. If you hit s it will show you ClearLimit. When ClearLimit reaches IC then the screen ends and a new screen begins. You can press "Y" on the keyboard to display the IC label in the lower left corner of the screen. That way you can see just how long it will be before the screen ends. If you like that screen and want it to run a long time then you can press "K" which will increment ClearLimit up. If you pause the screen and press s and then press K you can watch ClearLimit go up. Then you can press s again to make the s list disappear and unpause the screen with another right mouse click and watch the screen for a long time. When you've had your fill of the screen you can press n.

Would it be possible to fade instead of switching suddenly? Sounds tricky. Maybe one of these years or decades. I doubt I'll do it.

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WINDOWING
1. Is there a reason you can't provide an option to display the program in a standard window? Full screen is obviously the best way to appreciate the animations, but there are times when you want to switch contexts. At the moment you have to close the program before you can do anything else.

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I may very well do that. Not immediately I want to get other issues taken care of.

Thanks for your input Boops Boops. Maybe I don't need a whole bunch of beta testers. Just a few good ones.

New debugging version is on site to zero in on section of code giving problem. See instructions. Press Enter key to make label visible. Will also turn label off if you press it again. Press Backspace key to increment variable and note value when error pops up.

This version targets .NET Framework 2.0. You can let me know if you notice any difference in the way it runs.

You might want to uninstall the other version first. It's supposed to uninstall the old but I thought I saw it fail to do that once.

Boops Boops I was just thinking about what you were saying about a GUI. Did you see the Settings Control Screen? Press m when the graphics are being displayed to bring that up.

A neighbor let me use their computer. He had the same problem as Boops Boops and akhileshbc running the standard version. I was able to zero in on the problem usuing the latest debug version. Fortunately he had a laptop that used a high screen resolution. I didn't allow for a high enough screen resolution for width. I now dimension a certain array using PictureBox.width so I can't miss.

a few problems with the latest version:

The instructions screen tells me my "trial of Ray Rover is about to expire". Hey, I've hardly tried it yet!:confused:

Settings (s) box: not all setting are visible:Attachment 82989

Problems with the main settings menu. Maybe a lot of this has to do with screen resolution.
Attachment 82990

BB

Looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me. It looks good on my computer but that's why you do beta testing. What OS are you using? I've only tested it in XP, Vista and Windows 7. I don't plan on trying to get it to work well with anything else until Windows 8 comes out. I'll advertise it as working in those and nothing else.

When you installed it the first time did you notice how many minutes it said? It will keep track of time if you uninstall and download a new version or reinstall the same version.

Here's what it looks like for me using Windows 7. Last time I tested Vista and XP were pretty good too.

XPsp3 on vanilla Intel twin-core with 2GB, Nvidia GeForce 7650 GS and 1680*1080 screen. Maybe I left the program running while I was out doing something useful: I'm sure it was 270 minutes or so the last time I looked! BB

Boops I think you probably have 1.0.28 which doesn't initialize the values. Oops my mistake. So screen 64 goes blank at the start. I have 1.0.29 up now.

You can force the activation screen to open by hitting 1 on the number pad with the num lock set. That's on a microsoft keyboard or else just wait for your time to run out and then you can get a step1 code send it to me and I'll give you an activation code. I should probably set up another way to force the activation screen to open. I just found another bug because I had adjusted a certain value in my debugging efforts which will create a problem if you try to force the activation screen to open immediately after you start the application. I'm about to put up yet another version.

I went into XP and started running Ray Rover from there. It still looks good to me but I did find a certain problem that I don't see in Windows 7 or Vista.


I thought, what about the display properties in XP. If you go to appearance and look at the bottom there's an adjustment for font size. If it is at normal the Settings Control Screen comes up fine in Ray Rover but if I set that adjustment to large fonts or extra large fonts then the Settings Control Screen doesn't open and instead of seeing that or the graphics displayed Ray Rover minimizes and I see the Windows desktop. Hadn't seen that problem before. I might go ahead and install Visual Studio 2010 into XP so I can work from XP in fixing that problem. I shouldn't have to tell users, "make sure that setting is normal or else you get a problem". You want it to always work the correct way no matter what if possible.

My display settings are default XP except that I use the Zune colour scheme and my screen resolution is 1680*1050. I changed the resolution to 1280*960, installed the latest version of RayRover (1.0.3) and restarted.

1. I now have 197 minutes of testing time.
2. The key help (S) box is still truncated about half way through the S line. I guess that has something to do with the wide screen shape rather than the resolution in use.
3. Pressing m to view the settings screen now crashes RayRover. It just closes with no exception message. The TaskBar button remains visible but it is inactive. I have to use TaskManager/End Process to get rid of it.

EDIT: After I change screen resolution back to 1680 * 1050 the program no longer crashes on pressing m but the defects I reported in post #18 are still present.

BB

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Many of the preset screens start looking interesting but suddenly skip to the next screen before there's time to appreciate it. That makes it hard to note which ones you like. Ideally, I would like to see each Preset screen run continuously until the user stops it. Would that be hard to do?

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I thought I'd answer this here in case I ever attract any other beta testers. One reason I wouldn't want to set it up so that each screen runs forever is a lot of the screens only have a limited life. The A Phase screens that bounce lines off of the edge of the screen aren't among those but there are many screens where after a certain time the lines will all wander off the screen so there wouldn't be anything to see. I might start increasing the length for a lot of those screens that have an infinite life or a very long life so I will take your advice into consideration.

Always keep in mind that if you see a screen that you like and you think it might end soon you can hold down K. That will very rapidly increase ClearLimit. I understand that presently you Boops can't even view ClearLimit in the s list because the s list isn't displaying properly for you.

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If you try changing the settings in Preview mode, the screen often ends before you can see the results, forcing you to start again. The bugs I have mentioned with the Keys and the Settings screen don't help of course.

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The truth is I don't think you should even try to change any setting in the Preset Screens mode with the exception of ClearLimit which will increase or decrease the length of the screen. I think I'll probably leave the user with the possibility of changing the settings with keystrokes in the Preset mode but if you really want to experiment with a screen it is best to do so in Freestyle mode. When in Freestyle mode if the screen ends the next screen that starts will be the exact screen that you just saw so you don't have to worry about losing your group of settings.

If there was a screen you just saw that you liked and it just ended you can get back to it rather quickly by hitting J until you're back to screen 0 then you can use either j or J if necessary and/or hold the n key down until you're back to the screen you just saw. You can then hit f to enter the Freestyle mode. Look in the upper left corner when you use the f key. It will keep track for you of what mode you're in. Once in Freestyle you can relax and play around with that screen as much as you like and if you make an improvement that you like then you can save it as a Personal Screen by bringing up the Settings Control Screen.

Ray Rover 1.0.32 is up on the site. When I was using my neighbors computer yesterday I got the idea that I would change the pause screen action from left click to right click on mouse so it's right click now to pause screen. Boops let me know if you can if the s and S lists are working better for you. I went to autosize on them and also on a number of the labels and buttons in the Settings Control Screen. You can verify version at the bottom of the Instruction page (press w on keyboard to bring that up). Do you still get the exception on pressing Accept Settings. I didn't do any work on that but could be that you had the noninitialization version then though it wasn't supposed to be a noninitialization version. You probably will still get the screen crash.

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3. Pressing m to view the settings screen now crashes RayRover. It just closes with no exception message. The TaskBar button remains visible but it is inactive. I have to use TaskManager/End Process to get rid of it.

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What screen resolution were you using when that happened? I found a right click followed by Esc key closed it for me in XP without having to use TaskManager when I had that problem I talked about in post # 24 that occurred when I set the Display Properties font size to Large or Extra Large.

You should gift some teddy bears to boops boops, for doing the beta testing ;)

I did a quick testing today. Looks like everything is ok. When we pause the animation (right-click), it would be a good idea to display label showing that the animation is paused (or the instruction on how to resume it.) :thumb:
Also, the preset screen number 18 seems to be having some problems. Some polygons are getting extra in the corners and in certain areas.

And, your site's color scheme could be rearranged a bit. Your current color scheme is giving pain for eyes (atleast mine. I'm using specs :)).

If I get some free time, I'll try to create a design and will send it to you.

Good luck :wave:

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Originally Posted by akhileshbc

You should gift some teddy bears to boops boops, for doing the beta testing ;)

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I have more than enough teddy bears, thank you. But I'm hoping Entity can do something about my severe kharma deficit:blush:

@Entity. I installed 1.0.32 and it fixes some important problems. The S box seems to show everything -- up to NumPad 1. And the "Accept and Ru" button on the m box seems to work OK. I hope you can sort out the text corruption in the "Settings Explained" window soon. BB

I asked Boops if he would be interested in working as a beta tester for me for 500 billion dollars per day. I'm waiting for his response.

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And, your site's color scheme could be rearranged a bit. Your current color scheme is giving pain for eyes (atleast mine. I'm using specs ).

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Sorry akhileshbc. I like it the way it is. Endure the pain. I'll say a prayer for your eyes.

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Also, the preset screen number 18 seems to be having some problems. Some polygons are getting extra in the corners and in certain areas.

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That's just the nature of that screen. That screen uses PTC in D Phase to run the pen thickness from a low value up to a high value and then back down. When the pen thickness starts getting into those high values you get those points that you see. Maybe some day I'll learn how to make a similar screen without those points but I'm not going to worry about it right now.

I changed the S list so that it reads : Right mouse click = Start and stop drawing. I thought about adding a new message like you said but I don't think I will. Sometimes it's nice to pause the screen just to look at it. Another message popping up every time you pause the screen would add some clutter.

I added a bunch of time to screens 0 to 10, 13, 14, 19 and a whole lot of time to 12. I only had 12 at ClearLimit = 2000. I held K down and watched it after IC = 2000 and it gives some really cool results after that. I kept watching it until IC = 28000 and decided I would set ClearLimit to 40000 for that screen.

Screen 18 used to be screen 3022. I switched those two because I thought the old 18 was too much like some of the screens just before it. I'm only going to do that with a pair of screens that I know I want to keep. If someone tells me eliminate one of those I won't.

@boobs boobs:

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I have more than enough teddy bears, thank you. But I'm hoping Entity can do something about my severe kharma deficit

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I don't know what it is :)

@Entity:

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I asked Boops if he would be interested in working as a beta tester for me for 500 billion dollars per day. I'm waiting for his response.

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:p

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Sorry akhileshbc. I like it the way it is. Endure the pain. I'll say a prayer for your eyes.

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Then I'm striking this line:

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If I get some free time, I'll try to create a design and will send it to you.

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:D

Good luck...:wave:

Ray Rover 1.0.33 is up on my site. There are the changes I talked about 2 posts above and then I went through the labels on the Explain Settings form and changed them to AutoSize and also changed the property for UseCompatibleTextRendering to True. I changed the maximum width on the labels also. Boops you can tell me if that makes a difference. If it doesn't then I'll space the labels out more so they're not as close together. Akhileshbc were you seeing the same problem that boops was talking about (Post # 18) with the Explain Settings form? If so you could report if the new version changed anything.

I noticed that when I use the Setup Project which uses the msi installer then it will unintall the old before installing the new but for now you have to unintall the old version and then install the new which you have probably figured out by now. I'll eventually learn how to put the setup program up on my site so that it uses the msi file but I haven't had success with that so far so I'll just continue to us the msi file by itself.

I noticed screen 2 has a ClearLimit of 100. That's a mistake that will be fixed in the next version.

Something I wasn't testing before I released the first beta version is adjusting the Display properties out of the default position for font size. I don't need any beta testers help for a while. This is going to keep me busy. Everything works fine if you leave the text size at the default size but if you go up to one of the 2 larger sizes then problems will occur either displaying the Settings Control Screen or the Exaplain Settings Screen or else you'll get a problem when you try to open the Settings Control Screen. I know what's happening there from the past. It might be a while before I ask for any beta testers input.

Version 1.0.36 is up on the site. Started to space out the labels on Explain Settings form. Not done. Backspace = Go back one screen.

Boops or someone could you take a screenshot from your computer of what you see below. I want to see how it is spacing on your computer so I get an idea of how much space to allow between lables. PieF is in the D Phase section.

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Originally Posted by EntityX

Version 1.0.36 is up on the site. Started to space out the labels on Explain Settings form. Not done. Backspace = Go back one screen.

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How can I open that screen ? :confused:

Also, I noticed that pressing C or B on the keyboard in the first screen startsup two other animations in the same screen overlayed ! Is that a feature or bug ?

And when I uses "Press S for List of keyboard controls" in the very first screen, it doesn't show the list of keyboard controls. Instead, it shows some label with settings in the top right corner.

And when we press the "W" on keyboard for instructions, a screen appears. You have included the functioning of your program along with the controls and its definition all mixed as separate paragraphs. My suggestion is to list it one by one for the keyboard controls.

For eg:

• N - Next screen
• Q - to increment
• S - for instructions
• ......

I don't know whether everyone will try to read your full documentation inorder to see which key is used to move to the next scene !

:wave:

Ok thanks for your input. To get to the Explain Settings window first bring up the Settings Control Screen by pressing m, not M. After you see that look at the top and you see a colored button Settings Explained . Click that. You have to scroll way down to find what you're looking for. Take a good look at where the scroll bar is in that screen shot and that will tell you how far down you have to scroll to get to those particular values. A way that would be easier for you to find it would be to set Dph to at least 1. That will turn on D Phase and then click in the PieF combobox and then click Settings Explained or just double click the form in a blank place where you don't see any controls or labels. That's an alternate method to bring up the Settings Explained window.

If you press s you'll get the settings displayed and if you press S you get the list of keyboard controls. You have valid points about the instructions. I'll think on it. But I have a lot of work ahead of me in another area. I'm rebuilding the Settings Control Screen from scratch for reasons I won't go into. But it will look the same as it does now. Boops thinks my Settings Control Screen is a disaster but I like my disaster.

I think it would be good for me to have a lot of the most important and used keyboard controls that stay a constant listed in the instructions also. So thanks for that advice. It might be a while before I get around to doing that. I might be rebuilding the Settings Control Screen for about a week. It depends upon how much time I put into it every day.

I would be interested Boops in exactly how you would do the user interface if Ray Rover was your application. You have settings and you have comboboxes to enter the settings on the Settings Control Screen. What's so disastrously bad about that? Maybe the layout. Maybe you could elaborate more. I like to see all the available settings for each phase in one screen. That's why I made it like that. If you have suggestions to make it look nicer you can do that since I'm rebuilding that now. I think if people really like the Presets they'll buy Ray Rover even if they have difficulties learning how to create your own screens. I'll keep trying to make it better though.

The idea of having bookmarks is a possibility but you can gather your favorites together another way. After a Preset starts you can go into the Personal Screens mode and then save it as a Personal Screen and also make any personal improvements you might want like making it last longer or turning something on or off. If the Preset screen changes settings part way through the screen then it becomes more difficult to duplicate it but you can if you do the work or you could break it into two or more separate screens with different settings. I could somewhere down the road create a Favorites screen that you bring up and then you could check your favorites and run your favorites so that it would just show those and skip over the rest. I'm not going to think about that right now but I'll file it away for future consideration.

Boops you were saying in your email, "why 550?" Because after the first jump to 100 all the jumps after that were 150. So it went 100, 250, 400, 550, 700, 850, etc, I just changed it so now all the jumps are 100. Simpler to understand and also it puts the jump points closer together. J is now always a jump of 500 except from 3000 and j is always a jump of 100 except at 3000 so it's simpler. The idea of a go to screen I think is unnecessary because you can get around pretty quickly with J and j and holding n down so if I ever do it, it is really low on the priority list. You can also back into a screen by using the Backspace key. So if you wanted to see screen 1499 and you're at screen 0, you just hit J 3 times to take you to 1500 and backspace once to 1499. I could perhaps do go back 50 screens key so whenever you wanted to make it to something like 1350 or close to that you could go 50 past it with j and back into it with a go back 50 screens key.

Ray Rover 1.0.37 is up on my site. Minus key on Microsoft keyboard above and right of 9 on number pad will go back 50 screens. You can back into screen 3047 with Backspace or back into screen 2997 with the minus key from screen 0 now if you want. That would enable one to get to the very high numbered screens faster.

I was noticing that the msi installer is automatically uninstalling the old version now without using the setup program. I thought before that it wasn't.

I spaced out the labels quite a bit on the Settings Explained form but I had to start from the bottom and work up. By the time I got up to the A Phase explanations I had used up all my space. Here's a screenshot of that same section that Boops has in Post # 18. Looks pretty good on my computer. That's in Windows 7 with the Display properties for text size set to the default value which is the smallest and my screen resolution there is 1152 x 864. I'm guessing that there is no improvement for Boops unless it happened when I went to autosize which was a few versions back. Though explanations that are below that point would be spaced apart farther. I just looked at that screenshot again that's in post # 18 and I see a certain gap between labels. When I went to autosize I would think the gap would disappear. Perhaps the text would run from one label into the next and get cut off but I would think that you'd get another line or 2 where you see those gaps.

In my opinion, using the lowercase and uppercase of a particular character for doing different functions is a bad idea. :)

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S = blah blah1
s = blah blah2

C = blah blah3
c = blah blah4

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Doesn't seem okay to me. Maybe, other customers might like this approach.

:wave: