Fish Picker for MA2 - Page 2

feldon34 · 03-26-2003, 04:34 PM

what is v.k and v.l?

handimannbob · 03-26-2003, 05:30 PM

i guess v.99k or v99L, i forget. can i still download older versions

handimannbob · 03-26-2003, 05:33 PM

i miss fishes swimming through layers more and swimming right at me now and then, especially in wide-screen version

Mountainmaster · 03-26-2003, 06:19 PM

will picker work in v.k and v.l.....

Not with 0.99K. The old Fish Picker 3.0.9 might support 0.99L since that was the first version that had its registry settings in CURRENT_USER instead of LOCAL_MACHINE. If you don't select the Lionfish it should work allright, but I can't guarantee anything.

You can still get Fish Picker 3.0.9 from my download page: http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/software.htm

handimannbob · 03-26-2003, 07:05 PM

thanks mm i still have that one......

Mountainmaster · 03-30-2003, 04:17 PM

Fish Picker 4.0.3 is available for download now from http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/progs/picker_ma2.zip

Finally I added the longtime requested feature "Cycle Custom Settings"! I am not sure though if it will work on all systems. Please report any problems here. To avoid errors you should neither access the aquarium manually nor actively use other applications when this option is set!

cjmaddy · 03-30-2003, 05:57 PM

Appears to work on my system just fine! - Not something I would particularly want myself, and as you say, not very serene when set for one minute , but for those that want this feature, it's fine.
Just a pity that the change over can not be smoother, but well done! - It works!

Mountainmaster · 03-30-2003, 06:41 PM

Thanks for the feedback Cliff. As I mentioned before I was worried about timing problems, especially on older systems. I guess your AMD K6-2 500MHz is somewhere in that category

, so anything more recent should be fine as well.
The reall issue here is: Does your MA2 close within 2 seconds? Because that is the amount of time Fish Picker will allow before it starts writing new settings to the registry.

feldon34 · 03-30-2003, 07:26 PM

Could you give examples of the changeable tank settings you are using?

If you could create preset tanks with the fish you wanted, plus if you could control the frequency of each fish in the RANDOM selection, would this satisfy all your needs that you are meeting with Fish Picker?

handimannbob · 03-30-2003, 11:20 PM

mm......on mine it closes to desktop and starts again, all in 3secs......intel 810 chipset..670mhz.....319ram.....hp pavilion6736

James · 03-31-2003, 02:25 AM

MM, it's really a nice feature u've implemented.....
this make me recall that some while ago back to AquaReal's forum, someone actually ask for this similar feature, that cycle through all the "*.ar" files(each *.ar files r the preset setting of the tank in AquaReal), Formosoft is planing to make that happen in future, but it's great to see there's a plugin for MA doing the same thing, I'm impressed.

U really done the nice job MM

, btw, do u need more startfish position HEX value in registry? maybe I can help u again somehow as well as making the new empty tank picture with more starfish position label?

I like to be involved with the fish picker developement again

It should tell you guys something that Mountainmaster's program is now being seriously looked at when selecting features to add next to the Aquarium...

this is becoz MM"s picker converge all the wanted features that MA dont' have and those turns out very popular, it's very funny that many of those feature r actually planed in the future AR too(bcoz the demand on AR forum), such as cycling the random fish in an interval time, I do think this is a nice feature to cycle through all included fish in the program, so that the user dont' have to chaneg the setting many time, just leave the program runing and runing and eventually u can see all the fish. Since it's a popular demanding feature, MA really should add this function in future.

This feature not only reduce the complexity of UI as well as increase the usability intuitivism of the program and many fun with it too!!

cjmaddy · 03-31-2003, 07:45 AM

It 'snaps' from MA2 to the desktop instantly, then stays with the Desktop/FishPicker for about 8 secs, followed by about 8 secs of black screen. With 3 x 7 fish custom settings, it feels like it could go on for ever, - if I let it!

After choosing 'Cycle Custom Settings' you have to remember to press the 'Apply' button before 'Start'ing the aquarium!
Could 'Start' be programed to override 'Apply' ? - Just a thought!

I didn't think I needed this, - but I quite like it! ..... I could get used to this!

CPU ........ AMD K6-2 500MHz
Windows .... 98SE
Motherboard. TMC AI5VG+ 100Mz (VIA MVP3)
Video card . GeForce4 MX440 64mb AGP (Driver 4.13.01.3140)
Sound card . Sound Blaster AWE-32 (Driver 4.38.16)
DirectX .... Version 8.1b

riz · 03-31-2003, 10:50 AM

Mountainmaster, you da man! That is awesome and it works perfectly! Now I can have different colored backgrounds without having to have 'automatic lights' on... finally the deep blue background can be seen without having to keep in on it all the time... and of course, I can randomize my own fish, leaving out my few least favs... I do have a server machine in my entertainment center running the aquarium full time and this is absolutely the answer to a new look every hour... new fish that I pick and a different color background to boot!

Great job! and thx,
riz

Mountainmaster · 03-31-2003, 10:53 AM

Could you give examples of the changeable tank settings you are using?

Morgan, I am not sure if I understand your question right, but the settings that are cycled are those that the users has stored under Custom Settings. When nothing was stored there there won't be any cycling.

btw, do u need more startfish position HEX value in registry?

James, some more positions up high on the glass would be nice. But to be honest I am not really looking forward to working on the image-map again, because there is a lot of trial and error involved in getting those coordinates right. So in short: Yes, I would appreciate more starfish positions, but it may be a while before I pick up the courage to implement them.

After choosing 'Cycle Custom Settings' you have to remember to press the 'Apply' button before 'Start'ing the aquarium!

Cliff, the cycling actually begins the second time the aquarium is started. Which setting you get the first time is indeed determined by what you applied last.

feldon34 · 03-31-2003, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by Mountainmaster
Morgan, I am not sure if I understand your question right, but the settings that are cycled are those that the users has stored under Custom Settings. When nothing was stored there there won't be any cycling.

I guess I'd better download it and try it out.

What I mean is, besides manually setting fish and starfish locations, what else is essential to the "Changeable Tanks"? Do people want sound/bubble settings remembered with 1 tank vs. another?

riz · 03-31-2003, 04:31 PM

Mountainamster, it appears I have found a small bug...

it seems that I see this error more consistantly when I have more than 3 custom saves... though on one machine I can have 3 saves but when I add the fourth I see the errror... on my main pc, I get the error every time... I've tested a bunch of different scenarios and don't have an exact answer on when it happens unfortunately...

Basically I created 5 saves, one for each shade of background... I've created the new save, hit the apply button, created another, saved and applied... etc... chose 'cycle custom settings, chose 1 minute for testing purposes... it doesn't cycle after a minute, then when I escape the aquarium, the message is there...

Just wanted to let you know,
riz

Mountainmaster · 03-31-2003, 05:32 PM

riz, it is probably the timing problem I mentioned earlier. The aquarium does not close down within the 2 seconds Fish Picker allows it to do that. I should have used a wait-loop that checks when the aquarium stops. Oh well, tomorrow is my day off so I may have some time to look into it.

Morgan, ask anyone and they'll say: the more features that are stored in custom settings the better

Personally I think the bubble column should be in there, but I don't care much for the sound since I usually have a CD playing with all other sounds turned off.

Mountainmaster · 04-01-2003, 07:22 AM

Ok, I think I fixed it in this new version 4.0.4. http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/progs/picker_ma2.zip

riz, can you check if this one works for you?

handimannbob · 04-01-2003, 09:48 AM

mm....what an addition to fish picker.......adds a whole new dimension to MA...... works great with 9 "tanks" so far.......how many "saves" can we have........would be nice to have a 2min. cycle time, 1min. not quite long enough, 5min. too long sometimes. so many beautiful fish to see

riz · 04-01-2003, 02:29 PM

mountainmaster... unfortuantely no, it's still now working... BUT, the error message is gone...

This is what I've now noticed... with the settings at 1 minute custom cycle... at over one minute nothing appears to have happened (no cycling of custom saves) but if i move the mouse, the aquarium doesn't close, it refreshes and loads up the next custom setting... if I move it again before the minute, it closes...

Basically if you move the mouse after each minute, it is correctly cycling the custom saves... but not on it's own, only because of the mouse move, double-spacebar doesn't work tho... if I move the mouse before the first minutes it closes, if I wait to move the mouse after the first minute but before the second it closes...

Hope this helps,
riz

P.S. My two machines use Nvidia cards... one a g4 ti4400, the other a g4 mx420... both with the 43.45 dets

03-26-2003, 04:34 PM	#21
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,939	what is v.k and v.l? "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

03-26-2003, 05:30 PM	#22
handimannbob what's up doc ? Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: millbrae,ca Posts: 410	i guess v.99k or v99L, i forget. can i still download older versions bob

03-26-2003, 05:33 PM	#23
handimannbob what's up doc ? Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: millbrae,ca Posts: 410	i miss fishes swimming through layers more and swimming right at me now and then, especially in wide-screen version bob

03-26-2003, 07:05 PM	#25
handimannbob what's up doc ? Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: millbrae,ca Posts: 410	thanks mm i still have that one...... bob

03-30-2003, 07:26 PM	#29
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,939	Could you give examples of the changeable tank settings you are using? If you could create preset tanks with the fish you wanted, plus if you could control the frequency of each fish in the RANDOM selection, would this satisfy all your needs that you are meeting with Fish Picker? "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

03-26-2003, 06:19 PM	#24
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	will picker work in v.k and v.l..... Not with 0.99K. The old Fish Picker 3.0.9 might support 0.99L since that was the first version that had its registry settings in CURRENT_USER instead of LOCAL_MACHINE. If you don't select the Lionfish it should work allright, but I can't guarantee anything. You can still get Fish Picker 3.0.9 from my download page: http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/software.htm

03-30-2003, 04:17 PM	#26
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	Fish Picker 4.0.3 is available for download now from http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/progs/picker_ma2.zip Finally I added the longtime requested feature "Cycle Custom Settings"! I am not sure though if it will work on all systems. Please report any problems here. To avoid errors you should neither access the aquarium manually nor actively use other applications when this option is set!

03-30-2003, 05:57 PM	#27
cjmaddy Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Lancashire, UK Posts: 7,854	Appears to work on my system just fine! - Not something I would particularly want myself, and as you say, not very serene when set for one minute , but for those that want this feature, it's fine. Just a pity that the change over can not be smoother, but well done! - It works!

03-30-2003, 06:41 PM	#28
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	Thanks for the feedback Cliff. As I mentioned before I was worried about timing problems, especially on older systems. I guess your AMD K6-2 500MHz is somewhere in that category , so anything more recent should be fine as well. The reall issue here is: Does your MA2 close within 2 seconds? Because that is the amount of time Fish Picker will allow before it starts writing new settings to the registry.

03-30-2003, 11:20 PM	#30
handimannbob what's up doc ? Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: millbrae,ca Posts: 410	mm......on mine it closes to desktop and starts again, all in 3secs......intel 810 chipset..670mhz.....319ram.....hp pavilion6736 bob

03-31-2003, 02:25 AM	#31
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	MM, it's really a nice feature u've implemented..... this make me recall that some while ago back to AquaReal's forum, someone actually ask for this similar feature, that cycle through all the ".ar" files(each .ar files r the preset setting of the tank in AquaReal), Formosoft is planing to make that happen in future, but it's great to see there's a plugin for MA doing the same thing, I'm impressed. U really done the nice job MM , btw, do u need more startfish position HEX value in registry? maybe I can help u again somehow as well as making the new empty tank picture with more starfish position label? I like to be involved with the fish picker developement again It should tell you guys something that Mountainmaster's program is now being seriously looked at when selecting features to add next to the Aquarium... this is becoz MM"s picker converge all the wanted features that MA dont' have and those turns out very popular, it's very funny that many of those feature r actually planed in the future AR too(bcoz the demand on AR forum), such as cycling the random fish in an interval time, I do think this is a nice feature to cycle through all included fish in the program, so that the user dont' have to chaneg the setting many time, just leave the program runing and runing and eventually u can see all the fish. Since it's a popular demanding feature, MA really should add this function in future. This feature not only reduce the complexity of UI as well as increase the usability intuitivism of the program and many fun with it too!! James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com

03-31-2003, 07:45 AM	#32
cjmaddy Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Lancashire, UK Posts: 7,854	It 'snaps' from MA2 to the desktop instantly, then stays with the Desktop/FishPicker for about 8 secs, followed by about 8 secs of black screen. With 3 x 7 fish custom settings, it feels like it could go on for ever, - if I let it! After choosing 'Cycle Custom Settings' you have to remember to press the 'Apply' button before 'Start'ing the aquarium! Could 'Start' be programed to override 'Apply' ? - Just a thought! I didn't think I needed this, - but I quite like it! ..... I could get used to this! CPU ........ AMD K6-2 500MHz Windows .... 98SE Motherboard. TMC AI5VG+ 100Mz (VIA MVP3) Video card . GeForce4 MX440 64mb AGP (Driver 4.13.01.3140) Sound card . Sound Blaster AWE-32 (Driver 4.38.16) DirectX .... Version 8.1b

03-31-2003, 10:50 AM	#33
riz Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 30	Mountainmaster, you da man! That is awesome and it works perfectly! Now I can have different colored backgrounds without having to have 'automatic lights' on... finally the deep blue background can be seen without having to keep in on it all the time... and of course, I can randomize my own fish, leaving out my few least favs... I do have a server machine in my entertainment center running the aquarium full time and this is absolutely the answer to a new look every hour... new fish that I pick and a different color background to boot! Great job! and thx, riz

03-31-2003, 10:53 AM	#34
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	Could you give examples of the changeable tank settings you are using? Morgan, I am not sure if I understand your question right, but the settings that are cycled are those that the users has stored under Custom Settings. When nothing was stored there there won't be any cycling. btw, do u need more startfish position HEX value in registry? James, some more positions up high on the glass would be nice. But to be honest I am not really looking forward to working on the image-map again, because there is a lot of trial and error involved in getting those coordinates right. So in short: Yes, I would appreciate more starfish positions, but it may be a while before I pick up the courage to implement them. After choosing 'Cycle Custom Settings' you have to remember to press the 'Apply' button before 'Start'ing the aquarium! Cliff, the cycling actually begins the second time the aquarium is started. Which setting you get the first time is indeed determined by what you applied last.

03-31-2003, 04:07 PM	#35
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,939	Originally posted by Mountainmaster Morgan, I am not sure if I understand your question right, but the settings that are cycled are those that the users has stored under Custom Settings. When nothing was stored there there won't be any cycling. I guess I'd better download it and try it out. What I mean is, besides manually setting fish and starfish locations, what else is essential to the "Changeable Tanks"? Do people want sound/bubble settings remembered with 1 tank vs. another? "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

03-31-2003, 04:31 PM	#36
riz Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 30	Mountainamster, it appears I have found a small bug... it seems that I see this error more consistantly when I have more than 3 custom saves... though on one machine I can have 3 saves but when I add the fourth I see the errror... on my main pc, I get the error every time... I've tested a bunch of different scenarios and don't have an exact answer on when it happens unfortunately... Basically I created 5 saves, one for each shade of background... I've created the new save, hit the apply button, created another, saved and applied... etc... chose 'cycle custom settings, chose 1 minute for testing purposes... it doesn't cycle after a minute, then when I escape the aquarium, the message is there... Just wanted to let you know, riz

03-31-2003, 05:32 PM	#37
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	riz, it is probably the timing problem I mentioned earlier. The aquarium does not close down within the 2 seconds Fish Picker allows it to do that. I should have used a wait-loop that checks when the aquarium stops. Oh well, tomorrow is my day off so I may have some time to look into it. Morgan, ask anyone and they'll say: the more features that are stored in custom settings the better Personally I think the bubble column should be in there, but I don't care much for the sound since I usually have a CD playing with all other sounds turned off.

04-01-2003, 07:22 AM	#38
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	Ok, I think I fixed it in this new version 4.0.4. http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/progs/picker_ma2.zip riz, can you check if this one works for you?

04-01-2003, 09:48 AM	#39
handimannbob what's up doc ? Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: millbrae,ca Posts: 410	mm....what an addition to fish picker.......adds a whole new dimension to MA...... works great with 9 "tanks" so far.......how many "saves" can we have........would be nice to have a 2min. cycle time, 1min. not quite long enough, 5min. too long sometimes. so many beautiful fish to see bob

04-01-2003, 02:29 PM	#40
riz Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 30	mountainmaster... unfortuantely no, it's still now working... BUT, the error message is gone... This is what I've now noticed... with the settings at 1 minute custom cycle... at over one minute nothing appears to have happened (no cycling of custom saves) but if i move the mouse, the aquarium doesn't close, it refreshes and loads up the next custom setting... if I move it again before the minute, it closes... Basically if you move the mouse after each minute, it is correctly cycling the custom saves... but not on it's own, only because of the mouse move, double-spacebar doesn't work tho... if I move the mouse before the first minutes it closes, if I wait to move the mouse after the first minute but before the second it closes... Hope this helps, riz P.S. My two machines use Nvidia cards... one a g4 ti4400, the other a g4 mx420... both with the 43.45 dets