Stuff...

[Elithrion]

Not very descriptive topic title, I know. A few things, mostly page-loading-related, I think. Loading ?p=mazestilllifes on firefox leads to a white page with 12345/3 as the sole text and javascript:rulesForce('B3/S12345'); in the nav bar. It works okay in google chrome, but (this is unrelated to recent changes, and more of a general occurrence in browsers), on my first load it loaded a tiny square of grid at the top left, a blue bar across the middle, and a blue box where the controls box thing should be. I hit reload, of course, and on my second load it loaded everything properly, except that the controls box was still pure blue. On my third load, everything finally loaded completely and worked.

This sort of loading stuff tends to happen more with firefox (and I haven't tried ie) too. Also with firefox, it sometimes crashes the browser if I run a pattern and then reload the page quickly (or something like that), although this is less of a problem with the clear button in place and thus my motivation for reloading largely gone.

Also I just wanna say that the page sometimes feels like it should have a disclaimer: "works best in google chrome".

[edit:] oh, and there are also some other firefox bugs (like the screen flickering between zoom levels after zooming on a ?p= pattern sometimes) that I've been hard pressed to reproduce and thus have not bothered complaining about.

[Nathaniel]

Not very descriptive topic title, I know. A few things, mostly page-loading-related, I think. Loading ?p=mazestilllifes on firefox leads to a white page with 12345/3 as the sole text and javascript:rulesForce('B3/S12345'); in the nav bar.

Ack! Kk, I just fixed that, thanks for letting me know.

on my first load it loaded a tiny square of grid at the top left, a blue bar across the middle, and a blue box where the controls box thing should be. I hit reload, of course, and on my second load it loaded everything properly, except that the controls box was still pure blue. On my third load, everything finally loaded completely and worked.

This has been happening for me on Chrome as well. I'll add it to the list of known issues and try to figure out what's going on.

[edit:] oh, and there are also some other firefox bugs (like the screen flickering between zoom levels after zooming on a ?p= pattern sometimes) that I've been hard pressed to reproduce and thus have no bothered complaining about.

Meh, complaining's good. I'll try some myself to reproduce it as well.

[Elithrion]

So, now I seem unable to change rules via the rules menu. On firefox, clicking the button did nothing, on chrome clicking it worked properly (that is, changed to "Rules Saved!") but had no effect. I couldn't seem to use ?r=123/123 on firefox either, but that went through okay on chrome.

Also, I couldn't seem to make the glider image to my satisfaction. I know this is really vague, but offsets + width/height kept betraying me and failing to ever quite meet my goal of "one cell of padding on all sides at all times (or as close to that as possible)". I think it's because of the pattern being so jumpy, but even the version I went with doesn't quite meet that requirement (as the top cell is pretty well 2 cells off from the top at all times). But yeah, I'm not sure if this is a complaint about the program or about my confusion that forced me into something like a score attempts before I settled on one (gave up).

[Nathaniel]

So, now I seem unable to change rules via the rules menu. On firefox, clicking the button did nothing, on chrome clicking it worked properly (that is, changed to "Rules Saved!") but had no effect. I couldn't seem to use ?r=123/123 on firefox either, but that went through okay on chrome.

Sorry about all the rules mess-ups lately. These problems are now fixed.

Also, I couldn't seem to make the glider image to my satisfaction. I know this is really vague, but offsets + width/height kept betraying me and failing to ever quite meet my goal of "one cell of padding on all sides at all times (or as close to that as possible)". I think it's because of the pattern being so jumpy, but even the version I went with doesn't quite meet that requirement (as the top cell is pretty well 2 cells off from the top at all times). But yeah, I'm not sure if this is a complaint about the program or about my confusion that forced me into something like a score attempts before I settled on one (gave up).

Hrm I'm not sure what to tell you... I think the problem is likely coming from the fact that it has the one lone cell that is higher up in one of its last generations, making it something like 1.8 cells down from the top when it finally comes. I've uploaded a new version of the image with a wider grid, but it has pretty much the same problem. Not really sure what can be done about it though, because pretty much any way you animate it, either the spark on the right or the spark on the top will make the glider seem "offcenter".

[Elithrion]

...the glider image...

Hrm I'm not sure what to tell you... I think the problem is likely coming from the fact that it has the one lone cell that is higher up in one of its last generations, making it something like 1.8 cells down from the top when it finally comes. I've uploaded a new version of the image with a wider grid, but it has pretty much the same problem. Not really sure what can be done about it though, because pretty much any way you animate it, either the spark on the right or the spark on the top will make the glider seem "offcenter".

I think I've got it Going from the fact that it should be symmetrical, and thus the image should be square (and partially inspired by your comment/change), I basically cut off half a cell from the top and the bottom in every frame via flash. I think it looks fine now, and the overall problem can then be attributed to the fact that animation can be produced by the tool only with whole cells in the starting pattern. I'm not entirely convinced that this is an issue worth bothering to do anything about, though.

[Nathaniel]

I think I've got it Going from the fact that it should be symmetrical, and thus the image should be square (and partially inspired by your comment/change), I basically cut off half a cell from the top and the bottom in every frame via flash. I think it looks fine now, and the overall problem can then be attributed to the fact that animation can be produced by the tool only with whole cells in the starting pattern. I'm not entirely convinced that this is an issue worth bothering to do anything about, though.

Ah, very nice! As for fixing it directly via the applet, I think I agree that it probably isn't worth fixing. If I add more options to the GIF generator then it'll just get unweildy to use, and I don't think I'm up to the task of making it automatically guess a correct pixel offset.

[Elithrion]

Ah, very nice! As for fixing it directly via the applet, I think I agree that it probably isn't worth fixing. If I add more options to the GIF generator then it'll just get unweildy to use, and I don't think I'm up to the task of making it automatically guess a correct pixel offset.

Weell... if we're just talking about clutter, then that can be avoided while giving the option to solve this by allowing fractional height/width/offset values to be used. Not that I'm encouraging you to do it or anything, but just sayin' that option exists.