Pattern viewer for forum threads

For discussion directly related to ConwayLife.com, such as requesting changes to how the forums or home page function.
User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 10:29 am

muzik wrote:
April 19th, 2021, 7:09 am
Currently, the top left button in Display changes name depending on the rule loaded.
Fixed.
muzik wrote:
April 19th, 2021, 7:09 am
On the topic of rectangles, would it be possible to squish the squares used for hexagonal rules downwards slightly as to be just barely wider than they are tall? This way, hexagons could be made just a bit more regular than they are currently.
It's on the backlog but low priority so not sure when it will get done.
muzik wrote:
April 19th, 2021, 7:09 am
Could the graph be made to stop counting once all cells in a pattern die?
No since it's possible to draw extra cells and keep playing. Also the [[ PASTET ]] command can add new cells at a later generation than the initial set of cells died.

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 10:30 am

bubblegum wrote:
April 19th, 2021, 11:25 pm
Speaking of Identify, it appears that Ctrl+F6 sets the identify mode to fast permanently (AKA until the viewer is closed).
Fixed, thanks for reporting!

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 10:30 am

muzik wrote:
April 20th, 2021, 6:46 am
Identify on this gives both a period and mod of 67292. However, running this to generation 16823 (67292/4) and rotating it accordingly gives a figure identical to the starting one. This also works for 33646 (67292/2) and 50469 (3(67292)/2), so the expected mod here would be 16823.
Fixed, thanks!

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 10:34 am

muzik wrote:
April 18th, 2021, 5:02 pm
There are a couple of other buttons and sliders that appear to have no associated keybinds.
- Random fill density
- Back/close buttons e.g. for settings
Done.
muzik wrote:
April 18th, 2021, 5:02 pm
Alt GridLines also appears to be permanently set to on for hexagonal rules.
I don't see this. Did you mean "Major Gridlines"? If so then it should be on and greyed out until you switch "Use Rectangles" on.

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 10:35 am

muzik wrote:
April 21st, 2021, 2:50 pm
When moving forward purely by using the step forward button, natural deaths or all cells show the message as expected, but those resulting from KILLGLIDERS do not:

EDIT: I've also noticed that the values in the T menu don't account for it properly either, so perhaps due to there being a nonzero amount of births it assumes the pattern can't have died out?
Both fixed, thanks!

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 10:38 am

muzik wrote:
April 22nd, 2021, 7:44 pm
...and while setting up a visual example for the above post I seem to have come across a bug where hexagonal patterns are loaded at completely unexpected position
Fixed, thanks!
muzik wrote:
April 22nd, 2021, 7:44 pm
(also note the slight difference in starting position with X 0 and X undefined)
Noted.

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 23rd, 2021, 10:51 am

If I'm allowed to nitpick:

Code: Select all

x = 31, y = 32, rule = B3/S23
2o$2o$o12$12bo$10bobo$11b2o13$29b2o$29b2o$29bo!
[[ KILLGLIDERS AUTOSTART STOP 3 ]]
something illogical can be seen to happen in generation 4: a primordial dead cell immediately becomes a freshly dead cell, which is something that can obviously never happen through normal rules. T statistics confirm this, showing 2 births despite there being 0 alive cells.

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 10:59 am

muzik wrote:
April 23rd, 2021, 10:51 am
something illogical can be seen to happen in generation 4: a primordial dead cell immediately becomes a freshly dead cell, which is something that can obviously never happen through normal rules. T statistics confirm this, showing 2 births despite there being 0 alive cells.
In this case your nitpick is invalid since you're trying to apply "normal rules" to KILLGLIDERS which isn't normal since it can kill things that were created in the same generation. Hence the calculation is correct. In that generation 2 cells were created (as the glider moved) and then got killed by KILLGLIDERS.

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 23rd, 2021, 11:12 am

muzik wrote:
April 15th, 2021, 3:38 pm
Pretty minor, but identify categorises some patterns as FlipX when they could equivalently be considered FlipY.
Perhaps these could be classified as FlipX/Y (or something else as to prevent confusion with FlipXY)?
Added, thanks.

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 23rd, 2021, 1:38 pm

Since it's not clear as to when it'll stop without prior knowledge: can Identify be made to show a progress bar (similar to the T button with scripts) that fills up to 1048576, or alternatively/additionally specify "nothing found after 1048576 generations" after such a failed attempt?

And could the "reverse playback" button be moved to be on the bottom row, rather than above it, possibly only if there exists sufficient room?

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 23rd, 2021, 2:31 pm

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 3, rule = SemiFelineLife
obo$o2bo$obo!
Should Identify simplify/make "canonical" spaceship displacements for non-isotropic rules? This seems wrong to me, since the displacement it gets simplified to this pattern cannot be rotated to travel in.

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 23rd, 2021, 5:37 pm

rowett wrote:
August 5th, 2020, 1:51 am
New resizeable LifeViewer is here. Would much appreciate any feedback!

I'm aware there's an issue with menu controls overlapping if the window is made too narrow and the Settings button not appearing if the initial window height is too small. I'll fix in due course.
Due to how the keyboard works on an iPad and probably other landscape touchscreen devices, clicking View with the keyboard still brought up results in an extremely thin viewer window. It has to be quit out of to get a reasonably usable window size back.

User avatar
yujh
Posts: 3066
Joined: February 27th, 2020, 11:23 pm
Location: I'm not sure where I am, so please tell me if you know
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by yujh » April 23rd, 2021, 8:15 pm

muzik wrote:
April 23rd, 2021, 2:31 pm

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 3, rule = SemiFelineLife
obo$o2bo$obo!
Copying the rule doesn’t work for me, as it pasted nothing.(copy rule button)
Rule modifier

B34kz5e7c8/S23-a4ityz5k
b2n3-q5y6cn7s23-k4c8
B3-kq6cn8/S2-i3-a4ciyz8
B3-kq4z5e7c8/S2-ci3-a4ciq5ek6eik7

Bored of Conway's Game of Life? Try Pedestrian Life -- not pedestrian at all!

GUYTU6J
Posts: 2200
Joined: August 5th, 2016, 10:27 am
Location: 拆哪!I repeat, CHINA! (a.k.a. 种花家)
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by GUYTU6J » April 23rd, 2021, 9:52 pm

@muzik: please edit your post instead of making a new one for every individual issues/suggestions.

---
Is the icy blue box mentioned before this one?
Screenshot_20210424_094458.jpg
Screenshot_20210424_094458.jpg (137.75 KiB) Viewed 3250 times
On my Android phone, clicking "select all" and "show in viewer" in no matter what order on the same page, then scrolling the page will give this effect. It seems to be only a matter of display on different layers.

User avatar
yujh
Posts: 3066
Joined: February 27th, 2020, 11:23 pm
Location: I'm not sure where I am, so please tell me if you know
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by yujh » April 24th, 2021, 12:46 am

I guess not but it does happen frequently on my apple iPad(and some time it appears to be selecting* the whole viewer!
Rule modifier

B34kz5e7c8/S23-a4ityz5k
b2n3-q5y6cn7s23-k4c8
B3-kq6cn8/S2-i3-a4ciyz8
B3-kq4z5e7c8/S2-ci3-a4ciq5ek6eik7

Bored of Conway's Game of Life? Try Pedestrian Life -- not pedestrian at all!

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 24th, 2021, 4:35 am

yujh wrote:
April 23rd, 2021, 8:15 pm
muzik wrote:
April 23rd, 2021, 2:31 pm

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 3, rule = SemiFelineLife
obo$o2bo$obo!
Copying the rule doesn’t work for me, as it pasted nothing.(copy rule button)
Please let me know which platform and browser you are using.

User avatar
yujh
Posts: 3066
Joined: February 27th, 2020, 11:23 pm
Location: I'm not sure where I am, so please tell me if you know
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by yujh » April 24th, 2021, 5:47 am

rowett wrote:
April 24th, 2021, 4:35 am
yujh wrote:
April 23rd, 2021, 8:15 pm
muzik wrote:
April 23rd, 2021, 2:31 pm

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 3, rule = SemiFelineLife
obo$o2bo$obo!
Copying the rule doesn’t work for me, as it pasted nothing.(copy rule button)
Please let me know which platform and browser you are using.
iPad, safari.
Rule modifier

B34kz5e7c8/S23-a4ityz5k
b2n3-q5y6cn7s23-k4c8
B3-kq6cn8/S2-i3-a4ciyz8
B3-kq4z5e7c8/S2-ci3-a4ciq5ek6eik7

Bored of Conway's Game of Life? Try Pedestrian Life -- not pedestrian at all!

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 24th, 2021, 6:35 am

Something weird going on on this page:

https://catagolue.hatsya.com/object/xq2 ... g10b2s0345

The theme is set to CUSTOM. Setting the theme to Catagolue, then returning to the theme menu and clicking CUSTOM again makes it turn on and off each click.

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 24th, 2021, 6:59 am

muzik wrote:
April 24th, 2021, 6:35 am
The theme is set to CUSTOM. Setting the theme to Catagolue, then returning to the theme menu and clicking CUSTOM again makes it turn on and off each click.
Fixed, thanks!

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 24th, 2021, 7:08 am

Some old, random, very low priority ideas:

- Could GRIDMAJOR be given the ability to have different values for different axes - for example, "GRIDMAJOR 4 16" making major intervals appear every 4 cells on the X axis and every 16 on the Y axis? Only specifying one number would use it for both as is currently done.
- Could bounded grids be given the ability to have a visual border like the one MCell uses?
- Could cell history/age rendering be able to be turned off via a button/keybind?
- Could a button be added, usable if the currently used rule has an alias, that automatically tries to look for and load any rule tables that might exist with that same name?

And a couple of minor visual things I've noticed on desktop (both Chrome and Edge):

- When in the Settings or Help menus, and hovering over a region which is not a button or slider, the cursor used corresponds to whether Draw/Pan/Select is currently selected. This doesn't make sense, though, since with these menus open these regions aren't interactive.
- When an embedded viewer is focused and interactive, a slightly rounded black border appears around it.

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 24th, 2021, 8:14 am

Here's something I've been thinking about for quite a while now: a reconfiguring of some of LifeViewer's visual options and menus. Since this would be a pretty significant change, it might be a good idea to get some feedback on it from others. Here's a rough draft, alongside an insultingly bad mspaint mockup of how it could look:

Image

- There would be a new button at the top of the viewer, probably eye shaped
- The AutoFit, Fit and Grid options would be moved into this menu, near the top as to be easy to access due to them being the more commonly used visual toggles
- All eight functions from the Display menu in Settings would be moved here and given dedicated square buttons
- The Display menu in Settings would be removed
- The three sliders immediately in Settings would be moved to this new menu, and rotated accordingly
- The Theme button would be moved from the Settings menu to the new menu
- The moving of AutoFit, Fit and Grid to the new menu would free up room on the top of the viewer - I'd suggest the Undo/Redo buttons could be moved here to fill this space, and the space they previously took up would be filled in by the Reverse Playback button so it no longer has to appear above the bottom bar, making the bottom bar more even as a result, preventing obstruction from happening with the T menu open, and making it more consistent with other buttons in that they appear greyed out when unusable rather than completely absent

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 24th, 2021, 11:58 am

rowett wrote:
April 23rd, 2021, 11:12 am
muzik wrote:
April 15th, 2021, 3:38 pm
Pretty minor, but identify categorises some patterns as FlipX when they could equivalently be considered FlipY.
Perhaps these could be classified as FlipX/Y (or something else as to prevent confusion with FlipXY)?
Added, thanks.
Likewise, some oscillators have transformations that could equivalently be considered either RotCW or RotCCW (it seems to default to the latter):

Code: Select all

x = 5, y = 7, rule = B2in3/S123a
o2bo$o2bo$b2o2$2b2o$bo2bo$bo2bo!

Code: Select all

x = 5, y = 7, rule = B2in3/S123a
bo2bo$bo2bo$2b2o2$b2o$o2bo$o2bo!
The blinker is a prominent example thereof.

Could these be referred to by something like "RotCWorCCW" or "Rot90" to eliminate this ambiguity?

...Thinking about it, the use of CW and CCW makes the central assumption that the pattern is on a square grid, which breaks down when considering hexagonal/triangular oscillators. If hexagonal/triangular rules are planned at all to have mod detection support, perhaps existing transitions could be renamed to better indicate what angle they're rotated in, something like "Rot90CW / Rot90CCW" or "Rot90 / Rot-90" or "Rot90 / Rot270"?

User avatar
rowett
Moderator
Posts: 3777
Joined: January 31st, 2013, 2:34 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by rowett » April 24th, 2021, 2:40 pm

muzik wrote:
April 22nd, 2021, 1:51 pm
Specifically, this is the issue where clicking on a button in the viewer can occasionally not cause the button press to be registered until clicking on somewhere in the viewer again. If that click happens on the same button, it will register as the button having been pressed twice.
This should be fixed now. Please let me know.

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 24th, 2021, 3:29 pm

rowett wrote:
April 24th, 2021, 2:40 pm
muzik wrote:
April 22nd, 2021, 1:51 pm
Specifically, this is the issue where clicking on a button in the viewer can occasionally not cause the button press to be registered until clicking on somewhere in the viewer again. If that click happens on the same button, it will register as the button having been pressed twice.
This should be fixed now. Please let me know.
A couple minutes messing about with the Select tool in the new build has failed to trigger it. While I'm yet to see if other functions are fixed as well (although I do strongly expect that they will be), in the meantime please accept my gratitude for once and for all putting a well-deserved end to LifeViewer's most long-standing, annoying bug.

User avatar
muzik
Posts: 5614
Joined: January 28th, 2016, 2:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Pattern viewer for forum threads

Post by muzik » April 25th, 2021, 3:51 am

Is there a way to view the value of the COLOR currently defined for UI elements? There's definitely a section for graph colors but these don't seem to be present anywhere.

Post Reply