Pattern viewer for forum threads

[muzik]

Could even the colours of buttons be modified through scripting?

[rowett]

Could even the colours of buttons be modified through scripting?

Yes but I'd need to add the relevant [[ COLOR ]] commands. The UI controls have five elements that could be customised with an RGB colour and Alpha value. These are:

• background colour (default is black, alpha 0.7)
• foreground colour (default is 32,255,255 alpha 1.0)
• highlight colour when mouse is over control (default is 0,240,32 alpha 0.7)
• selected colour (default is blue, alpha 0.7)
• locked colour (default is grey, alpha 1.0)

[muzik]

The reason I'm asking, by the way, is that the current theme matches theme 1 well but not when multistate patterns are run with theme 11:

Code: Select all

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

Code: Select all

x = 7, y = 6, rule = 23/3/8
2.A.D$.ABAGE$A2B3GF$ADE3.G$ABAD$.2A!

There's also the red colour that shows up when the speed option is overloaded; I don't know if you'd want to make that customisable though.

[77topaz]

Hmm... I just noticed that in the second pattern in muzik's post, the population counter is behaving a bit weirdly. Specifically, it seems like "Alive" counts only the state 1 cells, and then adds one to this number. Furthermore, this extra one does not appear in Generation 0: Generation 0 and Generation 32 look identical, but the counter reports 9 live cells for G0 and 10 for G32.

[rowett]

The reason I'm asking, by the way, is that the current theme matches theme 1 well but not when multistate patterns are run with theme 11

Sorry I don't understand.

EDIT: Ah I presume you mean the UI theme.

There's also the red colour that shows up when the speed option is overloaded; I don't know if you'd want to make that customisable though.

Possibly. I've been debating having a script command to disable it - but equally that could be done by changing its' colour.

[rowett]

The UI controls have five elements that could be customised with an RGB colour and Alpha value.

One caveat: several controls use icons and the colour of these wouldn't change.

[rowett]

Hmm... I just noticed that in the second pattern in muzik's post, the population counter is behaving a bit weirdly. Specifically, it seems like "Alive" counts only the state 1 cells, and then adds one to this number. Furthermore, this extra one does not appear in Generation 0: Generation 0 and Generation 32 look identical, but the counter reports 9 live cells for G0 and 10 for G32.

Well spotted. I'll take a look.

[rowett]

Hmm... I just noticed that in the second pattern in muzik's post, the population counter is behaving a bit weirdly.

This is now fixed and the test case is here. Note that LifeViewer only counts "alive" cells in the population.

[muzik]

Can (finite) cylinder and Mobius strip bounded grids be added? I don't think either golly or lifeviewer have implemented these yet. The sides joined together would be marked with an asterisk similarly to the twists of a Klein bottle.

[rowett]

Can cylinder and Mobius strip bounded grids be added?

You can already specify an (infinite) cylinder by specifying a Torus with one dimension zero:

Code: Select all

x = 3, y = 3, rule = B3/S23:T10,0
.oo$
o.o$
..o!
[[ ZOOM 4 ]]

[muzik]

Meant to specify that the bounded grid be finite; i.e. two opposite edges act like P, whereas the other two act like either T or K* respectively.

It may also be useful to have the bounded grid specifications show up on the T menu (and if the grid is not bounded in that sense, then the maxgridsize).

[rowett]

It may also be useful to have the bounded grid specifications show up on the T menu (and if the grid is not bounded in that sense, then the maxgridsize).

The bounded grid information is in the Help menu in the Info topic.

[muzik]

Same for the presence of the grid, the colours of the grid and the major intervals of the grid; can these also be made to be defined through the theme? I want to propose new themes based on the default settings of Golly and MCell.

Yes they could be.

Here's a few such themes:

Mirek's Cellebration

Code: Select all

x = 9, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
$bo3b3o$b3o2bo$2bo!
[[ COLOR BACKGROUND 0 0 0 COLOR ALIVE 255 255 0 COLOR ALIVERAMP 255 255 0 COLOR DEAD 0 0 0 COLOR DEADRAMP 0 0 0 COLOR GRID 64 0 0 COLOR GRIDMAJOR 99 3 1 GRID GRIDMAJOR 5 ]]

Golly - range 1 2-state

Code: Select all

x = 9, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
$bo3b3o$b3o2bo$2bo!
[[ COLOR BACKGROUND 48 48 48 COLOR ALIVE 255 255 255 COLOR ALIVERAMP 255 255 255 COLOR DEAD 48 48 48 COLOR DEADRAMP 48 48 48 COLOR GRID 80 80 80 COLOR GRIDMAJOR 112 112 112 GRID GRIDMAJOR 10 ]]

Golly - Larger than Life 2-state

Code: Select all

x = 35, y = 42, rule = R5,C0,M1,S34..58,B34..45,NM
29bo$27b5o$25b5ob2o$24b5o3b2o$24b4o5bo$23b4o5b3o$24b4o3b3o$24b5ob4o$
25b8o$26b7o$27b5o31$o!
[[ COLOR BACKGROUND 48 48 48 COLOR ALIVE 255 255 0 COLOR ALIVERAMP 255 255 0 COLOR DEAD 48 48 48 COLOR DEADRAMP 48 48 48 COLOR GRID 80 80 80 COLOR GRIDMAJOR 112 112 112 GRID GRIDMAJOR 10 ]]

I can also provide the themes for Golly multistate if desired. MCell seems to have all colours for multistate predefined instead of manually generating a gradient between two colours so I doubt it'll be able to be added as a theme.

--------

LifeViewer also doesn't seem to display the alias for Bosco's Rule at all, and when looking in the Aliases section of Help, it seems the rulestrings are too long to be shown on the page and get cut off.

[rowett]

Here's a few such themes

Thanks I'll add them when I've extended the Theme support to the grid lines.

LifeViewer also doesn't seem to display the alias for Bosco's Rule at all

Well spotted. This has been fixed and the test case is here. Click on one of the thumbnails and then see the rule alias in the popup Viewer.

when looking in the Aliases section of Help, it seems the rulestrings are too long to be shown on the page and get cut off.

True. I'll take a look. You could always make the LifeViewer window wider with [[ WIDTH ]] or [[ POPUPWIDTH ]].

[muzik]

They still don't seem to be appearing for hrot rules:

http://lazyslug.com/lifeview/plugin/hrotfix.html

Looking at the aliases section, I assume this is because they're assigned to the lifelib rulestring formatting, instead of the actual canonical formatting.
(Speaking of aliases, I've committed a few more to catagolue, so you can include those if you want.)

[rowett]

They still don't seem to be appearing for hrot rules.
Looking at the aliases section, I assume this is because they're assigned to the lifelib rulestring formatting, instead of the actual canonical formatting.

Yes. I haven't got round to translating the HROT rules into the canonical form yet. If you'd like to do it please feel free!

[rowett]

when looking in the Aliases section of Help, it seems the rulestrings are too long to be shown on the page and get cut off.

Long aliases now wrap across two lines. Some of them are still too long for the default window width but it's good enough.

[muzik]

The only ones actually present should be pretty easy:

Replicator R2: R2,C2,S1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,B1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,NM
Fredkin R2: R2,C2,S0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,B1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,NM
Replicator R3: R3,C2,S1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,B1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,NM
Fredkin R3: R3,C2,S0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,B1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,NM
Replicator R4: R4,C2,S1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79,B1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79,NM
Fredkin R4: R4,C2,S0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60,62,64,66,68,70,72,74,76,78,80,B1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79,NM

Of course, with the notation for alternating conditions I proposed earlier on this could be cut down considerably; we'd have:
Replicator R2: R2,C2,S1~23,B1~23,NM
Fredkin R2: R2,C2,S0~24,B1~23,NM
Replicator R3: R3,C2,S1~47,B1~47,NM
Fredkin R3: R3,C2,S0~48,B1~47,NM
Replicator R4: R4,C2,S1~79,B1~79,NM
Fredkin R4: R4,C2,S0~80,B1~79,NM

Of course, if the ~ looks too close to -, you could always use a different character. Alternatively, two dashes could be used instead.

[rowett]

The only ones actually present should be pretty easy

Thanks for that. I've added them and the few rules you added to Catagolue.

[muzik]

Drawing a pattern with the "hexagonal" grid active does not seem to work well. It appears that LifeViewer seems to still have the square grid actually present, and the "hexagonal" grid is only a visual modification.

(Speaking of hexagonal grids: if the true hexagonal grid is ever implemented, the offset square grid should still be kept; it'd be quite useful for keeping one-dimensional rules with half-integer ranges visually symmetrical.)

(Also speaking of hexagonal grids: I'd like to see triangular grids and rules supported some time in the future, but since they aren't natively supported by Golly and are usually made using multiple states LifeViewer would probably need to be majorly rewritten if we want to see them getting multistate rules or history states, unless we can use a larger neighbourhood than Moore somehow. I don't know how it would work.)

[rowett]

Drawing a pattern with the "hexagonal" grid active does not seem to work well.

The drawing functionality is experimental and very limited at the moment.

[muzik]

Here's a theme that imitates the scheme used by the Discord bot:

Code: Select all

x = 9, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
$bo3b3o$b3o2bo$2bo!
[[ COLOR BACKGROUND 54 57 62 COLOR ALIVE 255 255 255 COLOR ALIVERAMP 255 255 255 COLOR DEAD 54 57 62 COLOR DEADRAMP 54 57 62 COLOR GRID 0 0 0 COLOR GRIDMAJOR 0 0 0 GRIDMAJOR 1 ]]

Since it doesn't seem to have major grid intervals I've set these to 1 (and also the grid off by default, since the grid has to be specified to the bot).

I would suggest adding the Catagolue theme, but it works a bit differently with multistate rules (alive is always black, but when a cell starts dying, it turns green). I'm not sure how this would translate to an official LifeViewer theme (unless we split colours for different types of cell state further, which I'd personally recommend).

If we're giving themes actual names and scrapping arbitrary numberings, it might be better to remove the Themes slider and replace it with a ninth button. This would lead to a new page, categorising the themes into a few lists (e.g. Default Themes, LifeViewer Classics, Program Simulators, Debug Themes), and freeing up a bit of extra room on the settings page as well.

[77topaz]

I would suggest adding the Catagolue theme, but it works a bit differently with multistate rules (alive is always black, but when a cell starts dying, it turns green). I'm not sure how this would translate to an official LifeViewer theme (unless we split colours for different types of cell state further, which I'd personally recommend).

Catagolue already uses LifeViewers with a unique theme, though it appears multistate rules are handled differently by Catagolue's LifeViewers and its GIFs: the green only appears in the GIFs, while the Catagolue LifeViewers have dying cells be fading shades of grey (which looks a bit visually confusing with the history states used in the Catagolue theme for two-state rules).

[rowett]

Drawing a pattern with the "hexagonal" grid active does not seem to work well.

The drawing functionality is experimental and very limited at the moment.

That being said it wasn't the drawing functionality it was a bug in the hex coordinate calculation. Should be working fine now. Thanks for reporting!

[muzik]

On the "splitting the colours further" thing I mentioned earlier:

LifeViewer defines the colours of cells in two-state rules by the following colours:

BACKGROUND - cell has never been alive
ALIVE - a newly born cell
ALIVERAMP - an old alive cell
DEADRAMP - a newly dead cell
DEAD - a cell dead for longer

For 2-state rules, this is all completely fine. However, my issue arises when we assign colours to multistate Generations-type rules:

ALIVE - patterns fade to this colour as they die, rather than as they are born
ALIVERAMP - this colour is used for newly born cells instead

I find this recycling of variables to be rather confusing, and think it would be a better idea if we instead introduced two new variables instead:

DYINGRAMP - a dying cell which is ready to actually die in the next generation.
DYING - a cell which has just begun to die. It's hard to put what I'm thinking into words here, but no cells would actually have this colour, but it would still be used to fade to the DYINGRAMP stage. For example, the Generations theme would set both DYING and ALIVE to pure yellow, and (if implemented) the Catagolue theme would set DYING to a green colour and ALIVE would instead be black. DYING would be the colour of the alive state were it not overwritten by ALIVE.

It could also be useful to implement another colour variable:

GENDEADRAMP - a newly dead cell's colour when the Generations algorithm is used, so that newly dead cells and dying cells on the brink of actually dying look distinct enough from each other as to not look confusingly similar and hard to pick apart.

2-state patterns would not use the DYING, DYINGRAMP colours (since all death is instantaneous) or GENDEADRAMP, and multistate patterns would not use ALIVERAMP (because either very old cells which meet the conditions for death would have to immediately switch to using the same fading colour scheme that a newly born cell does, or we'd have to implement thousands more cell states for every longevity state dying, which simply wouldn't be worth it) or DEADRAMP (since this would usually be specified to be identical to or very similar to DYINGRAMP, which would look quite confusing).

With these new variables implemented, we'd be able to make 2-state rules run with the Generations theme and multistate run with classic Blues (which should be run on the updated viewer) look like the following:

What I was trying to convey with the theme changes suggestion:

Two-state rules run with THEME 11 would look like this:

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 7, rule = B3/S23
o$o$o$o$b2o$3bo$3bo!
[[ COLOR BACKGROUND 0 0 0 COLOR ALIVE 255 255 0 COLOR ALIVERAMP 255 255 255 COLOR DEAD 64 0 0 COLOR DEADRAMP 255 0 0 ]]

Multistate with THEME 1 would look something like this.

Code: Select all

x = 205, y = 125, rule = B34/S12/G3
77.29A$73.4A29.4A$70.3A37.2A$66.4A41.A$64.2A46.A$63.A48.A$62.A50.A$
61.A51.A$60.A53.A$58.2A54.A$57.A57.A$56.A58.A$51.2A2.A60.A$50.A.A.A
61.A$49.A.A.A62.A$48.A2.A.A62.A$47.A2.A.A63.A$47.A2.A.A63.A$46.A2.A.A
64.A$45.A3.A.A64.A$44.A3.A.A66.A$43.A4.A.A52.5A9.A66.2A$42.A5.2A48.5A
5.6A3.A62.4A$42.A4.A.A2.4A38.4A16.4A58.4A$41.A5.5A4.4A31.3A23.A54.4A$
40.A5.3A11.5A24.2A26.2A51.2A$40.A2.5A17.3A20.A3.3A22.A.A47.3A$39.A.2A
3.2A20.2A16.2A2.2A3.3A19.A2.A43.3A$38.A.A5.2A22.2A12.2A2.2A7.A19.A3.A
40.2A$38.2A5.A.A24.2A9.A2.2A9.A19.A4.A37.2A$37.2A6.A.A26.A6.2A.2A11.A
19.A5.A34.2A$37.A7.A.A27.2A3.A.2A13.A19.A6.A31.2A$36.A7.A.A30.3A.A15.
A19.A7.A28.2A$35.A8.A.A30.A.2A16.A19.A7.A26.2A$34.2A8.A.A29.A2.A.2A
14.A18.A9.A23.2A$33.2A9.A.A28.A2.A4.A13.A18.A9.A21.2A$32.2A10.A.A27.A
2.A19.A18.A10.A18.2A$32.2A9.A2.A26.A2.A19.A19.A10.A16.2A$31.2A10.A2.A
25.A2.A20.A19.A11.A13.2A$31.2A10.A2.A23.2A2.A20.A20.A11.A11.2A$30.2A
11.A3.A21.A3.A21.A20.A11.A10.A$30.2A11.A3.A20.A3.A21.A21.A12.A7.2A$
30.A12.A3.A19.A3.A22.A21.A12.A6.A$29.2A11.A4.A18.A3.A22.A21.A14.A3.2A
$29.A12.A5.A16.A3.A23.A21.A14.A2.A$28.2A12.A5.A15.A3.A23.A22.A14.3A$
28.A13.A5.A14.A4.A23.A21.A15.A$28.A13.A6.A12.A4.A24.A21.A13.2A.A$27.
2A13.A7.A11.A4.A23.A22.A12.A3.A$27.2A12.A9.A9.A4.A24.A21.A11.2A4.A$
26.A.A12.A9.A8.A5.A23.A22.A10.A6.A$26.A.A12.A10.A7.A4.A24.A22.A9.A7.A
$25.A2.A12.A11.A5.A5.A23.A23.A7.2A9.A33.A$25.A2.A12.A12.A3.A5.A24.A
22.A7.A11.A32.A$24.A3.A12.A13.2A.A4.A24.A23.A6.A12.A31.A$24.A3.A12.A
15.2A4.A24.A23.A4.2A13.A29.2A$23.A4.A12.A14.A2.2A.A24.A23.A4.A15.A28.
A$23.A4.A12.A13.A5.15A11.A23.A3.A17.A26.A$22.A6.A11.A11.9A.2A11.16A
19.A2.A18.A25.A$22.A6.A11.A7.4A.A6.A3.3A19.A4.11A7.A.2A19.A24.A$22.A
7.A10.A3.4A4.A6.A7.4A15.A15.5A2.2A21.A23.A$21.A8.A10.4A8.A6.A11.4A11.
A20.5A20.A21.2A7.29A$21.A9.A8.2A10.A7.A15.6A5.A20.2A3.5A15.A15.15A20.
12A$21.A10.A5.2A.A10.A6.A22.8A17.A.A8.6A10.A6.8A4.A24.6A6.5A$20.A11.A
4.A3.A9.A7.A27.2A.8A8.A2.A14.8A.8A11.A19.6A6.7A$20.A12.4A4.A9.A7.A29.
2A7.11A17.16A8.2A13.19A$20.A12.4A4.A9.A7.A31.3A9.2A3.10A3.15A2.40A$
20.A11.A4.2A2.A9.A7.A34.7A.26A6.4A9.10A7.7A$19.A11.A7.3A8.A7.A23.33A
13.36A$19.A10.A10.7A2.A7.A4.19A17.2A4.5A.22A.A10.A$19.A9.A11.A6.15A
35.A2.4A.A21.2A5.A7.2A$18.A9.A12.A8.A7.A38.4A5.A18.3A7.A6.A$18.A8.A
13.A7.A8.A36.3A8.A16.2A10.A4.2A$18.A7.A14.A7.A7.A34.3A10.A14.3A12.A3.
A$17.A7.A16.A6.A7.A31.3A.A11.A12.2A15.A.2A$17.A6.A17.A5.A8.A29.2A2.2A
11.A10.3A17.2A$17.A5.A18.A5.A8.A26.3A3.A13.A8.2A18.2A.A$17.A4.A19.A5.
A8.A23.3A5.A13.A6.3A18.2A3.A$16.A4.A20.A5.A8.A20.3A7.A14.A4.2A18.3A6.
A$16.A4.A20.A4.A10.A16.3A9.A14.A2.3A18.2A9.A60.7A$16.A3.A22.A3.A10.A
13.3A11.A15.3A19.2A11.A53.7A5.A$16.A2.A23.A3.A10.A11.2A14.A13.3A18.3A
14.A48.4A11.A$16.A.A24.A3.A10.A8.3A15.A12.2A.A17.2A17.A44.4A14.A$16.
2A25.A3.A10.A5.3A17.A11.2A2.A16.2A19.A40.4A17.A$16.A26.A3.A10.A3.2A
19.A10.2A4.A13.3A22.A34.5A19.2A$16.A27.A2.A10.4A20.A9.2A5.A11.3A25.A
29.5A23.A$15.2A27.A2.A8.4A21.A7.3A7.A8.3A29.A23.5A27.A$14.A.A27.A2.A
6.2A3.A21.A5.2A9.A7.2A33.A17.5A31.A$13.A.A29.A.A3.3A5.A20.A4.2A11.A4.
3A36.A11.5A34.2A$13.A.A29.A.A.2A8.A19.A3.2A12.A2.3A40.A6.4A37.2A$12.A
2.A30.3A11.A17.A2.2A14.3A43.A.5A39.2A$11.A3.A29.3A13.A15.4A12.4A43.5A
42.2A$11.A3.A27.2A2.A14.2A12.2A11.4A3.A39.4A5.A39.2A$10.A4.A25.2A4.2A
15.A9.3A8.4A6.A36.4A10.2A35.2A$10.A4.A23.2A6.A.A15.A5.3A.A5.4A10.A32.
4A16.2A30.3A$9.A5.A21.2A8.A2.A15.15A13.A29.4A22.2A25.3A$8.A6.A19.2A
10.A2.A16.2A5.A19.A25.4A28.2A21.2A$8.A6.A17.2A12.A3.A12.3A7.A18.A22.
4A34.2A16.3A$7.A8.A14.2A15.A3.2A8.2A9.A19.A18.4A40.16A$6.A9.A12.2A17.
A5.A5.2A10.A19.A15.4A$5.A11.A9.2A19.A6.5A12.A19.A10.5A$5.A11.A7.2A21.
A6.3A13.A19.A5.6A$4.A13.A4.2A24.A2.3A3.2A11.A19.6A$3.A14.A2.2A26.3A8.
7A4.A10.10A$2.A16.2A27.2A17.15A8.A$2.A12.6A24.3A.A20.A19.A44.2A$.A9.
4A6.3A19.2A5.A19.A19.A42.2A$A6.4A13.3A8.8A7.A19.A18.A40.3A$7A20.8A16.
A18.A18.A38.2A$52.A17.A18.A35.3A$52.A17.A18.A33.2A$53.A17.A16.A31.3A$
54.A16.A16.A27.4A$55.A15.A16.A24.3A$55.A16.A15.A20.4A$56.A15.A16.A15.
4A$57.A15.A15.A9.6A$58.2A14.A14.10A$60.A14.A$61.2A13.A$63.A13.A$64.A
13.2A$65.2A13.A$67.5A9.2A$72.11A!
[[ COLOR BACKGROUND 0 0 0 COLOR ALIVE 0 0 255 COLOR ALIVERAMP 0 255 255 COLOR DEAD 0 0 47 COLOR DEADRAMP 0 0 128 ]]

The variables would work as follows for the two mentioned themes:

Blues:
BACKGROUND 0 0 0
ALIVE 0 255 255
ALIVERAMP 255 255 255
DEAD 0 0 47
DEADRAMP 0 0 255
GENDEADRAMP 0 0 128
DYING 0 255 255
DYINGRAMP 0 0 255

Generations:
BACKGROUND 0 0 0
ALIVE 255 255 0
ALIVERAMP 255 255 255
DEAD 64 0 0
DEADRAMP 255 0 0
GENDEADRAMP 128 0 0
DYING 255 255 0
DYINGRAMP 255 0 0