ConwayLife.com

dvgrn wrote:

rowett wrote:The fact that the Viewer parsed the Python script into a pattern is clearly a bug, but on the other hand quite interesting. I wonder which other Python scripts result in a Life pattern...

I've seen several of these cases, I think, and of course I always tried the Show in Viewer link. What I get is a strange VIEWONLY-type display with a white background and no visible pattern.

Nathaniel wrote:It's a tiny link that is useful in 90% of cases, and is completely unobtrusive in the rest. It'd be nice if we could find some way to detect what rules his posts are using so that things are displayed correctly, but there's only so much guesswork we can do.

rowett wrote:I did offer to help him and add support for his specific rules but that resulted in derogatory comments about my design skills. I could still do so but I fear it would be a waste of time. He'd still find a way to complain.

dvgrn wrote:It's not my current highest priority, but if I have time at some point, I might make a quick collection of the common color schemes, which would probably make the colors accurate for the great majority of old posts.

dvgrn wrote:Brian's bug report got me looking at opening and closing viewers.

dvgrn wrote:It looks as if there's a bug showing up, at least on Windows 7 / Google Chrome, that would be worth finding and fixing.

Start from any page with a "Show in Viewer" tag, like this one:

Code: Select all

#Life 1.05
#D Lightspeed wire and some simple signals
#D
#D Well known.
#D
#D No corners or branches have been found yet.
#D See also ZIP2, MAX.
#D [[ AUTOSTART HEIGHT 240 LOOP 80 ]]
#N
#P -38 -6
....*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*
..******************************************************
.*
.*******************************************************
........................................*........*
.******.**.*..******..*****************....******....***
*......*...**......**........*........*.........*
.********..*..******..******....*******....******....***
............................*..........*.........*
.*******************************************************
.*
..******************************************************
....*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*
#P 18 -6
..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*
******************************************************
.
******************************************************
....*.................................................*
****...************************************************
.....*
****...************************************************
....*.................................................*
******************************************************
.
******************************************************
..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

If I click to look at the pattern, then closer the viewer again, I mysteriously can't select text with the mouse on the same HTML page any more -- until I refresh the page anyway. Can still click with the mouse to place the cursor, and I can select with SHIFT and the arrow keys, but mouse click-and-drag is temporarily broken.

dvgrn wrote: ...Hmm, and when I add "PAUSE 5" to the above script string, why exactly does the pattern disappear?

-- Oh, and have a look at what happens when you leave out the initial "X 0 Y 0", which I was thinking would be the default. And in fact it is the default as long as I haven't defined any waypoints, I think. But when waypoints are defined, the default coordinates seem to be (512, 512).

• added some more colour sets
• the position of standalone Viewer is constrained so it is always visible in the browser window
  • window resize will also reposition the standalone Viewer if required

• pattern decoder was not strict enough and in some cases was decoding python scripts as Life patterns
• some pattern rule names were causing colours to be set to all white
• the standalone Viewer was causing drag and select to be disabled

rowett wrote:Build 148 is now available on the lazyslug server.

dvgrn wrote:Also, I'm somewhat ashamed to mention it: the lowercase "v" on the "Viewer" button is still kind of hitting me in the eye, when I don't remember not to look at it.

Nathaniel wrote:Build 148 has been uploaded.

dvgrn wrote:Also, I'm somewhat ashamed to mention it: the lowercase "v" on the "Viewer" button is still kind of hitting me in the eye, when I don't remember not to look at it.

Nathaniel wrote:Believe it or not, this is actually *huge* pain in the ass to fix.

dvgrn wrote:EDIT: Wait, now it's up to Build 147! I'm sure I saw a 148 on Chris's server...? Well, no, maybe I didn't. It says "147", but does in fact have the stated Build 148 fixes.

rowett wrote:Sorry the *real* build 148 is now on the lazyslug server. The one you have is fine, it's build 147 plus all but one of the 148 fixes.

dvgrn wrote:The viewer on conwaylife.com appears to have reverted back to Build 144. Did something interesting go wrong with build 147/148?

• ensure that the initial position of the standalone viewer is all visible in the browser window
• increased the duration of error notifications

• if the screenshot window (hotkey "O") could not be opened display an error notification (usually caused because popups are blocked by the browser)
• initial waypoints without position and zoom information were not resetting to default in the standalone viewer
• only display LOOP on and off messages at Pause and Reset if LOOP is actually defined
• hotkey "M" was toggling navigation menu when disabled
• prevent progress bar from drawing > 100% on systems that are not fast enough to keep up
• STEP slider was not being displayed in the standalone viewer if the previous pattern was VIEWONLY

• new tile-based generation engine bringing significant performance benefits to sparse patterns
• increased maximum STEP to 32
• switching on or off waypoint playback (with hotkey "W") also turns on or off LOOP mode if defined

rowett wrote:Build 149 is available on the lazyslug server...
Dave this build needs some testing since the generation engine is new!

x = 897, y = 903, rule = B3/S23
2o$2o4$3o$o$bo8$21b3o$21bo$22bo28$17b3o$17bo$18bo8$38b3o$38bo$39bo28$
34b3o$34bo$35bo8$55b3o$55bo$56bo28$72b3o$72bo$73bo8$91b3o$91bo$92bo8$
104b3o$104bo$105bo28$119b2o$118b2o$120bo8$149b2o$148b2o$150bo18$179b2o
$178b2o$180bo33$212b3o$212bo$213bo28$250b3o$250bo$251bo28$281b3o$281bo
$282bo28$285b3o$285bo$286bo28$315b3o$315bo$316bo28$360b3o$360bo$361bo
28$375b3o$375bo$376bo28$412b2o$411b2o$413bo28$435b2o$434b2o$436bo8$
493b3o$493bo$494bo28$519b3o$519bo$520bo28$551b3o$551bo$552bo28$574b3o$
574bo$575bo28$615b2o$614b2o$616bo48$654b3o$654bo$655bo28$687b3o$687bo$
688bo28$724b3o$724bo$725bo28$753b2o$752b2o$754bo28$787b3o$787bo$788bo
28$803b2o$802b2o$804bo28$836b2o$835b2o$837bo28$865b2o$864b2o$866bo28$
894b3o$894bo$895bo!
[[ AUTOSTART GPS 10 T 0 STEP 8 ZOOM 16 X 450 Y 450 PAUSE 5 "loaf2GtoG slow salvo\n35 gliders total" ]]
[[ T 1000 ZOOM 8 X 445 Y 415 ]]
[[ T 3600 ZOOM 4 X 445 Y 415 ]]
[[ LOOP 4000 ]]

dvgrn wrote:When the script says something like [[ AUTOSTART LOOP 160 ]], previous builds would jump right back to T=0 with no appreciable pause, and keep on going. Now there's something like a half-second delay when the last generation is reached and when the first generation is shown.

dvgrn wrote:One of my tests involves saving a copy of a conwaylife.com forum page, then substituting the new version of lv-plugin.js. When I do that, I end up with a page with code block headers that look like "CODE: SELECT ALL / SHOW IN VIEWER / SHOW IN VIEWER". Is it easy to check if there's already a "Show in Viewer" link, and replace it if so, instead of adding another one?

[I'm not absolutely sure that this is a good idea, really, but I don't see any harm in it offhand -- it will probably only happen in this strange test case, so it's definitely not very important... I don't quite understand why the HTML gets saved with "Show In Viewer" links point back to conwaylife.com but don't pop up a viewer when you get there -- but I can imagine very reasonable explanations.]

dvgrn wrote:There's one subtle change that doesn't seem like an improvement: if you look at a posting like this one, you'll see that the periodic gun restart is very smooth -- you just see the background cells disapper, but the signals in the loop appear to keep going without a pause. If you switch over to Build 149, there's a very definite pause that goes along with the restart.

dvgrn wrote:I noticed on this posting that the Step setting sticks to whatever value you set it to, between uses of the standalone viewer. It's probably a good idea to have the Step size be sticky -- seems like different step sizes might work better for different users, depending on their CPU speed and/or level of impatience... but is there a reason why other settings aren't also retained, such as the Theme setting? Seems like a user might also have a preferred theme, and it could maybe be kept if there's no THEME statement in the next pattern's script to say otherwise.

In this posting I put a STOP command in the script, so that signal trails would all be filled in but the viewers wouldn't all be running at once (except for a moment at the beginning). I noticed that the word "Pause" still shows up even in the thumbnail view. It actually fits on the screen in Build 149, whereas in Build 147 it used to say "...use" and then something parenthetical about loops. Should text be appearing at all in the thumbnail view? If so, then everything seems to be in working order now. But are there other messages that might still get displayed that would overflow the thumbnail view?

dvgrn wrote: Finally, here are a couple of test patterns+scripts that showed up problems in Build 147. Haven't tested in build 149 yet -- I'll maybe edit in some comments shortly...

Yup, the first pattern below seems okay in Build 149 -- the progress-bar overflow goes away.

dvgrn wrote:The idea here was to zoom out to see the whole rest of the slow-salvo recipe, halfway through. It's slow at the beginning and very fast at the end and then jerks to a stop, but that's the zoom-level interpolation issue that has already been discussed.

dvgrn wrote:There are some odd effects with 0.5 level zooms, like some objects and gliders disappearing while others are still visible.

dvgrn wrote:There's also the odd fact that when patterns get large enough, you can't zoom out to see the whole thing at once, so the Autofit function does strange things... hit F on a gun pattern that's been running for a while, for example, and you'll probably see just a line of gliders, with the gun off the screen.

dvgrn wrote:Might be worth jumping to the original extents of the pattern at zoom level 0.5, just in the odd case where the whole pattern won't fit in the viewer any more...?

dvgrn wrote:With this next pattern the only problem I saw in Build 149 was a mysterious slowdown between T=3600 and T=4000. I'm guessing that the viewer is jumping back to its original default STEP 1 once it's done playing through the defined waypoints. I can't set a default of STEP 4 before the first waypoint; that throws an "overwrite" error. No doubt I could put an official waypoint at 4000 to solve the problem -- just wasn't expecting that that would be necessary. Apparently I thought that the last STEP setting should continue after the last waypoint.

rowett wrote:

dvgrn wrote:When the script says something like [[ AUTOSTART LOOP 160 ]], previous builds would jump right back to T=0 with no appreciable pause, and keep on going. Now there's something like a half-second delay when the last generation is reached and when the first generation is shown.

OK I'll take a look.

• gps and STEP sliders background goes red if playback is not happening in "real time" due to machine performance
• Themes with no colour history perform better during playback than other Themes when STEP > 1 is used (Theme 0 and Theme 6 or any custom Theme with just an ALIVE and DEAD colour defined)
• zoom < 1 uses super-sample to ensure live-cells are displayed

• only "Expand" notifications are displayed when in THUMBNAIL mode
• generations per step was not being reset when subsequent patterns were opened in the standalone Viewer
• more consistent handling of playback when machine performance is low
• vastly improved reset time
• display no longer appears to wrap at low zooms

• minimum ZOOM is now 0.25x
• 4x supersampling is used when 0.5x <= ZOOM < 1.0x
• 16x supersampling is used when 0.25x <= ZOOM < 0.5x
• switched to smaller tile size to improve performance
• decreased brightness of red background when performance targets not being met

• waypoint playback was not performing smooth course correction after manual adjustment when at last waypoint
• it was possible to create a Viewer whose width was not a multiple of 8
• locking a UI item would not cancel any current interaction

rowett wrote:Hi Nathaniel,
If Dave is happy with Build 151 please could you upload it?

Nathaniel wrote:

rowett wrote:Hi Nathaniel,
If Dave is happy with Build 151 please could you upload it?

Done!