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D2X-XL Launcher... NEED HELP

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:19 pm
by D3Phoenix
Okay, I give up. I have this thing SO CLOSE to working it is NOT EVEN funny. But It has hacked me off enough and I have wasted enough time on it that I am ready to quit with it. Probably, ok, well, IT IS, mostly Visual Studio .NET's fault.

I need somebody to do one of the following...
A. Take my code and convert it to C++ (or some other non-platform specific language that will let you make a RAW EXE instead of some STUPID CLIENT-SERVER CRAP. I HATE .NET!! DIE!!!...:x)

B. Fix whatever is keeping it from running and leave it as VB.NET

I refuse to let you guys down because I'm getting frustrated. The code is open to ANYONE as of right now. It's in a zip if anybody wants to host it.

If nothing else, I will port it to VB6... something that I KNOW works. I had never undertaken a project in .NET before, and now I regret it with all my heart. WHY WHY WHY DIDN'T I take that C++ class in 10th grade...?

[EDIT]
Have just :evil: NUKED :evil: .NET and all its remnants from my machine, except for my code. This solves my other annoyances with debuggers constantly wanting to run, as well. :P Just started rebuilding the interface in VB6... Will have to pull a TON of search...replace action to get the code into a workable VB6 state... *sigh*

Somehow I feel much, much better now...

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:49 pm
by Peter
BOOM! D'oh, well, have fun with find & replace.

Re:

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:18 pm
by D3Phoenix
[MAC]Peter wrote:BOOM! D'oh, well, have fun with find & replace.
I hate you too. :P

Already started on it, though find/replace prolly won't be as big of a headache as I first thought. The big pain will be making the interface and naming / captioning all of those controls ALL OVER AGAIN, ONE at a time... Wish me luck...

(SURE nobody wants to port it to C++? :lol:)

Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:07 am
by Verran
Sent you a PM. :)

Re:

Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:50 am
by Diedel
D3Phoenix wrote:(SURE nobody wants to port it to C++? :lol:)
That would be a good start for you to learn C++. ;) :P

I don't know about VB, but with MSVC .NET you can buid standalone exes.

If you want a C++ app as a base for porting, I can give you the source code of one I had built a while ago and the UI of which is pretty close to what you need. It has a lot of customization stuff, liking colored buttons, or buttons with some image as background, etc.

Well, here's the stuff. Download link at the bottom. Take a look at it - it's pretty neat and contains a lot of custom stuff. Your once in a life time chance,dude! ;)

You could rip out all the app specific stuff and use the UI code to make the launcher from it. I might help you with getting into C/C++.

Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:34 pm
by D3Phoenix
Diedel, you are truly amazing.

I just might learn C++ yet -- I know the theory behind high-level languages such as Java, C, C++, and such, but I don't know the syntaxes. This will surely help.

In the interest of time, however, I will finish my VB6 interface first and get that working. Verran is interested in the .NET code, which I will go ahead and send, but I think it would be better to get the VB6 version working, followed by a port to C++, in the interest of compatability.

Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:14 pm
by Valin Halcyon
Proper OOP programming is easy once you learn the syntax. All a programming language is, is syntax and standard function (or in this case, class) libraries. Going from VB to C aught to be easy.

BTW, I feel your pain on the .NET issue. I use MS Visual Studio 6 for Windows dev. :P

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 3:27 am
by Diedel
Phoenix,

did you check out PABC?

Re:

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:18 am
by Suncho
Valin Halcyon wrote:Proper OOP programming is easy once you learn the syntax.
I disagree. You can know C++ from top to bottom and not have a clue about proper object oriented analysis and design. It's possible to learn OOP without learning C++ and it's possible to learn C++ without learning OOP.

Regardless, he doesn't need to use OOP to make a launcher.

...and if you're still on Visual Studio 6, you're missing out. What don't you like about the new ones?

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:22 pm
by D3Phoenix
Agreed. I already know VB and the general principles of OOP, polymorphism and encapsulation and so forth -- All this I learned well after I learned VB6. .NET uses it heavily. I LOVE the new .NET language, syntax, and IDE tools, but I despise the way it handles certain things.

* I can no longer do control arrays. I have to iterate through controls with some sort of crazy loop structure that takes way more code and it less efficient.

* File handling was FINE in VB6... it is majorly broken in VB.NET; way more complicated. I thought .NET was supposed to make things SIMPLER...

* I CAN'T GET IT TO MAKE A STANDALONE EXE!! It always wants to publish it to an installer package. When I try to just copy the EXE and use THAT on another machine, it says \".NET Framework 2.0 required\" and aborts, whether or not said system has .NET already.

* I can't just set an object to \"Nothing\" or \"Null\" anymore to destroy it and free the memory. Instead I have to call dispose, and if I want to make my own object be able to clean up after itself, I have to implement IDisposable and run through tons of checks -- the code looks very complicated...

Most of this was just fine in VB6. I don't want to re-learn it, especially since I can do the same things much more easily from VB6. What I really want to do is learn C++. No I haven't had a chance to look at PABC in depth, but I took a quick glimpse at some of the code and could already see similarities to JAVA -- this might be easier to do than I originally thought.

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 1:56 pm
by Suncho
C++ is very similar to Java. If you know both Java and VB, you should have no trouble picking most of it up. You already understand the object-oriented aspect, so all you need to learn is the slight variation in syntax.

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:45 pm
by Valin Halcyon
I dislike the newer Visual Studios for the same general reason. They're easier IF you learned on them..but if you learned on the old stuff..forget it.

I hate .NET too in general, makes porting a pain in the ass.

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:53 pm
by D3Phoenix
Okay, I'm working on the VB6 interface. When its done, I'll get the working copy posted and later I might get around to porting it to C++, which I am definitely going to learn. Would anyone like to reccomend good *free* complilers? I already have copies of Visual C++ 6.0 and C++ .NET 2005 -- but if those are in any way \"corrupted\" and windows-only, no thanks. I'd prefer a \"pure\" IDE to learn on, then maybe I can apply GOOD HABITS to the M$ stuff.

Re:

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:04 pm
by Steel
D3Phoenix wrote:Would anyone like to reccomend good *free* complilers?
Gladly.
http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html

The BEST free C++ comiler for windows. But it hasn't been updated for over a year. If you wan't to use WxWidgets, a cross-platform gui library, then use:
http://wxdsgn.sourceforge.net/

It is updated more often and has some bugfixes that Dev-cpp 4.992 does not have.
Hope this helps. :)

Edit: posted wrong link for WxDev-Cpp. Oops :roll:

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 8:18 am
by Diedel
Imo the MSVC .NET IDEs are a PITA to use. I *hate* them.

Re:

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 2:06 pm
by D3Phoenix
Diedel wrote:Imo the MSVC .NET IDEs are a PITA to use. I *hate* them.
I'll avoid them then. I'll take a look at some compilers tonight.

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 2:35 pm
by Diedel
I usually work with MSVC C++ v6 (SP 5 or 6). I only use .NET when I need to profile stuff, because AQtime doesn't integrate with v6.

My main problem with .NET is that it's workspace concept (called a 'solution') always considers all sub projects as depending on each other, and all the time tries to compile them all when I just want a single one to be compiled. And it doesn't remember your last choice: You have to select your current project (leading e.g. to the desired exe or dll) everytime again.

That's a general problem with the MSVC IDEs: They don't memorize stuff, they don't have a 'apply current choice to all similar subsequent cases' etc. So they do work, but using them can be a PITA. And then, .NET has so many subwindows you need a 30\" monitor to really be able to use it without constantly closing or resizing window panes. Ack. The guys who have been coding/are using this at M$ must either darn friggin noobs, or masochists with a passion for endless suffering.

Re:

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 10:39 am
by D3Phoenix
Diedel wrote:... constantly closing or resizing window panes. Ack. The guys who have been coding/are using this at M$ must either darn friggin noobs, or masochists with a passion for endless suffering.
Or the ones that DO complain are simply made to disappear... :P

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 3:32 pm
by Diedel
Maybe they all have 30\" TFTs. :P

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:18 pm
by Peter
Maybe the have Exposé. Oh, wait, it is Microsoft and they use Windows... Suckers...

;p Couldn't resist.

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:24 am
by Sirius
The compiler behind Dev-C++ is MinGW (current version is 3.1.0 I think).

The Dev-C++ IDE itself is ... well, okay, except for two main problems;

- Debugging is very slow, unstable and generally sucks ass
- Automatic indentation generally sucks ass

Apart from that, it works. But don't expect anything like Eclipse or MSVC.

Re:

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:08 am
by Diedel
D3Phoenix wrote:Or the ones that DO complain are simply made to disappear... :P
Bill Gates waves his magic wand, which happens to go by the name Steve Ballmer, and ... Poof!

(Tune of 'another one bites the dust' playing in the background)

:mrgreen:

Re:

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:38 am
by Peter
Diedel wrote:
D3Phoenix wrote:Or the ones that DO complain are simply made to disappear... :P
Bill Gates waves his magic wand, which happens to go by the name Steve Ballmer, and ... Poof!

(Tune of 'another one bites the dust' playing in the background)

:mrgreen:
Hahahaha!

Or, Bill Gates waves his arm in front of you while breathing heavily, saying "There is nothing wrong with .Net."