1622 replies to this topic

[mjr]

Brer Frog - keep in mind that the Tables path and the Media path are unrelated.  So don't worry about how they interact - they don't.  Set the Tables path the way that works and call that part done.  I'm guessing you have VP set up like this from what you've posted:

 

C:\Visual Pinball\

+ Tables - VPX\

++  (VPX tables here)

 

Right?  So put "Tables - VPX" in the Visual Pinball 10 > Tables folder field and you're set there.

 

Now to media.   The media folder has nothing to do with the tables folder.  Changing the table folder won't affect whether media items are found.  No need to mess with the tables folder trying to get the media to show up.

 

You said that whenever you have the "5 tables" showing, you get media.  Whenever you have the "123 tables" showing, you don't.  Question:  when the 123 tables are showing, are the 5 tables from the "5 tables" set also showing, or do those disappear?  Is it either/or or is it a combination?  I'm going to guess that the 5 tables are still there, but tell me if I'm wrong.  Now, when you've got the 123 tables showing, and you go to one of the 5 tables from the "5 tables" set, does that table show with media?  Could it just be that you've only set up media for the 5 tables, and the other 118 haven't been set up yet?  Remember that you have to install media per table. 

 

Also note that there's the new Show Media Files command that should help you debug media problems: 

 

Operator Menu ("0") > Game Setup > Show Media Files

 

That will bring up a screen showing the exact folder path where PBY is looking for every individual media item for the game, and which files (if any) are found.  If you definitely know you have media files for a given game, that should help you see why they're not showing - it'll show you exactly where in the file system that it's looking, so you can either (a) move the file to the folder where PBY is looking, if the file just got misplaced, or (b) tweak your settings so that PBY is looking in the right place, if it's not looking where you want it to look.

Edited by mjr, 09 August 2018 - 05:35 PM.

[hlr53]

MJR wrote:

 

[Just use the built-in Visual Studio build commands:  on the VS menu, Build > Build Solution.  Select the configuration you want to build first (Debug | x86, perhaps) in the drop lists in the main toolbar.]

 

I cannot quote for some reason?  Site is running horribly the last few days.

 

What file do I highlight or open to start the Build Solution? Where do I configure? If it's in the docs I cannot find it. Sorry to bother you. I just want to get a clean compile done and then I can go into the details of Visual Studio and start learning. I'm a retired Honeywell PID controller specialist. This stuff is ALL new.

Edited by hlr53, 09 August 2018 - 08:35 PM.

[mjr]

I cannot quote for some reason?  

 

It's probably just because the site is so unstable lately - at least, I've been seeing that annoying CloudFlare "this site is down" page over and over the last few days.  The Quote button sends a request to the server, and that probably timed out.  

 

 

What file do I highlight or open to start the Build Solution? Where do I configure? 

 

The PinballY.sln file in the main folder.

 

File > Open > Project/Solution > select PinballY.sln in the file selector

 

A "solution" is Visual Studio-speak for, basically, a product.  A solution is composed of one or more "projects", which map to individual components like .EXEs, .DLLs, .LIBs, and so on.  When you open the PinballY.sln solution, you should see a Solution Explorer window with the baker's dozen of projects making up the overall program.  You can:

 

Build > Build Solution - build everything.  VS has dependency information that will make it build the subprojects in the right order

 

Build > Clean Solution - delete all of the compiler output files (.obj, .exe, .dll, .lib, etc) so you can do a full build from scratch

 

Select a project in the Solution Explorer list, then right-click > Build - build just that project and its dependencies

 

Most of the time you can just do a Build > Build Solution to get everything up to date.

 

Within the Solution Explorer tree, the "PinballY" project is the main executable.  That's the one to run in the debugger most of the time.  "PinballY Admin Mode" is the separate executable for the admin mode host; "PinballY Watchdog" is a separate child executable for crash monitoring and cleanup; "WixSetup" is the MSI builder; "OptionsDialog" is the DLL with the options dialog UI; and the rest are libraries and utilities that contribute code to the build but aren't separate exectuables themselves.

[Brer Frog]

Brer Frog - keep in mind that the Tables path and the Media path are unrelated.  So don't worry about how they interact - they don't.  Set the Tables path the way that works and call that part done.  I'm guessing you have VP set up like this from what you've posted:

 

C:\Visual Pinball\

+ Tables - VPX\

++  (VPX tables here)

 

Right?  So put "Tables - VPX" in the Visual Pinball 10 > Tables folder field and you're set there.

 

Now to media.   The media folder has nothing to do with the tables folder.  Changing the table folder won't affect whether media items are found.  No need to mess with the tables folder trying to get the media to show up.

 

You said that whenever you have the "5 tables" showing, you get media.  Whenever you have the "123 tables" showing, you don't.  Question:  when the 123 tables are showing, are the 5 tables from the "5 tables" set also showing, or do those disappear?  Is it either/or or is it a combination?  I'm going to guess that the 5 tables are still there, but tell me if I'm wrong.  Now, when you've got the 123 tables showing, and you go to one of the 5 tables from the "5 tables" set, does that table show with media?  Could it just be that you've only set up media for the 5 tables, and the other 118 haven't been set up yet?  Remember that you have to install media per table. 

 

Also note that there's the new Show Media Files command that should help you debug media problems: 

 

Operator Menu ("0") > Game Setup > Show Media Files

 

That will bring up a screen showing the exact folder path where PBY is looking for every individual media item for the game, and which files (if any) are found.  If you definitely know you have media files for a given game, that should help you see why they're not showing - it'll show you exactly where in the file system that it's looking, so you can either (a) move the file to the folder where PBY is looking, if the file just got misplaced, or (b) tweak your settings so that PBY is looking in the right place, if it's not looking where you want it to look.

 

I do have “Tables - VPX" in the Visual Pinball 10 > Tables folder field and that works & all 123 tables do show up in the Wheel.

The 5 tables do show up as part of the 123 tables. These 5 are the configured ones & their names are the configured names, such as Attack from Mars vs. AFM_1.2.0.VPX. So all is well in that department.

When I go to one of those 5 tables no media is displayed.

Correct, the other 118 tables have not been setup.

I went to Operator Menu ("0") > Game Setup > Show Media Files and got this.
 PinballY Folders_1.jpg   47.61KB   5 downloads

That 4th folder down does not have a name. Clicking & Opening it shows this. The file path shows Local Disc C: > PinballY > Media
 PinballY Folders_2.jpg   58.09KB   5 downloads

 

Here’s an expanded view of the directory.
 PinballY Folders_3.jpg   33.98KB   4 downloads

Clicking on the 5th folder shown in photo1, Table Images, and then selecting & starting “Open” is the same as selecting “Return”. No difference. Nothing shows up and the highlighted cursor just toggles back to “Table Images”.
 

It looks like that no name 4th folder should be titled "Visual Pinball X". If so, where do I enter that? It seems no matter what folder I change in the Options settings regarding file paths messes things up.

 

Thanks for the information.

Mike

[mjr]

It looks like that no name 4th folder should be titled "Visual Pinball X". If so, where do I enter that? It seems no matter what folder I change in the Options settings regarding file paths messes things up.

 

Yep, it looks like that's the problem all right.  

 

That folder's name is given by the Media Folder name for the system (on the system's page in the options dialog - second text box down).  I'm not sure why it's ending up blank - it should default to the system name.  Maybe there's something invisible entered in that field or something?

 

[Edit]  The blank name might actually be a bug.  Try putting in the name explicitly for now, but in the next update (Alpha 7 when available - not yet, but soon), try making it blank in the settings - hopefully that'll pick up the right name after the update.

Edited by mjr, 09 August 2018 - 11:40 PM.

[Brer Frog]

 

It looks like that no name 4th folder should be titled "Visual Pinball X". If so, where do I enter that? It seems no matter what folder I change in the Options settings regarding file paths messes things up.

 

Yep, it looks like that's the problem all right.  

 

That folder's name is given by the Media Folder name for the system (on the system's page in the options dialog - second text box down).  I'm not sure why it's ending up blank - it should default to the system name.  Maybe there's something invisible entered in that field or something?

 

[Edit]  The blank name might actually be a bug.  Try putting in the name explicitly for now, but in the next update (Alpha 7 when available - not yet, but soon), try making it blank in the settings - hopefully that'll pick up the right name after the update.

 

 

Thank you -

 

Entering "Visual Pinball X" into that Media folder text box did the trick.

 

That's the same text box that I played around with yesterday but had no success. Apparently I never tried the correct name.

 

Thanks again for all your hard work & taking the time to help me.

 

[Draco1962]

Hi mjr - It is nice to see another pincab FE making the rounds and, from what I have seen so far, it has great potential to be a great frontend! 

 

I have looked and I have not seen anything that would indicate whether or not PinballY has or will have support for Arcooda Pinball Arcade (Steam and standalone) in the near future?

 

I presently use PinballX and have for several years on my VituraPin Mini. I am looking forward to giving your FE a spin!

[hlr53]

Build > Build Solution - build everything.  VS has dependency information that will make it build the subprojects in the right order

 

Build > Clean Solution - delete all of the compiler output files (.obj, .exe, .dll, .lib, etc) so you can do a full build from scratch

 

Select a project in the Solution Explorer list, then right-click > Build - build just that project and its dependencies

 

Most of the time you can just do a Build > Build Solution to get everything up to date.

 

Within the Solution Explorer tree, the "PinballY" project is the main executable.  That's the one to run in the debugger most of the time.  "PinballY Admin Mode" is the separate executable for the admin mode host; "PinballY Watchdog" is a separate child executable for crash monitoring and cleanup; "WixSetup" is the MSI builder; "OptionsDialog" is the DLL with the options dialog UI; and the rest are libraries and utilities that contribute code to the build but aren't separate exectuables themselves.

 

 

So that is what the .sln extension is. Gotcha.

 

x64 debug Build failed, which I will get to.

 

First, in addition to the 2010 DirectX SDK and setting the environment variable I had to install the following due to Build complaints:

 

SDK 10.0.15063.468

SDK 10.0.16299.15

 

Both refused to install until I unchecked Performance toolkit and Debugger boxes.

 

VC+ 2015.3 v140 toolset(x86,x64)

WIX toolset

 

I cloned at 10:45 this morning.

 

Tried a Build Solution on PinballY. I will just post the first fatal error:

 

1>------ Build started: Project: GenerateDXAudioHeaderIncludes, Configuration: Debug x64 ------

2>------ Build started: Project: Utilities, Configuration: Debug x64 ------

3>------ Build started: Project: DirectXTK_Desktop_2017, Configuration: Debug x64 ------

4>------ Build started: Project: VersionInfoUpdater, Configuration: Debug x64 ------

5>------ Build started: Project: zlibstat, Configuration: Debug x64 ------

6>------ Build started: Project: LZMA, Configuration: Debug x64 ------

7>------ Build started: Project: DMDFontTool, Configuration: Debug x64 ------

1>stdafx.cpp

2>stdafx.cpp

7>stdafx.cpp

3>pch.cpp

4>VersionInfoUpdater.cpp

5>Assembling ..\..\masmx64\inffasx64.asm...

6>7zDecode.cpp

5>Assembling ..\..\masmx86\inffas32.asm...

5>Assembling ..\..\masmx86\match686.asm...

7>DMDFontTool.cpp

5>adler32.c

5>c:\users\harry\source\repos\pinbally\zlib\zlib.h(34): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'zconf.h': No such file or directory

 

In the zlib directory are zconf.h.in and zconf.h.included but no zconf.h ??

 

So, instead of cloning I downloaded the master from github and created a new project and tried building PinballY.sln again but I'm getting massive errors which I cannot post here due to length.

 

12>Done building project "PinballY Admin Mode.vcxproj" -- FAILED.

13>------ Skipped Build: Project: WixSetup, Configuration: Debug x86 ------

13>Project not selected to build for this solution configuration 

========== Build: 6 succeeded, 6 failed, 0 up-to-date, 1 skipped ==========

 

I tried but I give up for now unless you have other suggestions. I have a feeling my Visual Studio might still be missing some required extensions or my build order is wrong?

 

VS Community 2017 15.7.6

Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017 

Version 15.7.6

VisualStudio.15.Release/15.7.6+27703.2047

Microsoft .NET Framework

Version 4.7.03056

 

Installed Version: Community

 

Visual C++ 2017   00369-60000-00001-AA726

Microsoft Visual C++ 2017

 

ASP.NET and Web Tools 2017   15.0.40625.0

ASP.NET and Web Tools 2017

 

C# Tools   2.8.3-beta6-63029-08. Commit Hash: e9a3a6c0ba5b1fde8b1fff964bdfb3fb768ee2eb

C# components used in the IDE. Depending on your project type and settings, a different version of the compiler may be used.

 

GitHub.VisualStudio   2.5.4.3349

A Visual Studio Extension that brings the GitHub Flow into Visual Studio.

 

JavaScript Language Service   2.0

JavaScript Language Service

 

Microsoft JVM Debugger   1.0

Provides support for connecting the Visual Studio debugger to JDWP compatible Java Virtual Machines

 

Microsoft MI-Based Debugger   1.0

Provides support for connecting Visual Studio to MI compatible debuggers

 

Microsoft Visual C++ Wizards   1.0

Microsoft Visual C++ Wizards

 

Microsoft Visual Studio VC Package   1.0

Microsoft Visual Studio VC Package

 

NuGet Package Manager   4.6.0

NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio. For more information about NuGet, visit http://docs.nuget.org/.

 

ProjectServicesPackage Extension   1.0

ProjectServicesPackage Visual Studio Extension Detailed Info

 

Test Adapter for Boost.Test   1.0

Enables Visual Studio's testing tools with unit tests written for Boost.Test.  The use terms and Third Party Notices are available in the extension installation directory.

 

Test Adapter for Google Test   1.0

Enables Visual Studio's testing tools with unit tests written for Google Test.  The use terms and Third Party Notices are available in the extension installation directory.

 

The Solution Engineer Toolkit   1.0

 

Visual Basic Tools   2.8.3-beta6-63029-08. Commit Hash: e9a3a6c0ba5b1fde8b1fff964bdfb3fb768ee2eb

Visual Basic components used in the IDE. Depending on your project type and settings, a different version of the compiler may be used.

 

Visual Studio Code Debug Adapter Host Package   1.0

Interop layer for hosting Visual Studio Code debug adapters in Visual Studio

 

Visual Studio Tools for CMake   1.0

Visual Studio Tools for CMake

 

Windows Machine Learning Generator Extension   1.0

Windows Machine Learning Visual Studio Extension Detailed Info

 

WiX Toolset Visual Studio Extension   0.9.21.62588

WiX Toolset Visual Studio Extension version 0.9.21.62588

Copyright © .NET Foundation and contributors. All rights reserved.

 

Thanks,

 

--Harry

Edited by hlr53, 10 August 2018 - 05:42 PM.

[hlr53]

On Future Pinball.

 

On my cab the tables will load and will run if I point to Future Pinball.exe. If I point the executable path to \BAM\FPLoader.exe nothing happens.

 

On my laptop I am pointing to FPLoader and it runs fine.

 

File extensions on both systems open with FPLoader

 

Also, on the Path Options dialog box you can select more than one radio button. I was trying to change how PBY looks for the exe.

 

And, if I try to change the path from FP to FPloader.exe and exit PBY, I restart FPLoader manually, load a table and the table will not run. I have to restart to get it to work again.

Edited by hlr53, 10 August 2018 - 06:05 PM.

[Brer Frog]

Everything is going great now & I'm adding the HP Media Packs.

 

This is my first experience with a front end & HP Media Packs & have two questions:

1) Why are the Instruction Cards .swf files? I don't have Flash on the PC but are the cards animated?

2) Are you supposed to be able to view the flyer images using PinballY? Or are they there as a convenient source when using a keyboard?

 

Thanks

[STV]

Everything is going great now & I'm adding the HP Media Packs.

 

This is my first experience with a front end & HP Media Packs & have two questions:

1) Why are the Instruction Cards .swf files? I don't have Flash on the PC but are the cards animated?

2) Are you supposed to be able to view the flyer images using PinballY? Or are they there as a convenient source when using a keyboard?

 

Thanks

 

Well i don't know "why" they chose swf years ago but they load in the pinballY browser after you put them in the proper media folder.  you can also drag one onto a web browser and it'll display.   Flyers also.  load up in pinballY when placed into the proper media folder  (and named same as your other media, pf images or videos or whatever you've gotten working)

like so:

edit:  forgot to mention - png works fine in all the media folders including instruction cards...

When you get things set in the right place the option just shows up:

[mjr]

First, in addition to the 2010 DirectX SDK and setting the environment variable I had to install the following due to Build complaints:

 

SDK 10.0.15063.468

SDK 10.0.16299.15

 

Well, it's good that you're trying this with a fresh VS install - definitely helps sort out all of the hidden dependencies that are there just because I had VS installed already.

 

It looks like I can get rid of the first of those and get everything on 10.0.16299.15.  The 10.0.15063.468 dependency was coming from the DXTK libraries, but those seem to be happy compiling against the updated SDK.  Not surprising, as I'm sure the newer one just has a few minor additions relative to the earlier one, being just a dot-release away.

 

 

VC+ 2015.3 v140 toolset(x86,x64)

 

Oh, yeah, that's coming from zlib.  It looks like that's happy to compile with the v141 (VS2017/current)  toolset, so I moved that over.

 

 

5>c:\users\harry\source\repos\pinbally\zlib\zlib.h(34): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'zconf.h': No such file or directory

 

In the zlib directory are zconf.h.in and zconf.h.included but no zconf.h ??

 

I sure don't know what's going on there - it's definitely right there in the git tree:

 

https://github.com/m...er/zlib/zconf.h

 

Looking at the same folder, I see there's a zlib.pc.cmakein, and you mentioned you ran CMAKE earlier.  zconf.h looks to be a generated file (I think they're using the typical linux/gnu procedure of generating an OS-specific header via the linux 'configure' tool), so maybe that CMAKE run accidentally wiped out zconf.  Maybe you just need to pull a fresh copy from git?

 

 

 I have a feeling my Visual Studio might still be missing some required extensions or my build order is wrong?

 

"Build order is wrong" shouldn't be a possibility if you're using Build > Build Solution - the build order is baked into the solution file.

It's definitely possible that there's something missing in your VS config, but the way to find out is to take the errors one at a time.  Builds are always pyramids of dependencies - if something early on fails, the whole thing fails.  So start by figuring out what's going on with the missing zlib file, fix that, and try again.  You don't necessary have 1,000,000 individual errors to deal with - 999,000 of them might be cascade effects of that one missing file and will go away when you fix that.  And then the remaining 1000 might be due to some other error.  So even if it looks ridiculously bad right now there might just be a couple of things that need to get fixed.

[mjr]

This is my first experience with a front end & HP Media Packs & have two questions:

1) Why are the Instruction Cards .swf files? I don't have Flash on the PC but are the cards animated?

 

I wish I knew!  A freak accident of history as far as I can tell.  I have a wild guess, though.  My wild guess is that one day, about 20 years ago, there was a pinball fan who thought it would be nice to digitize a lot of instruction cards and put them online, and that pinball fan decided that it would be clever to use SWF for that project.  Not because of the animation, but because it uses vector graphics.  Vector graphics actually are pretty ideal for instruction cards, since they're almost all just black text on white paper.  If you were thinking "vector graphics" today you'd use SVG, since even Adobe has disavowed SWF at this point.  But 20 years ago SWF was probably the only option (and was popular at the time).  Anyway, the HyperPin guys probably found that collection of SWF instruction cards floating around the Internet, so they settled on that format, and then the PinballX guys copied them, and now I've copied them.

 

PBY actually is perfectly happy to show instruction card images in PNG or JPG format as well as SWF, so I'm at least *trying* to break the cycle of abuse here. But it hardly matters because practically all of the extant media packs use SWF.  We really need a modern day successor to the guy who did the original SWF capture, to take all of the SWF and convert it to something more modern.  I'd probably just ditch the vectors and do a high-res PNG rendering; vectors are nice in principle, but a 600dpi rendering would be perfectly adequate for all practical purposes and is easier to work with.  And we'll probably actually NEED this to happen eventually, because I'm sure Adobe is counting the days until they can abandon Flash Player for good.  There aren't even any good open-source replacements; all of the attempts that I've been able to find were abandoned years ago, and sure aren't going to restart now that SWF is basically dead.

 

 

2) Are you supposed to be able to view the flyer images using PinballY? Or are they there as a convenient source when using a keyboard?

 

Yep, you can view them - if they're present, the main menu (press "1" or your "Start/Select" button) should include "Flyer Images" as a command.  Select that and they'll come up superimposed on the playfield window, presented one page at a time.

Edited by mjr, 10 August 2018 - 08:21 PM.

[hlr53]

 

[snip]

 

Oh, yeah, that's coming from zlib.  It looks like that's happy to compile with the v141 (VS2017/current)  toolset, so I moved that over.

 

 

5>c:\users\harry\source\repos\pinbally\zlib\zlib.h(34): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'zconf.h': No such file or directory

 

In the zlib directory are zconf.h.in and zconf.h.included but no zconf.h ??

 

I sure don't know what's going on there - it's definitely right there in the git tree:

 

https://github.com/m...er/zlib/zconf.h

 

Looking at the same folder, I see there's a zlib.pc.cmakein, and you mentioned you ran CMAKE earlier.  zconf.h looks to be a generated file (I think they're using the typical linux/gnu procedure of generating an OS-specific header via the linux 'configure' tool), so maybe that CMAKE run accidentally wiped out zconf.  Maybe you just need to pull a fresh copy from git?

 

 

So OK to run v141 toolset? On my latest project it asked me if I would like to upgrade from 140 and I said yes. It parsed a bunch of files.

 

IDK why the header is missing from Visual Studio but I tried it again and it is missing. So what I did was install GitHub desktop and cloned using it. I ran a new project and the header missing error is gone.

Edited by hlr53, 10 August 2018 - 09:14 PM.

[Brer Frog]

I never put Flash on my PC because of all the security issues I read about. I had it with my old HDD but it seemed every week or two it had a security update.

 

According to this Flash end-of-life is the end of 2020.

https://theblog.adob...e-flash-update/

 

So far I have one .PNG instruction card & it does display in PinballY. I tried IrfanView & it will display .SWF files but cannot save them. I could do a snip or screen print of the image & save it as a .PNG file. Seems like a lot of work but is doable.

 

Don't know how I missed the "Flyer Images" command. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

I highly recommend PInballY. I don't have any experience with other front ends but PinballY is fast & easy to use & setup.

 

Thank you mjr for another wonderful piece of software. The other one I'm using is Pinscape.

[mjr]

So OK to run v141 toolset? On my latest project it asked me if I would like to upgrade from 140 and I said yes. It parsed a bunch of files.

 

Yep, that looks like exactly what I'm using. 

 

 

IDK why the header is missing from Visual Studio but I tried it again and it is missing. So what I did was install GitHub desktop and cloned using it. I ran a new project and the header missing error is gone.

 

I use the command line git tools myself.  Were you using the VS built-in git commands?  I haven't tried those myself; maybe they're not fully compatible with github.  (Maybe that's why Microsoft decided they had to buy the place!)

[Carny_Priest]

SWF - instruction cards

 

Yes, SWF because it was a standard years ago. Vector graphics scale up perfectly. The player can be made to preserve aspect ratio (letterboxing) so that the result will look accurate on backboxes that are 4:3, 5:4, or 16:9 without having to do anything with the file. Much smaller file size, too. I'm guessing HP came before or the same time as the choice of using SWF for cards. HyperPin and PinballX can also use PNG but with their implementations they stretch and scale up to fill the screen. No good with the photocopied TIFFs and GIFs that were around prior to Inkochnito's repros and HyperPin. Even getting past SWF, there was no standard for the size/aspect ratio of pinball instruction cards. The dimensions differ by manufacturer and even by era within manufacturer.

 

I did not do the original HP packs but I had a project where the workflow made it easier for me to redraw hundreds of cards reproduced by Inkochnito for pre-modern tables as SWF than it was for me to download a pack, drag the card to a browser and look and see if it was good enough quality. I had published those at the PinballX FTP. I know that there aren't many tools around but given the relatively simplicity of the card images maybe I can find something that can do good batch conversions to SVG.

 

Having produced dozens of packs for many modern Sterns, those are going to be tougher to simply convert to SVG as there are often a mix of graphics and text.

 

For those that care about fidelity, if the player can be made to display PNG scaled to fit while preserving the original aspect ratio then, yes, I think just having 600 dpi images should work well now and for the next several years. I did code an Autohotkey script to batch convert SWF to PNG through screen captures.

 

Maintaining vectors would be the best future proofing, though. Can PinballY support PDF? That could be an option too as well as SVG.

Edited by Carny_Priest, 10 August 2018 - 09:27 PM.

[mjr]

I never put Flash on my PC because of all the security issues I read about. I had it with my old HDD but it seemed every week or two it had a security update.

 

I'm totally with you on that.  I really tried to find a way to show SWF files without Flash, but came up empty after much searching.  And I haven't ruled out some alternative by any means - maybe I'll be able to find something in the future.  The Flash Player dependency can easily be removed if I can just find something else to put in its place that will render SWF to a bitmap.

 

 

I tried IrfanView & it will display .SWF files but cannot save them. I could do a snip or screen print of the image & save it as a .PNG file. Seems like a lot of work but is doable.

 

Yeah, that's the other thing I tried looking for far and wide - something open-source that can read SWF in and write PNG out.  There are a couple of tools that CLAIM they can do that, but it's misleading because all they can actually do is extract JPG resources embedded in SWF.  Which doesn't help in our situation because the instruction card files all use vector graphics, not embedded JPG.  So far I haven't found anything that can actually rasterize a vector SWF and write out a PNG.  If such a thing existed, I could easily make PBY call it automatically when trying to render a SWF and get rid of the Flash Player dependency for good.

[hlr53]

 

So OK to run v141 toolset? On my latest project it asked me if I would like to upgrade from 140 and I said yes. It parsed a bunch of files.

 

Yep, that looks like exactly what I'm using. 

 

 

IDK why the header is missing from Visual Studio but I tried it again and it is missing. So what I did was install GitHub desktop and cloned using it. I ran a new project and the header missing error is gone.

 

I use the command line git tools myself.  Were you using the VS built-in git commands?  I haven't tried those myself; maybe they're not fully compatible with github.  (Maybe that's why Microsoft decided they had to buy the place!)

 

 

LMAO and yes I was using the built-in VS GIT cloning tools. I just removed VS Community and doing a reinstall but this time adding extensions from the start. Coz I'm stubborn and want to see what happens. 

[mjr]

Maintaining vectors would be the best future proofing, though. Can PinballY support PDF? That could be an option too as well as SVG.

 

I don't have any support for PDF or SVG in there now, but at a guess either one is probably better supported in open source libraries than SWF is (given that open source SWF support is essentially non-existent).  But of the two, SVG seems like the much better choice.  PDF seems like it has a lot of the bad features of SWF (proprietary, complex, dependent on Adobe).

 

 

For those that care about fidelity, if the player can be made to display PNG scaled to fit while preserving the original aspect ratio then, yes, I think just having 600 dpi images should work well now and for the next several years. 

 

I understand all the motivations behind using vectors and agree that it's better in principle, but I also kind of feel like it's a bit overly fussy in practical terms.  600 dpi is enough to faithfully reproduce the printing flaws and paper grain from the physical originals.

 

Probably the ideal solution that would make everyone happy would be to produce a parallel set of high-res PNG rasterizations and SVG vectorizations and put them both in the media packs.  That way you have a nice raster format that works with every piece of software, once and future, and has excellent image quality for every conceivable use short of IMAX projection, plus the platonic vector ideal for archival purposes.