[LDPartEditor] 0.8.8 Beta Released

[Nils Schmidt]

Yay!

Another day, another release. Curtains up for 0.8.8!


As always, you can download LDPE from this page:
http://nilsschmidt1337.github.io/ldparteditor/

Changelog:
(10 new features and 8 bug fixes)

With this release you will be able to...

• ...insert a reference line (type 1) with Ctrl+R (Text Editor only)
  
• ...enable "Edge Adjacency" in combination with "Select Connected/Touching..." (instead of the default vertex adjacency)
  
• ...switch between "solid" edge lines and classic OpenGL lines
  
• ...get some usability improvements: When "Insert Objects Behind The Cursor Position" is active,
  a carriage return / linefeed will be inserted (you don't have to hit the Enter button anymore)
  
• ...set the pivot point to the manipulator position.
  
• ...use a "close" menu item in the context menu of the 3D editor (to close open files in the 3D view).
  
• ...use a "close" menu item in the context menu of the file tree (to close open files in the 3D view).
  
• ...use the new "two thirds" perspective (similar to the setting in LDView)
  
• ...benefit from a better description for the Intersector tool.
  
• ...benefit from another line colour during edge/triangle/quad creation
  

The following critical issues were fixed:

1. Risk of data loss: A rare deadlock is fixed. It occured during the development of 0.8.8 for the first time.
   
2. Select Connected/Touching in combination "with Whole Subfile Selection" did not select the subfile.
   
3. Several problems with empty sub-files (like "1-16chrd") are fixed.
   
4. Primitve caching issues on Win XP (32 bit) are gone.
   
5. The file search for file references/textures did not always use the base path of the current file.
   
6. The hide/show state was too volatile.
   
7. SymSplitter did not treat the first line of the file.
   
8. An uncritical drag&drop type exception is fixed.
   

The program was tested intensively with "real world" files.
However, it is still a beta version and something can go wrong in about 100.000 lines of code.

Make sure that you choose the right architecture for your OS and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) (64bit or 32bit).
A short guide how to check if a 64bit JVM is installed on your system is located at the bottom of this message.

1. Download the zip-Archive
   
2. Extract the archive content to the location of your choice
   
3. On windows, double-click "run.bat" to start LDPE.
   
4. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "run.sh" to start LDPE.
   

Please note that this software is in the beta stage. Although, LDPE 0.8.8 was tested, there are already known issues for this release. There is a potential risk of data loss.

You can search for updates if you do the following steps:

1. On windows, double-click "update.bat" to search for updates.
   
2. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "update.sh".
   

I listen carefully to your requests and possible complaints. Please leave me a message, with your thoughts and wishes to further improve the software.

LDPE is a 3D CAD application: The overall system requirements are higher. While I recommend to use a powerful 64-bit multicore system, it could be possible, to run LDPE on older machines as well.

System Requirements:

Minimum System Requirements:

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8
  
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible Graphics Card
  
• Operating System (32/64bit): Windows [XP; Vista; 7 or newer], Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon II (>2.0Ghz)
  
• RAM: 4GB
  
• Video-Memory: 512 MB
  
• Free Disk Space: 100 MB
  

Recommended Requirements:

• Operating System (64bit): Windows 7, Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor with 4 cores (or more)
  
• RAM: >4 GB
  
• Video-Memory: >=1 GB
  
• Free Disk Space: 512 MB
  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to check your JVM version (32- or 64-bit):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can try on the command line:

Code:

java -d64 version

If it's not a 64-bit version, you'll get a message that looks like:

Code:

This Java instance does not support a 64-bit JVM. Please install the desired version.

In general, I recommend to install the 64-bit version of the JVM for Java 8.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Excellent! Thanks Nils...

[Willy Tschager]

looks like you're in full swing ... thx a lot!

w.

[Nils Schmidt]

Oh well... the fix for the hide/show state included a bug

If you hide a sub-file, it gets not visible on "Show All".

But there is a workaround for this:

1. Click on "Show All"
   
2. Click on "Compile Subfile Data"
   

[Willy Tschager]

Bug:

* Launch via run.bat
* Open a file in the 3D editor
* Part gets loaded in the 3D editor but not the Text editor
* Select a triangle in the 3D editor and select "Show selection in the Text Editor.
* A new instance of the Text Editor gets launched leaving you with 2 Text Editor windows
* Click on the new.dat file in the Parts tree of the 3D editor, select "Open in Text Editor" and a third Text Editor gets launched

w.

[Willy Tschager]

Bug:

* You've got two files 1.dat and 2.dat
* Select 2.dat in the parts tree in the 3D Editor and right-click "Open in 3D editor"
* Go to the Text Editor and select the 1.dat tab
* Hit the "Open in 3D editor" icon the Text editor. 1.dat gets shown in the 3D Editor but in the parts tree of the 3D Editor the highlight is still on 2.dat.

w.

[Willy Tschager]

Bug:

* Though I reassigned it several time I cannot get the CTRL+X shortcut get to work for "Cut" in the 3D Editor - I noticed this also in 0.8.7

w.

[Magnus Forsberg]

Thank you Nils,
The subfile creation is much better now. It even adds a correct file header in the new file.
Would it be possible to also add a "standard" header to any new file created by New Part File-button?

Bug report:
The subfile creator adds a capital S infront of the subpartnumber, instead of a lower case s.

There are typos in the "Customize shortkeys.." menu.
It says "Toggle Gird" instead of "Toggle Grid".
It says "manipualtion" at all four F2-F4 shortkeys.

The customize shortkeys window is very long, almost too long. The OK button might end up outside the screen resolution. That window is also not resizable.

Is there any difference beween "Select ... All with Same Colour" and "Select ... Everything ... with Same Colour"?

[Philippe Hurbain]

Primitve caching issues on Win XP (32 bit) are gone.

Unfortunately the problem is not solved for me, it's still impossible to close LDPE, and restarting after killing it is impossible without deleting config.gz. Attached the log file created when starting LDPE, and when trying to restart.

[Nils Schmidt]

Hey

due to the hidden sub-file bug and the issues on windows XP, I decided to publish another release with eight bug fixes and no new features.

As always, you can download LDPE from this page:
http://nilsschmidt1337.github.io/ldparteditor/

I updated the binaries on sourceforge.net, too.

Changelog:
(8 bug fixes)

The following critical issues were fixed with this release:

1. Primitive caching freezes on 32-bit (severe)
   
2. Quick Fix synchronisation errors with the text editor (severe)
   
3. "Show All" did not make sub-file surfaces visible again.
   
4. Errors with sub-file folder searching on case sensitive file systems.
   
5. The shortkeys for Cut/Copy/Paste (3D Editor) were displayed on the shortkey dialog.
   
6. "Hide" makes more than the selected object invisible in some rare cases.
   
7. The selection of sub-file content did not get restored with undo/redo.
   
8. Spelling errors / typos on the "Customise Shortkeys" dialog.
   

edit:

Answers to some questions/requests:

Bug:
* Open a file in the 3D editor
* Part gets loaded in the 3D editor but not the Text editor
* Select a triangle in the 3D editor and select "Show selection in the Text Editor.
* A new instance of the Text Editor gets launched leaving you with 2 Text Editor windows
* Click on the new.dat file in the Parts tree of the 3D editor, select "Open in Text Editor" and a third Text Editor gets launched

You can drag&drop text editor tabs to other text editors and close empty text editors. A file can only displayed on one tab. It is impossible to open the same file twice. It would be nice if you first describe what was going wrong and then what was expected

* You've got two files 1.dat and 2.dat
* Select 2.dat in the parts tree in the 3D Editor and right-click "Open in 3D editor"
* Go to the Text Editor and select the 1.dat tab
* Hit the "Open in 3D editor" icon the Text editor. 1.dat gets shown in the 3D Editor but in the parts tree of the 3D Editor the highlight is still on 2.dat.

I created an issue here.

* Though I reassigned it several time I cannot get the CTRL+X shortcut get to work for "Cut" in the 3D Editor - I noticed this also in 0.8.7

This is a bug on the one hand and on the other hand it is not bug. It should not be possible to change the key bindings for cut/copy/paste. They are bound to the operating system. With 0.8.8b these actions are not visible in the "Customise Shortkeys" dialog anymore. To restore the default key bindungs (Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) you have to delete the config.gz file once

There are typos in the "Customize shortkeys.." menu.
The customize shortkeys window is very long, almost too long.

These issues are corrected with 0.8.8b.

Would it be possible to also add a "standard" header to any new file created by New Part File-button?

Yes. At the moment you can do this manually, by selecting "Hints", do a right-click, select "Quick Fix".

The subfile creator adds a capital S infront of the subpartnumber, instead of a lower case s.

I had forgotten to fix this issue. It will be fixed with release 0.8.9.

Is there any difference beween "Select ... All with Same Colour" and "Select ... Everything ... with Same Colour"?

No, and yes: You can combine "Select... Everything..." with other options, too. "Select ... All with Same Colour" is just a shortcut.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Good news, no more problems when closing/restarting LDPE on my XP box.
Now the annoying question: is there still some primitive caching? startup time at 1st launch is about 40s, and drops to 30s for following runs. This drop could be well attributed to Windows general file caching, not LDPE primitives caching...

[Magnus Forsberg]

Launch via run.bat

I'm also experiencing the same difficult start. I have to double-click on run.bat many times to start the program.
Looks like some sort of "StackOverflowError".

[Nils Schmidt]

Hey,

this evening I investigated the stack-overflow exceptions with all possible thoroughness and I found something.
The cache included unnecessary pointers to other cache objects. The serialisation process created an entry on the stack for each object.
I removed the pointers from the serialisation process.
The issue should be gone now.

As always, you can download LDPE from this page:
http://nilsschmidt1337.github.io/ldparteditor/

I updated the binaries on sourceforge.net, too.

Changelog:
(2 bug fixes)

The following issues were hopefully fixed with this release:

1. Primitive caching issues, causing a stackoverflow on all systems and a slowdown on 32-bit (severe)
   
2. The subfile creator added a capital S in front of the sub-part number, instead of a lower case s and created wrong names for primitives, too.