[LDPartEditor] 0.8.41 Beta Released (LDPartEditor.exe / Setup.exe)

[Nils Schmidt]

Hey,

this took me so long to fulfil this whishlist...
But now there is a breaking change: You can launch / install LDPE under Windows like any other application


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

Changelog:
(1 new feature and 2 bug fixes)

With this release you will be able to...

• ...launch an LDPartEditor executable under Windows / install it with a setup file (breaking change).
  

The following critical issues were fixed:

1. Colour table (OS: Windows) - The scroll on mouse over, in the list view, only worked when the pointer was over the slider. Not when it was over the list.
   
2. The primitive area disappeared sometimes, because a paint event cleared the canvas.
   

What will the next release 0.8.42 deliver? Bug fixes, new features (e.g. open *.dat files from the Windows Explorer in LDPE with "Open with...").

---

The program was tested intensively with "real world" files.
However, it is still a beta version and something can go wrong in about 140.000 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 "LDPartEditor.exe" to start LDPE.
   
4. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "run.sh" to start LDPE.
   

Alternatively, you can download a setup file to install LDPE on Windows.
When you install/extract LDPE on Windows you will find your LDPE configuration files under
{drive}\Users\{user}\AppData\Roaming\LDPartEditor

Please note that this software is in the beta stage. Although, this version 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".
   

It is not recommended to use the "update.bat" script when you installed LDPE via the setup file.
Manually install the new version instead.

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:

• 64-bit Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8
  
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible Graphics Card
  
• Operating System (64-bit): Windows [7 or newer], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=14.4], Mac OS X [>=10.6]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon II (>2.0Ghz)
  
• RAM: 4GB
  
• Video-Memory: 1 GB
  
• Free Disk Space: 100 MB
  

Recommended Requirements:

• Operating System (64bit): Windows 7,8,10, Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=14.4], Mac OS X [>=10.6]
  
• OpenGL 3.3 compatible Graphics Card
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor with 4 cores (or more)
  
• RAM: >4 GB
  
• Video-Memory: >1 GB
  
• Free Disk Space: 512 MB
  
• For a faster start, LDPartEditor and the LDraw™ library should be installed on an SSD.
  

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

[Philippe Hurbain]

Works fine here. Any impact on performance? (doesn't seem so). Update procedure remains the same (launch update.bat)?

[Nils Schmidt]

Works fine here. Any impact on performance? (doesn't seem so). Update procedure remains the same (launch update.bat)?

1.) There is no impact on performance.

2.) The update procedure remains the same.
There is only one "anomaly": The LDPE_0.0.0_Setup.exe file will not include update.bat in the future, but it will be still wrapped in the standalone *.zip file for Windows.
I am searching for a viable updater alternative regarding the Setup.exe solution.

[Willy Tschager]

Hurray! I'm gonna try this one out as soon as have the windows machine at hand.

w.

[Magnus Forsberg]

Nils,

Could you please explain the difference more accurat.

I tried doing an update by using update.bat. It went OK, but if I now try to start it using the run.bat the older version is started.
If i click on the exe-file it wants to do a new setup asking about my username and where my library is.

Is that intended? Will I be able to keep my settings? How do I start the updated version?

[Philippe Hurbain]

I had the same issue, but it's easy to overcome.
- Launch the old version (.bat) and save your settings (Tools -> save user settings)
- Launch 0.8.41 exe, fill in (once more...) library path, names, etc
- Load your old settings
- Delete old version

[Willy Tschager]

The Installer offers you to directly launch the prog. I got no pop-up asking to the LDraw path or the user/author name. Downloading the LDConfig.ldr therefore failed. No icons of the prims. Once I closed/reopend the prog I got the pop-up. Now everything is back to normal.

w.

[Nils Schmidt]

The Installer offers you to directly launch the prog. I got no pop-up asking to the LDraw path or the user/author name. Downloading the LDConfig.ldr therefore failed. No icons of the prims. Once I closed/reopend the prog I got the pop-up. Now everything is back to normal.

w.

Thanks for this bug report, but I can't reproduce this issue...
It seems that LDPE had already found a somehow broken settings file on your computer located somewhere??
I am a little confused right now. I tested it several times on Win10 and Win8.

I tried to reproduce it by
1.) deleting my configuration file, uninstalling LDPartEditor completely
2.) install it as administrator
3.) repeating step 1, deleting my configuration file, uninstalling LDPartEditor completely
4.) install it as a standard user

In theory the code does not allow to "skip" the configuration, there has to be a pop-up with an OK button:

Code:

       final File configFile = new File(WorkbenchManager.CONFIG_GZ);

       // If your configuration file does not exist:
       if (!configFile.exists()) {
           WorkbenchManager.createDefaultWorkbench();

           // This is our first time we use the application.
           // Start a little wizard for the user dependent properties.
           if (new StartupDialog(Display.getDefault().getActiveShell()).open() == IDialogConstants.OK_ID) {

               // Save the changes, which were made by the user
               WorkbenchManager.saveWorkbench(WorkbenchManager.CONFIG_GZ);
           } else {
               // Dispose ...
               return;
           }
       }