Saturday, September 28, 2013

A Little Atmosphere

Just a quick progress report: Since my last post, I've finished up the animation bug fixes I was working on, and I'm now doing a little decorating: think of it as turning Solitaire Till Dawn into a place with "a little atmosphere."

Much of this work has actually been done for a long time: selecting cardbacks, royalty images, and window backgrounds is all already working. But the user interface for the Decor window, where you can select these things, was clunky and hard to use. I spent some time on it, and I think it's better now.

By the way, there's one feature from old Solitaire Till Dawn that won't be in the next release: you won't be able to create cardbacks using your own photos. I'm sure people will want that, and it will appear in a later release. But right now I'm focussed on getting a usable release out the door and into your hands, and custom cardbacks would take too much time to implement. (You will be able to use your own photos for the window background; that's already working. Cardbacks are harder because they're small, so you'll want a nice user interface to scale and crop your image so that it fits nicely: that's the hard part.)

I am now adding the old sound effects to the new release. This is another feature I might have skipped if it would have taken very long to do, but Cocoa makes it dead simple. I've spent just part of today on it, and I'm nearly done already.

Update October 11 2013: I am retaining compatibility with Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.8). Everybody who wants the new version but doesn't want to upgrade to Lion or Mountain Lion, y'all can relax. And thanks for the feedback!

Here's a chance for you to make yourself heard: I am now inclined to make this new version require at least Lion (Mac OS X 10.7) or later. I was going to make it compatible with the older Snow Leopard (10.6) as well, but there are some niceties in Lion that I'd like to take advantage of. The old Solitaire Till Dawn will run in Snow Leopard if you hand-install Rosetta (which is free from Apple), and Lion is now nearly three years old, so I think requiring at-least-Lion is not unreasonable. If you are still running Snow Leopard and you desperately want the new release to work on your current system, please leave a comment here. No promises, but I'll be listening. (If you are not using Snow Leopard, please do not respond. I assume that nearly everyone following this blog is using at-least-Lion, and I only need to hear from the exceptions. Thanks!)

9 comments:

  1. I've been a registered user since 2003 and I'm an exception. I'm using 10.6.8 and can' t upgrade to 10.7 without buying a new computer. I'd hate to lose out on the forthcoming upgrade.

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  2. Sorry, Snuffy, but I'd have to disagree. Unless there's something about the new version that is absolutely "must have", I would think users of Snow Leopard and earlier would happily just use the present version, as I do. I have held off from Lion and Mountain Lion simply because STD wouldn't run on them, and they had nothing that I absolutely required. I expect that when the new STD becomes available, I and quite a few others will upgrade our systems as well as our favourite game. In other words, I'm happy if it requires at least 10.7.

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  3. I am hoping for an iPad version! Keep up the good work.

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  4. I personally would like the program to be 10.6.8 compatible although I could upgrade to Lion. In fact I've been holding off the upgrade because of Solitaire Till Dawn.

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  5. Like Spotted Dog, I have held off on the update past Snow Leopard on one of my Macs simply so I could keep playing STD. But once the new STD is ready, I'll do it. Dare we hope that it's now close?

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  6. So glad you're still working on this! I eagerly await the new release! Yes, I upgraded my myriad computers — they're all Mountain Lion now — and lost my ability to play Solitaire Till Dawn, alas. Nobody else has such a good La Belle Lucie as you. Thanks for your past and future genius.

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  7. First - thanks for your work - it is very much appreciated. I have tried very many Solitaire games and they all fall far short of "Till Dawn" - I guess I was spoiled. As to 10.6 - I would appreciate that. I'm sure there are many of us who are in the 10.85 range who appreciate it.

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  8. I'm still running 10.6.8 and will be so long as this iMac keeps running well--I understand that I could have upgraded to Lion but it would be very, very slow on this machine. So I would love it if the new release of STD would run on Snow Leopard.

    HOWEVER...the current release is running well enough through Rosetta, so if it would mean delaying the release appreciably, I would perfectly understand if you don't make the new version Snow Leopard compatible.

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  9. not a problem, the old version works fine in Leopard. I will still use that on that machine it is the Mt lion that i want your program

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