Stella 3.4 released

[dwane413]

This was posted to the "z26 3.0" thread:

Lastly, when switching from the z26 task to another one using Alt+Tab, the mouse pointer is stuck in the upper left hand corner of the screen and therefore is unusable.

Stella does the same thing when it is in full screen mode with a game running and I use Alt+Tab.

[+stephena]

This was posted to the "z26 3.0" thread:

Lastly, when switching from the z26 task to another one using Alt+Tab, the mouse pointer is stuck in the upper left hand corner of the screen and therefore is unusable.

Stella does the same thing when it is in full screen mode with a game running and I use Alt+Tab.

There might not be any way around this issue, since Alt-Tab is grabbed by Windows before Stella even sees it. About the best thing that could be done is disable it in fullscreen mode, which a lot of other Windows apps seem to do. Fullscreen mode sort of implies that the application has full control. And if you want to switch between apps, you would normally go to windowed mode first instead. I suppose that if Stella could detect Alt-Tab, it could automatically switch to windowed mode for you.

[dwane413]

If there is no simple solution, then don't worry about it. I can pause the game or go to a menu before pressing Alt-Tab. Thanks for the reply.

[+Random Terrain]

Did "breakif {_scan>#262}" stop working? I can't seem to make Stella do what it used to do:

 

www.atariage.com/forums/topic/181081-keeping-track-of-the-scanline-count-with-stella/

[Kr0tki]

This was posted to the "z26 3.0" thread:

Lastly, when switching from the z26 task to another one using Alt+Tab, the mouse pointer is stuck in the upper left hand corner of the screen and therefore is unusable.

Stella does the same thing when it is in full screen mode with a game running and I use Alt+Tab.

There might not be any way around this issue, since Alt-Tab is grabbed by Windows before Stella even sees it. About the best thing that could be done is disable it in fullscreen mode, which a lot of other Windows apps seem to do. Fullscreen mode sort of implies that the application has full control. And if you want to switch between apps, you would normally go to windowed mode first instead. I suppose that if Stella could detect Alt-Tab, it could automatically switch to windowed mode for you.

?!? In Atari800 I can detect and process the Alt+Tab sequence any way I like, whether in windowed or in fullscreen mode. In fact I have to process it separately, to avoid some SDL glitches. Since Stella is an SDL app too, I would assume it should behave the same way.

 

EDIT: Then again, with Atari800 I haven't experienced the "stuck mouse pointer" bug, so it was not necessary to lock Alt+Tab while in fullscreen mode. In fact such locking is not possible with SDL.

Edited June 10, 2011 by Kr0tki

[+stephena]

Did "breakif {_scan>#262}" stop working? I can't seem to make Stella do what it used to do

If it did, it wasn't intentional. I'll look into it.

 

?!? In Atari800 I can detect and process the Alt+Tab sequence any way I like, whether in windowed or in fullscreen mode. In fact I have to process it separately, to avoid some SDL glitches. Since Stella is an SDL app too, I would assume it should behave the same way.

 

EDIT: Then again, with Atari800 I haven't experienced the "stuck mouse pointer" bug, so it was not necessary to lock Alt+Tab while in fullscreen mode. In fact such locking is not possible with SDL.

I'll look at how Atari800 handles this. I haven't actually experienced the stuck pointer either, so I'll have to reproduce the problem first.

[Kr0tki]

In Atari800, the problem was that while the user was pressing Alt+Tab and switching between multiple windows, the emulator (which was the last window active) was still registering the aforementioned Alt+Tab presses. So I had to specifically ignore the Alt+Tab combination.

 

There are several other workarounds in place - SDL on Windows is really glitchy. I suggest to look at the CVS log of the files in src/sdl/.

[Keatah]

There are several other workarounds in place - SDL on Windows is really glitchy. I suggest to look at the CVS log of the files in src/sdl/.

 

Despite any glitch-y-ness I've found that stuff using SDL has decent performance.

[+stephena]

Did "breakif {_scan>#262}" stop working? I can't seem to make Stella do what it used to do:

 

www.atariage.com/forums/topic/181081-keeping-track-of-the-scanline-count-with-stella/

Confirmed bug. I'll get this fixed for 3.4.1.

[+Random Terrain]

Did "breakif {_scan>#262}" stop working? I can't seem to make Stella do what it used to do:

 

www.atariage.com/forums/topic/181081-keeping-track-of-the-scanline-count-with-stella/

Confirmed bug. I'll get this fixed for 3.4.1.

Thanks.

[+stephena]

Did "breakif {_scan>#262}" stop working? I can't seem to make Stella do what it used to do:

 

www.atariage.com/forums/topic/181081-keeping-track-of-the-scanline-count-with-stella/

Confirmed bug. I'll get this fixed for 3.4.1.

Thanks.

This is now fixed. It was introduced as a typo in April 2010. I guess not many people are using this feature ...

[+stephena]

Stella 3.4.1 is now released, which fixes most of the bugs mentioned in this thread. Still TODO is research why mouse/paddle tracking is different for left vs right direction, and deal with Alt-Tab fullscreen issues in Windows. The latter in particular will have to wait until I can set up a Windows machine (as I do all Windows development in VirtualBox).

 

Please direct all further bug reports to the 3.4.1 release thread.

[+Random Terrain]

This is now fixed.

Thanks.

 

 

 

It was introduced as a typo in April 2010. I guess not many people are using this feature ...

Or they were like me and just assumed it was still working. The only way I found out it wasn't working was by making the scanline count go over 262 on purpose.

[+stephena]

This is now fixed.

Thanks.

 

 

 

It was introduced as a typo in April 2010. I guess not many people are using this feature ...

Or they were like me and just assumed it was still working. The only way I found out it wasn't working was by making the scanline count go over 262 on purpose.

At some point I'm going to add the ability to edit the autoexec.stella file directly within the debugger. That way, you won't have to perform the last step you describe, which I admit is too much fooling around (edit autoexec.stella externally, making sure to not add a .txt extension, etc).

[+Random Terrain]

At some point I'm going to add the ability to edit the autoexec.stella file directly within the debugger. That way, you won't have to perform the last step you describe, which I admit is too much fooling around (edit autoexec.stella externally, making sure to not add a .txt extension, etc).

That will be nice.

 

 

 

 

Suggestion #1: Copy and Paste

 

Speaking of this kind of thing, do you think you'll ever be able to allow text to be pasted into the Prompt area in the debugger? I use Ctrl + c and Ctrl + v a lot in other programs and it would be a great time saver if I could copy and paste prompt commands in the Prompt area.

 

 

 

 

Suggestion #2: Bold Text

 

Anywhere there is a brownish background in the debugger, plain text is hard to read. Example:

 

 

 

Here's what it looks like bold:

 

 

I know bold text takes up a little more room. Do you think you have the space to make the text bold in the brownish area at the top and in the TIA, I/O and Audio displays? (You wouldn't need to make text bold inside any of the yellowish boxes and yellowish areas. They seem perfectly readable to me.)

 

 

 

 

Suggestion #3: Uppercase Hexadecimal

 

I see that hexadecimal numbers are uppercase in the ROM Listing area. Nice and readable. But in the various yellowish boxes in the top part of the debugger and in the TIA, I/O and Audio displays, hexadecimal numbers are lowercase, and for me, the numbers aren't as instantly recognizable/readable. Would it be possible to show uppercase hexadecimal in all of those little yellowish boxes too?

 

 

 

Thanks.

[+stephena]

Suggestion #1: Copy and Paste

Suggestion #2: Bold Text

Suggestion #3: Uppercase Hexadecimal

Ironically enough, you've listed these items is order of decreasing difficulty Number 3 is easy to do, and is simply an oversight that it wasn't already done. Number 2 is harder, but not too bad. I basically have to create another font, and use it in the appropriate place.

 

Number 1 is the hardest, since the UI in Stella is home-grown, just like in an old DOS game. The next major version of SDL (the video/audio library that Stella uses) is supposed to include copy & paste, so I was sort of waiting for that to be released so I wouldn't have to code it all myself. But if it ends up taking too long for the next release, I may have to go ahead and add it myself.

[+Random Terrain]

Ironically enough, you've listed these items in order of decreasing difficulty Number 3 is easy to do, and is simply an oversight that it wasn't already done. Number 2 is harder, but not too bad. I basically have to create another font, and use it in the appropriate place.

 

Number 1 is the hardest, since the UI in Stella is home-grown, just like in an old DOS game. The next major version of SDL (the video/audio library that Stella uses) is supposed to include copy & paste, so I was sort of waiting for that to be released so I wouldn't have to code it all myself. But if it ends up taking too long for the next release, I may have to go ahead and add it myself.

Thanks. I hope the next version of SDL will be released soon so you won't have to reinvent the wheel.

Edited June 12, 2011 by Random Terrain