Utility War Cabinet 0.8.4 is available!

ErikCumps · #1 August 22nd, 2021, 04:25 PM

Hello fellow wargamers,

I am delighted to announce the release of War Cabinet version 0.8.4!

The release file can be downloaded here:
https://github.com/ErikCumps/spwproj...ses/tag/v0.8.4

This releases adds the following new features:

* New feature - winSPMBT support
War Cabinet now has full support for winSPMBT campaigns and battles:
+ new winSPMBT weapon types and classes
+ new winSPMBT unit types and classes
+ new winSPMBT unit movment classes
+ new winSPMBT EW unit attribute
+ new winSPMBT nations, flags and history

* New feature - Added support for editing the battle location
It is now possible to edit the location of the battle in the dossier, for
example to make the dossier more historically accurate.

This release adds the following improvements:

* Improvement - preferences look and feel
The preferences dialog box now uses a clearer game config layout and red
highlighting feedback, to provide better guidance for the correct filling
out of these configuration items. It is also no longer possible to create a
new dossier with incomplete or missing game config(s)

* Improvement - sanitized GuiDossier treeview behavior
The GuiDossier TreeView's behavior on the left side of the application
window has been sanitized, it is now much less erratic and more in line with
what is expected of this kind of GUI interface element.

* Improvement - reduced memory usage
Instead of keeping an individual copy of the battle map for each turn in the
dossier, War Cabinet now keeps only a single copy of the battle map for each
battle. (after all, the battle map does not change during the course of the
battle) For dossiers with many (or all) turns recorded for each battle, this
results in a significant reduction of the memory usage by the application,
as well as providings a strong reduction of the size of the dossier file.s

* Improvement - reduced stratmap rendering time
By reusing the single battle map for each turn, the stratmap can now avoid
re-rendering the battle map when it is not changed. (i.e. when rendering a
different turn from the same battle)

* Improvement - Improved savegame list filtering
When adding new savegames, the savegame list in the dialog box filters all
savegames which have already been added to the dossier, to make it easier to
select the new savegames from the list. This filtering was not 100% correct,
sometimes causing it to incorrectly hide savegames which were not yet added
to the dossier.

* Improvement - Improved dossier Load/Save/SaveAs progress bars
The dossier Load/Save/SaveAs progress bars now also reflect the
Loading/Saving of the different battles in the dossier, providing a more
gradual progression of the progress bar, instead of a single big jump after
a long waiting time.

This release has the following fixes:

* Fix - fixed crash after deletion of last battle or turn
Dossier corruption due to forgotten reset of tfirst/tlast when deleting last
battle/turn.

* Fix - fixed dossier corruption after deletion of any battle
Dossier corruption due to incomplete UHT cleaning.

* Fix - Fixed unit readiness calculation for explosives
For units without headcount (like explosives) the unit readiness calculation
was incorrect.

* Fix - Fixed incorrect formation detection for winSPWW2 and winSPMBT

* Fix - Fixed crash highlighting decommissioned units in the unit history

* Fix - fixed some memory leaks

This release is completely compatible with the previous 0.8.3 release, and you can keep using your existing campaign dossiers.

For the latest information, please consult the project on GitHub:

Latest release files: spwproject/releases/latest
Screenshots: spwproject/blob/master/info/screenshots/LIST.md
Complete changelog: spwproject/blob/master/src/DATA/CHANGES

Enjoy!
Erik

KAreil · #2 August 25th, 2021, 01:46 PM

Great work thanks a lot for your work, I really love it!

If you get the country-specific ranks into the tool it will be perfect for keeping track of my games for AARs.

--

One very minor thing I noticed...it took me something like half an hour until i figured out how to add a standalone battle. Finding the button was easy and it showed me all my savegames but the button to add it was always greyed out.
Of course i was too dumb to notice that I had to manually enter a name for the battle first...I somehow overlooked that field or at least didn't think it necessary.

Might be a good idea to fill this field with some default battle name to help users like me. So it would be possible to add the battle and in the worst case the user notices only then that he wants to use another name.

ErikCumps · #3 August 25th, 2021, 03:51 PM

Hi KAreil,

Thanks for your praise. I'm happy you're enjoying the new War Cabinet!

Quote:

Originally Posted by KAreil

If you get the country-specific ranks into the tool it will be perfect for keeping track of my games for AARs.

I knew it!

Had this nagging concern that I didn't cover everything I promised.
Yes, I had completely forgotten about this one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KAreil

One very minor thing I noticed...it took me something like half an hour until i figured out how to add a standalone battle. Finding the button was easy and it showed me all my savegames but the button to add it was always greyed out.
Of course i was too dumb to notice that I had to manually enter a name for the battle first...I somehow overlooked that field or at least didn't think it necessary.

Might be a good idea to fill this field with some default battle name to help users like me. So it would be possible to add the battle and in the worst case the user notices only then that he wants to use another name.

Thanks, that's a good suggestion.
If I do this, I think I should also provide a way to edit the name of the battle afterwards.

I am taking a break from War Cabinet for now, but these three items will be on top of the list for the next version:

Provide default name for standalone battle
Allow editing standalone battle names
Support country-specific ranks

Erik