Updated setup manual for SheepShaver MacOSX (Tiger/Leopard)

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Updated setup manual for SheepShaver for MacOSX (Tiger or Leopard).

Edited July 21, 2008:

1. New Universal Binary builds July 21 with manual included:
http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5275

2. Online manual updated July 21:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ronaldpr/sheepsha ... er_manual/
http://emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepsh ... os_x_setup

[kelvin31415]

Bravo, for the new manual and the new Universal build!

[PeterHolbrook]

Bravo, for the new manual and the new Universal build!

Kelvin, Ronald, will there be a new build (whether Intel-only or Universal) in the near future solving the swapping of mouse buttons in Basilisk II and SheepShaver?

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Kelvin, Ronald, will there be a new build (whether Intel-only or Universal) in the near future solving the swapping of mouse buttons in Basilisk II and SheepShaver?

Maybe Kelvin can answer that question. I only compiled what was in cvs and tried to put the resulting files together nicely. When further improvements are added to cvs, I can again make new UB builds.

About the mouse button swapping issue I wondered if this is a mistake or a intentional choice, for instance in order to keep the possibility for future use of the second mouse button for a contextual menu for the SheepShaver application itself. Someone any ideas about this? Kelvin?

Another issues that could be corrected is the new "Dynamic" setting for Refresh Rate in prefs. Now it sets frameskip to 8. It should set frameskip to 0, or, if there is indeed no difference at all between frameskip 1 or 0, the setting should again be removed (with apologies to Myrd, who added the setting on my request).

I can think of more improvements that could at least enhance the user experience. The ones that I feel are most needed:

- Fixing the bug that on PPC Macs makes the "unexpectedly quit" crash dialog appear each time SheepShaver is launched (and does not crash). It is in all SheepShaver versions I used the past three years (and possibly existed before that).

- Changing the behavior of SheepShaver when no proper ROM file can be found. Now the application freezes at launch and must be force-quit. Could it be made such that the application continues to open without showing the emulator window (and possibly displaying an error message)? One could then open the Preferences window, adjust settings and quit normally.

- There should be text at the bottom of the Preferences window: "Changes take effect after SheepShaver is quit and launched again" or it could be the text in a dialog with "OK" button when the Preferences window is closed.

[kelvin31415]

Kelvin, Ronald, will there be a new build (whether Intel-only or Universal) in the near future solving the swapping of mouse buttons in Basilisk II and SheepShaver?

On 1 July I sent that change to the developer who has been delivering my fixes into CVS, but he has not responded yet. Perhaps he is on vacation or overloaded with other work.

[PeterHolbrook]

On 1 July I sent that change to the developer who has been delivering my fixes into CVS, but he has not responded yet. Perhaps he is on vacation or overloaded with other work.

Thank you for your time. Given the season, perhaps choice No. 1 is the most likely. So, perhaps we'll have a new build in the second half of the month or early next month. I'm looking forward to test-driving TheMouseB or USB Overdrive on OS9.

[kelvin31415]

About the mouse button swapping issue I wondered if this is a mistake or a intentional choice, for instance in order to keep the possibility for future use of the second mouse button for a contextual menu for the SheepShaver application itself. Someone any ideas about this? Kelvin?

It is just a mistake, resulting from the different numbering of mouse buttons in the cross-platform SDL library vs. the Mac. (In SDL button 2 is the middle button, and button 3 is the right; the Mac numbers them the other way around.)

Another issues that could be corrected is the new "Dynamic" setting for Refresh Rate in prefs. Now it sets frameskip to 8. It should set frameskip to 0, or, if there is indeed no difference at all between frameskip 1 or 0, the setting should again be removed (with apologies to Myrd, who added the setting on my request).

I know what the fix is for this, but no doubt Myrd will fix it himself as soon as he is able. Although the "Dynamic" setting is meaningful only for the X11 platform, it won't hurt to leave it in for consistency among platforms.

I can think of more improvements that could at least enhance the user experience. The ones that I feel are most needed:

- Fixing the bug that on PPC Macs makes the "unexpectedly quit" crash dialog appear each time SheepShaver is launched (and does not crash). It is in all SheepShaver versions I used the past three years (and possibly existed before that).

Interesting. I was not aware of that, having never run SheepShaver on a PPC. It sounds like it wouldn't be hard to fix, and I will look at it if I can get access to a PPC Mac.

- Changing the behavior of SheepShaver when no proper ROM file can be found. Now the application freezes at launch and must be force-quit. Could it be made such that the application continues to open without showing the emulator window (and possibly displaying an error message)? One could then open the Preferences window, adjust settings and quit normally.

The code appears to be designed to display an error and quit when it cannot find a ROM file. I suppose that its failure to quit is simply a bug that would not be difficult to fix. Leaving the application running so that the Preferences window could be used would be a more complicated change due to all the platforms and build-variants involved; I would be less inclined to do that simply because I don't have the ability to test my changes on other platforms that would be affected. However, it would be nice if on Mac OS X, the error were displayed on the screen rather than just written to the console log.

- There should be text at the bottom of the Preferences window: "Changes take effect after SheepShaver is quit and launched again" or it could be the text in a dialog with "OK" button when the Preferences window is closed.

I think Myrd will be receptive to that idea, and I hope he will be back in communication soon.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Kelvin, Ronald, will there be a new build (whether Intel-only or Universal) in the near future solving the swapping of mouse buttons in Basilisk II and SheepShaver?

On 1 July I sent that change to the developer who has been delivering my fixes into CVS, but he has not responded yet. Perhaps he is on vacation or overloaded with other work.

He didn't respond yet to my emailed request about correcting the Dynamic Refresh Rate setting either. I trust he we will hear from him.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

The code appears to be designed to display an error and quit when it cannot find a ROM file. I suppose that its failure to quit is simply a bug that would not be difficult to fix. Leaving the application running so that the Preferences window could be used would be a more complicated change due to all the platforms and build-variants involved; I would be less inclined to do that simply because I don't have the ability to test my changes on other platforms that would be affected. However, it would be nice if on Mac OS X, the error were displayed on the screen rather than just written to the console log.

It would be fine if SheepShaver would just gracefully quit with a comprehensible error message on the screen.

[kelvin31415]

It would be fine if SheepShaver would just gracefully quit with a comprehensible error message on the screen.

I've delivered a fix for the hang, so the app now quits gracefully as intended. I have not yet done anything about the error message, which will appear in the console log as before ("ERROR: Cannot open ROM file").

It would be nice to display this in an alert on the screen, because as it works now, the app just exits very quickly and quietly; if you don't think to look in the console log you'll be baffled. I'll put that on my todo list.

This change, as well as my change to correct the mouse-button numbering, are in CVS. I believe Myrd's fix for the frameskip 0 issue is in there too. Good time for new builds, I think!

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Good time for new builds, I think!

Will do that hopefully this week, maybe even today if I can find the time.



Edit: Done. New sticky topic in a minute.

[jrethorst]

I can think of more improvements that could at least enhance the user experience. The ones that I feel are most needed:

When SheepShaver is running, the Mac will not sleep automatically. That would be a nice fix.