[Changelog] Getting a changelog together

[jjtParadox]

Hey everyone!

Thought it would be a good idea to get a changelog going since after the open sourceing lots of changes have been made and bugs have been smashed.

I've put together a prototype changelog over on the wiki (https://github.com/Mithion/ArsMagica2/wiki/Changelog) and did my best to add as much as possible on it.

Some of the changes (Like @EoD's tarma root tweaks #1309, @DoomFruit's dig tweaks #1239, and @LemADEC's huge pull request #1348) were a little hard for me to decipher. If anyone has a better sense of what those changes were, then any clarification is much appreciated!

The changelog is currently open to everyone, so if I missed anything, said something wrong, somehow typed something upside down, etc, it can be changed, and contributions are very wecome 😃

Many thanks for helping out!

[EoD]

Hey @jjtParadox. Are you on freenode by any chance? I could explain it to you in detail if you are interested.

On a very generic note, I fixed and expanded the growth of flowers with the grow component and I change some of the hardcoded requirements into generic (more-like-vanilla) minecraft methods such that mods can use it easier.
I also wrote quite some text on both commits in the PR eb2b750 and 29df973 which should explain what I did :)

[jjtParadox]

I'm not on freenode now, but I might consider grabbing an IRC client later and hopping on.

However, I think I got a better understanding of your changes, so thanks!

[LemADEC]

Good idea to propose digested change logs!

Here's a few comments on the current wiki page:
1- (typo)
Fixed: Ars Magica no longer eats bandwith
-> Fixed: Ars Magica no longer eats bandwidth
2- (missing)
Added: arcane reconstructor deactivation when out of power
3- (missing)
Added: missing textures for creative only spell components
4- (reformulation)
Update: Less CPU load in some cases
-> Updated: various CPU load improvements
5- (missing)
Fixed: disarm component no longer crashes client in SMP
6- (missing)
Fixed: appropriation component no longer crashes dedicated servers
7- (missing)
Fixed: Optifine, Thaumcraft and DragonAPI are now properly detected
8- (general)
Since we're saying "Fixed", we should say "Updated" or "Improved" or "Changed" for the others logs.

[jjtParadox]

Added! Thanks for the input.

We may want to settle on a formal changelog format later, but for now I think it's looking good 😃

[Mithion]

I made a slight formatting change. With proper headers, you don't need to prefix each line with Updated: or Fixed:

[jjtParadox]

I like it.

[Bogdan-G]

"/AMUICFG command is now purely client-side" - This is where the change has been made? Version 6ddb383 running on the KCauldron still sends the server configuration.

[jjtParadox]

That was fixed with #1264, but I'm not fully understanding the "server configuration" you're talking about.

[Bogdan-G]

@jjtParadox the player logged in server, the server sends the configuration for client. In the config sent in mod AM2, specify a different location of the interface.
Example: If the server config mana bar at the top of the screen, but in the configuration of the client she was at the bottom of the screen, it is on the server the client will see mana bars at the top of the screen.

Thus the location of the interface depends on the server and not the client-side.

[jjtParadox]

AM2 doesn't have code to send configurations to clients. I just tested this with a client having one config and a server having another, and the client's GUI position settings were used. Does KCauldron somehow send mod configs to clients?

[Bogdan-G]

@jjtParadox builds: 1492.152,1614.176, all unofficials.

[jjtParadox]

I'm not seeing that happen on my end. Currently running the latest version of KCauldron with just AM2. KCauldron has the default AM2 configs, including default GUI positions. Client has different GUI positions that are saved into the client config. Client joins server, and GUI is just how the client left it.

One condition that might happen is that you're accidentally running KCauldron and AM2 out of the same working directory, thus the server and client are loading the same config file.

If you're still having an issue, screenshots or a screen recording would be very helpful in troubleshooting this.

[Mithion]

Only certain config settings are sent to clients. The GUI settings are not among them.

[Mithion]

For specific reference:
`
@SubscribeEvent
public void onPlayerLogin(PlayerLoggedInEvent event){
...
int[] disabledSkills = SkillTreeManager.instance.getDisabledSkillIDs();

AMDataWriter writer = new AMDataWriter();
writer.add(AMCore.config.getSkillTreeSecondaryTierCap()).add(disabledSkills);
writer.add(AMCore.config.getManaCap());
byte[] data = writer.generate();

AMNetHandler.INSTANCE.syncLoginData((EntityPlayerMP)event.player, data);

...

}
`

Only disabled skills and the mana cap are sent down to clients upon login.

[Bogdan-G]

@jjtParadox hmm, I double-checked, there is no problem, but it was, I believe that the events which affect it(others mods and ASM)

[jjtParadox]

So someone's making a texture pack for AM2 to theme it similar to Thaumcraft. Judging by the comments, it would probably be a good idea to do a reddit (and other social media) post of the changelog once we finish the update. @Mithion, would you like the honors?

[kolatra]

If he doesn't want to, I will. :P

[jjtParadox]

Cool! Do you have any screenshots?

[ChilledDayz]

Yes I'll post what I've done so far when I'm next on my pc. I've been trying to added some consistency. I've just done the lectern and the inscription table so far but I'm still not happy with the inscription table yet.

[jjtParadox]

I also recently reached out to D3miurge over on the minecraft forums to see if he wanted to help out with tweaking and updating some of his AM2 textures, so hopefully that will prove fruitful 😃

[ChilledDayz]

That's a great idea, hopefully you hear from him. It would be nice to give the textures an overhaul for the next release :-)

[ChilledDayz]

I think the reddit page for the mod is really good idea. As it seems a lot of people don't even realise that the mod is still being developed. It would also be a great place to discuss new features. I have a few ideas myself but I feel like posting them here is the wrong place.

[jjtParadox]

We're open to suggestions being put into the "issues" section, but I do understand it isn't the best way to organize things (actual bugs tend to take precedence over and crowd out enhancements).

[jjtParadox]

(Hence this changelog discussion being in the "issues" section)

[ChilledDayz]

Maybe reddit is the best way to go then seems like it really help keep the features and bugs separate.

[jjtParadox]

Possibly, but we should probably wait for @Mithion to get back and give his opinion on things before we do anything 😜

[jjtParadox]

(Also, that AM2 Thaumcraft texture pack was opened for download https://www.reddit.com/r/feedthebeast/comments/43cmyx/update_thaumagica_a_thaumcraftthemed_ars_magica/)

[ChilledDayz]

What are your thoughts on the thaumcraft themed texture pack? I mean the textures are great but I don't think AM2 should look like any other mod.

[jjtParadox]

I've always liked Thaumcraft's aesthetic style, but other mods pull off a good aesthetic style too. Thaumcraft's textures also look really good next to lots of other blocks, which is hard to pull off. I do agree AM2 should have it's own area to fit into, though.

[ChilledDayz]

I'll try to post my screenshots of my textures in a bit.

[ChilledDayz]

Here's my screenshot of the lectern and WIP of the inscription table. This is for my personal AM2 pack as I don't think there that great.

[TheIcyOne]

I really like the Lectern, although the book on top does like a little out of place.

[ChilledDayz]

Not what I could as I don't think the book is an AM2 texture. I think it uses the enchanting table book from minecraft although I could be wrong.

[Mithion]

You are correct.

[ChilledDayz]

Yeah I thought it was.

[kolatra]

Once you think the changelog is in a good state @jjtParadox and @Mithion, I can post it ASAP. I have a red flair so it would stand out more as well.

[jjtParadox]

I think the changelog's all good, but we should wait for the actual update to happen before you post it. Your post should probably have the changelog (and a link to it), a short description of what's been going on over here for the past year (possibly crediting some of the contributors), a link to the update, and possibly ask for bugs and suggestions to be posted in that reddit thread (we don't want to flood the issues page just yet).

It's been a year since the last update, so likely a loud minority (read: two or three angry people) will be angry about the delay, but a gentle reminder that we've been updating this in our free time and asking for nothing in return would probably be appropriate. The FTB community will take care of the rest.

We may also want to mention where we hope to go with things (adding features, balancing things, making things better in general), and that currently we have no plans for 1.8 as AM2 is a HUGE mod and we're still smashing bugs on our end.

[kolatra]

I know someone that was planning on porting the mod actually.

But yeah I'll wait for the update but I'll write out the post and all of that because it'll be lengthy. I will be crediting the contributors, and I'll ask for suggestions and all of that to be in the thread.

I'll probably also mention the ArsMagica channel I have on espernet for anyone that wants to chat and discuss things there.

[jjtParadox]

I saw the ProjectE dev mention he'd be up for porting the mod to 1.8, and since this mod is open source that is certainly very possible.

[ChilledDayz]

It seems that some of the bigger mods are now porting the 1.8, but with 1.9 around the corner is it really worth porting to 1.8? What are your thoughts on this?

[LemADEC]

There's no Forge for a 1.9 that isn't released, get back on earth :)

[kolatra]

1.9 is not even out yet, but we won't be seeing a moddable 1.9 for quite a while longer, and even longer for packs.

[ChilledDayz]

here's an update on my texture pack for AM2 added changes to MC as well.

[Mithion]

Looks good!

I think a port to 1.8 should happen for 2 reasons:
1.) For those that play 1.8, it would make a version available
2.) 1.8 is a huge change and it would be good to get a stable baseline before moving to 1.9

[ChilledDayz]

That makes sense as blocks and models change .Json files and metadata were taken out. How bad would porting am2 be?

[Mithion]

Nightmarish would be an understatement.

[ChilledDayz]

Oh that explains why a lot of mod authors have avoided it for so long

[jjtParadox]

I recall hearing that Forge recently changed the way .json block models work so that modders didn't need to rewrite quite as much (so it's more similar to 1.7.10). As for the issue with the lectern book texture, should AM2 check if a custom AM2 lectern book texture is available then fall back to the vanilla texture?

[jjtParadox]

I found the thread where I heard about Forge's change. I think now we don't need to use .json files at all!

Now it's a question of what we need to change to get AM2 working on 1.8. Time to google some porting tutorials...

[williewillus]

I've started a little bit at https://github.com/williewillus/ArsMagica2

Lots of things need redoing (especially all the ASM, some of which fortunately can go (potion hackery)), but having done several ports now I have a pretty comfortable feel for the json system (which we will need to use)

Nightmarish? Probably xP Impossible? Nah

[jjtParadox]

Oh wow that's awesome!

Yeah most of us have a life too (I disappeared for a few months and just recently showed up again), so we completely understand 😃

Do you possibly have a list of things that need updating, so we can try and help out?

[williewillus]

Pretty much anything is fair game (though the rendering I kinda wanna figure out because I find it fun :P), try to keep changes focused on just one area of the code instead of everywhere

[jjtParadox]

Just make sure we can understand whatever wizardry the rendering is 😜

Also @Mithion, what else needs to be done before *.009 can be released?

[Mithion]

1.) #1244
I need to finish this.

2.) We should go through the issues list and close out any that are resolved, as well as tag them properly. @kolatra will be able to assist with the actual closing and tagging in addition to myself.

[jjtParadox]

Great! I can do some testing for issues that don't appear to have tests done yet.

[Webber88]

may i recomend waiting until summer vacation so that you guys are more free to work on transitioning to 1.8.0?

[jjtParadox]

There should be no problem with putting in work now, it just might take a pause when things get busy.

[jjtParadox]

#1244 is done!

@kolatra let us know when you post that reddit post, and you can probably close this discussion once you do (but tag it since there's a lot of good stuff in here) 😃

[kolatra]

Post is on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/feedthebeast/comments/44tvix/1710_new_ars_magica_2_update/