New preferences editor for Snow Leopard

[sentient06]

Hello!

I am glad to announce that I finished the first beta of my preferences editor I decided to call Medusa (lots of snakes... basilisk... =D Ah forget it).

It is meant to work with Basilisk II only, but I am developing a similar behaviour to allow it to work with Sheepshaver in a near future.

Some of the features:
- User-friendly, easy-to-use interface;
- Allows to manage more than one virtual machine (VM);
- Allows to manage different disk images and combine in any VM;
- Allows to manage different ROM files and change in the VMs;
- Works with any version of Basilisk II, given its path;
- 100% cocoa.

It was compiled in a Snow Leopard System 10.6.8, XCode 4.2, to both 32-bit and 64-bit.

It was tested in the same environment, mainly 64-bit.

Remember: this is a beta and it can misbehave and is not complete. I decided to work with the basics only (by now), but I intend to increase the functionality with the time.
Back-up your preferences file before venturing forth, Medusa will change it every time a virtual machine starts.

To install:

- The beta can be downloaded here:

https://github.com/downloads/sentient06 ... %201b1.zip

Note: It is recommended to be installed in the applications folder to be used as any other application.

To uninstall:

- Delete the application file.
- Go to ~/Library/ and delete the folder called "Medusa".

Note: if you want to keep the preferences, do not delete the last one. It is Medusa's database.


The link is from the repository. All code is accessible from GitHub. The license is BSD 2-Clause.
You can do whatever you want with the code since you comply to the attribution rules.

https://github.com/sentient06/Medusa/

I would be glad with feedbacks and suggestions. This is only the beginning.
Hope you enjoy.

Cheers!

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Maybe you can tell us how to use your preferences editor.

When I launch Medusa, I get a window with disabled (greyed-out) buttons "Add", "Remove", and "Details" and when I choose "New" from the File menu, I get a message "No document could be created". A file ~/Library/Medusa/Medusa.storedata is created. (This is in OSX 10.7.4)

[sentient06]

You should also get a splash window explaining.. perhaps it is the first bug..

Okay, so:

Before starting, open the preferences in the main menu and find Basilisk application.
http://portfolio.mariot.me.uk/images/sc ... dusa09.png

1. In the menu, find the window option and open both drive manager and rom manager.
2. Drag & drop your Basilisk-compatible ROM files into the rom manager;
http://portfolio.mariot.me.uk/images/sc ... dusa01.png

3. Drag & drop your HFV or DSK disk images into the drive manager;
http://portfolio.mariot.me.uk/images/sc ... dusa02.png

4. In the main window, create a new Virtual Machine, name it whatever you like;
http://portfolio.mariot.me.uk/images/sc ... dusa03.png

5. Edit the VMs details by clicking in the "Details" button;
http://portfolio.mariot.me.uk/images/sc ... dusa04.png

6. In the Drives tab, be sure to select at least one drive image and make it bootable;
http://portfolio.mariot.me.uk/images/sc ... dusa05.png

7. In the Information tab there is a button to start Basilisk.
http://portfolio.mariot.me.uk/images/sc ... dusa08.png

You can change whatever you think fit in the details window. There is no need to save anything. It must save automatically.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

I tried Medusa in Lion (10.7.4) with the latest BasiliskII build by "vasi" for Snow Leopard and Lion.

The splash screen not opening by default at first launch is probably a bug.

Medusa offers the possibility to save different setups to choose from. Very ingenious, but it still needs a lot of work.

I find the interface rather complex with separate windows, each one to be opened from menus in the menu bar, for adding BasiliskII.app, rom files, and disk images.

Only a limited number of settings is available. No way to set memory, no way to set a keycodes file, no way to create new volumes (disk images), no way to set Unix root (shared folder), no way to set model ID and CPU type, no JIT compiler settings, and more.

The preferences window can only be opened once after a fresh start of Medusa. If one wants to access it again, one needs to quit Medusa and launch it again.

The Drives Manager apparently only accepts files with .dsk or .hfv extensions. But for BasiliskII the file name extension of the disk image file is irrelevant. Most of the image files I use with BasiliskII have either a .dmg extension or no extension at all.

I tried a setup with a rom file (Mac LC III) and System 7.5.5 boot disk image that will work fine normally. Startup in BasiliskII stops at the moment where the Finder should be started. I tried several times, but each time I needed to force quit BasiliskII.

When I inspect what is written to the ~/.basilisk_ii_prefs file, I see that its content is very much incomplete, indeed only the disks, the rom file, the screen resolution (and color depth that is not needed), and a 8388608 ram size (8MB).

When I add all the rest manually, BasiliskII runs fine by itself, although I would use much more ram memory for running 7.5.5 in BasiliskII (at least 64MB). When I try to start it again from Medusa, the prefs file is again overwritten with only the above configurations and I get a system crash (not enough memory).

Additional remark: In "Configuration" I see "Mac Model: Mac LC III". That suggests that a Mac LC III is emulated, but it is a Mac LC III rom file that is used, not a Mac LC III machine that is emulated. The emulator does not necessarily emulate the machine from which the rom file was obtained. (In fact, I normally use the Mac LC III rom file to run 7.5.5 on a BasiliskII machine with Quadra 900 ID and 68040 CPU type.)

[sentient06]

Amazing feedback Ronald! Thanks!

I am taking notes right now. Next week I will start working on the revisions.

I thought of more than one window to avoid crowding all information in the same place, but maybe I should give an option to open them from the main window? I'll do like that. If I get many suggestions on less windows, I'll try to summarise all.

Memory and network settings are already under way. CPU, model and ROM are really mixed up, my mistake. I will consider it a major bug.

I have also a method to import given preferences files, but it is not ready to use. Lots of information still don't fit in the database. But I'll make room for them!

As soon as I address the bugs I will release a revision and announce in this topic. Any more thoughts are welcome.

Thanks again!

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Two more suggestions:

1. Better concentrate on BasiliskII and remove the SheepShaver option. SheepShaver has its own, and different, way of using virtual machines and someone else is already working on a new preferences editor to manage those.

2. Maybe it is possible to make the layout of the 'Details' window more like the existing GUI and settings windows. The 'Details' button could be renamed 'Configuration' The name of the window could be "VMname Settings" instead of just "VMname" ("VMname" being the name of the VM) and then the window could use tabs (or screens selected from the side bar) like in the existing GUI and settings windows (from Volumes to JIT Compiler). That way this settings window will not only look more familiar to those who switch from the GUI application to your prefs editor, but also consistency with the settings windows for BasiliskII and SheepShaver on other platforms will be preserved. You could add a tab or screen "Summery" that is similar to what you now call "Information".

[sentient06]

Hello,

After a small problem with my NVidia graphic card, I finally was able to release the first revision of Medusa.

A few changes were made, the bigger ones are the new share screen and the new preferences window. No memory/model/processor information yet (these are for the new revision).

The full list of changes can be seen here:

https://github.com/sentient06/Medusa/wi ... sa-1.0.2b1

The application can be downloaded here:

https://github.com/downloads/sentient06 ... .0.2b1.zip

Cheers!