June 28, 2009

There is now a Mini vMac 3.1.1 alpha. The Mini vMac Variations service has been updated to use the new version. The new version corrects some minor problems found in the previous alpha.

I´ve removed a warning message about "read verify" mode that I recently put in to see whether this mode is used. It turns out that it is, such as when using the Finder to copy files to an 800K disk. So sometime I should implement this mode correctly in the replacement disk driver used by Mini vMac. For now it just continues to treat it as a normal read, which isn´t correct, but doesn´t cause problems.

The Windows call SHGetSpecialFolderPath doesn´t seem to be supported in some development environments, so I´ve made Mini vMac dynamically load the routine instead. Mini vMac is using this routine to support finding ROM images from a central location, and to support activation of Mini vMac Variations.

As reported by "macgeek417", the "-m pb100" option wouldn´t compile. It will now compile, but still not do much. Making sure it compiles may help prevent bit rot until I get back to Powerbook 100 emulation.

The "-min-ext" option also wouldn´t compile. I´ve fixed this, so Mini vMac Variation number 157 is now available.

The build system will now work properly from a locked disk when exporting an archive, if there is an output folder preference. (The archive is placed in the output folder, rather than in the folder containing the application.)

The build system can now resolve aliases of folders, such as the output preference folder. So the output can be directed anywhere, such as to another disk.

I previously incorrectly documented the output preference folder. The build system looks for "System Folder:Preferences:Gryphel:Build:output", not "System Folder:Preferences:Gryphel:output".

The build system can now handle multiple sets of options at once, separated by ";". I use this in the process of compiling the set of Mini vMac Variations. To allow this to work, the build system no longer replaces the entire output folder on each run, but just replaces folders within the output folder.

I´ve removed the "-pk" option of the build system to restrict the program to a more manageable scope. And anyway I find it more convenient to handle post processing in external scripts.

The build system now has an "-an" option, for changing the programs abbreviated name, from the default "minivmac". So the Mini vMac variations are compiled with say "-an mnvm0001", instead of "-n mnvm0001-3.1.0-umch". The abbreviated name must be 8 characters or less, and should only include lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores.

The Mini vMac Variations that require an activation code now have a new command: Control-P. This copies a string to the clipboard of the real computer that contains version information and an encoding of the activation code. This could be used for a scheme to allow people to "register" the variations they use, and in effect allow them to vote for what variations they think are important.