Seahawk-vfa201

LOL. Oy.. Patience guys!! Two things: Please remember SeaHawk is not being paid for this.. He's doing it because he's a machocist [...] </font>

Great SS. Might be the combo compression made certain Windows configurations complaining (others had it working just fine).

Heya Baron, I am :cool: , did not take offense. Concenring the instructions for Windows and bat files (are there bats in PCs? wow) I honestly have no idea. As Biltong said I took over from Peterk who was developing on a Windows machine so the Windows release notes are his (not to put a blame but to stress I have no idea whatsoever about their correctness: they worked for BiltAid previous versions. I did not change a line) Release notes from me (1.0.3 and 1.0.4) do not contain anything special running the Java tool in that it is an executable. If your OS is system aware then it is the equivalent of a .exe for Windows. I develop on an OS X machine: I double click BiltAid.jar to start it. I check it also starts with the CLI (Command Line Instruction): java -jar BiltAid.jar If old instructions to have Java fully functioning on a Windows machine are not complete or exhaustive (covering all cases) then we will need a Windows/Java savvy BCR user to update them. The zip exception *MIGHT* come from SuperSulo zipping the hjar file to shrink it for easier downloads. No zip-aware code is in BiltAid itself. BiltAid is fully java, hence it does not matter where it is developed what matter is that your computer fully speaks java. Also - to everyone - do not take these lines as criticisms. I supposed the instructions to have Java working on Windows were correct. I cannot check them, I cannot offer help in case they do not work. SuperSulo (prolly done already) will have the BiltAid JAR file as is on its site: that might solve the confusions about extracting files (no more needed), bats and vampires in your PC , BUT you must assure yourself you may run Java applications. OS X users instructions: double-click on the jar file. Enjoy. See? much easier

Silly attempt: rename BiltAid_1_0_4.jar as BiltAid.jar and see whether the zip exception disappears.

I'll send SuperSulo the jar file as is without stuffit. SS zipped it into his site in order to allow for a smaller download. BiltAid jar is ~600k. To people showing your very same problems I sent the jar file and it just worked. SuperSulo will receive it and update his site soon to feature the jar file - unzipped and unstuffed - , ready to run. Cheers PS I wish you could all simply click on it to start it: so much better [ April 26, 2003, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Seahawk-vfa201 ]

Release Notes are a living document, that is latest changes overrid oldest one. The old release notes say what you describe, the lates additions do not. There is nothing to do with the new JAR executable BiltaAid file than issuing the command 'java -jar file-name.jar' common to run executable jar files, or double-click on it. The file is ready to run. On Java savvy OSes it indeed starts by double-clicking it. Looks like you are appliying the old recipe to run BiltAid when it was a collection of files to the current situation where it is an executable jar file: no need to extract anything. It is self-contained. No surprise it does not work mixing the two things. The release note file I have and sent is virus/worm free (BTW it is a text file) on my system. Just checked just to be sure although the entire system is protected against this stuff :cool: Applying Stuffit to the sit file (NOT the jar file) should get you two files: a text file (release notes) and the BiltAid jar file. The jar file is ready to execute. [ April 26, 2003, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Seahawk-vfa201 ]

Sent you directly the JAR file. We might want to switch to this rather then the sit format for future releases (it helped others as well)

Yep, only the crew will be newcomers. You should spend some time to introduce them to the rest of the KampfGruppe, show them how to start tank's engine and instruct them that when you calmly say "go" it is actually "GO NOW!!!!!"

I'll let Biltong chime in on this but the unit is lost for the next battle, ie you will not receive from Berlin replacements and spare parts to reconstitute the Battle Group. So those units will have to leave the map at turn one on next battle in order to get the moral penalty but Battle Group (unless another Emerg. Reorg. happens) will be replensihed (with lower exp) at next battle happening after a resting period.

It won't work when double-clicking, but with "Open with.." it works. But it opens the biltaid.sit file strangely...there is no biltaid.jar, but biltaid.1 and lot's of subdirectories with files But since Stuffit is only 8+ megs, no big deal. Great program you made, by the way. Cheers, M.S. </font>

For me? That's private between consenting adults </font>

Nothing more than doing all the calculations for you and present all BCR parameters on the screen, computing results from the AAR outcome and keeping track of units. Hard copy (printout) or soft copy (saved files) for the current situation is available as well. Although it may be used right away without even a look at the rules altogether it is always good to know what BCR is for at least having a grasp of what happens behind the scenes when BiltAid spits out results or awards you medals and gets you a dispatch from Berlin with new orders and/or a promotion or simply gives you bad news: your CO is dead and the inept protegée of Himler has been assigned as your commander :mad: [ April 24, 2003, 03:34 AM: Message edited by: Seahawk-vfa201 ]

Weird, zip and rar should simply state the archive is not what they do expect rather then expand it. Anyway, good you got stuffit and run BiltAid fine.

Time to add to the BCR news and rules a statement on BilAid Java tool, BCR '41 South v2.2 compliant. Soon to be extended to cover the whole war period.

How would we all do without Biltong wisdom?! I have seen there are some few hundreds downloads of it hence quite many tests. Is everything looking alright with BiltAid 1_0_4 ? No news good news - as they say - .

That's the problem with a ton of small print </font>

Welcome What I did not get yet is whether you tried to unstuff it and get to the jar file yourself or whether you were trying to run it from the sit file directly. The sit archive was just a way to send both the release notes and the executable in one format that is usually robust enough no to be corrupetd in the email transmission. Anyway kamarade, glad you got the jar file OK and you are now campaigning in Russia. [ April 23, 2003, 12:04 PM: Message edited by: Seahawk-vfa201 ]

This is one main reason I do use the Editor. Casualties can then be treated differently for Task Force and Battle Group. Patch 1.03 solves the ammo bug so I guess we are in for a general and common use of the Editor to deal with the Battle Group.

To be strict, I would say: "Tough luck my Officers. We had Air support but the damned weather made that support impossible! Fight with double energy!!" Others might be more relaxed In principle there was nothing but the bad weather that made the air support vanish. I doubt in reality there would have been time to ask for and obtain a different support (arty) from Berlin. [ April 23, 2003, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: Seahawk-vfa201 ]

Yep, I do not think overcast and planes match. There is no check in the rules (or BiltAid) for weather for Air support. Sounds OK though: in the 40s weather forecasts were lousy

For players on Windows having troubles with starting BiltAid_1_0_4.jar Try renaming it as BiltAid.jar and see whether that magically fixes it.

Other players report running it succesfully on Windows by right-clik and Open With using 'javaw' Have you tried with other jar files to see whether you get same error message?

BiltAid 1.0.4 - Soon available on usual sites To my knowledge this completes the rules '41 South v2.2 compliance: - Computed CO death in case of casualties - Added "Edit Date" on main menu to allow for easier use of historical battle map packs (that do have fixed dates). Note that the last addition is not robust: it expects the user to do the right thing (ie it would accept wrong date or jumps into the past) As a general warning, this is valid in the whole BiltAid implementation: if you truly want it to crash you will succeed easily. So - once more - be good with it and remember the old software development adagio: trash in, trash out. So, feed BiltAid with good quality food PS The Stuffit archive file (.sit) contains: - The BiltAid JAR file is named BiltAid_1_0_4.jar - The ReleaseNotes file Not much time to provide it with a fancy info and greetings panel norwith a help file: see the included ReleaseNotes file.

BiltAid is now an executable Java ARchive (jar) file (containing all the files previously accessed separately with BiltAid 1.0.1 on OSes supporting java one can click on the icon/file to start it or, from the shell, one can issue the command: java -jar BiltAid.jar On Win32 systems the Java 2 runtime environment's installation program will register a default association for JAR files so that double-clicking a JAR file on the desktop will automatically run it with javaw -jar. Dependent extensions bundled with the application will also be loaded automatically. This feature makes the end-user runtime environment easier to use on Win32 systems. The Solaris 2.6 kernel and Apple OS X have already been extended to recognize the special "magic" number that identifies a JAR file, and to invoke java -jar on such a JAR file as if it were a native executable. An application packaged in a JAR file can thus be executed directly from the command line or by clicking an icon on the desktop. If you instruct Windows (after installing Java) to recognize a JAR file it will then amount to the same thing. Hope this helps [ April 22, 2003, 03:01 AM: Message edited by: Seahawk-vfa201 ]

Yes, that is easy. You can actually change it yourself. I was thinking more on providing a man page and an About BiltAid pop-up panel actually