Some suggestions

[Elithrion]

-you need a "clear" or "reset" button (that would clear the board, centre it, and possibly reset speed to 5, although maybe not)
-you should probably have something that points out where (0,0) is, because I get lost easily (and it's nice to see that parts are moving in a certain way instead of just moving)
-view should centre on whatever you've just loaded when you load it. I'm not strictly sure what happens right now, but centring is not it. Actually, I maybe get it. To be continued in the Bugs section, I think.
-it would be nice to have under the load section some sort of "Random" option. Possibly "Random" branching off into "Random spaceship", "Random still life", "Random methuselah", and "Random other". Or something like that.
-it would be nice if you had a "Restart" button that would take you back to generation 0 of your current pattern. That way you could see how it evolved and then tweak the starting conditions slightly to see what changes.
-the applet should auto-pause if everything dies out

That's all for now.

[Nathaniel]

Ah yes, all of these things (except for the auto-pause when things die out) are actually on my to-do list. Now that there seems to be other people (well, you anyways ) on the forums, I'll make sure to keep that to-do list online and up-to-date.

[Elithrion]

Oh, also, add a "link to this pattern" button (similar to how google maps does it in appearance). Presumably it would either save the pattern to database with a random (and probably non-repeatable) name and then give you the appropriate link, or actually ask you to name it and then give you the link. Not much different from just saving it and linking, but quicker and more intuitive to share that way. Alternatively, if you could code enough data into a link that would also be nice and elegant, but that would be quite a stretch, especially for large ones (maybe alternate between the two options depending on expected link length?)

[Nathaniel]

That's a good idea, I imagine that'll be one of the later additions though.

[Elithrion]

More minor suggestions! Since we've got bounding box, we might as well also get a heat display! Instantaneous is probably best (that is, the number of cells changed since the last generation). I confess I'm mainly interested in this since I don't feel like counting any more.

[Nathaniel]

More minor suggestions! Since we've got bounding box, we might as well also get a heat display! Instantaneous is probably best (that is, the number of cells changed since the last generation). I confess I'm mainly interested in this since I don't feel like counting any more.

Hrm once we get stuff that specialized, I think I'll have that somewhere in the Options menu but not on by default. But yeah I'll add that to the list.

[Elithrion]

On Electric Fence I'd prefer zoom to be one level closer by default (second-closest instead of third-closest). One closer for bottle too (closest zoom). I might have wider than average resolution, though (1280x800), which is a factor to consider...

[Nathaniel]

On Electric Fence I'd prefer zoom to be one level closer by default (second-closest instead of third-closest). One closer for bottle too (closest zoom). I might have wider than average resolution, though (1280x800), which is a factor to consider...

Yeah electric fence is maybe a smidge too far out on mine as well (though bottle looks OK). Also just so you know it takes resolution and window size etc into account when zooming. It basically takes the ratio of the size of the bounding box to the overall number of cells displayed currently in the grid and chooses a zoom level based on that.

[Elithrion]

Hmm... well, my zooming preference is basically "if every cell still fits at a higher zoom, use it!" which is the case for bottle at closest-up (with adequate margins that the generations per second overlay doesn't cover anything, which is part of the fitting requirement). You can also see where this line of thinking translated into the full-width electric fence gif too...

[Elithrion]

What about adding a small description to the rules selection on the app? Something similar to what's on life wiki's list.

[Nathaniel]

What about adding a small description to the rules selection on the app? Something similar to what's on life wiki's list.

Yeah, there's some free room on that pop-up so I don't see why not.

[krabcat]

maybe add the option to hold and delete (the same as holding to draw) depending on if you start on a live or dead cell, it is really time consuming to clean up a segment of pattern that does not act as planed or when a glider hits something wrong


btw: I love this site, it is a lot more versatile than the version i was using before on math.com. I only discovered life about 2 weeks ago and am hooked, i just wish i had found it before I did my senior project

[Nathaniel]

maybe add the option to hold and delete (the same as holding to draw) depending on if you start on a live or dead cell, it is really time consuming to clean up a segment of pattern that does not act as planed or when a glider hits something wrong

Hrm I had that functionality in a bit ago but it was always buggy so I removed it. I'll take another look at it now to see if I can get it working properly.

PS. Welcome to the site!

[Elithrion]

Alternatively, you could implement some other clearing tools! Like "clear connected" (so you could kill a block or an eater all at once without affecting other things) or a "sponge clear" that would just be a larger brush size clearing thing (say, 4x4 diamond) or a "clearing lasso" (can you tell I'm getting into photoshop tools here?) Of course, all of these would probably be considerably harder and bulkier.

[Nathaniel]

OK, in version 0.8.0 (which was just uploaded) there is now a "Clear" button that clears the whole board, and you can click and drag to erase cells, as was suggested.

[H. V. McIntosh]

Looking over the Wiki portion of this forum or the other catalogues of Life patterns which can be found on and off the Internet, most of the patterns are grouped in families.

This suggestion is more of a question, since if I knew what to do I could probably do it myself. I have had a minimal experience with Wiki's, but that little has been brutal. Even here, listing the HTML source code hasn't given me much insight into how to extend a comment or to introduce a figure of my own. More important, would be to know the prospective reaction of the organizers of the Wiki to such attempts.

The Internet contains sites with huge lists of diverse Life artifacts, such as still life's. However, the items seem highly repetitious; for example there is a four cell nucleus which first arises in a snake. The nucleus is surrounded by two cell separators, which are a pair of vertically stacked live bits. Call the nucleus, 10 on top, 01 below, N; the separator S. Then S(N S)* generates something like a snake. When * = 1, this is the official snake, when * = 2, it is called a siamese snake. When * lies beyond, the figure doesn'have a name; it could presumably be called long, longer, ..., but those names are reserved for another artifact.

Rather than the four bit nucleus, there could be a six bit nucleus two bits per row consisting of 10, 00, 01; if that were N, the same regular expression would give the aircraft carrier series, with an understanding of where to place the joining shim between iterates.

Another way to decompose a snake would to define N = (0 1 1, 110) with A = (1 1, 1 0) and B = (0 1, 1 1) with the regular expression A N* B. But with these A's and B's, N could be a single bit connected diagonally. This would give a more gramaticall correct definition of a snake with all its adjectives; reflecting B would give canoes and so on. Of course, all this regularity was but dimly apparent when Adam named the first animals, leaving the naming system until Linnaeus came along. Or think of what organic chemsits have to do to name and retrieve all the polymers and aromatic compounds.

Long diagonal chains also form interesting nuclei, as do paired diagonal chains. Variation not only in their length, but particularly in their terminations or possible joints which can connect them or change direction, arises from a choice of separators. The point here is not so much to define lots of families as to notice that the existence of these families is quite apparent while perusing still life lists, and that rather than a Wiki with an infinitude of named objects, collecting them into families might be more informative and less frustrating to a browser. With cross references to respect the existing chaos. Or even as additional chaos.

So, my question is: "how do I interpret WikiPedia source code?"

[Nathaniel]

More important, would be to know the prospective reaction of the organizers of the Wiki to such attempts.

As long as you are trying to be helpful to the wiki, then the reaction will be positive, but don't be surprised if you get a suggestion or two after your first couple edits (just because of certain standards and whatnot that have been adopted by the wiki that you may not be familiar with). The whole point of a wiki is that anyone should feel encouraged to add their knowledge though, so please don't let "but this might not be well-received" hold you back.

So, my question is: "how do I interpret WikiPedia source code?"

I'm not sure what exactly you're looking to do, but make sure you're not looking at the source code for the main page or anything like that -- that code is more complex and you're not meant to understand it. Probably a good way to get to know the LifeWiki code would be to start off by looking at the source code for an extremely simple page (example: Block on boat). The first line or two (the part that looks sort of gibberish-like and starts "{{Stilllife|type=pseudo|c=9|bx=6|by=3|name=Block on boat...") controls the information box that appears on the right-hand side of pattern pages. type=pseudo tells the wiki that it's a pseudo still life (as opposed to strict), c=9 tells it that it has 9 cells, and so on. To learn more about the Stilllife template, visit http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/index.ph ... :Stilllife (this page is also helpful)

The code after that is pretty basic, and you can likely figure it out just by making small changes to one section and pressing the "Preview" button to see what changed. Putting three single quotes around words bolds them, for example. Putting square brackets around words turns those words into a link to the page with that name. Etc.

Inserting images into a page is a bit more complicated, but not horribly so: this page provides details regarding how to do it. And of course, if you have any specific questions feel free to ask.

[H. V. McIntosh]

..... I'm not sure what exactly you're looking to do, but make sure you're not looking at the source code for the main page or anything like that -- that code is more complex and you're not meant to understand it. .....

Hey, come on now! Part of my business is working with such codes --- writing them, inventing them, using them, ... . Still, I prefer some codes to others, and am less familiar with recent innovations than older ones.

Anyway I have been studying how to use Wiki's, and have succeeded in creating the beginnings of an entry. To the extent that something is wrong, my attempt to register was met with a denunciation of my e-mail address as containing an illegal symbol. The only thing not in the latin alphabet was @, a common fixture of e-mail addresses. ??? It really doesn't matter to me, but this may be a mistake of mine or an error in the program. At least I seem to be registered. My keyboard is set to "spanish" so as to get accents and ñ's, but all symbols should be in unicode and @ should go through alright. If it was that.

I didn't find an option to create a new entry, and I didn't want to mutilate someone else's page by trying to edit it, although playing with the sandbox might have provided the experience that was mentioned. However, searching for the nonexistent title I intended to use got me a blank page to work with, so that turned out alright. You might or might not want to include more explicit instructions about this, although they may already be there and I missed them.

Since I chose a template, there is the problem of filling a pattern. I have some TIFF patterns and can create others. I also have a utility to convert them to other forms like PNG, so it is a matter of patience to find out how upload patterns. As a question, can RLE strings be edited directly into the page, or do they have to be uploaded? Another question: has anybody defined an RLE for other than binary rules, and if so, will or can that appear in color when it is converted into a Wiki image?

My intention is two create two pages: the Herparium to explore families and their description by regular expressions, and Phoenixes, of which I have an enormous collection of results obtained through de Bruijn diagrams. Our website at the CIEA seems to be somewhat corrupted, but could serve as a reference for what is intended. Parenthetically, I might remark that P2 grammars aren't much different than P1 grammars and but trivially different from Phoenix grammars. Now that computer power is more accessible, it might be time to work on this some more.

[Extrementhusiast]

While not exactly relating to the applet, how do you set a CA animation for your avatar?

EDIT: Got the image, but only four frames display.

Here is the pattern:

Code: Select all

x=74,y=36,rule=B3/S23
35b2o$25b2o7bobo$25b2o7bo$34b3o25bo$62b2o8b2o$63b2o7b2o$58b2o2b2o$34b
3o$25b2o7bo$25b2o7bobo8bo$35b2o7bo13b2o2b2o$44b3o16b2o7b2o$62b2o8b2o$
62bo5$33b2o2b3o$34b2o$33bo2$17bo$2o15b2o$2o16b2o$13b2o2b2o11b2o$29bobo
15b2o$29bo17b2o$29b3o$13b2o2b2o$2o16b2o$2o15b2o$17bo11b3o$29bo17b2o$
29bobo15b2o$30b2o!

[Macbi]

I did mine by taking screenshots and then photoshopping them together. I believe that the giffer.pl script in Golly now does the whole thing for you.

[Lewis]

While not exactly relating to the applet, how do you set a CA animation for your avatar?

The applet can save patterns in animated GIF format. When you click Save > Image, the dialog box lets you choose the file type. That's how I made my avatar.

[Extrementhusiast]

--Pretty much identical to previous post, done to "attract attention"--

Only four frames display on the image.

Here is the pattern:

Code: Select all

x=74,y=36,rule=B3/S23
35b2o$25b2o7bobo$25b2o7bo$34b3o25bo$62b2o8b2o$63b2o7b2o$58b2o2b2o$34b
3o$25b2o7bo$25b2o7bobo8bo$35b2o7bo13b2o2b2o$44b3o16b2o7b2o$62b2o8b2o$
62bo5$33b2o2b3o$34b2o$33bo2$17bo$2o15b2o$2o16b2o$13b2o2b2o11b2o$29bobo
15b2o$29bo17b2o$29b3o$13b2o2b2o$2o16b2o$2o15b2o$17bo11b3o$29bo17b2o$
29bobo15b2o$30b2o!

[Elithrion]

There are some instructions over here. What you basically want is to set Generations to 46 (that seems to be the period of the oscillator, right?), then maybe get a little extra margin around the border by setting Height to 40 (that is, the box is 40 cells tall) and Y Offset to 3 (so the oscillator is still centred in the new box). You can leave all the other settings alone safely (they should default to X Offset 1, X/Y Panning 0, Width 76). What you get is something like this:


Except that's zoomed in too far for use as an avatar, so zoom out a bit and try it yourself =)

[edit:] okay, I actually went and made you a picture in case something goes wrong for you for real, but as a compromise since I'd rather give you a reason to figure out how the applet works for yourself, I made it very orange

[Extrementhusiast]

OK, figured out how to make the image, but cannot reduce file size below 45.2 KB. Top limit is 25 KB.

My choice of colors:


BTW, the correct abbreviation for "kilobyte" is KB, not KiB.

BTW (again!), I can't set the background color to anything other than white.

Huh, why isn't the image displaying? (I chose brown for the live cells)

[Elithrion]

BTW, the correct abbreviation for "kilobyte" is KB, not KiB.

Well, that's partly correct. KiB stands for "kibibyte", a fairly recent designation that emphasises specifically the fact that what has classically been called a kilobyte is actually 1024 bytes, not 1000. The recommended abbreviation for "kilobyte" is, in fact, kB (with lowercase k), although it is also recommended that this be taken to mean 1000 bytes.

BTW (again!), I can't set the background color to anything other than white.

Ah, yes, getting the ability to change the background is actually on-topic