- Joined
- Dec 19, 2021
- Messages
- 764
- Points
- 18
Hello all,
The last release of Cactus (2.2.0) is now available. This one has a lot of improvements, bug fixes, UI simplifications, and last but not least, a full color system. For yesterday’s release (2.1.0), I converted the project to using Material Design completely. It looks way better and has a Light/Dark Mode Variants and uses \"Teal\" as the default color. With today’s release, you will now have full control of the selected color and you will have access to the full 19 different Material Design Colors. So you can customize it and get your perfect Cactus Experience. There is also a big behavior change that will simplify and improve the stability of the application massively. It’s regarding the whole \"Classic\" vs \"Expansion\" checkbox that we use to have. That has been fully removed and all UI elements for that have been removed as well. There’s a deeper explanation below about it including the \"Mpq Switching/Hiding\" Cactus used to do. This will no longer happen and Cactus will automatically rename those 4 MPQ files (The ones with the .bak extension if you are playing Classic) back to normal. This will happen automatically when you either press the \"Launch\" button on a platform or if you already have a platform with a \"Last Ran\" check on it and you press \"Reset\". I’ve added instructions to the Cactus documentation about this as well, but for 99% of users, you shouldn’t notice it and it should be a seamless and instantaneous transition.
As always, you can Download Cactus at the mentioned link.
- fearedbliss
Changelist
Screenshots
The last release of Cactus (2.2.0) is now available. This one has a lot of improvements, bug fixes, UI simplifications, and last but not least, a full color system. For yesterday’s release (2.1.0), I converted the project to using Material Design completely. It looks way better and has a Light/Dark Mode Variants and uses \"Teal\" as the default color. With today’s release, you will now have full control of the selected color and you will have access to the full 19 different Material Design Colors. So you can customize it and get your perfect Cactus Experience. There is also a big behavior change that will simplify and improve the stability of the application massively. It’s regarding the whole \"Classic\" vs \"Expansion\" checkbox that we use to have. That has been fully removed and all UI elements for that have been removed as well. There’s a deeper explanation below about it including the \"Mpq Switching/Hiding\" Cactus used to do. This will no longer happen and Cactus will automatically rename those 4 MPQ files (The ones with the .bak extension if you are playing Classic) back to normal. This will happen automatically when you either press the \"Launch\" button on a platform or if you already have a platform with a \"Last Ran\" check on it and you press \"Reset\". I’ve added instructions to the Cactus documentation about this as well, but for 99% of users, you shouldn’t notice it and it should be a seamless and instantaneous transition.
As always, you can Download Cactus at the mentioned link.
- fearedbliss
Changelist
New Features
----------
- Completed the Cactus Material Design Color System.
You now have full access to all 19 Material Design Theme Colors and you can
choose whichever one you want in the Cactus Settings. Combine them with either
Light or Dark Mode for your preferred Cactus experience.
Improvements
----------
- Cactus will no longer \"hide\" your MPQs when switching to Classic versions.
Many years ago when I was testing \"Bliss Version Switcher\", I was getting some errors
which lead me to believe that this was necessary. However after further testing, having
the Expansion MPQs in your D2 folder when launching a Classic version (pre 1.07) has no
issues. This makes sense given that D2 prelod didn’t have any idea of these MPQs since
they didn’t exist yet. I also tested a non-LOD Classic installation (1.07+) and not having
the MPQs there also works perfectly fine, which makes sense because those users didn’t buy
LOD, but can still receive updates and play in Classic mode. Placing the LOD files back in
your D2 folder automatically transforms that user’s Non LOD install into an LOD install and
all LOD features are automatically unlocked.
Given that the majority of Cactus users are playing Classic versions, I’ve left some
basic migration logic so that if it detects hidden MPQs, it will automatically rename
them back to their original names. This migration logic will automatically happen for you
whenever you \"Launch\" any platform OR if you have an entry that was already \"Last Ran\"
and you press the \"Reset\" button. This should a seamless and instantaneous migration.
If for whatever reason it doesn’t work, let me know. But for the meantime, you can
easily rename them back yourself. Just rename and remove the \".bak\" extension from
the \"d2exp.mpq.bak\", \"d2xvideo.mpq.bak\", \"d2xmusic.mpq.bak\", and \"d2xtalk.mpq.bak\"
in your Diablo II root directory.
As a benefit of this, I’ve removed all UI elements related to \"Classic/Expansion\"
and you no longer need to worry about this. Just add your platform names, labels, flags,
and path, and that’s it.
- Further UI improvements and refinements.
Bug Fixes
----------
- When opening a second instance of Cactus, the application will now properly
exit immediately without running any additional code. Before, the previous Windows’
\"Shut Down\" function still allowed all of the Main Window View Model code to
still run, which could have lead to weirdness if there were to be some code
added in the future that may have leaked unintended side effects.
- Fixed a bug where automatically selecting the \"Last Ran\" entry (if it exists)
when you first opened up Cactus was not working.
- Fixed a bug where the \"Last Ran\" entry (if it exists) would be selected, but
if you had many entries in your list and your \"Last Ran\" entry was outside
of the view of your main window, that particular entry wouldn’t receive focus
(i.e \"scroll the list down to where your entry is\").
- The following two bugs are fixed due to us no longer switching MPQs at all:
> Fixed a bug with the \"Reset\" button where if the user were to switch to a Classic
version and then Reset, the Hidden MPQs wouldn’t be moved back into place, causing
a subsequent LOD launch to fail.
> Fixed a benign bug regarding MPQ switching where it would silently throw an
internal exception in some situations, but everything still worked fine.
Screenshots