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Web-based Automatic Sector Data / Map pdf Generator

Wilbur said:
Thanks, it was worth a try.
Any chance of the link to that site your suggested ?
Click to expand...

you could also download a Linux distro, install that (many of them allow for dual boot-ups, so that you can keep all you Windows stuff but have the option of booting into Linux or Windows). But if you are not comfortable with burning ISO CDs and fiddling a bit (quite a bit possibly to get all the various pieces of this), then it is probably not worth it. There was an earlier post about someone getting it to work on some version of Linux but it took some messing around.

But from what I saw, it produced really great & detailed info. In fact I downloaded at least one version of that of the Spinward Marches - huge file. Now I wonder why I bought the Mongoose one (just to go with the other few versions...guess you can never have enough!)
 
Earlier in this thread, you did up the Ley and Glimmerdrift sectors for one of the members. The link to those sectors is inactive and I was wondering if you still had them? I run Windows so can't use your excellent program.

Let me know, thanks!
 
Sorry, but it's rant time here.

Well, I've tried. Galactic just ain't a viable proposition for me. In short, it's just a complete non-starter. I tried, trust me: I tried until I was damn near crying and screaming obscenities in frustration and failure, and that's hard for me to admit.

I frankly haven't the head for DOS. how the heck they managed it before Windows I shall never, EVER, fathom. I got errors I cannot understand. There is no effective help file, there is no windows or even windows-style interface. I eventually had to throw my 4xC-cell maglite into the corner of the room to prevent me doing a Rock Star Tantrum on the PC.

I'm a 44-year-old bus driver, not a computer programmer, and have already suffered one heart attack through stress. I do not want another: A second one is likely to kill me stone dead.

I just CANNOT get a handle on the damn thing. If I try again, if I don't get a second heart attack first, then I know that the PC WILL be going out the double glazed window, along with the dummy (US: Pacifier), teddy bear, my temper, and half the blasted planet, right into a short-path orbit into the Sun.

Others of a more genteel nature may well get on with it. Certainly, the results they have shown on-line speak volumes. However, for me, no joy. Much frustration, in fact, that I can sorely afford to give it. Call it short-attention-span-disorder, call it extreme impatience with outdated tech, call it whatever you like, but I have now given up on Galactic as it currently stands. If it ever actually makes it to a viable XP-capable platform, then I may give it another go, but until then, no, no, and no again.

I'm going back to H&E, and poor quality output that I then have to tidy up in Fireworks & Dreamweaver. At least I know that those work, even if it takes bleedin' forever to get satisfactory results.

As you can see...

HHnaarouhwn-sleuth-subsector-map-extract.gif
 
Interestingly, I've been in touch with Jim Vassilakos (author of Galactic), and he's stated that he's been considering writing a manual for new users, and that my frustrating (to say the lest) experience has convinced him me that this would probably be a good idea.

I wouldn't hold your breath, though.

Writing a manual for anything, when done properly, takes time. I know - I've written work-related manuals in the past, and while nothing to do with computers (manual tasks for skilled persons), getting them right is a real bear (to coin a phrase ;)).
 
Redcap said:
Interestingly, I've been in touch with Jim Vassilakos (author of Galactic), and he's stated that he's been considering writing a manual for new users, and that my frustrating (to say the lest) experience has convinced him me that this would probably be a good idea.

I wouldn't hold your breath, though.

Writing a manual for anything, when done properly, takes time. I know - I've written work-related manuals in the past, and while nothing to do with computers (manual tasks for skilled persons), getting them right is a real bear (to coin a phrase ;)).
Click to expand...

FWIW, I personally think that Galactic is great. *However* it is a DOS program that makes use of DOS design concepts. While these are still familiar to me (exclusively because I use Galactic), such familiarity is rapidly disappearing.

I never considered it before, but I guess that Galactic would be jarringly unfamiliar to someone who never used computers pre-Windows.
 
Any chance of getting the Linux tweaks for the install? I want to try getting the script to run on my webserver.

Also, a Windows version would rock.
 
I have been trying to get this to work under Windows with Cygwin, but so far enscript is having errors.

So far I get this:

Code: 
$ ./SectorMaker.sh Trythis dense mature 1
c:\enscript\enscript.exe:c:/enscript/enscript.cfg:71: illegal option: GeneratePageSize:
sed: can't read /tmp/Trythisseccover1.ps: No such file or directory
./SectorMaker.sh: line 807: pstopdf: command not found
Error: Failed to open PDF file:
   /tmp/Trythisseccover1.pdf
Errors encountered.  No output created.
Done.  Input errors, so no output created.
c:\enscript\enscript.exe:c:/enscript/enscript.cfg:71: illegal option: GeneratePageSize:
sed: can't read /tmp/TrythisBack1.ps: No such file or directory
./SectorMaker.sh: line 827: pstopdf: command not found
Error: Failed to open PDF file:
   /tmp/TrythisBackCovertemp.pdf
Errors encountered.  No output created.
Done.  Input errors, so no output created.
/usr/bin/gensec3: /usr/bin/gensec3: cannot execute binary file
Can't open perl script "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/trav/lc": No such file or directory
./SectorMaker.sh: line 254: ditto: command not found
....
(lots more errors)

Any idea what the enscript error means?
 
Some of the scripts are assuming Unix-isms ("/tmp") and absolute paths to dependencies ("/Library"). Even under Cygwin, these will need to be changed to be platform-agnostic.
 
Well then where the script references lines without paths, such as:

enscript
pstopdf
pdftk

How can I get Cygwin to insure that these commands can be invoked? Can I mount the Windows location to something? Is there a PATH variable that needs to exist in Cygwin so it can find these?
 
Ok, I moved over to Ubuntu to get this to work.

It took me a while to get everything installed and scripts to work, etc. (I'm no Linux expert) and now I am getting a Ghostscript error (which I narrowed down to the ps2pdf line that creates the cover):

Code: 
notroot@ubuntu:~$ ps2pdfwr -o /tmp/Coreseccover.ps /tmp/Coreseccover1.pdf
GPL Ghostscript 8.63 (2008-08-01)
Copyright (C) 2008 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
Error: /undefinedfilename in (.setpdfwrite)
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1150/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--   --dict:70/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: 2
GPL Ghostscript 8.63: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

Any ideas? Google isn't helping a whole lot. I verified that both those files exist, and /tmp has full permissions.
 
Sorry to clog this up with troubleshooting... once I get this running I will post instructions for getting this to run under Ubuntu :)

I got past the ps2pdf issues, but now I get:

Code: 
./SectorMaker.sh: line 851: /usr/bin/gensec3: cannot execute binary file

charris256, how did you get past this?

charris256 said:
I'm pretty sure I need to find a way to recompile the following files under suse 10 linux to get this application working.

File Type
mapsub3 Unknown
gensec3 Unknown
full-upp Unknown
subsec2 AWk Script


Can anyone tell me how to do this, or point me to a web site to that tells you the commands to recompile the files?

Thanks,

Ch
Click to expand...
 
For the kill - the errors you're encountering are all basic gaps in your understanding of around shell scripting requirements - and the troubleshooting is probably teaching you a lot about scripting. In this case it's another basic situation.

You can't run gensec3 because you haven't compiled it under linux. Following ch's example, compile gensec3.c and you'll get an executable binary called 'gensec3' that runs under your flavor of Linux.

Put that and the other binaries (like pstopdf and others) in a location (like usr/local/bin) that your shell script can find (in other words, whose path is in your environment).

Enjoy!
 
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