Can you view programs without the editing apparatus around it?

[Kristi]

I want to show off what I've created - is there a way to view it without the editing/writing "desktop" around it? I tried to minimize it when I had the play window open since they seemed to be separate windows - it didn't work.

If I was to figure out how to export to a web page, would it be interactive? In otherwords, would the events triggered by a mouse click or key stroke still work?

Very basic questions, I'm sure, but I'm not gifted computer-wise. I appreciate the time anyone takes to answer.

Kristi

[kingsamses]

You could resize the playing window by dragging the bottom-right corner around. I'm not sure if you can completely cover the main window, but you could get most of it covered (and a bigger play area). Or you could shrink the main window before you play so you can cover it up.

As for your other question, I'm not sure. I'd assume gabe will next time he logs on.

[gabe]

You can't minimize the Alice interface and keep the player on top.

To answer your second question, yes and no. Exporting to web sometimes allows for interactivity. The only way to know for sure if your world will run successfully is through trial and error. For example, the Amusement Park example world allows for arrow key navigation and works beautifully on my machine.

Perhaps a solution would be to create an Alice media player that will load up a world and play it, but not allow for any editing. If there is interest, I can ask Dennis, our programmer, how feasible something like this would be.

[gabe]

OK. Dennis is ahead of us, as usual. This functionality is built into Alice. Here's how to run your world without having to start up Alice:

1. Download the attached zip file
2. Extract "player.bat" into the "required" directory of Alice
3. Double-click player.bat. An open world dialog box will appear
4. Navigate to your world and select it

Please let me know if this works/doesn't work for you.

[OmniDistortion]

That's pretty interesting, but I cannot test it here with only the a2w file and this college PC. The point of the matter is that if I were to send it to a friend or someone who did not have Alice that they could watch or interact with it as is. A stand-alone program.

[Kristi]

I did get the player to work. It was nice to see the program run larger (I didn't think of enlarging it before - I was too busy thinking of how to get rid of the control panel desk top) and on a blank desktop. I am using this interactively with kids, they find information to fill out a worksheet. They were distracted by all the editing/writing tools around the viewing window. I was also concerned with what they might do to the program - some of them are more computer literate than me!!

With the player, is there a way to start the program again? Using the viewer within Alice you can pause, resume and restart. Mainly, I am interested in restart, without having to load the program again. I'd also like to get the program cued up then start it when I want. Is this possible?

Thanks so much for your help. :D

Kristi

[gabe]

That's pretty interesting, but I cannot test it here with only the a2w file and this college PC. The point of the matter is that if I were to send it to a friend or someone who did not have Alice that they could watch or interact with it as is. A stand-alone program.

I will look into this.

With the player, is there a way to start the program again? Using the viewer within Alice you can pause, resume and restart. Mainly, I am interested in restart, without having to load the program again. I'd also like to get the program cued up then start it when I want. Is this possible?

None of this is currently possible with the external player. If I can get Dennis to build a self-contained a2w viewer, I will see about getting the same features available as are on the player that is built into the system.

[Tiamosarah]

OK. Dennis is ahead of us, as usual. This functionality is built into Alice. Here's how to run your world without having to start up Alice:

1. Download the attached zip file
2. Extract "player.bat" into the "required" directory of Alice
3. Double-click player.bat. An open world dialog box will appear
4. Navigate to your world and select it

Please let me know if this works/doesn't work for you.


This did not work for me. I tried it and it says, terminate batch job?? what can I do:confused:

[gabe]

Dennis, any thoughts on this?

[Azerilli1]

Would it be possible to remove any unneccesary files to make the Required folder smaller? If that is possible, then the Player could be shared via email and such.

[jmoney]

Dennis, any thoughts on this?
Hey gabe, easy to find the expert here. I've been writing alice files for 2 years now and often make games. I dragged this file in the required folder from the winrar, and double clicked it, but the screen just flashed real quick and nothing happened. Any ideas?

[x2495iiii]

That was FANTASTIC! The only thing that would make this better would be if it could be a stand-alone executable file. Also, is there any way to make it start in full screen, or automatically jump to a certain world?

Thanks so much for posting that, gabe, and thanks to Dennis too for making it. Great work!

[Jeremytroid]

How would this work for macs? There isn't a required folder that I'm aware of but I'd really like to use it.

[gabe]

Hey gabe, easy to find the expert here. I've been writing alice files for 2 years now and often make games. I dragged this file in the required folder from the winrar, and double clicked it, but the screen just flashed real quick and nothing happened. Any ideas?

I'm no expert -- I just sit next to the people who are. I need to take care of a few things first, but then I will check this out. Are you using Alice 2 or 2.2?

[gabe]

How would this work for macs? There isn't a required folder that I'm aware of but I'd really like to use it.

I can't promise a mac version of this, but I will ask Dennis if this is possible. He is currently out of town, so give it a week and then bug me to bug him.

[paul.ashbourne]

I'm no expert -- I just sit next to the people who are. I need to take care of a few things first, but then I will check this out. Are you using Alice 2 or 2.2?

I'm having the same problem, and am using Alice 2.2, can you ask Dennis anything about this please? :)

And ask Dennis anything about a stand-alone executable or java conversion (so it could be compiled in Netbeans/BlueJ and then embedded to a webpage.

Also, Alice 3 backward compatibility would be cool!

Thanks!

Paul

[jediaction]

I want to show off what I've created - is there a way to view it without the editing/writing "desktop" around it? I tried to minimize it when I had the play window open since they seemed to be separate windows - it didn't work.

If I was to figure out how to export to a web page, would it be interactive? In otherwords, would the events triggered by a mouse click or key stroke still work?

Very basic questions, I'm sure, but I'm not gifted computer-wise. I appreciate the time anyone takes to answer.

Kristi


This would be like a real game. That would be great

And if you could get rid of the editing stuff on the boarder, Alice would be like a realy game and if you could make executables with 2.2 that would be even cooler even though you can use mama, thats already done

[King Gamer(gorit)]

I downloaded and extracted it andit just flashed. It does not realy make a difrence ffor me so yeah butit didnt work. I have however had problems with this type of file before so I am going to tr it on my desktop tonight if I get around to it. I am currently on my private laptop running windows 7

[zonedabone]

This is so cool! Again, I'd love it if we could export as STANDALONE exe files. As in no other files. Just one EXE file. That'd rock!:D

[rankhornjp]

It doesn't work with my game. I have Alice 2.04, and it'll work up to the point of asking user a question then it locks up and the dialog box never pops up.

[Gershon Ballas]

Just one question... Is there a way to add a restart button to it? I really need to have the restart button.

Thank you.

[mr.lewis.whs]

OK. Dennis is ahead of us, as usual. This functionality is built into Alice. Here's how to run your world without having to start up Alice:

1. Download the attached zip file
2. Extract "player.bat" into the "required" directory of Alice
3. Double-click player.bat. An open world dialog box will appear
4. Navigate to your world and select it

Please let me know if this works/doesn't work for you.

I can't get this to work on my school issued PC. I have administrative rights, but I didn't set everything up on this computer, so sometimes I have weird issues. When I double click the .bat file a dos window appears for half a second with some text then disappears.

I ran it from an already open cmd window and got this output (paths are shortened for readability):

*********
\Alice 2.2\Required>player.bat

\Alice 2.2\Required>PATH=.\jre1.3.1_10_win32\bin;.\jre1.3.1_10_win32\b in\hotspot

\Alice 2.2\Required>java -hotspot -Xincgc -Xmx512m -XX:+ForceTimeHighResolution -classpath lib/alice.jar;externalLib\jython.jar;optionalPackagesL ib\customizer.jar;optionalPackagesLib\jmf.jar;opti onalPackagesLib\mediaplayer.jar;optionalPackagesLi b\multiplayer.jar;optionalPackagesLib\sound.jar;op tionalPackagesLib\resolver.jar;optionalPackagesLib \xercesImpl.jar;optionalPackagesLib\xml-apis.jar;optionalPackagesLib\xmlParserAPIs.jar;opt ionalPackagesLib\vecmath.jar -Dpython.home=jython-
2.1 -Djava.library.path=lib/win32;externalLib/win32;optionalPackagesLib/win32 edu.cmu.cs.stage3.alice.player.DefaultPlayer
'java' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

\Alice 2.2\Required>

[jediaction]

OK. Dennis is ahead of us, as usual. This functionality is built into Alice. Here's how to run your world without having to start up Alice:

1. Download the attached zip file
2. Extract "player.bat" into the "required" directory of Alice
3. Double-click player.bat. An open world dialog box will appear
4. Navigate to your world and select it

Please let me know if this works/doesn't work for you.

Didnt work for me, it opened and closed before anything happened

[bjia56]

Didnt work for me, it opened and closed before anything happened

Same here :(

[the gaate]

I am disapointed this thread ended. I would really love to be able to use this program but it just flashes for me. Maybe this bump will help things?

[haven812]

I found that the player.bat runs fine on Alice 2.0, but on Alice 2.2 the window just flashes like these previous complaints have mentioned. I am not sure if this is an easy fix or not, but it would be worth looking into.:)

[mr.lewis.whs]

Maybe this thread is just deader than dead, but if not I've solved user player.bat on Alice 2.2. Apparently they changed a directory name for Alice 2.2 and it messed up the .bat. I just opened the batch file and changed the 2 spots in the file that reference "jre1.3.1_10_win32" to "jre" to match a likely directory in the Required folder. Now the batch file works as advertised previously in this thread.

I've attached the updated file. This player will work only for Alice 2.2 as far as I can tell.

:)

[x2495iiii]

Thank you very much.

[jnawrocki]

I used the new player file created by Mr. Lewis.; exracted it; and put it in the Required folder, but the following messages appear (see below) and no open file dialog box appears. The only hotspot files I can find are in the Client and Server folders (inside the bin folder) Thanks

C:\Alice 2_2Sept\Alice 2.2\Required>PATH=.\jre\bin;.\jre\bin\hotspot

C:\Alice2_2Sept\Alice 2.2\Required>java -hotspot -Xincgc -Xmx512n -XX:+ForceTimeHighResolution -classpath lib/alice.jar;externalLib\jython.jar;optionalPackagesL ib\customizer.jar;optionalPackagesLib\jmf.jar;opti onalPackagesLib\mediaplayer.jar;optionalPackagesLi b\multiplayer.jar;optionalPackagesLib\sound.jar;op tionalPackagesLib\resolver.jar;optionalPackagesLib \xercesImpl.jar;optionalPackagesLib\xmlapis.jar;op tionalPackagesLib\xmlParserAPIs.jar;optionalPackag esLib\vecmath.jar -Dpython.home=jython-2.1 -Djava.library.path=lib/win32;externalLib/win32;optionalPackagesLib/win32 edu.cmu.cs.stage3.alice.player.DefaultPlayer