WebKit warning and crash

I found an interesting bug in my WebView code today. If you are a Mac developer that always writes programs on the latest OS with WKWebview you will probably never run into this problem. But if you want to keep your code running on older Mac systems read on.

So every time I compiled my App I was getting a strange error below:

*** WARNING: Method convertPointToBase: in class NSView is deprecated on 10.7 and later. It should not be used in new applications.

None of the posts on the internet seemed to have an answer to the warning above. The most common posts about it are below:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28124804/warning-convertpointtobase-is-deprecated

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/46889

https://forum.xojo.com/41162-method-convertpointtobase-is-deprecated/0

Please note that I use a MainMenu.xib file so if you using some other method it may not work. So how do you fix the error? I will walk you through the steps below:
1) Find the window in the XIB file.
2) Click the arrow next to the window object and select your view like below:

3) In the rightmost panel for the view select the rightmost button at the top.
4) At the top of the panel there should be a checkbox that has the name of your View with the title Core Animation Layer above it.
5) Uncheck the View’s checkbox like in the image below:

The next time you compile your App the warning should disappear. So what is happening? From what I understand the Core Animation Layer is using old “deprecated” code. The CALayer has a history of not being up to date. From what I remember OS 10.7 Lion’s CALayer was still a 32 bit framework even though Apple had updated all of their frameworks to 64 bit. It could also be because WKWebView is the preferred way and WebView is deprecated. I hope this helps if you come across this problem like me.

Cure for common code

Over the last month you might have noticed the webpages on Solar Fusion Software run faster. This is because I am now using Javascript which loads certain parts of the site on your computer. Before I used PHP which requires the server to load the site then send the HTML to you.

You may have noticed the new PlumeriaSC slogan, "The cure for the common code" which is actually a play on words for the architecture that was used during the end of development for PlumeriaSC 3. Now that PlumeriaSC 4 is in development I use the paradigm exclusively since it streamlines the structure and uses less code for the same features.

GSJ Arena is Here (Update)

Can't get enough Galactic Space Junk rock blasting mayhem? You can now blast rocks with your water cannon in an arena on any major platform with all the 3D OpenGL goodness. So you are probably asking, "I have a Windows or Linux machine isn't this a Mac site?". Solar Fusion Software is going cross platform with Galactic Space Junk Arena. As long as you have a modern web browser and a recent desktop computer you should be able to play. Check it out in the Games section. Enjoy!

(Update)
Version 1.1 was just updated in the Games section. It fixes a potential crash and adds numerous performance enhancements.

SFS is Chrome ready

A few months ago Google's Chrome browser started requiring websites use "https" instead of "http" for all content. Recently I realized that the side bar needed upgrading. Now Chrome users can rejoice and visit every page of Solar Fusion Software without problems. Special thanks to the friends that notified me of this. We have some super cool technologies we're working on. I will try to keep everyone updated with as many previews as I can release.

Kart Racing

No new news on any of our applications for now, but I did find a really cool free (for now) and open source racing game that runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. It's called Super Tux Kart and from what I can tell it was written in Visual Studio. If you are not familiar with Tux the guy that Linux is named after (Linus Torvalds) was given a penguin for a pet and they named the pet Tux. There is another game called Tux Kart Racing but there is a good reason the new one has "Super" attached to it. If you have ever played a Mario Kart game you will feel right at home with the controls and graphics.

Here's the link:
https://supertuxkart.net/

The Physics Cookbook

Yes that’s right I used a cookbook for my physics engine. I am not a big fan of programming cookbooks, but for a physics engine it is one of the best ways to learn. Before I found the Game Physics Cookbook I tried two other well known books that left me wondering if I would ever finish my physics engine. Both of the other books have been out for awhile and both had incomplete code in their books.
The Game Physics Cookbook is in C++ but for various reasons I wanted to convert it to C. I am a big fan of reading and writing the code from the book and this book delivered. Since the author used complete programming recipes it made it a lot easier to convert to C. Also, I would think it would be easy to convert to other languages as long as you know the basics of C and C++. Below are my reviews for all three physics books.

If you want a really advanced physics engine I recommend the open source physics engine named Bullet. It has several books and a long list of software companies that use it.

Game Physics Cookbook
Pros:
1) The author was very friendly when I emailed him and helped me fix some code in my physics engine.
2) The code in the book is complete except for some typos.
3) The complete code (and more) is on Github.
4) Has complete formulas.

Cons:
1) There are some typos in the book but if you look at the Github code it is an easy fix.
2) The book starts creating demos in the last three chapters.

Notes:
On the back of the book it says that you can create an Angry Birds game. I would have to say that this is the only book that lives up to the statements on the back of the book. If you have never written a physics engine I highly recommend this book.

Game Physics Engine Development
Pros:
1) The source code on Github is in C++ and works on Mac but is very hard to convert to other languages.
2) The Github code has collisions with planes, spheres and boxes.

Cons:
1) I was not able to convert the C++ code to C.
2) Does not have complete code in the book.

Notes:
The book has very little finished code, although, the complete code is on Github. I also found that the section titles in the table of contents to be very misleading. For instance, there are sections that have titles for the different types of 3D collisions but the sections have one paragraph with no code. If you know game physics then the abstract sections and source code may be good enough for you.

Physics For Game Developers (Second Edition)
Pros:
1) The source code is mostly written in C so it is fairly easy to convert.

Cons:
1) The code is not complete in the book.
2) I was not able to convert the source code to C for Mac.
2) The source code on the website is only from the first edition and I had the second edition which was completely different.
3) It only explained how to create sphere to sphere collisions.

Notes:
This was the first game physics book I read. Unfortunately it only explains sphere to sphere collisions which is usually not enough for a physics engine. I have found box collisions are usually needed before spheres. From what I heard the first edition uses box to box collisions so that might be better.

The New Physics Engine

PlumeriaSC 3.3 is finally done and ready for the 2018 New Year. We have totally redesigned the 3D Physics Engine with a new collision and motion engine for both boxes and spheres. Hopefully soon we will have a review on this blog of the physics book that finally worked. If you would like to see a quick demo of the new physics engine you can watch the new PlumeriaSC 3.3 video on our Solar Fusion Software YouTube site.
Also, we have designed a new game with 3.3 called Apple Attack. It is bundled with our Apple Attack Pack which includes three free games: Apple Attack where you vacuum apple trees, an updated version of Apple Pong with a new scoring system, and Wacky Ball a remastered version of the first game ever made in PlumeriaSC 3.