[Coco] Update to DriveWire 4 Java

Fri Jan 27 10:08:36 EST 2023

 After updating DriveWire 4 project to run with newer versions of Java  I got some feedback saying that it was occasionally crashing under Windows 10.  I narrowed the problem down to an older version of the Java RXTX serial library. I've updated the project to use the Neuron Robotics nrjavaserial serial libray. The Neuron Robotics nrjavaserial serial libray is an updated and maintained fork of 
the Java RXTX serial library so it was almost a drop in replacement.
In addition to the update, Aaron Wolfe graciously gave me access to the sourceforge repository for the project and I've added the latest Java 17 release. Clicking on the green Download button  will download the updated version of DriveWire 4. This specific download requires the user to have Java 17 or greater installed. Running the included scripts for your specific 64 bit OS should start DriveWire 4.   

A link to my github repo has also been included in the sourceforge main project page.  
All of the original source code and releases are still available from the sourceforge repo and  I plan on updating the repo in the next several months.  

Please download and try it. You can scroll down past the project files and there will be links to run it on several systems  without the need to install java if you don't want to.  
https://github.com/qbancoffee/drivewire4

I've tested on the following 64 bit OS's: 
Ubuntu linux Raspberry pi OS (debian based)  Windows 10 

Here is a link to the original repository with updated links.  https://sourceforge.net/projects/drivewireserver/

Thanks,
Pedro

    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 05:29:09 PM EST, Rocky Hill <qbancoffee at yahoo.com> wrote:  

  Hello all, 
I uploaded a video showing how easy it is to download and run DriveWire4 
https://youtu.be/G9ytOzB70Ls

Thanks,
Pedro

    On Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 12:29:10 AM EST, Rocky Hill via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:  

  Seems like the the link wasn't working   

https://github.com/qbancoffee/drivewire4

    On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 11:54:12 PM EST, Rocky Hill via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:  

  Hello all, 
After corresponding with Aaron a bit we decided that compiling the source for the last stable version that everyone  has been using would be the way to go. This version is v4.3.3p     
I removed the part of the code that caused it to crash when loading OS specific libraries  when starting with a version of Java greater than 8.  
In the interest of not modifying the code any more than I needed to I decided I should write     scripts to let the underlying shell tell Java where the required libraries are.  

The SWT and RXTX libraries I included are all 64 bit libraries so it will not run on a 32 bit system.  If you want it to run on a 32 bit system all you would have to do is replace the libraries in the swt and rxtx folders with 32 bit versions of them.
Of course you would also need a 32 bit version of java.    

So far I've tested it on Windows, linux x86_64 and linux arm_64  
The main DriveWire4 UI crashes on the arm_64 but runs when the --liteui argument is passed. I don't own an intel Mac so I can't test on a Mac so if anyone out there has one and can test it please do.  
Please go to the repo and where there are links to download DriveWire4 with java already included so there is no need to install    Java. Just download the release and unzip it.  If you think it might break you're existing installation of java, don't worry because the included JRE is standalone and does not need to interact with an existing installation. You can remove it by deleting the folder.   https://github.com/qbancoffee/drivewire4   

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GitHub - qbancoffee/drivewire4: DriveWire 4 Java version

DriveWire 4 Java version. Contribute to qbancoffee/drivewire4 development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Thank you Aaron for DriveWire4!!   

Thanks,
Pedro

    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 10:30:16 AM EST, Rocky Hill via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:  

  Hi Bill,
I am not a big user of sourceforge and I just realized that I could graphically download other snapshots from sourceforge.  I just downloaded a snapshot for 4.3.30 and successfully compiled the source files(after a small mod) so no need to de-compile lol.  Using the original source is much better!    
Knowing this, I'll clean up what I put in my repo and add this with instructions.    

Thanks for your help!   

    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 09:43:33 AM EST, Rocky Hill <qbancoffee at yahoo.com> wrote:  

  Hi Bill,
The one compiled from the sourceforge source says that it's 4.3.4F  and the de-compiled one says that it's 4.09c 

4.3.4F seems to be buggy and it crashes when ever I try to insert a disk. I looked through the code and it seems that there is a lot of unimplemented stuff so that very well could be the developers edition.  

4.09c is from the same sourceforge repo and it's the one that I've been using the whole time.  

I followed the link from your site and it does point to the same repo and the download link says it's for the latest   version and when started, DriveWire reports a version of 4.3.30  .
This one has a slightly different UI and it seems more polished. I don't sees source files for this version so maybe I should try and de-compile this one as well and place it in the repo  along with the others.....   

Pedro  

    On Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 04:50:37 AM EST, Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:  

 Pedro, the screenshots you have on GitHub are the same as the last version of DW4. All DW4 versions Aaron released had the same UI.
You may have been running DW4 "Developer's Edition", which does have a different UI. It was never released and only a few of us had it to beta test. I finally released it on my site a few years ago. It is also in the repo as a separate build.

What version is your DW4? Just click "Help" on the menu bar and click "Version" (I think).

Bill P.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rocky Hill via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc: Rocky Hill <qbancoffee at yahoo.com>
Sent: Mon, Jan 2, 2023 6:07 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] Compiling and Starting DriveWire 4 with Java 17

 Last night and today I played some more with DriveWire4 Java and I ended up  de-compiling the available DWUI.jar that everyone knows and fixed up the sources  enough so that it would compile with OpenJDK 17.   
I decided to include the netbeans project for the decompiled vesion in the repository I had previously made so that all can have a netbeans project with the sourceforge source and a netbeans project with the decompiled source.     I fixed some array index out of bounds errors that the sever had when starting up and it seems to behaving on Windows 10 64 bit  and linux 64 bit.  
I figured that most people that would want to run it are using Windows so I added a release for Windows 64 bit.  The release includes a Zulu OpenJDK 17 JRE with the appropriate RXTX serial library so that nothing has to be installed.   In theory all you have to do is download the release, unzip it and double click on "DriveWire4_win64.bat"   
I ran it in a Windows 10 VM but it would be nice for someone else to actually download and test it.  
If you run it, please let me know if it works ...    
Anyhow, here is the link to the github repo, scroll down and you'll see a link to download the Windows 64 bit release.  
If you scroll down a little further you'll see some screenshots as well.    
GitHub - qbancoffee/drivewire4: DriveWire 4 Java version

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GitHub - qbancoffee/drivewire4: DriveWire 4 Java version

DriveWire 4 Java version. Contribute to qbancoffee/drivewire4 development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Thanks,
Pedro

 On Friday, December 30, 2022 at 11:51:13 PM EST, Rocky Hill <qbancoffee at yahoo.com> wrote:  

 Hello everybody,   
I decided that I wanted to get DriveWire 4 running with a newer version  of java so after about a day of messing around with the files, I successfully compiled and ran DriveWire 4  using OpenJDK 17. I uploaded a video showing the steps I took so that others could do it as well.     

I used the source files from  https://sourceforge.net/projects/drivewireserver/    

Although running, the UI is very different from the UI that one gets when using the compiled  version from the repo so I'm thinking I either broke something along the way or maybe  the version of the available source files doesn't match the version used to create the available executable.  
I did this on an x86 linux machine but the process should be pretty much the same on Windows or Mac,you just have to make sure you use the correct libraries.   
Anyhow, here is the video, I hope it's helpful to someone and maybe someone can see where I made a mistake  and let me know.  
Thanks,  
Pedro   

https://youtu.be/7fjNQZ2uRJI   

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