Suggestions for Jim for Marine Aquarium 3.0
 

Hello, Jim. I've been a user of Marine Aquarium since its first release, and love the program. I'm looking forward to the final version of 3.0, and for it I'd to suggest a long-sought feature, and also a request that the program doesn't "back-slide" in one aspect.

1. First, I'm still hoping that you can add a Feed the Fish option. While I appreciate the attention to "improve fish behavior" (although it's hard to imagine more realistic behavior), I think a significant change that would add an interactive feature such as feeding the fish would be a major and welcome improvement.

2. Even with the addition of the Auto Pan feature, I hope you will retain the option for a full widescreen display. I have tested Auto Pan, and I would never use it -- it is too distracting and almost seasick-enducing. And, with a full widescreen, it's great to see the full aquarium all at once.

Keep up the great work,

Harlan

1) As far as I know, feeding the fish is still on the charts for inclusion.

2) As for widescreen, you can still do that now by switching to windowed mode ( hit the "F" key ) and stretching the aquarium from one side of the screen to the other. Although with it being much wider now, you will be reducing the image where you might not see the detail and everything will be smaller.

PS. Welcome to the forums Harlan :)

Hello, Michael. Many thanks!

Great to hear about Feed the Fish. I look forward to it!

As for widescreen, in 2.6, widescreen is an option without going to the Window mode. It is really convenient using it this way. Any chance for continuing that feature in 3.0?

All the best,

Harlan

I agree with Harlan that an option for having the screensaver being displayed in widescreen is a good thing. Yes, one can chose to have the saver displayed in a window but then you have to drag it out so that it displays properly and then you have the rest of your desktop being displayed with icons etc. Some of us are displaying the saver on big 30"+ displays and it would be nice to see the saver in widescreen without scrolling or anything else on the desktop to distract the viewer. Just a thought.

Hi Michael. A follow-up to your recommendation about using "F" for widescreen: that works in part, by giving us about 20 percent more screen. But it amplifies a problem: the settings for the new software are based on the full extra-wide screen. This means that if I've selected 11 fish, for example, only three or four of them are on screen, while the others wander around off screen.

Isn't there any way to get a true full screen of the complete aquarium?

Cheers,

Harlan

If you mean can it start like 2.6 did with black everywhere around a widescreen, then currently no there isn't. You can start the screensaver manually then move the window and drag the corners manually situating it in the center of the screen where you want it then set it as your screen saver.

It will start in full screen mode and you can then hit the "F" key and it will switch to windowed mode where you situated it before without losing password protection. No desktop icons will be visable, depending on your OS of course, I can't see any using XP Pro. But, I can still see the desktop itself.

Only Jim can answer if sometime later he might implement blacking out the desktop and letting windows start it in windowed mode as a locked saver.

It will then look like this:

Do you not have widescreen monitors? I guess I'm not quite getting what you want it to look like? The aquarium spans more than just the typical 16:9.

The Aquarium is roughly two 16:9 monitors wide. The request is to display the entire aquarium on whatever screen you've got and put black bars at the top and bottom. MA2.6 does this.

Hi Michael. Dang, I really hope you could have a "complete screen" option, whether wide or square.

While I like the idea of having widescreen, I'm much more eager to have all of the fish I select on screen at the same time.

The features of 3.0 look great, and the colors and clarity are fantastic. But it won't be useful to switch to it if most of the fish I select are off screen swimming around where I can't see them.

So even if you can't scale the extra-wide capabilities of 3.0 into a more modest widescreen option, please please please try to have a feature that shows us all the fish, all the time.

Thanks!

Harlan

And finally -- do you have a date yet for the release of the finished 3.0?

Cheers,

Harlan

October 2014

but... but... but... isn't the world supposed to end on December 20th, 2012?

:jester: ;)

Boy, won't that be a relief :)

Jim:

Hey -- it will be a better world when we have a Feed the Fish feature!

You do amazing work -- thanks so much for creating such intriguing software.

Harlan

Hey Harlan - how about if you simply put black electrical tape across the top and bottom of your monitor and then you can have that Letterboxed look you apparently seek...

Call me the strange one in these "interesting times" - but I actually enjoy utilizing the full screen (widescreen or square) that I paid for. Few things are as annoying to me as, when I watch a movie, and the main character has only half his forehead visable because that "Director's Point of View" has to show whatever it is off to the sides - REDICULOUS!

The option currently available within MA3 for showing more fish than the seven allowed in MA2.6 is astounding and a true work of skill and computer graphics art. I wonder if having all 30 fish visable at once this week - will invariably bring requests for even more next week.

Rob

~ God Bless ALL ~

Hi Rob. I'm not looking for wide screen for wide screen's sake. What I'm looking for is the full tank -- regardless of width. That way, all the fish stay on screen.

Cheers,

Harlan

A freshwater version - with all the features you seek - is currently available here.

Rob

~ God Bless ALL ~

I doubt if I'll do letterboxing. There are still people concerned about burn-in. As far as having all the chosen fish on the portion of the tank that's on-screen - there may be a way, but it will take a lot of thought. If there are just a few fish chosen, they could be forced to turn around immedialtely after going off-screen. But if there are 30 fish in the tank, it would be gridlock.

I think that we should accept that MA3 is a VERY wide tank, and if we want to see the whole of it on one screen, then we have to have a very much reduced-height window. - If a version with black at the top and bottom, (a la MA2.6), becomes available, then fine for those who do not like making the necessary shape window. - But to place all 30 fish into 1/3 of the width of the full size tank is ridiculous, IMO.

I quite like seeing the population change slightly as some fish swim off screen, - and others swim back on! - it all seems quite natural to me.

..... But I also have two 5x4 monitors, - so I suppose the answer is, - if you want more fish on view, then get a bigger tank! ;)

True, 'newer' doesn't always mean 'better'.

The old program used a background picture, while the new one builds a much bigger tank out of 3D objects. That old background picture was 1024x768 - very high-res for the world of 640x480 monitors that were the norm 10 years ago. A few months later, wide-screen monitors began showing up, so I added a 256-pixel patch, bringing the size of the background picture to 1280x1024. I never intended for the widescreen version to be used on narrow monitors. The Anamorphic settings were put in so that the user could adjust the image to make up for differences in monitor frequencies, so that the image covered the whole screen WITHOUT any black areas. I never intended for people to use it for letterboxing the widescreen version onto a narrow monitor. For those who are afraid of burn-in, leaving black areas of the screen would be the quickest way to it.

I know the perfect compromise here. There's a very simple (though not free) solution to how Harlan is going to be able to see all fish simultaneously and yet not have to suffer the seasick-inducing panning: Buy a second (widescreen) monitor.

Jim,
A typical monitor ten years ago was 1024x768 - VGA was the norm before Win95, i.e. 15 years ago.
Widescreen monitors on the other hand became available in 2003 or so.

I should have clarified what I said a little more - 3D apps were almost always 640x480 (or 320x240). Anything higher would usually result in abysmal frame rates. By making mine 1024x768 I figured I'd have the resolution edge for years to come.

That's OK. Bill Gates thought 640K memory would be more than anyone would ever need.

Hello Jim, I'm brand new at this aspect ( though I've been using MA for years -it's terrific). I'm not quite sure how to make comments & suggestions, but just incase this is getting to the right place, I have noticed a small cave over on the left side and I think it would be great to see a small octopus, or an elec. eel emerge from time to time, or maybe it could be user's choice as to what emerges and what it does.

I would expect a Moray Eel first.

Hi, mrcomngo - Welcome to the Forum.

It looks like Morgan just answered your question.

Remember this clue! At this moment.. it looks like the eel will be the first to call the cave home:D

Jim said years ago that he would try to get me a Zebra Moray in there for my years of service here. I'm hoping that he can. :)

I would dearly love to see this in that cave!!!

Zebra Moray Feeding

To me the best part of the entire aquarium is next! What I really want from the aquarium isn't neccecarily the most spectacular fish but realistic ones. I'd rather have just a yellow tang and a powder blue tang looking like they actually live inside the monitor than say 250 different species available, but swimming around like dumb robots. Heck, I'd settle for a realistic herring as long as it's realistic enough.

Actually, he never said that.

Mike,
Don't you think he'd want a smaller shrimp?

Calle,

That's not the one I had of course, mine was larger before I finally lost him, but actually that's exactly the way I fed mine. Other than I fed mine by hand.

But basically eels don't eat every day. They can go days between feedings, so I figured I wanted mine to eat fresh, not something frozen or freeze dried from a can or jar, so I went to the local Kroger's at the time and bought a few fresh shrimp once a week ( when he was little I got small shrimp and later he ate jumbo tiger shrimp ) and Harvey was happy. :)

I know. But some urban legends deserve to live on.

Not sure if this is the right topic, but I think a Marine Aquarium Blog updated by Jim would be a great idea, making it easy to keep up to date with developments and behind the scenes news, particularly via RSS subscription.

These are great and friendly forums and I wouldn't want to detract from what they are brilliant at (allowing people to ask questions and get support), but Jim's gems (!) and caveats are sometimes hidden away amongst and inside the very many topics here.

Anyway, thanks again for all the hard work!

Well, that's sort of what I've always done with the News section of my website: http://www.fish-byte.com/news2.htm

That's brilliant, just the ticket!

If you imported your updates into something like a Wordpress blog we could subscribe via RSS and see when you've posted an updated so that we don't miss it!

I reckon you could have a great Marine Aquarium blog, I can almost picture it with a nice header taken from the actual Aquarium, maybe a fish of the month content block or something!

Its all good fun!

RSS updates would be excellent. I use RSS all the time on my desktop, netbook also my PDA now!

Me too Neil, I use them on the iGoogle homepage to track updates on all my favourite sites.

A Marine Aquarium blog that we could all subscribe to??? :erm:

..... I thought that was what this forum has been for, - for the past ten years or so! :)

RSS is more about the news coming direct too you and not you going to the news!

The forums are more a community chat, conversation style thing but if a blog was set up with an RSS feed associated with it then all the little tips and insights into the development of MA3 can be maintained and not get lost within pages and pages of forum discussion.

Thanks

Regards,
Neil

The reason the forum is here is because Jim would rather spend his time programming and working on the aquarium than maintaining 14 other info sites about his work. Personally I would rather he spend the time working on the aquarium as well. ;)