A few humble responses to Robert's derailment of MS Virtual Explorer.
(I just recently started working on the product, and I may not be the
best person to answer all your problems, but the others are still
asleep so I will try)
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> From: Robert Saint John <[email protected]>
>
> Installation: Yes, Robert Scmitt and all, both IE and VE will change =
> file associations
As Tim mentioned, Virtual Explorer is no different from most other
browsers - they all change your file associations. Tim gives REALLY
good feedback to request an "advanced setup" which asks whether or not
to change file associations. I will pass this to the InternetExplorer
and VirtualExplorer teams (note: I don't promise to fix, since I
wouldn't be the one coding it!).
(As a side note - the quoted article from WSJ about installation of
InternetExplorer was refering to a change related to winsock.dll on
Win95. To save everybody's time, I won't explain details, but I think
the bottom line is that Microsoft changed certain things in Win95 and
notified certain ISVs that their apps wouldn't work correctly, and
those apps (understandably) did not change/fix in time for Win95, and
some resulting problems occured. Microsoft's calling this a "weakness"
of the apps is rather dramatic, but we all understand it can't be easy
being an executive under the attack of the DOJ and the press!)
>However, none =
> of the navigation functions work properly or as proclaimed. Joystick: =
> no. Keyboard: no. Mouse: weeeellllll....
hmm. Robert I'm sure you may have guessed that all of these work on
our computers. I will have one of our test engineers contact you to
find out more about your hardware configuration in case that causes the
problem.
> When trying to navigate with the mouse, the scene starts spinning out of =
> control, as if I'd never released the mouse button.
Navigation on VirtualExplorer may work differently from navigation on
WebFX or other browsers. Single clicking on an object in your world
will default to moving you towards that object. Also, when in
"examine" mode, using the mouse to navigate can start objects spinning
(as it does on Worldview). To other, I would reecommend esading
through the FAQs on navigation before using the browser. We will put
up a more complete list of "instructions" rather soon.
> To stop it, I have to reload the scene (nice waste of bandwidth, guys!).
Actually, there is a toolbar button that will restore your original
viewpoint (like on most other browsers). This is a pretty common VRML
feature, and you shouldn't have to reload a .wrl on any browser to fix
your viewpoint. VirtualExplorer also has a toolbar button for
normalizing your view axis (straightening up your viewpoint), but it is
mentioned that this doesn't always work, and Jon Marbry and I will fix asap.
> Pluses: the Reality Lab engine renders very quickly. New APIs like
RL and OpenGL are going to make =
> us a very happy group!
Thanks! The great advantage of RL is that pretty soon it will be h/w
accelerated by lots of cards that support the Direct3D interface, which
will definitely make us a happy group!
> Microsoft does not seem to respond to bug reports in either writing
or implementation.
Well, I have alesady put an end to this. I hope you understand that
this "beta" is much more of a polished product than the earlier
"pre-beta", and I'm sure you would have been a lot happier with it if
not for your problems with navigation.