… We sometimes have it bad. Let me tell you my story…
So as you probably know, I’ve been working the past couple weeks on an update to the Straitjacket and FLEX HUD. And not just a few simple bug fixes, but some pretty major additions and overhauls. And more often than not, that’s the type of thing that makes any developer cringe. I’m no different. 
I skipped a blog post last week, because i was knee-deep in adding the new “Visibility” controls to the FLEX HUD. As many pointed out, validly, controlling the visibility of sections should be on the FLEX, so I worked diligently to make it so. The visibility will also be restricted when the jacket is locked.
I’m not going to lie, it was a royal pain to add. But i managed it, and it works very well. Of course this will also be available in the dialog mode as well, and through the Clicker, as always.
But the biggest job, was a complete revamp of how the HUD operates. Why would I do that? Well, because while the HUD worked fine for many, it didn’t work fine for everyone. There is a small but noticeable percent of users who had problems with the HUD redirecting after certain operations. If you have ever seen the hud stuck at a screen similar to these, you were a victim of said problem:
Well, I’ve known what was wrong for a while, but I knew fixing it wouldn’t be simple. And boy was I right! I completely restructured the whole web-based system to avoid such redirects, and replaced them with an AJAX based system. However, that led to new issues, which made me have to scrap my planned release this weekend. It just wasn’t ready. I had to work around several new issues, the least of which wasn’t the fact that LL blocked some key JavaScript calls in their Webkit implementation. I understand why they did this, but it certainly made development a lot harder. Kind of like being asked to write a story without any punctuation. but if e e can do it so can I 
In any event, just as I write this, I finally have resolved all the new issues that came to light, and find the HUD to be faster, and more reliable than ever before. And that is what makes all the troubles worthwhile. I will conduct some more testing, and then get these updates out to everyone this coming week. I hope everyone enjoys, and especially those who had issues in the past, give the FLEX HUD a new chance, it’s definitely worth it.
- Dari
that is a sexy new-ish hud!
I would rather have it done slowly and right than rushed out in a bug filled state.
Thanks for keeping us in the loop.
Me too. I would be doing nobody any favors by putting out anything but working code. Especially considering all the works it takes just to put an update out for me. It’s a 6-8 hour job to construct the update modules and swap out all the new pieces for the old in every box I sell, and change all the notecards to reflect any changes, and to update my vendors and the Marketplace. The smallest issue costs me a whole day of productivity. :S