A friend passes ...

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

It is with regret that I let you all know that Walter Zorn has passed on. Only the SEOW technical afficionados may be aware of who Walter Zorn was, so let me tell you.

Walter Zorn was the developer of a beautiful set of Javascript tools that he made available to the world under open source licences of various kinds. For a beginner like me, his tools were very elegant and simple to use and I have used them in every MP release since 2004. Walter personally gave me some tips in Javascript way back in the day.

The next time you mouse-over a unit or an airbase to see its tooltip display, you are using Walter's "wz_tooltip" code. The next time you plot waypoints or show scheduled or in-progress missions on the map, that is built using Walter's "wz_jsgraphics" code. The next time you display the compass and drag it around the screen, that is performed with Walter's "wz_dragdrop" code. If you are cursing the lack of scrollable tooltips, then you are cursing my laziness: Walter added this feature years ago and I haven't implemented it yet!!

I didn't find out about Walter's demise until today. Thankfully his personal friends and family are maintaining his code base for the many users around the world that rely on it (see Impressum and the archive).

It is always good to remember the people behind the software. Thanks Walter!

[22GCT_Gross]

wz_grapher downloaded.
it reminds me how many functions I developed when I was young and how much time I spend over... wz solves everything.

[PA-Dore]

Thanks Mike for give us these details in memory of Walter Zorn. As we say in french "Qu'il repose en paix".

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

To mark this sad event I have updated the MP using some of Walter's latest features. We now have scrollable airbase tooltips etc. Get this code in MP v4.776.

Cheers,
4Shades

[PA-Dore]

Thanks Mike and thanks to Walter.

I posted this for french community:

Passage à la version MP4.776
Un ami de Shades, Walter Zorn, est décédé cette semaine. Il fut le développeur d'une multitude d'outils Javascripts, chaque fois que nous utilisons le MP, un menu déroulant, c'est grâce à lui.
En sa mémoire, Shades nous offre aujourd'hui des menus fixables (les bases par exemple) en utilisant un outil de Walter:



Il suffit de cliquer sur l'icône pour fixer le menu.

[22GCT_Gross]

I think he passed 2-3 years ago