Unable to drag and drop

Hello everyone. I do apologize for this really stupid question, but I have been on it for several days now and just cannot find an answer that will help me out.

I cannot drag and drop anything. Models, methods, and anything else within the Alice enviornment. I have watched a few videos on Alice and tried the tutorials, but I simply cannot get it to work.

I did notice that in the videos the method buttons were somewhat blue, but in my enviornment they are a solid black color. I don't know if that has anything to do with this, but as I've already mentioned... it was just an observation.

I've already looked both online and within the program, but cannot find any help so I've decided to come in here. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

My first thought is that you are trying to do a general drag and drop from within a tutorial - that doesn't work. Everything on the tutorial screen is locked out except the specific function being demonstrated. (Try quitting the tutorials and just loading an example world - "snowLove" is nice and simple - and see if things work OK.)

Also note that in the tutorials, the mouse click function occassionally is a bit "sticky". On an older machine I sometimes have to double click or click near the information balloon first to get it to work properly.

If you really are working outside the tutorial area, I don't know what to say - I've never had any problems. The obvious questions are what hardware, what OS (especially if it's not Windows XP), etc.? If you don't figure it out - post that information and someone can probably help.

The computer I've tried it on is:

Windows XP SP2
P4 2.80GHz
2.5GB RAM
256 MB GeForce FX 5600
I've got about 140GB of space left as well

I've tried it in the tutorial and outside. I've "reinstalled" using freshly downloaded copies and a copy on a disk. Nothing has worked as of yet.

Wow, really don't know what else to say - but that's never stopped me from saying something anyway. Best bet is probably to wait until Gabe (the forum administrator) gets back from break and see if he can come up with anything. In the meantime - a couple of comments and suggestions.

1. Your configuration sounds as "standard" as anything I can think of - doubt there is any problem there. You might try another mouse in case there is some funny problem with the mouse driver interface. (Talk about longshots - but easy to check if you have another one around. I actually did have a mouse problem with a rather cheap mouse on a fabric surface - I couldn't get a solid reading from it though the touchpad was working fine. ) Another option is reloading the Java engine - though if the latter was the problem, Alice should have given you some error messages.

2. I'm assuming from your comments that the mouse click functions work OK and that you can actually run the examples, just not edit them or add characters. To try the following, you'll need to have "snowLove" loaded and have run it successfully.

a. Make sure you can bring up the world.fadein method by clicking on the edit button. (Don't worry about the color of the method tabs - that's a function of the display setting. They are bluish on one of my monitors and black on another.)

b. See if you can add another object to the scene and move it around just using mouse clicks and methods. To bring up a method, first try right clicking on the object in the object tree and then try right clicking on the object itself.

(If all this works, the basic mouse click is OK, the move methods are working and the program is detecting the current cursor position. I can't think of any other reason you shouldn't be able to drag an object around in the world so left click on an object and try it.) (Actually, not quite true - go to "Seldom Used Properties" in the properties lists for the object and make sure "isFirstClass" is true - a real longshot that it's not. )

c. A second test would be to see if you can edit the "fadein" method. First try to change something (say the wait time) just by clicking on the little arrow to the right of the current value and then using the pulldown menu. If that works, try moving the position of one of the existing commands by using drag and drop - finally see if you can drag and drop a new method to the same place.

Of course if all that works, you don't have a problem - but you actually do. Maybe a better suggestion is to just find a good New Year's Eve party and wait till next year.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by DrJim

Maybe a better suggestion is to just find a good New Year's Eve party and wait till next year.

Good luck.

Cheers to that! HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! WOOOOOO!!!

You do have a lot of "Free-Time" on your hands, Dr. Jim. The Icons are cool but unnecessary. When do you leave for FL or wherever ?

lanceA

Oh, I can add characters by using the normal interface. I just can't do it by a drag and drop maneuver. I can also make them take actions by right clicking on them and telling them what to do from there. I'm checking what you suggest and it all seems to be fine.

It's not vital just yet, but I'm taking a course that requires me to use Alice next semester so I need to try and figure this out before the 17th of January. Any help (or comments) are appreciated even if I can't figure this out.

Adding: Well, I just figured it out. It turns out that if I have my mouse keys inverted it will not let me drag things. I switched them back to normal just to try that out and it worked.

Thanks again! Happy New Year!

I never would of thought about that as the problem - glad you figured it out and shared the result.

Hi

I also normally have my mouse buttons switched around (primary button is the RH one) - and also could not drag and drop. This thread explained it all and I was able to get drag and drop to work when I switched buttons.

I will also check if this made it into the defect list - bit of a struggle for all us "lefties" is this isn't fixed.

regards

anthony

I have the same problem but I do not have my mouse buttons reversed. Could it be a problem with the linux version which I am using? Who else uses the linux version?

I was using java 1.6, if I use 1.4 all is ok