[ODE] search and old questions

[Anselm Hook]

> http://www.atomz.com as a free search application that

since i tend to do some admin work on this site i'm always interested in
good free tools that will help the ode community... my concern with atomz
is that ODE already has more than 500 pages and is not eligible for the
free version...  although i agree the web service approach is nice.

> second - here is an example of why i would like a
> forum - i asked two technical questions - they
> appeared in the digest two days ago - i have not
> received any kind of reply to them and now they are
> buried in the archives - from experience this is much
> less likely to happen in a forum because you see all
> the topics so things persist a bit longer

i don't quite understand what a forum is as compared to what is here -
what are some examples?  are you saying something like a web based
interface for viewing and replying to mail with a web based login?

> 1) how do i get out an old version of ODE (and what is
> that last semi-stable version - if its the current one
> then great)

newest is best by far; always stay at head revision.

> 2) if i run with just the body updates my blocks seem
> to fall to the ground correctly - when i switch on the
> collision checker all of a sudden my blocks fall super
> fast - i am using the same code from the falling
> blocks demo file in nearCallback (also tried the one
> from buggy and the one from monster may=hem - the same
> things happens)

guess:  your ground box is big enough that your falling blocks start out
inside of it - and in attempting to push those falling boxes out - the sim
generates the appearance of hyperfast falling?

>
> 3) how do i make a position a Box geom that i want to
> use as a ground plane - since geoms dont have position
> yet i need this box to be under everything??

see nearby reply from other responder re using planes - it is the right
way and may solve #2.

 - a