PDP++ Project Conversion
From Emergent
Emergent is very different from PDP++ in many ways (this was our opportunity to make all the incompatible changes to improve things), but we have a builtin converter that will do its best to import:
- Networks and specs
- Environments (patterns)
- SelectEdit's
Although it will load in any existing script files as UserScript elements in Programs, it is generally unlikely that these script files will work without modification, and in general you are probably better off re-writing things using the GUI Program elements -- this will make your code much more accessible to others.
Preparing the PDP++ Project for Conversion
Because of the new highly optimized connection storage mechanism in Emergent (which saves a lot on memory usage and generally speeds up connection processing), it is not possible to load in connections.
Therefore, you have to do Network/Remove Units on all of the networks in your PDP++ project, and then save that project as the one to be imported into Emergent.
Also, if you have different EventSpecs in a given Environment, only the first one will be used -- make sure it contains all the relevant PatternSpecs. This is usually not a problem, but if your environment doesn't convert properly, that may be the issue.
Converting in Emergent
You just open the PDP++ project using the standard Open function in Projects, and it detects that it is an old project, and loads it into a temporary conversion project. As the dialog mentions, there will be a large number of errors on the console -- ignore these as they are inevitable.
Once the project is loaded, you should see an edit dialog of the project object in the middle panel. At the bottom is a Convert To V4 button -- press that, and you should then see a new project window appear, which is the version 4.0 (i.e., Emergent) of your project. Save this new project with an appropriate name.
This converted project will only have the standard Programs, plus any converted scripts (which likely will not work). You will have to spend a bit of time and effort doing further manual conversion, depending on how elaborate your project was in PDP++. Hopefully you will find, as we have, that this effort is worth it!
