Installing Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool on Mac

[countermoon 46]

The manual for the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool says "File Juicer should enable you to use this installer package" and that's it. I would rather not buy another program just for this. Has anyone installed this tool without using File Juicer? Or could someone provide more detail about what File Juicer does with this file and what kind of file it is? I might have an existing program that can open it and run the installer.

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

8 hours ago, countermoon said:

I would rather not buy another program just for this.

It looks to me like you can get it free direct from their site.

The NAM experts will know more about this than I do, but since NAM 37's installer is now Java based and therefore platform independent, it seems odd that FileJuicer would even be needed.

[rsc204 21,806]

If you are using NAM 37, you must have extracted the contents of the .zip file everything comes within. A folder inside of that, named Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool, contains everything you need. If you already have access to that, then you don't need a third party App to accomplish this. TSCT, like all NAM tools and the installer itself, are all Java-based, so if you've installed NAM 37, again you must have everything you need to run it already.

Bear in mind this is an older tool and this specific part of the readme only refers to extracting the files. You do not need anything except Java to run the tool, once extracted from the .zip.

Apple computers often do not like to deal with common Windows formats and of course will not run (natively) Windows programs either. This presents problems sometimes, because almost all mods and modding tools are Windows-based, meaning in the SC4 world you have to deal with Windows installers (.exe files) and compressed formats like .zip or 7z too. Whenever you run across such files on a Mac, you will need a solution for being able to get-at the files in those packages, which is what File Juicer was designed to do. Of course if you've access to Windows, usually you can perform such operations there and just copy the extracted files over to your Mac somehow. If not, as is normal in the world of Macs, you'll probably need to pay money for whichever App can do this for you. I believe the free version of File Juicer for example, is a trial one, which may have limitations.

[countermoon 46]

To run the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool, click on the TSCT.jar file that is inside the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool folder. You'll get the familiar message about the file being from an unidentified developer. Mac users know this game. Go to Security & Privacy in your System Preferences and click "Open Anyway".

That's a start. There are a few more hoops to jump through. Woof.

Rob addresses how to use the traffic tool in his youtube video Lesson 3: Transportation at 5:58.

[emrsonjs17 1]

Hi guys! I was able to install the latest NAM and all its features seem to be working fine in the game. However, when I open TSCT, I get the following error as shown in the screenshot. I even downloaded File Juicer, per the TSCT instructions, with no luck. Also, I'm playing the game on a Mac. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[countermoon 46]

What OS?

[emrsonjs17 1]

On 2/18/2021 at 8:30 PM, countermoon said:

What OS?

Catalina

[countermoon 46]

I'm unfamiliar with anything beyond Sierra. I've read of the many changes to the OS.

[mrcorry 4]

I'm trying to install... I've been playing the 32-bit version for like 100 years.  Pretty sure the last NAM I installed was probably version 2 (it's been a LONG time.)

When I try and run the TSCT.jar file, it tells me that it can't find the plugins folder and to browse for it.

for some reason, my SC4 data folder is buried in users/name/Library/SimCity(TM)4 Deluxe Edition/Data/Documents/SimCity 4/Plugins

But I can't navigate to that location in the installer.

And moreso, why is it buried there, and not just in my Documents folder like I seem to remember it always being??

Any help you can offer this old man who just wants his 15 year old cities back would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks!

[rsc204 21,806]

The location of your Plugins folder, tells me that you have the App Store edition. Apple are continually changing their App requirements and as part of this, all Apps should be self-contained, I.e. within the Apps library file. This is why the User folders are where they are and you may have problems getting any other app to read but especially modify the data there as a result of security imposed by the OS.

First note that the TSCT is optional, unless you want to customise the simulator, just use one of the default ones from the installer, then you need not worry about using it.

Note too a library is very much in reality just another folder, you can move things there or modify them (I.e. Plugins and Regions) provided you’ve system access to do so. To effectively sandbox Apps though, it’s much harder and in some cases impossible for an App to do something you could do easily in Finder. So work with it if necessary, by making any modifications/additions elsewhere, like the Documents folder, then just move the files back to where SC4 sees them thereafter.

In the case of the TSCT, if you can run it, change the Output path (where you save files) to somewhere it can access. Then replace the original files with the modified ones,  by moving them manually. The instructions below may help with this.

On 18/02/2021 at 2:10 AM, emrsonjs17 said:

However, when I open TSCT, I get the following error as shown in the screenshot.

If you look in the Console, you can see the real problem:

Sandbox: java(50738) System Policy: deny(1) file-read-data /Users/mgb/Documents/SimCity 4/NAM/NetworkAddonMod_Setup_Version39/Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool/lib/jgoodies-common-1.2.1.jar

Translation: it's being blocked by Apple's sandboxing on Catalina.

If you move the folder Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool to the root user folder (in my case, that'd be Users/MGB/), you should then find it runs. No idea why it's OK for the NAM installer to run whilst the TSCT gives these problems, but I've found that to be the case myself.

Before you run the TSCT, note again this App won't be able to access any folder beyond the root Documents folder. Therefore If you want it to see your current settings (trust me, you do), move the Network Addon Mod folder similarly to the root of the User dir, where the App will be able to see/work with it. Then when you first run the TSCT, you can set this as the default Open/Save folder, by clicking OK to the following error:

Here you can see my my User Dir folder, along with the next TSCT window, where we need to tell it which folder to use:

If you set things up like this on your system, you can leave the TSCT folder in the Root of Users, messy but harmless enough. You could move it to the Applications folder also, I've verified that works. 

Then move the Network Addon Mod folder back here when you want to edit things, after saving the changes you simply move the folder back into Plugins. This setup shouldn't give problems with either Read/Write access or sandboxing and unless you are tinkering a lot, this is for most users a one-time setup anyhow.

Note in the background (Bottom) of the screenshot, I've kept the Console, showing the error regarding Java. In case you didn't know, press the Apple Key and Space to bring up a Spotlight Search, just type Console here to view the console.

[mrcorry 4]

Thank you!  It finally got it to work!

 

[PVK 5]

Is there a Java program just for Mac?  I was able to open the "NetworkAddonMod_Setup_Version39.jar" with Java Launcher on my mac but not TSCT.jar for the traffic simulator.

 

I have now downloaded this but it still doesn't work : AdoptOpenJDK 11.0.10+9 to /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jre
 

Thanks PVK

[rsc204 21,806]

11 hours ago, PVK said:

Is there a Java program just for Mac?

Java is a multi-platform runtime, any variant that works on a Mac will be Mac-specific code, in other words you already have a Mac-specific version of Java.

See my last post above (I've moved your post here, since it's the same problem). The real issue is probably OS security preventing the Java App from being run in its current location, MacOS doesn't like Apps being run in the Documents folder. I can verify that Oracle's Java works just fine, there is no need to use a third party fork of Java, although equally there is nothing wrong with using one either. But regardless of which you use, you may need to move the Apps and even the Files you want to modify with them, due to OS security restrictions.

[PVK 5]

rsc204,

I followed your directions from your previous post.  Everything went fine.   Okay heres the But...The addon features show up but when I click on them  nothing happens.   You can see my directory. (the original are fine)

 

PVK

[rsc204 21,806]

Can't really be certain since the file names are truncated in your screenshot, but you must only keep one file named:

NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_Z_XXX

If you have made a new one using TSCT but it did not remove or overwrite the old file, then your old settings may be cancelling out the new ones. Just remove the original file in that case to use the custom version.