AGS 2.6 Final - it's that time of year

[Pumaman]

Right, this is it. This is the full 2.6 build, and unless any serious bugs are found in the next few days, it's the final version.

Changes since Pre-final:
* Fixed speech positioning problem with GUIs Turn Off When Disabled setting.
* Fixed GUIs Turn Off When Disabled not working in v2.6 betas.
* Fixed fade-in problem with 256-colour animated backgrounds in a hi-color game.


Changes since RC5:
* Fixed crash loading a room if anti-alias sprites was enabled and the room palette was corrupt somehow.
* Maybe fixed game hanging on exit on some computers.

Changes since RC4:
* Fixed "Quick import multiple sprites" to use the transparency setting from the Sprite Import window.
* Fixed bug in sprite manager drag-and-drop which could corrupt the sprite folder.
* Fixed GUI buttons being greyed out on Persistent GUIs when "GUIs turn off when interface disabled" was set.
* Fixed sprite folder tree being collapsed after Assign to View or Crop Sprite Edges were used.

Changes since RC3a:
* Added Crop Sprite Edges option to sprite manager, to crop the edges off a group of sprites down to the size needed by the largest of them.
* Added GetTextHeight script function; game.top_bar_font variable.
* Fixed black palette entries getting remapped to dark grey in 256-colour sprites.
* Fixed editor crash compiling a script with no right hand side of an operator.
* Fixed editor crash if you deleted the last selected sprite.
* Fixed crash using nested imported function calls in script.
* Fixed built-in inventory window not always being removed properly when it was closed.
* Fixed import rectangle changing size when switching import images if the importer was zoomed in.
* Fixed left pixel of auto-outlined fonts being cut off with some TTF fonts.

Changes since RC3:
* Downscaled 32-bit alpha sprites now have the pixel removed if the alpha is < 50%
* Fixed sprites leaving trails in 15-bit mode.
* Fixed system.screen_height returning 200 even when it was actually running at 240.

Changes since RC2:
* Added ability to re-order sprites within a folder by dragging them around.
* Added AnimateButton and SetCharacterViewOffset text script commands.
* Changed DisplayTopBar to work like DisplaySpeech (ie. animations continue in the background while it is displayed, and it is affected by the Skip Speech settings).
* Fixed New GUI Object drag rectangle being wrong in 640x400 resolution games.
* Fixed problem creating GUI controls if you dragged the rectangle up-left.
* Fixed parser-in-dialog text not being erased when you pressed backspace with the default dialog options display.
* Fixed TintScreen messing up in RC1-2.

Changes since RC1:
* GUI Editor and Font Editor now show full detail in 640x400 games rather than a scaled down version.
* Added ability to manually set X and Y position of GUI controls.
* Improved alignment of portrait with text window when using Sierra-style speech.
* Changed "Assign To View" dialog to allow sprites to be assigned to any possible loop number, and empty loops will be automatically created to reach the specified loop.
* Fixed parser-in-dialog to use the same font as the dialog options.
* Fixed GUI textboxes to not allow the cursor to extend beyond the end of the text box.
* Fixed editor objects pane not displaying hi-res 16-bit sprites properly in 32-bit games.
* Fixed converting a GUI to a text window sometimes corrupting other GUIs.
* Fixed compiler allowing assignment to string in declaration.

Changes since beta 6:
* GUI backgrounds can now be alpha blended. Note that due to the way this works, the overall GUI itself will take on the alpha channel of the background image, so any buttons and text placed on the GUI will also be affected by the background's alpha.
* Speed enhancement for rooms with relatively few objects.
* Added option to Setup to allow the user to run a 32-bit game at 16-bit instead to improve performance. Note that if they use this option, alpha blended pixels will be fully opaque.
* Added plugin API functions MarkRegionDirty, GetMouseCursor, GetRawColorComponents, MakeRawColorPixel, GetFontType, CreateDynamicSprite, DeleteDynamicSprite, and new plugin API hooks AGSE_FINALSCREENDRAW and AGSE_TRANSLATETEXT.
* Added FOLLOW_EXACTLY feature to FollowCharacterEx, to allow you to easily keep a sprite on top of a character.
* Fixed following characters so that if you leave a room, then quickly come back, the following character is still there.
* Fixed multiple sprite import if you imported a specific sprite number that didn't exist.

PLUGIN AUTHORS READ THIS

As part of the speed enhancement, AGS no longer redraws the entire screen every frame; instead, it only redraws the parts that are non-static. If you use the GetRawBitmapSurface plugin API command, you should upgrade your plugin to call the new MarkRegionDirty command on areas of the screen that it changes.
If you leave your plugin as-is, it will still work, but AGS will force a full frame refresh every loop, thus negating the speed improvement. Of course, if your plugin draws over the whole screen (like the snow/rain plugin does), it will have to do a full screen refresh anyway.


CHANGES SINCE 2.56 IN OLDER BETA VERSIONS

Changes since beta 5a:
* Added Quick Import Multiple Sprites and Export All Sprites In Folder options for sprite folders.
* Added "Assign to view" right click option in Sprite Manager, to allow a group of sprites to easily be added to a view.
* Added script names for views, working similarly to GUI and character script names.
* Fixed RawPrint not working correctly in 32-bit colour.
* Fixed idle animations using loops 4-7 of view, even if "No diagonal loops" was set for the character.

Beta 5a just fixes up a couple of things:
* Alpha blended sprites now work as mouse cursors.
* Fixed pixel-perfect click detection not working with alpha blended characters.
* Fixed alpha blended characters disappearing when scaled, tinted or lit.
* Fixed GUI not detecting clicks when it first appears until the mouse moved.

Changes since beta 4:
* Added support for importing PNG and TGA images, and alpha channel support for 32-bit sprites which use them.
* Added 24-bit colour as a backup if 32-bit is not supported by the player's graphics card.
* Added ability to specific character X and Y walking speeds seperately.
* Added GetTextWidth, RawSetColorRGB, SetCharacterSpeedEx text script functions.
* Fixed various issues using 16-bit graphics in 32-bit games.
* Fixed positioning issue with some TTF fonts at 640x400.

Changes since beta 3:
* Added preliminary 32-bit colour support. While I have given it some testing, I'd appreciate feedback on it, as I'm sure there are a few things I've missed which don't work properly.

Changes since beta 2:
* Added SetGUIClickable, SetGUIZOrder text script functions.
* Added GUI Z-order support, so that you can choose which order overlapping GUIs are drawn in.
* Disabled anti-aliasing on text drawn on transparent GUIs, to fix the pink effect.
* Fixed objects 10 and above not being able to move.
* Fixed automatic outlines looking crap in some circumstances.
* Fixed changing room settings not marking room dirty.
* Fixed script editor not properly parsing functions where there was a { character in a string.
* Fixed @overhotspot@ not removing item name if you moved the mouse off of all inventory items but within the inventory GUI.
* Fixed keyboard focus in editor being lost when selecting the GUI editor from the left hand tree.

Changes since beta 1a:
* Added DeleteSprite, LoadImageFile, LoadSaveSlotScreenshot text script functions.
* Added support for saving screenshots into save games.
* Added ability to have only left/right walking frames for characters (just delete all frames in loop 0).
* Added option to automatically outline fonts.
* Changed DisplayTopBar to have extra parameters rather than using global variables.
* Rearranged options on the main Game Settings tab to make the order more logical.
* Added system.vsync script option to smooth full screen scrolling. Note that enabling this will cap your game frame rate at the screen refresh rate.
* IsSpeechVoxAvailable and IsMusicVoxAvailable now return 0 if the user has no sound card or sound is disabled.
* Stopped the user loading in a different room while editing the room script.
* Loading a new room now properly resets the Room Areas undo buffer.
* Increased text script stack size to 4 KB.
* Fixed large memory leak which could cause slow loading and Out of Memory errors in games that used TTF fonts.
* Fixed DisplayTopBar to always make the window wide enough to display the top bar text.
* Fixed editor crash if you used return without a semicolon.
* Fixed crash if game.text_speed was zero (now error out instead).


Detail - room script support for events

You can now have on_key_press and on_mouse_click functions in your room script. If they are present, they will be called first when the user presses a key or clicks the mouse. They can do anything specific to that room. Once that function finishes running, the one in the global script will be called, unless you call ClaimEvent from within the room script function.

This should be useful for making code cleaner and not having to have shedloads of stuff in the global script on_key_press when it only applies to one room.


ALWAYS MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR GAME BEFORE TRYING OUT AN UNOFFICIAL VERSION.

http://www.agsforums.com/ags_26_final.zip


NO SUGGESTIONS IN THIS THREAD - BETA-RELATED TALK ONLY PLEASE

[jannar85]

Yey! Just what we needed
I've been waiting for this release since the last final release

Chris Almighty.

[Joseph DiPerla]

Another Fast Release. Good Job Chris!

JD

[Robert Eric]

Yes, good.  Now translate that crap in the beginning so I can read it.

[jannar85]

Yes, good.  Now translate that crap in the beginning so I can read it.

Yeah. I first thought: "Hey! Isn't this the Italian AGS forum, is it?" I got confused. I pressed the AGS Forums tab again, and went to the thread. Still italian. "Damn. Chris is confusing me", I though. Then I suddenly realized that Chris is God, and can speak the world-language. So he understands it all, so he won't have any problems with me saying this in my language:

Chris? Vet du hva? Jeg tror jeg må på do.... Meeeen.. Det er noe du burde vite, og det er at apekatter bæsjer. Hihi. Hvor tøft det er å snakke norsk til en engelskmann

Anyways... RE, use babelfish
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/

[unlimit]

Detail - room script support for events
This should be useful for making code cleaner and not having to have shedloads of stuff in the global script on_key_press when it only applies to one room.

i was hoping for that, thanks C,

Just Great!  

[Igor]

>>You can now have on_key_press and on_mouse_click functions in your room script.<<

Fantastic! That was one thing i was missing- it will make the whole thing much, much easier. Thanks!

[Minimi]

* Increased max views to 400.
* Increases max objects to 20 per room.

Great! Thanks alot chris jones! I needed some more objects. And it's always handy having some more views! Again a great update!

[Gregjazz]

Ni shi yi ge hao hai zi, CJ!

Thanks for the maximum object increase -- I needed that!

[Gilbert]

Ni shi yi ge hao hai zi, CJ!

I don't think he's a good boy, he's a good Pumaman!!!1!!!

* Fixed editor not to allow Test Game feature with DOS-compiled games.

GREEEEEEEEEEEEEAT!1!

Now, how international this version is? I didn't get it!

[unlimit]

hi, anyone else with this problem?

i downloaded the new beta yesterday, i was about to try the new  room script support for events, but everytime i tried to open a 'Run Script' to edit it, AGS crashed (no AGS custom crash or report popup win, just the win xp pop window that asks you if you want to send the error data to microsoft),  the same happens in all my rooms

i'm using win xp, my game runs and can be edited perfectly under AGS 2.56

anyway it was very late at night so maybe i did something wrong,
i'll check it again today after work, i'll inform you if i still keep getting the crash.

[Pumaman]

Could you post the contents of your script header file? It's possible that the editor is having trouble parsing it for the autocomplete list.

[Gregjazz]

Gilbot, CJ is a good boy for making such good improvements to AGS. And please don't translate me in the future...

[Scorpiorus]

Great version, CJ! So many useful things!
These three I most happy about:

*RawDrawFrameTransparent, SetAmbientTint

- day/night transitions and special lightmaps in hicolor

* Added room script support for on_key_press and on_mouse_click, so that the current room can handle the input rather than having it all done by the global script.

- making completely global script independent mini games are possible now.

* Added auto-complete for plugin functions and functions defined in the script header.

- that's just great, improves the code-writing speed sagnificantly!

~Thanks

[Gilbert]

And please don't translate me in the future...

Only if you're not writting in my mother language.

I still don't think he's a good boy...

[unlimit]

Hey Chris, i think i found the problem, you're right
the editor is having trouble parsing my script header,
it crashes with this pointless function of mine that has 14 arguments
(in a possibly bad attempt to save coding time lol)

no problem, just removed the function and everything worked great!
anyway i transformed this function into smaller ones,
a lot more easy to remember them, and taking only the arguments they need

just in case here's the function:

import function UBMoveCharCustom(int x, int y, int action, int roomObj, int objStock, int objView, int objLoop, int objFrame, int invItem, int sound, int globalInt, int limitMsg, string faceDir, int charView);          

Thanks again!

[Gregjazz]

And please don't translate me in the future...

Only if you're not writting in my mother language.

I still don't think he's a good boy...

I thought my lack of tones would throw you off. Maybe if I learn Cantonese it would annoy you more.

Shen me? Chris bu shi yi ge hao hai zi? Wo de tian a!

[Pumaman]

just in case here's the function:

import function UBMoveCharCustom(int x, int y, int action, int roomObj, int objStock, int objView, int objLoop, int objFrame, int invItem, int sound, int globalInt, int limitMsg, string faceDir, int charView);          

Ah, that'll be it. Thanks for reporting it, I'll get the crash fixed.

[Kennedy]

I suggest updating the refference for system limits in the help file.
Currently they list the old limits instead of the later, expanded ones.

[Jaws]

Chris? Vet du hva? Jeg tror jeg må på do.... Meeeen.. Det er noe du burde vite, og det er at apekatter bæsjer. Hihi. Hvor tøft det er å snakke norsk til en engelskmann

I second that : )

"Apekatter har helt klart store problemer når det kommer til emnet bærsjing, og vi som et folkeslag burde helt klart være klare over denne problemstillingen. Vi må stille oss positive -og med matpakke- når tiden kommer til at vi skal løse dette problemet."