AGS Awards 2018 - Awards Client (Feedback and future improvements)

[cat]

Hm. I can't seem to get this to run on my mac even using Windows Parallel (yes I'm a mac user now). I will try to get it working, but if not I won't be able to take part.

Worst case, you can still join using a regular IRC client (even a webclient will do). Would be a pity if you missed out on this!

[VampireWombat]

Ah. That's probably the problem. I see that the current version is 2 mb larger than the one I downloaded.

[Snarky]

Thanks to everybody who participated in the Beta Test. Here's what I learned, please add if I missed something:

I noticed two fatal crashes (if there were others, please let me know):
-I had a crash during a drumroll, will investigate (FIXED)
-lorenzo had a crash using Ctrl-Alt-Numpad, will investigate (AGS bug, WONTFIX)

Broken functionality:
-the IRC balcony is buggy; currently IRC participants cannot be called on stage. This should be fixed (FIXED)
-cat had some problem logging in with a registered nick. I did not understand this issue (RESOLVED)

Glitches:
-Wyz experienced a scaling bug (I live in terror of these; they are the bane of my existence) (FIXED?)
-Participants keep walking back to the entrance on their own (FIXED)
-Shift and Alt doesn't work for CassieBsg (WONTFIX)
-The track title displayed over the volume control doesn't update properly
-Selecting certain shades of blue as your speech color ends up with a different color (AGS-color bugfeature) (WONTFIX)
-custard experienced a problem with a text field not showing up until he clicked on it (WONTFIX)

Usability:
-People have a hard time finding the "hidden" buttons (faded out unless mouse nearby) (FIXED)
-Jukebox, Settings and Laugh buttons are not functional (and will not be, this year). Should be hidden (sort-of FIXED)

Cosmetic:
-The mouseover label goes off screen (FIXED)
-Participants on balcony appear to stack too close to each other (FIXED)
-Various Debug options are available (including the built-in AGS console and a custom debug console); these will not be available in the final client

Linux:
-Some participants have a hard time getting the Linux build to work. One issue: executable (chmod +x) flag not set. (+x flag FIXED, others UNRESOLVED)

[Sinitrena]

I got a warnings.log after I logged out:

Script : (room:1)[G 863] Dynamic sprite 9383 was never deleted
Script : (room:1)[G 863] Dynamic sprite 9384 was never deleted

Nothing serious, but I thought you'd like to know.

[eri0o]

Here are magical lines for packing tar.gz on Windows, for Linux, preserving the permissions. Requires having 7z.exe on path.

Code: batch

pushd %AGSGAMEPROJECT%\Compiled\Linux && 7z a -ttar -so archive.tar . | 7z a -si agsAwardsLinux.tar.gz && popd

[Snarky]

Thanks!

I got a warnings.log after I logged out:

Script : (room:1)[G 863] Dynamic sprite 9383 was never deleted
Script : (room:1)[G 863] Dynamic sprite 9384 was never deleted

Nothing serious, but I thought you'd like to know.

Yes, thanks. Like you say, nothing serious. (I think maybe you just get this log when the app is built in Debug mode.) At one point there was a ton of these DynamicSprite warnings, but I never got around to tracking down where the last two are used.

[Cassiebsg]

Just to add: I just tried a parser game (A Martir of Time, by Mandle) and my shift key is working just fine there. I get capital letters.

If you need some info about my system an code page(s) I have installed on this pc, let me know.

[Snarky]

It almost definitely is a codepage issue, but given that we tested a similar issue last year and could not resolve it, I don't think there's much hope for a fix.

It must be that this function is not working correctly on your machine:

Code: ags

bool IsShiftPressed()
{
  return IsKeyPressed(403) || IsKeyPressed(404); // 403 = Left Shift, 404 = Right Shift
}

If you can figure out for which value eKey that IsKeyPressed(eKey) returns true when you hold down each Shift key, I could make you a special hack.

[Cassiebsg]

I did a small test, and left shift works... in the client too... only problem is I normally use right shift.
Is there any place I can see which code the right shift is using?
Just for the sake of it, both Ctrls and Alt work just fine and "Alt Gr" is being interpreted as Right Ctrl.
What I don't understand is, why does my right shift work on Mandle's game, but not on the client. 

EDIT:
So I created a simple text box, and if I don't code any shift keys, I get right shift working out of the box. So I'm not sure why you need to detect it by using a bool. 
I still can't get my ' to work though (wouldn't be such a problem if It wasn't so common in the english language). 
But I do know that if I press the ' key I get the ¨ (two dots above) keycode (which is the above key) and if I press that key I get å which is the key left to it. Pressing ø does nothing as far as I can see (though it might just be that the character font for that keycode is empty).
So maybe if you can figure out which keycode ¨ is on, you could replace that character with a '?

EDIT2:
I created a little script to test the keycodes... and found that my ' is detected as keycode 93. Maybe you can do something with that?   
I also found out that AGS can detect windows keys too...
I was unable to find a keycode that works for right shift though.

[Snarky]

Cassie, the apostrophe problem is the same one we investigated last year. I think we learned that the "¨" symbol doesn't even show up right away when you press the key, only after you press another key right afterwards (and it should also mean that for example pressing ' then O would turn into ö â€" it acts as a combining key). Because the key by itself doesn't lead to on_key_press() being called, there's no way to really fix this.

There is something wrong with how your keyboard setup interacts with AGS. You either need to change your keyboard setup in Windows somehow, or report an AGS engine bug. There's nothing I can do, unfortunately.

What I don't understand is, why does my right shift work on Mandle's game, but not on the client. 

AGS apparently interprets the keys differently in the built-in TextBox than in on_key_press() and IsKeyPressed().

[Cassiebsg]

You right.
I can figure out how to replace the character, but I have no idea how to force the key to "stop" holding for a next key to combine a character. Can one force a "space" keycode, to clear the combination? Maybe not... But I could probably live with this hack as long as I remember to type double the next letter...  :

Spoiler

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute() 
{
	if (IsKeyPressed(093)) 
	{
		usertext = txtBox.Text;
		usertext = usertext.Append("'");
		txtBox.Text=usertext;
		usertext="";
		Wait(5);
	}	
}

[close]

It does work, but it's still waiting for the combination.  And that I don't know how to fix. 

EDIT:
I'll probably just use my other PC, as far as I remember that's what I ended up doing last year.

[Snarky]

Just in case you missed it, the final release of the client is now available for Windows, Mac and Linux.   
You can find the downloads in the official AGS Awards thread. Don't forget to the ceremony tonight, 20:00 GMT!

[Snarky]

I've had a couple of days to recover from the awards, and before the memory fades completely, it would be nice to get your feedback on things to improve, both in terms of client features/bug fixes in the client and in how the awards are presented. (I already have "make it not crash when >45 people connect", thanks.)

It's not that I'm lacking for ideas about things to improve; more that it can be hard to tell which things are high priority and which things are less important. (There were several improvements this year that I've been thinking about for years and I think really improved the experience, and that were really quick and easy to implement once I got around to them, but that I just hadn't thought were priorities up until now.)

-Is improving how the chat log is displayed a priority?
-How do you feel about the way the music works?
-The positioning of characters on stage is a little awkward. Does it matter?
-Do we need a better way to find and select avatars?
-Did you experience any annoying glitches or bugs?
-...

Another way to put it, maybe: What is it you most dislike about the client and the whole ceremony?

[Cassiebsg]

I noticed that it was easy to accidentally click outside the buttons on the lower left, and then get the character stuck in the corner. Could you make it so that clicks bellow the text box/buttons when the GUI is open, do not register as walk clicks?

The second thing I noticed is that albeit the scroll the text back to read is and awesome feature, it turns out to be sorta useless, as with every new line that is added the text jumps back to the bottom, making it hard to read something one might have missed prior. Maybe disable the auto-jump to the new line? I know IRC does that too, and it annoys me too, but at least it doesn't do it on every new line (at least not the client I'm using) and thus allows me to catch up with the back log even if I was away for a while.

Other than that, I didn't noticed much... except maybe either add a "step stool"/"low podium" for not as heigh characters or more then slightly to the right of the podium, so that they don't disappear entirely behind it.

[Stupot]

It's awesome as it is but two things bothered me.

1) As Cassie already mentioned it's virtually impossible to scroll up while other people are posting. If possible it would be nice to be able to do that without keep jumping back to the bottom.

2) For some reason, a lot of the time the text box wasn't registering letters I typed. I ended up with a lot of missed letters or having to retype. It seemed, looking at other messages that it was happening to other people too. Maybe there was another thing in the client was briefly blocking letters from displaying in the text box.

2b) on a related note, my right hand shift key wasn't working to capitalize my letters. Sorry if these are known issues. I haven't caught up with the thread yet.

Cheers.

[Cassiebsg]

Stupot, the keyboard issue might have something to do with your keyboard/localization settings in windows.
On my "normal" computer I also have that problems with the keys and right shift doesn't work either on the client. However my "work" computer has no problem with it's keyboard settings and thus I used that that one to attend the ceremony.

Maybe now, that there are others having keyboard issues, we can debug what the problem is and maybe figure out to fix it (either the client or our own computer settings)? 

[Sinitrena]

Other than that, I didn't noticed much... except maybe either add a "step stool"/"low podium" for not as heigh characters or more then slightly to the right of the podium, so that they don't disappear entirely behind it.

+1 So, to be honest, I think the entire background needs an overhaul. Don't get me wrong, I love it. It looks amazing, but it has a lot of empty, unused room, for example in the upper left part, which leads to the chat log being displayed in front of the audience. I think a clearer defined area for the chat, another one for the audience, a third for the pictures of the nominees/winners and another one for the avatars of the presenters/winners. If I were a better artist, I would draw a new background, but unfortunately, I'm not. (I might try anyway, if I have time.)

Another thing that didn't look so good is the fact that some of the game names were rather long this year and so they were longer than the listbox. As above, this is a purely visual thing.

Also on the topic of the nominees list: Is there a reason for their order? Or rather, lack thereof? I would love it if they were shown in the order they are presented.

I really loved the little sound-pieces that were played for the audio categories (voices, music). Unfortunately, the applause sound played at the same time, so that they were nearly impossible to hear. Maybe you could disable applause temporarily while they play?

[Snarky]

Thanks everybody! Really good feedback. Keep it coming!

I'll try to respond to a few of your points.

Chat log scrolling:

Spoiler

I think with how it's designed now, the chat log is not supposed to auto-scroll when you've scrolled back, but in most cases it doesn't work correctly. The chat log has a few bugs like that. It's definitely one of the things I'd like to work on. (It also needs to clearly indicate whether you're viewing the latest messages or earlier ones.) I just need to decide whether to implement a simple minimal fix, or something fancier (for example with a different text color for people on stage, to make it easier to tell it apart).

[close]

Text input:

Spoiler

Here we might be running up against some fundamental AGS limitations.

We're using my TextField module for text input, which is implemented using the on_key_press() and IsKeyPressed() functions and the keyCodes AGS defines and reports. If some keys are not recognized at all, or recognized as the wrong character, that's because AGS fails to report the correct key codes. That cannot be fixed in the module.

Either this is a problem with your Windows (or now Mac, Linux) keyboard setup, or with AGS. The first step is to check whether it works with the built-in AGS TextInput control (used for text input in most AGS games). If it does not, then I would start by changing your keyboard setup. If you can't get it to work at all, maybe raise it as a possible AGS bug. (Problems on Mac/Linux are issues with the engine builds for those platforms.) If it does work with TextInput, then AGS is not reporting the same keys to on_key_press() or IsKeyPressed() that it detects internally, and that's definitely an AGS bug IMO.

As for missing some keypresses, yeah, it's seemed like that to me sometimes, too. The only explanation I can imagine is that on_key_press() doesn't always register every individual keypress, particularly if you type fast. (I'm not sure whether TextInput is also afflicted by this problem. Need to do some testing.) Again, there's no real way to solve this in the module; ultimately it might require either a separate keyboard input plugin or implementing the TextField control in the engine core. Both are out of scope for the Awards client.

As a practical workaround in the client, I could add an option to use the native TextInput control instead of TextField, but you would lose: the movable text cursor, ability to select text, copy/paste support, undo support, and possibly support for extended characters.

[close]

Program List:

Spoiler

Entries being cut off if they're longer than the width of the box is inevitable. (I could make the list a bit wider, but unless it was practically the whole width of the screen you would still have some entries that were too long to fully display.) To minimize the problem, and particularly to ensure that the important information is always displayed, I've added short-versions of both the category names and game titles (“Tales from the Outer Zone: Cyborg Seppuku” shows up in the list as simply “Cyborg Seppuku”, for example â€" a small bug meant it also got displayed that way for the nominations, though it was listed correctly with full title when announced as a winner).

So currently the issue only affects the lines where the category and winner are concatenated. It might, with significant effort, be possible to make it so that cut-off entries end with “…”, but that means you lose even more of the text, and I don't really consider the way it is now to be a problem.

As for the order of the categories (which I assume is what you mean, Sinitrena), it's originally based on how they're listed in the Wiki. The order is hardcoded fairly deep in the application logic, closely tied to how views and sprites are numbered, while the order in which the awards are presented is decided on by the host. So while it wouldn't be impossible to reorder the list, it's a bit more complicated than it might seem. I'm not sure I understand why it is a concern.

(As for the order of the nominees within each category, they're listed in alphabetical order, while the presenters are encouraged to mix it up in order to keep the show from becoming monotonous.)

[close]

Overall screen layout:

Spoiler

I would be interested to see any proposals for different layouts. The current one is definitely a compromise (after we went widescreen, we lost the vertical space to have a separate region for the chat log). In the absence of a different layout, I could add configuration options to adjust the size, position and opacity of the chat log.

[close]

Applause drowning out audio:

Spoiler

Yes, I had a couple of improvements in mind to address this, but didn't have time to implement them. The audio controls are, next to the chat log, the part I think is in most need of improvement.

[close]

Click to walk to bottom of screen:

Spoiler

I seem to remember deliberately not having the buttons go all the way to the edges,, so you would be able to walk to any part of the room. Did anyone else experience this as a problem??

[close]

Characters hidden behind lectern:

Spoiler

Yes, I asked last year whether it was something to fix, but some people said they thought it was funny and to keep it. But I agree, it's annoying and I'll look into fixes. Also, for some reason it seems a few presenters didn't realize they could move their character away from the initial position. I'll probably add some user feedback to indicate whenever walking is disabled (maybe gray out the cursor), which might help people notice when it's not.

[close]

[Sinitrena]

As for the order of the categories (which I assume is what you mean, Sinitrena), it's originally based on how they're listed in the Wiki. The order is hardcoded fairly deep in the application logic, closely tied to how views and sprites are numbered, while the order in which the awards are presented is decided on by the host. So while it wouldn't be impossible to reorder the list, it's a bit more complicated than it might seem. I'm not sure I understand why it is a concern.

Yes, that's what I meant: the order of the categories. Let's call it a quality of life thing - for presenters and presumably for nominees as well. The way it's set up now, the list tells you nothing about when the award you present/you have a chance to win comes up. That doesn't matter for people who are just audience or who, as main hosts, need to be around the whole time anyway, but when you are only involved with one or two categories, it would be nice to know when the relevant categories are coming up. Do I have time to get a drink before I'm needed on stage? as an example.

I didn't think this would be difficult to change. It's not something overly important, but I think it would be nice if the list wouldn't just inform people about the nominees/winners but also about the schedule, so to speak.

I seem to remember deliberately not having the buttons go all the way to the edges,, so you would be able to walk to any part of the room. Did anyone else experience this as a problem??

It happened to me once or twice too. It's a bit annoying, yes, but at the same time I didn't really mind.

I would be interested to see any proposals for different layouts. The current one is definitely a compromise (after we went widescreen, we lost the vertical space to have a separate region for the chat log). In the absence of a different layout, I could add configuration options to adjust the size, position and opacity of the chat log.

As I said, not an artist, but here's a mock-up of a different layout:



- reserved a space for the chatlog at the bottom of the screen
- moved the out of the middle to the left to better use previously unused space
- made the auditorium go further back to get the space back for the audience I lost to the chatlog.
- upper-right offers room for the audience list or nominees list if people want to display it

To better compare it, here's the current layout in simple lines, without all the fancy art:


(Blue lines used to indicate unused space.)

[Snarky]

As for the order of the categories (which I assume is what you mean, Sinitrena), it's originally based on how they're listed in the Wiki. The order is hardcoded fairly deep in the application logic, closely tied to how views and sprites are numbered, while the order in which the awards are presented is decided on by the host. So while it wouldn't be impossible to reorder the list, it's a bit more complicated than it might seem. I'm not sure I understand why it is a concern.

Yes, that's what I meant: the order of the categories. Let's call it a quality of life thing - for presenters and presumably for nominees as well. The way it's set up now, the list tells you nothing about when the award you present/you have a chance to win comes up. That doesn't matter for people who are just audience or who, as main hosts, need to be around the whole time anyway, but when you are only involved with one or two categories, it would be nice to know when the relevant categories are coming up. Do I have time to get a drink before I'm needed on stage? as an example.

I didn't think this would be difficult to change. It's not something overly important, but I think it would be nice if the list wouldn't just inform people about the nominees/winners but also about the schedule, so to speak.

Ah, now I see. OK, I'll try to address that.