Free menu creation utility

[Pau]

I've created a startup menu generator for AGS. It's free.
You can create a menu with your own graphics in order to launch your game, the game configuration, the manual and a logo to your webpage.

I woud like to know your opinion about it, if you find it is useful ...
I've developed this in 2 days. Maybe there's an existing better one, I don't know, so if you know one.

Here's a screenshot:



And the download link (my web page is under developing...):
http://usuarios.lycos.es/DrNotrix/download/menu_creator.zip


Pau

[PureGhostGR]

I've downloaded the program.. seems easy enough to use.
(nice in-game dialogue)

Is it possible to make the menu custom sized?

[BOYD1981]

another nice utility for creating menus is MultiMedia Builder MP3 (http://www.mediachance.com) it's not free though, unless you register you'll have "Created with MultiMedia Builder MP3" at the bottom of the screen, it's actually worth "registering" though, it has lots of neat scripting features and you can have custom shaped menus...

[Ishmael]

This is great, IMHO. Only custom size for the menu and that'd be it

[Pau]

Only custom size for the menu and that'd be it

This is not documented, but the fondo.gif is the background image, and the menu window's size will adapt to this image size.

So you're not attached to an specific image size.

Other undocumented feature is that gif is not the only image format supported, the images could also be in PPM format (but renamed to .gif). This is because the tcl/tk interpreter allows it, I don't know very much about PPM, but maybe it could be useful to anyone (¿Does this format support more than 256 colours?).


Pau

[TeeKay]

Hey, cool! I wondered what does the bg size do... but didn't bother to test.

[Ishmael]

Last night I started making menu for my new game... which is not even near to finish, it's near to begin... And I love this utility! A few ideas popped up:

- Startup sound
- Check if the game exe exists in the directory, if not, instruct the player to move the executable to the game folder
- Custom error messages
- Ability to define manual filename (really needed?)
- About screen

just in case any of these can be done, and you got time 'n thrust

[Sockmonkey]

Great utility Pau!

To add to TK's wishlist, It'd be great if the menu appeared in the center of the screen when you load it - for me it generally appears in the upper left. If the weblinks opened full screen it would also be nice.

Not to complain, though. Again, great job.

[Pet Terry]

Sounds good, I'll try it... when I have some time

As TK wished, start-up sound would be cool, like Gaspop's games.

[BOYD1981]

if you want those features then you're better off getting MMBmp3...

[Pau]

Try to download the menu creator and You'll find it with sound capabilities (I'm so sad for the MMBmp3 developers...)

The story:
I didn't know how to include the sound package in the exe. I tried and it was quite simple, and the exe file didn't grow too much so I updated the program.
To adjust the sound, change the files of the sound directory. Ther's Start-up(explossion.wav) sound and click sound.


Asked features:
The manual.htm variable could be added to the text file but I'm trying to keep the variable list of the text file the shorter as possible because a long list maybe could make the application appear more difficult. If you want to modify the "manual.htm" just open startip.tcl and search & replace the string. Maybe adding it to the config.txt could be useful, I don't know.

Displaying the menu at the center of the screen is somthing I don't know how to implement it, I've been searching the tcl/tk commands and I didn't found anythig. And the fullscreen display of the manual is a similar problem I use the command "explorer manual.htm" and I'm sure that fullscreen could be done with a parameter or something but I don't know which one. So If anyone helps (or I find how to solve that) I'll add this features.


Feedback:
If you find any problem with the updated version, don't hesitate to tell me.


Pau

[BOYD1981]

i meant the other features other than the startup sound, here's a few of the other features...

WYSIWYG design
Object Oriented environment
Easy interface
Click-to-create objects and actions
Support of all popular graphic formats
Compatible with Macromedia Fireworks using the same PNG format
Multiple Undo/Redo
Grouping and Ungrouping objects, nested grouping
Alignment tools
Blending graphics with background
Alpha Transparency Masks for blending
MP3 format with feedback
24-bit color
Create Stand-alone exe applications
Optimized performance
Real Glow and Drop Shadow
Effects: Sharpen, Blur, Flip
Special effects: Fire, Cutout, Bevel
More than 40 bitmap effects and filters
Background Bitmap Tiling
Background sound can play across page boundaries, looping
Objects are in layers
Define your own graphic buttons, save, load to/from library
Window doesn't have to be rectangular - support for custom shapes
You can paste graphics directly from your graphic editor into the MMB program without saving
Video can be played at any speed
Fade out effect
Wizard for objects and actions
Support for CD audio and Mixed-mode CD's
Stand-alone linker
Script language for more power, variables, string variables, timers
Animated Gif
Embedded Waves
Midi

[Pau]

Boid, I was just kidding. Not trying to be polemic.

MMBmp3 is a professional high-quality software, I'm not trying to compare* that with my simple application. And if MMBmp3 were a free program I'll use it for sure.

Remember that my application is only a menu creation tool for AGS. So maybe (sure) it's not as flexible as a general multimedia author system (Flash, Director, MMBmp3...) but I think it could do well it's function: create startup menus for AGS games.

* Comparisson (in case it's needed):
MMBmp3:

Usage(quoted from the website):

Corel Corporation uses autorun menu created in MMB on some of their recent products
3DFX uses MMB for their installation CD's for Voodoo graphic cards
BMG Entertainment uses whole presentations made in MMB on some of their PC enhanced audio CD's
and more...


Features(quoted from the website):

With MMB you can create

Autorun CD browsers (menus) for corporate CD-ROM's.
Tutorials
Cue Cards
Kiosks
CD Audio and Mixed-mode CD Audio Players
MP3 Players
Front-end for your corporate or personal CD's
File launchers and toolbar
Computer based training ....

Price: $45-$60

Menu Creator:
I'll use it for my comming soon (future) games (and TK seems iterested too)

None of the features listed by Boyd except:
Create Stand-alone exe applications
Embedded Waves

Price: 0â,¬ (also $0, we accept all currency)

Conclusion:
Are all this features needed for an AGS menu?? maybe they are not (for a simple ones). And I suppose all this features will increase a lot  the generated exe filesize (noone wants a menu for the game bigger than the game), if not, they are programming geniuses.


Pau

[Mr Jake]

I will be using it for sure   nice work  8)

[dunder_dacke]

BOYDE: What are you trying to prove?

[Pau]

I've had problems with the tripod webFTP (There was no way to update the new version). So I changed the download link of the menu creator (with sound capabilities) to this:

http://www.freewebs.com/paused/download/menu_creator.zip

Thank you for your comments. Finding a game with a menu created with my program will be illusionating. And sorry if you downloaded the old version thinking it was the new one.

[Hinders]

Nice!
I will definitely use this in my game!
Have to remember your name so i can put it in the credits

[Pau]

New update:

-Menu is displayed at the center of the screen

-Manual filename is changeable at gonfig.txt so you can change it for "docs\\man.html" the double slash is necessary for the directory.

-It's more flexible: open the list.txt and delete the entries you don't use. If you delete sound/click.wav this sound won't play and won't be included in the exe. The same occurs with the images of the buttons, so deleting manual.gif will make the manual button not to appear.

-The demo game included has been changed for one smaller in order to reduce the download size.

I think now it's flexible enough and has the features needed for a startup menu. If there is any bug tell me and I'll try to correct it.

You can get it at:
http://www.freewebs.com/paused/download/menu_creator.zip

Pau

[BOYD1981]

BOYDE: What are you trying to prove?

i'm not trying to prove anything, comments like that are generally not a good idea unless you actually want to try to offend people, i could have gone and created a new thread about MMB but i didn't, i posted about it here, so please try to keep comments like that from ever reaching the tips of your fingers...

[ThunderStorm]

Well Boyd, I can understand member 42 to some extent. Pau came here to announce a small program he wrote mainly for himself, but that he kindly made available for others to use too. I think it's sort of mean to tell those who try to contribute to the program they were better off using a different program, which is developed by a professional team.
If you like that particular program, there's nothing wrong with telling other people about it, but in my opinion that feature list in this thread was kind of depressing.