AGS 3.0 Final - it's been a long road

[Mortis]

I'd prefer a .zip version too. Since all the betas were posted as .zip there's little reason why an installer should be necessary (for those who know what they're doing). Perhaps the best way of limiting distribution would be just to link to a .zip of AGS 3.0 final in the beta thread, and link to the installer version on the main page and in the final release thread.

In fact, I think the .zip version should be easily accessible overall. No need to limit this whatsoever, as I really don't see why one should go gung ho with the installer business. I'm personally incredibly turned off by installers and I see many of you are just as well. This is good

[Ishmael]

I was thinking if it'd be possible to have an option in the installer to just unpack the files to the designated directory, without any registery entries, Add/Remove Program entries, shortcuts or whatnot. This would both elimiated the unzipping issues and provide old fashioned people (like myself, too) a way to have AGS the way we've learned it and like it, totally under our control and not in Windows' leash.

If not, provide a .zip download too please

[RickJ]

I also prefer the zip version for a number of reasons.   

[edit] same points more concise and clear, hopefully?

If you install an application in windows you expect that the "Program Files" folder is an appropriate location.  However,  AGS doesn't support the concept of having one path for the AGS executable and another path for the data it creates.   It also doesn't support the concept allowing the user to specify different default paths for different resources.  Also support for the simultaneous installation of multiple-versions of AGS has been done manually by maintaining separate directories for each version of AGS and the games supported by the respective version. 

IMHO, when some one installs a windows program he expects that he will be able to configure that application's paths so that he can specify the default locations where documents, data, ect are created and where templates and other resources are  located.  He doesn't expect that user created content will stored in the installation directory of the application.

In my opinion it would be better to use the zip distribution until the issues such as the ones above are discussed, addressed, or dismissed. 

[Dualnames]

Actually I 'll just say I can't think of a reason why to change AGS. We all like rar files...

[nihilyst]

In the manual it is said, that to change the colour of the textwindow GUI, you have to change it's foreground colour. Unfortunately, I only do find the options to change the background colour. What am I doing wrong?

[deltamatrix]

Hey CJ. I just wanna say that while the main GUI is pretty good and clearly easier to program, I gotta say that it sucks that the interaction editor is gone as that was useful.

I hope it can come in some shape or form to help us with the event-driven code.

[Pumaman]

Demo game- wise choice to include (but possibly not the wisest... it looks a bit garish in my jaded eyes...)

Well, the demo game is in theory an open project, it's just that recently I think RickJ has been on his own in improving it
Maybe in today's times having the demo game as an 8-bit palettized game is slightly misleading to people, but it should still be useful.

Importing old 2.72 project- almost flawless

How do you mean, "almost" flawless? What went wrong?

Maybe an oldfashioned, alternative download would be possible?

Sorry, but I agree with this issue. Can we have the old fashioned compressed folder? Does the editor really needs an isntaller to work (i.e. needs to set some register keys or whatever)?

Well, it would of course be possible to have a ZIP file and MSI available for download, but I'd rather not maintain both because it's a hassle.

The main reasons for moving to an installer are:
* To stop the predictable 'bug reports' in Beginner's Tech from people who've tried to run the editor from within the zip file without decompressing it first
* To check for .net Framework installation in a friendly way. The version in the zip just gives a "MSCOREE.DLL error" if you don't have the framework installed.
* To set up the file association for the GAME.AGF file to start the editor

However, the installer doesn't stop you from using multiple versions of AGS -- just give it a different directory name to install into and it can run side by side with other versions.

when I change the Hotspots name from hHotspot1 to, say, Shelf, I would expect AGS to add the prefix "h", and also to update the name in the combobox INSTANTLY. It does so, but after quitting the editor...

Good point, I'll get this fixed. You don't have to quit the editor by the way, just change to Objects mode and then back to Hotspots.

I'm temporarily using a computer with Windows Vista installed (my own laptop unfortunately went the way of the dodo), and when I first installed RC3 to the default directory and tried to test the demo game, I was met by a compiler error about the folder not being accessible. I'm sure this has something to do with user rights, but I wasn't asked to elevate to admin status like other programs do.

Hmm, this is interesting ... I'll have to look into where programs are supposed to install user-changable data in Vista.

Do not install over an older AGS 3.x installation. The installer might not properly update all the files and you'll end up with a nicely bugged AGS.

Thanks, I'll fix this.

- The DemoQuest shortcut will bring up errors if AGS has any editor plugins (probably because the shortcut uses the DemoQuest folder as the working path and it'll try finding the plugins there and fail)

Thanks, I'll fix this too.

However, I do have on request. Would it be possible to NOT create a Start Menu folder for shortcuts? I have AGS located at 'D:\AGS' which is where I always go if I need to get to AGS, so having a shortcut in the Start Menu doesn't really benefit me, and I try to keep my Start Menu as clutter-free as possible. Thanks either way though.

Unbelievably, the Microsoft Installer tool doesn't support optional start menu shortcuts. I might look into moving to another installer tool like Inno Setup for a future release; but for now what I can add is an option whether to install the demo game or not.

Chris, v1.5 of the Verbcoin Template is up.

Latest discovered bug is fixed now.

I also wrote a help file you can include in the AGS help file, if you like.

Thanks, I'll get those included.

In the manual it is said, that to change the colour of the textwindow GUI, you have to change it's foreground colour. Unfortunately, I only do find the options to change the background colour. What am I doing wrong?

Ah, the foreground/text colour is displayed as "BorderColor", which is wrong. I'll rename it for the next version.

Hey CJ. I just wanna say that while the main GUI is pretty good and clearly easier to program, I gotta say that it sucks that the interaction editor is gone as that was useful.

We've discussed the demise of the interaction editor at length and I don't think there's any point continuing that discussion now. I think somebody was going to see if they could make a plugin to provide an interaction editor-type thing, so we'll see how that goes.

[Ghost]

Importing old 2.72 project- almost flawless

How do you mean, "almost" flawless? What went wrong?

Sorry, that was misleading. In fact, it *was* flawless, I just got the warning that there were views with only one frame. (Sorry!)

[Cinfa]

Inno setup is pretty easy to use, but the state of the art is NSIS. It's harder to use, but really powerful.

[monkey0506]

If I try to set "Custom text-window GUI" (General Settings->Text output) to the script o-name of a GUI, I get an error like this:

---------------------------
Properties Window
---------------------------
Property value is not valid.


---------------------------          ---------------------------  ---------------------------
^ Details                       OK                        Cancel
---------------------------          ---------------------------  ---------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
gTextbox is not a valid value for Int32


------------------------------------------------------

The property box expects an integer. Easy enough to fix, but I thought I might be able to put a GUI's o-name there. Guess not. (It might be worth at least mentioning that this property MUST be the GUI ID)

Also, it seems that the dialog array isn't defined if you don't have any dialogs. I'm not saying I need access to the array in a game without dialogs...it simply threw me when I got this error after deleting all the dialogs:

GlobalScript.asc(535): Error (line 535): Undefined token 'dialog'

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Unbelievably, the Microsoft Installer tool doesn't support optional start menu shortcuts. I might look into moving to another installer tool like Inno Setup for a future release; but for now what I can add is an option whether to install the demo game or not.

You can do all of this and more quite easily via scripting with the Nullsoft Installer package, and I highly recommend it.  Also, I don't really 'get' all the fuss over using an installer.  It isn't taking anything away from the engine; on the contrary, it's making the overall presentation more professional and eliminating possible extraction woes for people who don't happen to have this or that extractor program (yeah, people like that are still around!). 

To get back on topic, the fix for no frame animations seems to work fine now, though I notice you physically have to click on either the scroll bar or on a frame before the scroll wheel will move up or down the view list.  That's really all I've noticed so far.

[RickJ]

t isn't taking anything away from the engine; on the contrary, it's making the overall presentation more professional and eliminating possible extraction woes for people who don't happen to have this or that extractor program (yeah, people like that are still around!).

Except that the people who are presumably being helped are in fact being led down the garden path of  "just let it install in the default "Program Files" folder which is not really appropriate since AGS does not behave in a manner consistent with what people have come to expect from "installed" windows apps.  Yes the intelligentsia among us will know better and direct the installer to deposit the new files in a "..\Ags.Vx.xx" directory rather than "C:\Program FIles" but what will the uninformed minions do,  who are so clueless that they would attempt to execute a zip file?  What do you suppose they would do? 

All I'm saying is that if it has an installer and it installs just like any other windows app then people are going to have certain expectations, meritorious or not.    And if peoples' expectations are not met then, justified or not, they will have a  negative  opinion about it.  I suppose just as many people would disagree with me about this as those who would agree.   As they, say time will tell... Just my $0.02

Rick

P.S. I had a heck of a time getting sprites with  a transparent color.  I suspect that it is operator error on my part o I am not asserting a bug thing here.  I mention it just in case and ask for someone to confirm this behavior has always been the case,

I had a newly created eight bit game.  I was importing sprites that were created for another 8-bit game.  I had used graphics gale to create the sprites and had used the "eliminate unused colors" feature of gale to delete any colors not used in the spite.  When I imported the sprites and selected "use upper eft hand pixel?" as transparent color then there was no transparent color.  I eventually got it to work by selecting the "map colors to game pallette".  It also seemed that I had to do this even with sprites that had been  converted to the game pallette.

I have figured out what to do to get my work done.  But it seems like it is now harder than it used to be.  Has anyone had similar experience or can anyone clarify/confirm any of this.  I myself, am not sure if I have unwittingly ventured down a new process path or if the new editor has some slightly different behavior in  this respect.  Please comment...

[Ishmael]

I'm with RickJ on this. Another point is that installing something clutters the Windows registery a step further, and I have a feeling the MS installer doesn't do a very good job cleaning it's mess afterwards, but I haven't confirmed that for this case yet.

I have an intro cutscene with a total of three consequent dialogs in it (to keep it somewhat organised), two ChangeRoom()s and some character.Walk and .Say commands among there. So nothing too fancy. The thing is, I can skip the cutscene right at the start, tho it takes almost a second to actually do so, just sitting there still untill that. But if I wait some five or so seconds into the cutscene and try to skip it, the game just hangs, with nothing happening. Used to work fine when I worked on the game with 2.72 and 2.8. And actually back then the dialogs used to run a bit more dialog_request scripts than now.

If you sit back and watch the cutscene rather than skipping it, does it complete successfully?

Yes, works just fine. There is a dialog with some selectable options in it inside the cutscene, but that's supposed to be jumped over with the help of the game.skipping_cutscene variable. Anyway, the situation is the same with RC3.

[GarageGothic]

As I mentioned before, I'm using a borrowed laptop these days. It runs AGS games fine in DirectX 5 mode, but it seems to have some problems with the Direct3D mode. No matter which resolution I choose, windowed mode or not, my 640x480 game crashes on startup with this message:

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
There was a problem initializing graphics mode 640 x 400 (32-bit).
(Problem: 'Failed to create Direct3D Device: 0x8876086C')
Try to correct the problem, or seek help from the AGS homepage.

Possible causes:
* your graphics card drivers do not support this resolution. Run the game setup program and try the other resolution.
* the graphics filter you have selected does not work. Try another filter.
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

DxDiag doesn't find any problems. The chipset is a Mobile Intel 945GM (which is crap, I know, but it runs Hitman: Contracts and GTA: San Andreas fine). It has pixel shader 2.0 so that shouldn't be an issue either. I've installed the latest updates available through the "HP Update" downloader (again, I know, I know, you don't have to tell me, but since it's not my computer I'm not going to install any drivers not directly provided by the manufacturer).

I should mention, it always refers to "640 x 400" (or "320 x 200" if set to lores), not "640x480" which is the proper resolution for the game. "Force alternate letterbox resolution" is checked and greyed out in winsetup.exe, which I think is standard for 640x480 games.

Edit: Oh yeah, it's running Windows Vista and DirectX 10.

[Pumaman]

If I try to set "Custom text-window GUI" (General Settings->Text output) to the script o-name of a GUI, I get an error like this:

Perhaps this should more explicitly specify that it needs the GUI number rather than name

Also, it seems that the dialog array isn't defined if you don't have any dialogs. I'm not saying I need access to the array in a game without dialogs...it simply threw me when I got this error after deleting all the dialogs:

Hmm yeah, this happens for inventory items too, and it was something that was deliberately done, but I can't remember why ... perhaps the 0-sized array was causing problems. Of course, since you couldn't delete dialogs in 2.72 this would never have been a problem before

Except that the people who are presumably being helped are in fact being led down the garden path of  "just let it install in the default "Program Files" folder which is not really appropriate since AGS does not behave in a manner consistent with what people have come to expect from "installed" windows apps.

This is a good point, I agree, and it's now resolved in RC 4.

P.S. I had a heck of a time getting sprites with  a transparent color.  I suspect that it is operator error on my part o I am not asserting a bug thing here.  I mention it just in case and ask for someone to confirm this behavior has always been the case,

I have to admit I haven't done much testing with 8-bit games, so there could well be a problem. Has anyone else had tried, successfully or not, to make an 8-bit game with AGS 3.0?

Another point is that installing something clutters the Windows registery a step further, and I have a feeling the MS installer doesn't do a very good job cleaning it's mess afterwards, but I haven't confirmed that for this case yet.

Well, it can do. But in AGS's case, the only thing it does to the registry is adds the .AGF file association and adds the Add/Remove Programs entry, both of which are removed when you uninstall it.

Yes, works just fine. There is a dialog with some selectable options in it inside the cutscene, but that's supposed to be jumped over with the help of the game.skipping_cutscene variable. Anyway, the situation is the same with RC3.

Are you able to upload something that demonstrates the problem? If there's a bug here I'd like to get it resolved before the Final release.

As I mentioned before, I'm using a borrowed laptop these days. It runs AGS games fine in DirectX 5 mode, but it seems to have some problems with the Direct3D mode. No matter which resolution I choose, windowed mode or not, my 640x480 game crashes on startup with this message:

That looks like the general "Direct3D initialization failed" message; but I don't think I've seen this before where other 3D games do work and AGS doens't. Has anyone else got DirectX 10 and successfully run AGS in D3D mode?



Anyway, RC 4 is now up with a few fixes. I wasn't planning on there being an RC4, but some valid concerns have been expressed about a couple of essential features from 2.72 that have gone missing, so these have been addressed.

In other news, I'm now taking a couple of weeks off, so have a great Christmas and New Year, folks!

[Ishmael]

Yes, works just fine. There is a dialog with some selectable options in it inside the cutscene, but that's supposed to be jumped over with the help of the game.skipping_cutscene variable. Anyway, the situation is the same with RC3.

Are you able to upload something that demonstrates the problem? If there's a bug here I'd like to get it resolved before the Final release.

Here's the compiled EXE, for tests if it's a hardware or configuration issue, ie. does it work for everyone else? I'll sort the source (which is a mess after a year of in-and-out development) out and upload that if it's not just my machine.

http://www.veriloylykauha.net/files/PaavosQuestCutsceneBuggity.zip

[Mortis]

Regarding the zip/exe situation, may I be so bold as to suggest two things: Either we should poll users regarding which release method they prefer, on the site, or alternatively offer, for AGS 3.0, both a .zip download and an installer download and then measure how many downloads each of them garners.

I really, really can't imagine any]/b] existing users of AGS on this forum wanting the installer method for decidedly cluttering up their existing installs, start menus & registry and so forth. I'm absolutely dumbfounded by this situation.

[Gilbert]

Regarding the zip/exe situation, may I be so bold as to suggest two things: Either we should poll users regarding which release method they prefer, on the site, or alternatively offer, for AGS 3.0, both a .zip download and an installer download and then measure how many downloads each of them garners.

Actually a few years ago, the exact poll was done on the AGS site, at that time most people prefer ZIP to installers. So I think this may be a good idea to do this again.
IMO, of couse it's the best solution if we have both, but I think CJ mentioned in a few posts up that he may not be able to maintain both versions. Though I hate installers SO much I think it's up to CJ to decide which is best.

P.S. Another solution is to make the installer at the same time an extractable image, like for example I could extract the RC3 MSI with 7Zip (haven't downloaded RC4 yet) but unfortunately I couldn't just use the extracted files as-if, which is a very bad thing. Bad news is, that probably depends on the installer maker used, which CJ may not have many choices.

[smiley]

There's an unpacker for Inno Setup:
http://innounp.sf.net/test020.rar

Usage:
innounp -x AGS-3.0.0-RC4.exe

The files are extracted into two folders ({app}->AGS and {commonappdata}->demo game) in the current directory.

* Editor plugin API: Added ability to add script headers (eg. for enums, #defines) to compiler; and ability to get the list of script headers to access autocomplete data

Thanks a lot!

[Ishmael]

I installed RC3, copied the files over to another location and uninstalled it, then ran the editor from where I had copied it and it worked just fine... I can live without the file type association and it seems nothing else is neccesary for AGS to work. The only point remaining being the .NET Framework check.