Topic: AGS 3.6.0 - Beta 9

[Crimson Wizard]

Hi again ! I created a new translation file (in the editor), and I saw that the texts inside it were badly displayed. Each éèÉ etc... was displayed badly.

How is the file saved (what encoding), does your text editor have options to display in different encodings and which is active?

[Baguettator]

It seems that my file is in UTF-8. I use Notepad (I don't know if it's the same name in english, it's the basic program in Windows).

[Crimson Wizard]

It seems that my file is in UTF-8. I use Notepad (I don't know if it's the same name in english, it's the basic program in Windows).

Is your game itself made in unicode format, where are these texts coming from (script, properties)?
Could you upload a translation file, just to understand what we are talking about?

[Baguettator]

Well, I repeated the operation, and... it worked ?!

Will look if it happens again. I don't what hapened before...! Sorry

[Crimson Wizard]

I actually recommend using Notepad++, i believe it works better than regular windows notepad.

[SinSin]

Congrats to all who are a part of this 👏

[Baguettator]

@Crimson Wizard : are you going to update properly AGS 3.6 soon ? Or I have to use your fix you gave me before ?

[Crimson Wizard]

@Crimson Wizard : are you going to update properly AGS 3.6 soon ? Or I have to use your fix you gave me before ?

You could use a "temp build" with a fix, as it is exactly same program, only in between "official" versions.

The next update will be exclusively bug fixes, I think it will happen later on this week.

[LameNick]

Bump.

Have anything tried running latest 3.6.0 on linux in fullscreen mode? Trying this on a linux virtual machine results in a completely black window with no video or audio or reaction to input, regardless of the chosen renderer; so I am wondering if that's vm or engine's problem.

I'm not sure if this is still relevant or if I fully understood the question- I compiled the Tumbleweed demo with some mp3 music included in AGS-3.6.0.27-Beta7 for Windows and ran it under Kubuntu 20.04 system in fullscreen mode and everything went smoothly..

If it would help to test anything else in Kubuntu, let me know.

[Crimson Wizard]

Updated to Beta 8
(use download links in the first post)

Editor:
- Added "Help" option to the editor pane's tab context menu.
- Dialog scripts now too can open help topics for keywords or script functions under cursor on F1.
- Fixed not showing correct help topics for several panels on F1.

Engine:
- Added "multitasking" option to config in "[misc]" category, that defines the starting multitasking mode (may later be changed by SetMultitaskingMode in script).
- Added stubs for agsshell plugin (a contemporary cross-platform variant of ags_shell).
- Fixed characters switching to a wrong loop unnecessarily if a current walking directional loop does not have as many frames as the previous one (regression since 3.6.0.6).
- Fixed GUI controls don't update immediately when game translation changes.
- Fixed saving of dynamic sprites and screenshots to a file (or a savegame).
- Fixed certain OGG clips stuck in loading forever.
- Fixed sound clips getting stuck in a playback state near the end if their size is a multiple of 65536.
- Fixed some clips reporting a large negative number as their length (should report 0 instead if it cannot calculate one for whatever reason)
- Fixed multitasking mode persisting if the game was switched from windowed to real fullscreen mode (even though it's not supposed to work in exclusive fullscreen).
- Fixed Direct3D renderer not able to restore an exclusive fullscreen mode after switching out from the game window.
- Fixed game not reacting to system close commands when stuck in script, which made it impossible to close the "hanging" game by usual means (other than terminating the process).
- Fixed number of occasional crash cases on game exit.

[Dave Gilbert]

- Dialog scripts now too can open help topics for keywords or script functions under cursor on F1.

Nothing to add but "Yessssssssssss!" Been hoping for this one! Thanks!

[Crimson Wizard]

So, unfortunately there was still an annoying sound bug in the recent update, related to crossfading tracks; I'll be releasing a next update quite soon, maybe in the end of this week (want to wait for a couple of days more to see if there are more problems found). Meanwhile there's this temporary build with fixes:

https://cirrus-ci.com/task/4541835971395584

[Crimson Wizard]

Am I imagining things, or have someone reported a mouse not moving in fullscreen on Linux a short while ago?

I've reinstalled a newer build on Ubuntu on a virtual machine, and the previous problem of fullscreen not displaying anything is gone, but now I have a different issue: the mouse cursor not moving. Curiously enough, mouse clicks (and keys) work. This is fixed by alt-tabbing out and back. Could be something related to vm though, as it sometimes has issues with mouse grab.

[Crimson Wizard]

Updated to Beta 9
(use download links in the first post)

Engine:
 - Fixed a script linking problem in games made with 3.6.0 alpha which used Button.Animate() with new parameters.
 - Fixed MP3 sounds not reporting their length properly.
 - Fixed sound clips not stopping by command if they had a crossfade enabled.
 - Fixed scheduled sound fadeout effect was not cancelled by skipping a cutscene (a very old bug from early 3.*).
 - Fixed false positive detection of a script hung in a do..while loop that could stop the game.

Android:
 - Fixed AGS Player (universal launcher) crashing when launching any game (regression since 3.6.0.18).
 - In AGS Player fixed Credits option not showing anything.

[Baguettator]

Hi there ! I playtested my game, and I thought about some things :

Suggestions :

- Would it be possible to make "Slider_OnClick" functions to allow 2 parameters like "Buttons_OnClick" functions ? (so "Slider_OnClick(GUIControl *control, MouseButton *button"). If it's not a big problem, it will allow to simplify the code when we make our own sliders and arrows, gathering all of these controls into 1 function (and not 3). At least for me, it would be great

- Any way to add a parameter for list boxes that allow to "cut" the text of the items if they are too long (out of the listbox) ? And without "changing" the real text of these items (like the items are always the full text, but the listbox displays only what it fits into the box). Could be nice to allow a true/false option for this.

Problems :

- it seems that the "_" symbol doesn't allow to correctly find the "keyword" we are writing into the editor. For example, if I have to write into the editor my variable "is_bright", when I write "is_", it should appear in the list and select my variable (so then I just press enter and it's done). I mean for "autocompletion". Since 3.6, it doesn't understand the "_" symbol. Maybe other symbols do the same problem, I don't know.

- When I write "int p=player.Room", the word "Room" becomes in blue, because it's like the editor considers that we are talking about the struct "Room". Normally, it should stay in black, because it's not the struct, but the part of the "player" struct.

I hope my english is well understable

[Snarky]

Nice work on the new Beta! 

Given that AGS 3.6.0 has been in public testing for over a year now and we're at Beta 9, is it safe to assume any further changes in this release will be limited to bugfixes that are either regressions or critical, so that it can at some point become the official release? Or are there still changes that "must" be done before you can finalize it?

It seems to me that at this point it would be best to defer new features, other improvements, and fixing minor, long-standing bugs until the next release.

[eri0o]

In my head beta to stable is mostly about serious bugs being fixed and less (but not necessarily zero) regressions. This is usually accomplished by more and more people using it - which is hard to grasp since we no longer collect statistics in the Editor, we depend on people actually writing here.

If people are using it, since it's safe to assume we are not going back to Allegro4 backend, then it's mostly about making sure the manual is updated regards the changes at this point.

[Crimson Wizard]

On current situation.

The 3.6.0 seem to be stable enough to make games. There are few known regressions since 3.5.* related to move from Allegro4 to SDL2 backend library and new audio library, related primarily to sounds, but I think these are "edge cases" and won't affect everyone. Some of these might still be possible to fix within 3.6.0. Other bugs which were found and fixed recently were mostly oversights made during last feature additions.

From looking around and talking to users, I know that at least 3 people/teams are making commercial games with it:
- Wadjet Eye (Dave Gilbert, Dualnames, etc) are making their new game with 3.6.0: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59868.0
- Grundislav is making his new game "Rosewater" in 3.6.0 (I learnt this because he was reporting bugs).
- Stranga's "Ashina: The Red Witch" (at least the demo was made in 3.6.0): https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59052.0
Perhaps there are more.


@Baguettator, at this point we try to not add any new functionality to 3.6.0, unless it's absolutely required to cover some "gaps" in the already planned tasks, which we missed earlier. Fixing mistakes is the priority now.

- Would it be possible to make "Slider_OnClick" functions to allow 2 parameters like "Buttons_OnClick" functions ? (so "Slider_OnClick(GUIControl *control, MouseButton *button"). If it's not a big problem, it will allow to simplify the code when we make our own sliders and arrows, gathering all of these controls into 1 function (and not 3).

There's no Slider_OnClick right now, there's OnChange which is somewhat a different thing. I guess the point is to support "OnClick" event in all controls? I may open this as a feature suggestion for the future.

- Any way to add a parameter for list boxes that allow to "cut" the text of the items if they are too long (out of the listbox) ? And without "changing" the real text of these items (like the items are always the full text, but the listbox displays only what it fits into the box). Could be nice to allow a true/false option for this.

This is already implemented, and I think it was done following your own request some time ago. The option is called "GUI Controls clip their contents" in "General Settings" -> "Visual". It makes all the gui controls to visually cut their texts if they expand beyond their borders. This is actually a default behavior in all the game templates now.

- it seems that the "_" symbol doesn't allow to correctly find the "keyword" we are writing into the editor. For example, if I have to write into the editor my variable "is_bright", when I write "is_", it should appear in the list and select my variable (so then I just press enter and it's done). I mean for "autocompletion". Since 3.6, it doesn't understand the "_" symbol. Maybe other symbols do the same problem, I don't know.

- When I write "int p=player.Room", the word "Room" becomes in blue, because it's like the editor considers that we are talking about the struct "Room". Normally, it should stay in black, because it's not the struct, but the part of the "player" struct.

Looks like these are mistakes within autocomplete feature, I shall open a bug report for these in our tracker.

[Baguettator]

There's no Slider_OnClick right now, there's OnChange which is somewhat a different thing. I guess the point is to support "OnClick" event in all controls? I may open this as a feature suggestion for the future.

Oh sorry, I wanted to write "Slider_OnChange". But I didn't realize that it's an "OnChange" function, and not a "OnClick". There would be no needs to make the "OnChange" function working with 2 parameters ? (control and mousebutton)

OK, I understand that you need to fix the errors instead of making new improvements.

Thanks for answering !

[Crimson Wizard]

- Would it be possible to make "Slider_OnClick" functions to allow 2 parameters like "Buttons_OnClick" functions ? (so "Slider_OnClick(GUIControl *control, MouseButton *button"). If it's not a big problem, it will allow to simplify the code when we make our own sliders and arrows, gathering all of these controls into 1 function (and not 3).

Oh sorry, I wanted to write "Slider_OnChange". But I didn't realize that it's an "OnChange" function, and not a "OnClick". There would be no needs to make the "OnChange" function working with 2 parameters ? (control and mousebutton)

I think it would be best if you described your actual situation, like what are you trying to accomplish in your game. That would make it easier to think of a good solution.