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I am on a tight budget now with download/upload limits from my isp. I have been downloading like a hog. I tried to use a software to monitor the amound because I don't really belive I am downloading that much.

It seems that microsoft has the networking traffic monitor built in. You have have to tweak. Using alt + ctrl + del to get the taskmanager, then networking tab, then add the Bytes Sent and Bytrs Received from view set collumns. Then from Option I clicked show cummulative data.

With msn account running I tried to steal a couple of numbers that were permanently updading in the window. It seems that MSN uses a continous connection having a 338 bytes per second.

Yahoo only sends when the user types soemthing in an presses enter. I will probably use Ethereal to see what's going on. If this is true, omgzorbzzbr. Those people only care about money! 

If my calculations are right, that means about 770 MB per month, or the quivalent of downloading fedora core cd 1 and the rescue cd every month!. Or a ISO CD, or a XVid DivX movie. And that is just by keeping MSN there in the taskbar.

What is even WORSE is that MSN runs in the background sometimes without letting the user know its there. That's a lost of wasting i think.

Yahoo probably download and uploads every a couple of seconds.

A 56 kb modem means 56 kilobits, that is 7 kB (or kilobytes)
MSN is downloading 338 bytes that is 2.7 kbits every second!

I don't know if my calculations are completely right. But it seems to be awfully dumb what their doing. WHY DO THEY NEED 338 bytes every second? Are they sending a huge jpg file back and forth? 

[modify]

actually my calculations are a bit wrong. and is more like a small transparet gif file that is send back and forth

I really like this engine and the community. I don't post here a lot, barely do actually, but hope to get this message out.

I was looking at older games, and "game-runners" like dosbox or scummvm. Both involve some sort of neat looking "scalars" like advmame2x, advmame3x, wich make pixely graphics look NEAT (that is no more pixels). I've seen that both use the same names, therefore there is an algorithm common to both, found someplace else. I don't know where to find it, but I believe is burried into the dosbox sourcecode for example. I wonder if AGS could use this feature. It's more a question of is it nice to have something like that and to implement it, rather than "gimme the thing."

This page gives some screenshots to see diffrences betwen the scalars offered by dosbox (scummvm has twice as more)
http://www.osnanet.de/dermelch/dosbox.html

And a second feature. I know that AGS has certain limitations with rooms, items, stuff. Why not let the user define the size of the things. All you need is that malloc or calloc (i'm not shure which is platform indepentet) or any other memory allocation. I did not look trough the code to see how AGS is made. But probably there are some arrays predefined. Instead of predefining the arrays, have them created with whatever the users puts in (and if he enters nothing in, then have them made with some default values).  In this way, I think the game would be faster somehow, because the limits will be tailored to the game.

How should a good GUI look/feel like?Ã,  Think of the most efficient and practical graphical interface.Ã,  If many people would answer, this thread might be used as a refrence for designing a good gui.

My idea is that the best gui is no gui. Using single clicks, double clicks and probably no inventory (but somewhat diffrent way around) might be intersting and efficient.

I liked the way Ecstatica worked. You just carried one thing in one hand, and that's it. While essential items like the weapon, the journal were kept nearby.

The way sierra adventure games (ie king's quest) displays the text seems very nice. You can play around with positions giving more freedom, and diversity to the speech.

The colour coded speech of lucasarts is also interesting.

Are icons better than writing verbs? (an image of an eye versus "look at"). Is that @overhotspot@ label nicer than just writing nothing at all?

Is it better to have many diffrent icons for each type of cursor/action, or just one cross for all actions.

Whoever played indiana jones 4, would see that in the beginning of the game indy goes trough an ordeal finding some statue. But the gui there is only a text that appears above the mouse cursor. That part of the game is only played by using left and right clicks. Left, by default, is look at. And right is action, but things that have no look at interaction are used with left click, and things that cannot be used ar looked at with right. Therefore the actions intermingle. Look at becomes use, and use becomes look at, etc.Ã, 

What about the inventory? Should an inventory be visible from the game (lucasart style), or should a new window appear containing the inventory items, and only the current/selected inv item appear from the game (sierra style)?

[edit] I think this thread should have been posted in the "Adventure related...."

I am trying to make a for a give command. Give "item" to "character." The problem is that it always crashes because of invalid name. That make sense, in a way. But I cannot repair the problem.

I have this script:

else if (cur_mode == 9) {
if (GetGlobalInt(80) == 2) StrCat(madetext,"Give "); {
GetInvName (player.activeinv, buffer);
StrCat(madetext,buffer);
  StrCat(madetext," to ");
}

the GetInvName does not make sence. That is the reason why it crashes, and I can see the problem. But i don't know a way around it.

I just need to ad a "to" after give. The demo does not help me at all. When trying to give any item the character speaks out "not available at this time."

I will try to look at the other commands. But use is the only one that allows active-inventory.

Do i have to script it manually?

e.g.

click Give on item
and put in the item interaction, run script
and the script should be something like
make lucasarts status = Give
then change the cursor to that item
then change the text to that item
then run some action (the character accepts it or not)

but that means a script for each item i use give. and I will probably use it a lot.  :'(

I don't know. I just need an aswer to see what i can do. Otherwise I will have a script for each item.

Can i use, get object name under mouse. I don't know the function name, but there is one.

I have this code

function repeatedly_execute() {
Ã,  if(mouse.x >= 215 && mouse.y >= 218)
Ã,  Ã,  SetGUIPosition(LABEL, 215, 218);
Ã,  else if(mouse.x >= 215)
Ã,  Ã,  SetGUIPosition(LABEL, 215, mouse.y);
Ã,  else if (mouse.y >= 218)
Ã,  Ã,  SetGUIPosition(LABEL, mouse.x - 50, 218);
Ã,  else
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, SetGUIPosition(LABEL, mouse.x - 50, mouse.y);
}

If i would use variables instead of doing it this way, would it be slightly faster or slightly lower. I know we won't see the diffrence, because of fast computers we use this day. A 386 might see a diffrence. But I am curios.

or doing it this way

int LABELx;
int LABELy;

function repeatedly_execute() {

Ã,  if(mouse.x >= 215 && mouse.y >= 218) {
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELx = 215;
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELy = 218Ã,  Ã, 
Ã,  }
Ã,  else if(mouse.x >= 215) {
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELx = 215;
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELy = mouse.y;
Ã,  }
Ã,  else if (mouse.y >= 218) {
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELx = 215;
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELy = mouse.y;
Ã,  }
Ã,  else {
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELx = mouse.x - 50;
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, LABELy = mouse.y;
Ã,  }

Ã,  Ã,  Ã, SetGUIPosition(LABEL, LABELx, LABELy);
}

my guess is that the first one is slightly faster. By 2 clock cycles let's say Since i am doing a test, as in the second one, but i am also calling a function which copies the three values and return something. Now in the second one, i am using two spaces for ints in memory, then i am doing the test, assigning values to ints, then calling the functions, copying the values, etc, etc.

Which one would be faster?

P.S. this is my indy-like mouse-label instead of statusbar. Whoever needs the code may use it as long as he is lazy to make one himself. All you need is a transparent gui of 100w x 22h with a label of the same size and the text centered. Put @overhotspot@ in the label. and to make the gui transparent just change the GUI background color to ZERO and outline to ZERO. and you're done

It's tested and works. I did not test the second one, but it makes sense, except errors which might occur.

[edit] the GUI must be called "LABEL" and it only works for a viewport of 320x240. that is 320 x 240 and 640 x 480 resolutions.

is there any way one can change the alignment of label inside a gui from the script? i have made a indy-like label using a non-click-able transparent gui wich has one label with @overhotspot@ and in my repeatedly execute i have a script that tells that gui to follow the mouse. thank you Alynn.  but, when i go near the edge of the screen the text goes OUTSIDE of the visible area. i can change the posision of the gui, but then the text will look awfull. if i have a 100 px gui, and the text takes up only 50px, when i change the position of the gui, the text will have a 50px space between it and the cursor.

Ex: ^ = cursor | = edge ..=empty space
           |
Barell..|...........
    ^    |

becomes
                      |
Barrell............|
                    ^|

I have looked trough the manual and there is no such functions available and there is no such thing as a SetGuiLabelAlignment, but there is a SetGuiLabelPosition and a SetGuilabel... (i forgot). only two of them for label. i can use GetObjectsomethingsomething but is just to return a boolean or a int number.

I tried to make this myself. I know that the whol game uses 320x240 even at 800x600. At least i like it that way. Therefore changing resolution should not affect the way it behaves. I know that each letter takes an amout of pixels "n." I need to get what is the name of the hotspot and move the label accordingly.

Now, how would I get the hotspot's name? I am a beginner, but I am able to work around some things.

PS (offtopic) the AGS script language looks like C language. (NOT C++ with overloads >> or :: etc) but with dot operator (join) mouse.x that is a struct, right? deftype struct mouse { int x, y; }   :

Is it possible to use double click in AGS?
I checked the manual but I haven't found anything. Should I re-look?

I am trying to use a left single click for walk and left double click for look.

yes, well, i think the title describe it all. in indiana jones fate of atlantis (i hope i spelt it right) which is indy 4 you get the classical menu of "look at" "smile to" "begin with" etc... well, not exacly, but you get my point. anyway, let me get back to the main idea...so, as I was saying in indy 4 you have a strange "moving-above-the-cursor" type of text similiar to a windows tooltip except that is moves with the mouse and blinks. how would I make such a thing?

it is probably a loop of some sort where the mouse coordinates are always updated and the text is moved as the mouse is moved. i just need an ideea or two of how to implement that.