Messages

Problem solved. Thanks for all your help.

It turns out that a lot of freeware so-called "fixed width" fonts don't live up to their name (even if they just gets misaligned by a character or two on a whole line). I ended up using good old courier instead, and that works like a charm. But I'll be on the lookout for a replacement as I'm not sure of the legality of using Windows fonts. I also experienced one font that crashed the game when displayed, but strangely enough only at certain font sizes.

Is there any workaround for repeatedly_execute_always being halted while dialog options are shown? I CAN keep it running despite all other text windows and popup modal GUIs, but the built-in dialog options kills it?

Thanks for the reply CJ. I agree that the parameters are very confusing too, but you usually only set the messages once per game anyway so I didn't consider it a problem worth mentioning.

RickJ,

I'll try some other fixed width fonts then (I'd actually downloaded a bunch yesterday at work, but my CD-RW was defect. ARGH!). It may be a problem in that specific font. But I find it strange that it works in other programs.

Thanks.

Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thanks!

Yeah, I'm using the listbox.

But even if I was using the labels, how could that work? Perhaps displaying the same savename in both of them but with sizes/alignments to block out the unwanted part?

Edit: I'm curious, what is the technical reason that it doesn't work? How does AGS handle width/spaching of characters? Will fixed-width fonts never work properly? If it's just the spaces, I'm wondering if you could make some other character transparent and use that instead of a space?

Is there any logical explanation for there not being any unhandled event WHAT/TYPE combinations for:

Pick up nothing
Cursor Mode 8 on nothing
Cursor Mode 9 on nothing

I know how to script around it, so it's no biggie. But it seems like a weird thing for the function to be incomplete like this?

I have a function where I need to align the last part of a save game name exactly no matter the length of the first part. I thought it could be done by adding spaces (checking for string length, then adding " " until it's correct). Of couse you need a font where all the letters/symbol/space are the same width, and I've found one that behaves like that in Word as well as in Photoshop.

BUT, when I import the ttf font in AGS, all of a sudden the space DOESN'T take up the same width as the other characters!

Is this an AGS thing, or should I keep on trying some other fonts? (I also tried with the SCI fonts, without any success). Is there anyway I could modify the font to get it to work?

In my opinion, saying that Anne Rice's vampires have no sexual nature pretty much misses the whole point with her novels. Maybe sexual organs aren't involved (although I clearly remember a passage mentioning that Louis could feel some guys erection against his thigh while sucking his blood), but there's obviously a sensual and erotic dimension to the blood drinking, especially between vampires.
Also, you seem to think that homosexuality is purely sexual, and that a relationship between people of the same sex has to be sexual to be truly "gay". You can't deny the romantic aspect of Von Glowers wish to find a soulmate to run around with in the woods under the full moon. So, was Von Glower gay? He did have relationships with Ludwig, probably with Von Zell, and he acted very seductively towards Gabe. Also, he seemed to be attracted to masculine energies, searching for an equal.  Did he identify as gay? Probably not - although I do believe his "girlfriend" was mostly meant as bait for Gabriel. His approach to male/male relationships pre-dates the modern definition of "homosexuality" (ca. 1880) and is closer to the Byronic ideal of affection between men.

As for Jane Jensen's:

And (to get blunt now) bisexuality implies an "anytime, anywhere, anyone" hyper-sexuality.

Am I the only one who finds this just a little offensive?

I was referring to Radiants suggestion of making the buttons transparent, not your solution, which would work fine. But either way, that too would be a bit wonky if you were using a transparent interface in the first place.

And by "all-transparent" I was obviously referring to the whole window rather than just the buttons, not the degree of transparency, but you knew that

Yeah, you're right. That is a good workaround. Of course this means that you need to have graphics for all disabled buttons But thanks for the suggestion, I'll probably do just that.

You could just pass the original graphic if it doesn't have one, couldn't you?

Um, well no, because you'd have to set the disabled mode to "Show as normal", or whatever it is called, for the whole game. So any button being disabled would look normal but remain unclickable unless they all had special graphics.

As for the transparency thing: Keep in mind that this wouldn't work if you're using an all-transparent gui. Possibly an option to darken/tint disabled buttons would be another solution.

This is the link to "The Big List of Paint Programs" (which arguably ought to be in the beginner's and not the critics forum):
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=5644.0

Yeah, you're right. That is a good workaround. Of course this means that you need to have graphics for all disabled buttons  But thanks for the suggestion, I'll probably do just that.

We have Normal, MouseOver and Pushed graphics, but it would be really nice if you could also set a DisabledGraphic for GUI buttons.  The "greying out" doesn't always look good on custom-made button graphics.

I've looked in the tracker but couldn't find anything related to this. Thanks for reading this suggestion.

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

It seems that I'll better stick to 32-bit for now, despite the size (would it be possible to have an option to import backgrounds and non-alpha sprites in 16-bit to save space?).

BTW, I agree with everyone's view that the "anti-alias scaled sprites" option should be renamed.

This is mostly meant as a question for CJ, but other people may have some views as well:

Which of these two is most likely to happen:

1) AGS supporting in-engine edge-anti-aliasing of 16-bit sprites (possibly with one of those filters used in ScummVM)?

2) AGS supporting anti-aliasing of scaled 32-bit characters using alpha channels?

Currently, the choice is between the edges looking bad in 16 bit and the whole character looking bad when scaled in 32-bit. I'm *THIS* close to abandoning 32-bit color altogether, in part because of this, in part because of size/performance. Any kind of answer, no matter how hazy, would be a great help in making up my mind.

This is certainly the best and most professional looking MAGS games I've ever played.  I was astonished by the amount of beautiful animation.

A few things about the gameplay though:

Spoiler

I got stuck several times and had to peek in the .exe file for hints. I had also totally missed the skateboard - maybe a slightly different color would help. And it wasn't very obvious that you could interact with the table. For a long time I was trying to puncture the ball, put the fish and water inside and re-seal it with the chewing gum . Also, why couldn't you just carry the fish in the koala's water dish?

[close]

But overall, a truly enjoyable game.

Great idea strazer - I was so daft that I hadn't even considered more than one button per function 

captain Nemo touches on something I've been thinking about asking people:
If each cursor-mode has a keyboard button attached to it (like in the LA games), would you prefer that the buttons were related to the actions L=LOOK, T=TALK, P=PICK UP etc., or would  you rather that they were arbitrary but close to eachother (ASDFG or ZXCVB etc.)?

This looks like it would do the trick! Thank you very much Ashen. I'll try it out when I get home.