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Hey, I've just started playing around with VB6 (I'm thinking of making a more useful dialog editor than what is included with AGS, we'll see) and I've come across on odd problem...
I just followed the example from the COM plugin tutorial. Basically copy and paste. The first part, just getting it initialized worked fine. When I added the code to add in a menu option, it still worked fine upon loading the Plugin, but when I DISABLED the plugin in the manager, I got this error message:

A serious error occured while communicating with plugin 'AGS_Testy.ocx' in method 'EditorShutdown'. Please ensure you have the correct plugin version for this AGS version.

It still unloaded fine, otherwise. Here's the odd part. While just trying different things, I commented out the code that goes in DisablePlugin that removes the menu option. Lo and behold, it now works fine, and even removes the option upon unloading the plugin even without specifically coding it to do so.

This happens in both AGS 2.62 and the current beta.

So, is the example wrong, and editor.Menu(0).RemoveMenuOption does NOT need to be called, or is something weird going on?

HoN

P.S. Do you have any plans of expanding the COM Plugin docs, either with more details on the available methods/members, or with a tutorial on setting one up in C++? (Not that it makes THAT big a difference, as I'm using Dev-C++ and can't really make any COM plugins with it anyway, just wondering.)

I Shakespeare's day, puns were considered the highest form of humor. Of course, Shakespeare died 400 years ago...

Anyway, all these puns make it seem like it's the end of the world, and Armageddon tired of all the silliness.

HoN

(P.S. Credit where it's due, this pun courtesy of Spider Robinson.)

For the whole God vs. Homosexuality thing, I think lgm's main poiint (and do correct me if I'm wrong) was that HIS SPECIFIC religion defined marriage as between a man and a woman ONLY, and did not allow homosexuality/gay marriage, but that his beliefs need not be taken as doctrine by others with other religions.

And, indeed, the Cristian bible (and the Jewish one, too) specifically forbids homosexuality. Well, okay, it actually forbids sex between two men, and doesn't really say much about other forms of homosexuality or gay marriage. The same parts also forbid bestiality, adultery, eating pork, and selling your daughter for the wrong price. Also, based on these old testament laws, polygamy is A-okay, and pedophilia and prostitution are kinda iffy.

I should point out that according to Christian doctrine, all laws of the old testament are superceded by Christ and the new testament. Jesus spoke quite highly and often about the sanctity of marriage, but (that I recall) he didn't bring homosexuality up much at all one way or the other. Again, do correct me if I'm wrong.

All of this is just my (possibly ill-informed) interpretation of the books I've read. Feel free to ignore me completely.

HoN

[qoute] It should be fine importing without the compiled code.

Neat, that'll make things MUCH easier.

You might be interested in this thread in the Technical Archive.

Yeah, I'd looked at that editor before. My main desire with my little program (besides to teach myself C++) is specifically to be able to export AGS dialogs to an easy to edit format, and import them back in. Currently,  co0mgr's editor doesn't allow easy import/export. I will look at converting to his format with my program, though, couse it is a neat editor, espcially for anyone who doesn't want to bother with XML.

HoN

Hey folks. As my "teach yourself C++" project I'm working on a simple program to convert the exported .DLG files to something a little easier to manipulate and back again.. I'm leaning toward an XML file, currently, as there are several free- and shareware programs to edit XML files in a tree view. But I have a couple of questions...

First, for CJ:
When importing .DLG files, is it necesarry to have the compiled code included as well as the plain text source code, or will it still import successfully with only the text source? If the compiled code is necesarry, is there any way you could make the compiler available to me for the program? (I'd be satisfied with a binary I can call from my program, if you want to keep your source code private).

Also, what exactly ARE the entryPoints and topicFlags? I thought I knew what the entryPoints were, but when I read them from a .DLG file they didn't turn out that way, and all the topicFlags come out as nulls.

For everyone else:
For the XML files, would you prefer to have have the Option numbers/topic numbers/stuff like as entities (eg: <topic>1 <option><number>1</number> <text> Hi there!</text></option></topics>) or as attributes (eg: <topic number=1> <option number=1>Hi there! </option> </topic>? I prefer the latter, but I can go either way at this point, and I want it to be the easiest to work with for everyone.
Alternatively, if anyone doesn't like XML  :o, what file formats would you suggest?

HoN

I have a couple things I'd like, and I didn't see 'em in the tracker yet...
First, the ability to use voice speech with a character's THINKING action/view. (I'm making a game in which I want character.Think to be the usual response to looking at objects, etc. I would just use Display with always display text as speech enabled, but the way the characters are in this game they would have to point out EGO talking to himself.)

Also, any way to make the "mouse Y-pos" pop-up GUIs work with OTHER direction? That didn't make much sense, let me rephrase. I'd like to make a GUI that pops up like the basic Sierra one, but at the bottom (or side) of the screen. The ideal would be the ability to set X-min, X-max, Y-min, and Y-max, so you could set EXACTLY where you move the mouse to get the GUI to pop up. It wouldn't be TOO terribly hard to work around this with scripting, checking the mouse position in rep_ex, it's just that this would make things easier for someone who wanted to do this.

HoN

- A copy of the adventure game you're currently playing (breaking the 4th wall  :o)

"Companions of Xanth" had that, briefly.
(Did anyone else ever play that?)

HoN

An intro to pointers and how they work would also be nice.

HoN

PS (Hey, here's a neat side-benefit to using AGS. I've just started learning how to program in C++, and I'm already familiar with a lot of the conventions/syntax. Thanks, CJ!)

My screen name refers to Norton I of San Francisco, Emperor of the United States and protector of Mexico. I consider myself his rightful heir and sovereign ruler of America, and one day I shall reclaim my empire.

(For those of you from across a border or an ocean, don't worry. I will be a benevolent monarch and shall consider war a last resort when there is no other possibility for peace, unlike the current pretender to the throne. My predecessor is one of the few emperors, if not the only one in all of history, to never oppress, enslave, or cause the death of any living person, and I shall model my reign on his supreme example.)

HoN

Hey folks, I was just wondering, is there any particular reason for the limits imposed by AGS (eg. 15000 sprites, 500 dialog topics)? I can understand how the number of sprites/objects/rooms/etc. could become resource hogs if they grew too high, but what about the number of dialog topics/options. Those numbers seem kinda arbitrary.

Bear in mind, however, that I know incredibly little about programming. So, is there any particular reason these limits are set to where they are, and not higher (or unlimited)?

The main reason I ask is that I'm working on a game with a fairly complex dialog system, in which the options and responses change depending on the NPCs' attitudes toward the player. More dialog topics/options might make this easier, though I'll probably end up doing a lot of it using RunScript anyway.

Thanks,
HoN