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Yep this has been requested many times, it's on the tracker here:

http://www.agsforums.com/tracker.php?action=detail&id=14

It has not yet been implemented for technical reasons.

Thanks for the feedback people, yes there seems to be a bug with regions in 640x400-res rooms. I'll look into it.

DasJan: could this be a problem with the game being paused (and thus greying the button out)? Are the GUIs set to "Always on" or "Script only"? Do you use any PauseGame commands in the script?

Barcik: I could, but it's only 2 MB so it's not really worth the effort. If AGS was a 100 MB download, I would make a patch for the new versions. But as others have said, this way also makes sure that you keep your copy of the latest release version as well.

1) I'm not actually sure if this is possible, though someone may have a clever way of doing it.

2) You have to handle GUI_MDOWN in your  on_event  function - see "on_event" in the manual for more info.

The problem is that frame-linked sounds are used for other purposes too, so if it overrode all frame sounds with a specific one on that walkable area, it could well be very annoying when you were trying to use the sounds for other tasks.

I'm trying to come up with a clean way of implementing this.

It's a bit difficult to implement this for technical reasons - however, it has been requested before so I'll add it to my list.

nice editor icon on the new beta (yes, I'm responsible for making it. )

Hehe yes nice work, sorry I forgot to credit you for that initially

How do you refer to guis by name on scripts, tho? it seems that the help hasn't been updated to include that info.

Assuming that your GUI 2 is named "JIBBLE" for instance, you can do:

GUIOn(JIBBLE);

or in interface_click

if (interface == JIBBLE) {

etc - basically just use the name instead of the number anywhere in the script.

Bickering aside, I managed to forget about this before my leave of absense. I shall do the required setting up of the forum tomorrow.

[GUIs]

Ok, the last version got a bit fancy, what with anti-aliasing and lip sync and all. This time, I've re-visited the more basic building blocks of the game to try and enhance your user experience. (how's that for a sales pitch, ey?   )

Please read this entire post before asking any questions. More detailed explanations are below.

RC2 changes since RC1:
* Added basic CallTips to script editor.
* Tiled sprite import now goes from left to right in rows, rather than top to bottom in columns - more logical this way.
* Renamed "Always on" and "Script only" GUI types to make more sense.
* Fixed on_event(ADD_INVENTORY) not running if the player already had one of the item.
* Fixed Undo wiping entire script if selected when editor opens.
* Fixed anti-aliased 256-col sprites being black during fade-in.
* Fixed areas of transparent sprites turning pink (RC1 bug).



RC1 changes since beta 4:
* Added GetGameOption text script function.
* Added ability to use custom image as GUI Slider tracker.
* Editor now checks whether the starting room exists before saving the game, which should hopefully help newbies.
* Fixed replay recording with animating mouse cursors.
* Fixed crash entering a very long global message in the editor.
* Fixed music crossfading while playing FLC animation.

Beta 4 changes since beta 3b:
* Added DisplayThought and SetCharacterViewEx text script functions.
DisplayThought allows you to have the character say something without their speech animation playing (or with a thinking anim playing instead if you like). This can also be displayed in a custom text window above their head.
* Added game.text_align variable to allow you to centre text within message boxes.
* Fixed game crash if you had an unterminated GUI label macro.
* Fixed crash drawing small (eg. 4x4) sprites.
* Fixed editor crash dumping game text in long path names.
* Hopefully fixed crash in Win9x when trying to drag sprites

Beta 3b changes since beta 3a:
* Fixed Player Enters Screen not getting run if a region interaction initiated the room change.
* Fixed replay playback sync error with 640x400-res games.

Beta 3a changes since beta 3:
* Implemented drag-and-drop to move sprites into different folders in the sprite manager
* Editor fatal crash message now includes debug info to help me locate problems

Beta 3 changes since beta 2:
* Added ShakeScreenBackground text script command.
* Added "If player has been to room" interaction command.
* Fixed 0x77f crash bug introduced in 2.55 beta 1.
* Editor now prompts you to rebuild the vox files if music or speech has been added to the game folder.
* Fixed walk-behind mask granularity not being updated if a background of a different resolution but same relative size was imported.
* Fixed bug with Regions running script twice if it had a Wait()
* Fixed SetMusicVolume not allowing values less than Normal.
* Fixed character light levels to use region 0 settings if off-screen, to make the character be correctly lit as they walk from off-screen.
* Fixed black on some sprites turning to transparent when ignoring walk behinds.
* Added manual page describing debugging features

Beta 2 changes since beta 1a:
* Added GetGameParameter, IsInventoryInteractionAvailable text script functions.
* Added plugin API functions GetSpriteWidth, GetSpriteHeight, GetTextExtent, PrintDebugConsole, PlaySoundChannel, IsChannelPlaying
* SetButtonPic now updates the button size to the size of the new graphic, when changing the Normal graphic.
* Mirrored view frames now work with objects.
* Fixed spurious engine crash "no such function in script" when nesting scripts inside interactions.
* Allow FileOpen to open files in sub-directories if FILE_READ.

Beta 1a fixes since beta 1:
* Fixed editor crash changing GUI background image
* Fixed region drawing problem in 640x400 rooms

Changes since v2.54:
* GUIs can now be named, and those names used in the text script, much the same way as it works with characters.
GUIs can also now be deleted, which is safe so long as you use their names rather than numbers to reference them in your scripts.
* Optimization to speed up screens with large objects, and to speed up rendering of characters.
* Added "regions" as a new room area mask type. These take over light levels from walkable areas, and also add 'Player Walks Onto' and 'Player Walks Off' interactions. Added GetRegionAt and RunRegionInteraction text script functions.
* Added support for New Game Templates, to enable the user to choose between a new game Sierra-style, Lucasarts-style, and so forth. The default blank game also now includes a simple custom inventory window.
* Increased max objects per room from 10 to 15.
* Added "Quick Save" editor option, which saves your changes but doesn't compile the game files. This is useful when you just want to quickly save your work but not test the game.
* Added option for 256-colour animating backgrounds to share the main background's palette, to eliminate flicker effect on backgrounds with more subtle changes.
* Added "Conditional - If mouse cursor mode is" interaction command.
* If you have no mod/xm music, the player is now not loaded and therefore you can use all 6 sound channels simultaneously.
* Tinkered with avi playback code a bit to try and make it more stable.
* Fixed crash trying to load a game saved in a 320x240 room when the current room was a 320x200 room.
* Fixed crash when characters went off the top of the screen.
* Fixed crash passing empty string to Display/DisplaySpeech.
* Fixed SetGUIPosition giving error message at 800x600.
[edit: * New editor executable icon, by netmonkey   ]


GUIs

The main reason for allowing these to be named is so that you can delete them. Only delete them though if you are referring to every GUI by name in all your scripts - otherwise, the re-numbering could well mess things up.

Optimization

On most screens this will probably only be in the order of an extra 1-2 FPS, but on screens with large objects and walk-behinds it can be much more significant. The initial pier screen in KQ2VGA as the ship moves away (running at 640x400) is sped up for me from 22 FPS to 37 FPS with this update.

Regions

Why regions? Well, there were complaints from people saying that the 15 walkable areas weren't enough if you want to set up scaling and lighting areas on the same screen. The "Player stands on hotspot" interaction was also rather silly since hotspots aren't generally placed to match where the character stands.

Regions steal the light level setting from walkable areas (don't worry, all old rooms will automatically be upgraded), and they also introduce three new interactions of their own - 'Player Stands on Region', and the more useful 'Player walks onto region' and 'walks off region' - these two only happen once, each time the player enters or leaves the area.

The old "Player stands on hotspot" interaction is now deprecated, please don't use it in any new games as it may be removed completely at some point.

New Game templates

These make the whole Start New Game thing look a bit more professional, but more importantly it's now easy to add "New Sierra-style game", "New verb coin", and so forth, to help newbies.

THIS IS A BETA! MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR GAME FOLDER BEFORE TRYING IT OUT!

http://www.agsforums.com/ags255rc2.zip

As always, your feedback and testing is appreciated. As you can imagine, this version has undergone a fair few changes, so testing is the most important thing now.

Hey, thanks for your welcomes back.

I am now in my new residence - and on my way here, I passed by King Graham himself:


My only regret is that I wasn't here for April Fools Day... I was planning a good one for you guys. Ah well, there's always next year  

Anyway, I tell you, I'd forgotten how long the day seemed without internet access. I got so much more done in the evenings without having the net as a distraction... I may have to consider a permanent abstinance from it at some point

Hehe thanks guys. No I won't be visiting any internet cafe's, I think this is a great opportunity to have a break from the net.  

Ok then, shall we give it a trial period - say, a month. At the end of that we can always go back to the current system if it doesn't work out.

I'm moving house and therefore from tomorrow will have no internet access for probably about 3 weeks.

I'd appreciate it if everybody could try their best to answer any tech queries posted here.

If there seem to be bugs which nobody can work out the cause of, or suggestions which have people backing them up, do add them to the tracker as a way of making sure they don't get forgotten.

Thanks.

So long as we make it clear that it is merely a place to put existing competitions, and not an invitation for people make up as many as possible, it should be ok.

However I understand your concerns DG - it's like why there's no "Suggestions" forum in the Technical area, because I know it would just encourage people to post as many suggestions as they could think of.

Simon annoyed me because he walked so damn slowly all the time, I got fed up and quit after not very long. I'm sure it was a good game though

I think it's worth leaving the Post Your Pic as a sticky, because if we don't then in a couple of months somebody else will come along and start a new one, we'll all say "there's already one, search the forum" and so forth - so it's probably best left.

On the other hand, the Haiku one has probably outlived its time now.

As for competitions belonging in specific forums - to an extent yes they do, but there is inconsistency - like the sprite jams being here, and the background blitz being in the critics' lounge.

Also, having a central competitions forum might encourage more participation - for example from people who don't noramlly read the Critics Lounge and therefore don't know about it.

EvenWolf, that's a good point - we don't want to over-milk the cow and have so many competitions that nobody has the time to take part in any of them.

The new forum rules should probably state that no new types of competition should be started without a prior thread in Gen Gen where a majority of forum members agree.

Sounds like a good idea to clear up the forums to me -grouping competitions like the Sprite jams, Background Blitz, Photoshop Phriday and so forth all together.

[does]

The justification for starting this war is very much a matter of debate, as there are no arguments I can see that make sense.

First of all they say 'Saddam might have weapons of mass destruction and must be disarmed' - but North Korea does have nuclear missiles, so why aren't we attacking them?

Then they say 'Iraq ignored the UN resolution'. But 10 years ago there was a UN resolution telling Israel to give Palestinian areas independent rule - that's been ignored for years on end, and the US didn't charge in with the troops.

The latest thing seems to be 'Saddam is an evil man and must be stopped'. That's true - but there are plenty more evil regimes out there, so why pick on him?


Anyway, it's started now, there's nothing we can do, and it probably is for the best to remove Saddam from power. Seeing the TV footage of the normal Iraqi people dancing in the streets after the Allied troops took over the town gave me confidence that the people there probably do actually support this war.

Hehe, great stuff people - especially "HOTSPOT01", Relight

[THIS FORUM IS FOR:]

So you've wandered into the technical mire that is AGS game-making, and you've come for assistance. There's nothing wrong with that, we all need a little help now and then.

THIS FORUM IS FOR:

• Help with more difficult scripting questions
• Bug reports
• Suggestions for future versions of AGS

THIS FORUM IS NOT FOR:

• Simple questions about the AGS Editor or scripting (use the Beginners Technical Questions forum)
• General chat (use the Adventure-related talk or General Discussion forums)
• Art questions. Do NOT post questions about Paint Shop Pro or how to draw characters here!
• Asking when the next version will be released. If you ask when the next version is coming out, you will be slapped silly with a moist trout. Versions are released when they are ready. End of story.

USE A DESCRIPTIVE SUBJECT WITH ALL NEW POSTS! Subjects like "Question" or "Help" will not be tolerated.

INFORMATION
Before posting, have a check of the various documentation which is available on the Resources page.
Also, try a forum search first to see if a similar question has already been answered in the past.
However, don't unnecessarily bump old threads to the front page. If your problem is different enough and you still need help, feel free to start a new thread.

The GitHub Issue Tracker lists known bugs and current suggestions for future AGS versions. If you think one of the suggestions would really help your game, feel free to reply to its entry and lend your support.

In addition to the one built into AGS, an online version of the manual is available as well. Also, there's a user-driven AGS Wiki.

AGS supports user-written plugins and script modules. You can find them listed here and here. Once you're comfortable with AGS, why not check them out and see if they can help you.
Beware though, using a plugin will mean that your game may not run on Linux or MacOS! Script modules work on all platforms.

Interesting topics including plugin and module support threads have been archived in the Modules & Plugins forum.