Messages

AnasAbdin's lack of maturity and professional temperament betray his assertion that he is a university professor.  At this point what happened with regard to postings is no longer relevant.  His subsequent statements undermine his own credibility and have shown him to be unworthy of our trust.  I for one, do not wish to be associated with or have any interaction with this individual.   

...  I don't believe for an instant that this was harmless.  ...

I agree whole heartedly with progz.   Fraudulent accounts/postings breaks the trust and insults the intelligence of the community.  Without trust there is no community and no value in an online forum.  As for the individual named in this post, his writing skills (as displayed in his reply to this thread) seems to be well below a PhD or even Masters degree level.  Makes one wonder, doesn't it ...

I also have disgust at the idea of directing people over whom one has authority to praise one's work.  "Go to this public forum and praise my work and vote for my entry in this competition and I'll give you a grade better than you deserve...".  How ethical and mature is that?  Definitely not the behavior of a competent professional or anyone I would want to have contact with. 

Good work and thanks Snarky and other mods...

From what I think I understand of your proposal, you would give users the ability to organize their projects in an arbitrary structure of their own devise.  Presumably, people would eventually settle on some sort of hierarchical structure resembling an OO paradigm. Inevitably features suggested by such organizations will be requested.  Implementation of such features can be easy or difficult depending on how the underlying data structures are defined.

Erm, what? No .
I proposed simply one thing: instead of having item types as root nodes in the TreeView control, have them as buttons on the panel. Hence faster search through project, since you don't have to, for example, scroll to collapse the parent node, you may just click button and change to different item type.

Hehe, I totally misunderstood and read way more into the original post than you intended.  Your suggestion is perfectly reasonable in terms of both effort and results. 

The Icons seem to take up a lot of horizontal space; more than the tree elements themselves. I have been using and loving Tzachs new editor version.  It's docking ability allows me to view multiple scripts and editor panels simultaneously.  It's a huge benefit to be able to see the script and it's header ()or another script) side by side.    But this all makes horizontal space a premium.

Perhaps if the icons occupied two rows instead of one or if the wrapped around to two rows when the panel was resized narrower this wouldn't be a problem.  I like Tzachs idea and it would also be a good idea to have an option to use the old panel as well.

[Splash Screen]

@Iceboty:  Thanks for the tip.  I tried it and it has made some improvement for my current application.  However, the window containing a black still briefly displayed before the preload graphic.

@Joseph: I could perhaps buy that for full screen display, when the graphic adapter's resolution is changed but not running in window mode. 

@Crimson:  I think there are two situations to address, initially starting a game from an OS context and starting a game from the context of another game.  In the first situation a splash screen would be an adequate solution but in the later situation you would want a seamless transition from one game to another.  The later situation would occur, for example, when a mini-game is started or exited and intervening black and/or splash screen would be unacceptable.

Splash Screen - The preload.pcx thing could/should be upgraded to a formal splash screen mechanism similar to what you describe.  I would add to your suggestion the ability to specify a minimum display time and the ability to use PNG images. 

Mini-Game - The second situation arises when starting a mini-game and returning back to the original using RunAGSGame().  I created a MiniGame module a while back to do this but because of the way ags does start-up and restore-game the code the code was quite convoluted.  Perhaps the RunAGSGame() mechanism could be enhanced to have a "CallAGSGame()" version which would save the current game state to a file and then restore it on return.

In both cases above the black screen thing needs to be eliminated first, IMHO.

Why does the engine insist on always displaying a black screen first before displaying anything else? Startup a game in window mode.  An empty windows is displayed for a short period of time.  The time depends on the room transition selected.  If the selection is instant there is an annoying flicker. 

This behavior is not only really annoying but it also makes seamless transitions to/from mini games virtually impossible.  If also looks really unprofessional and gives the impression to users (i.e. game player, our customers) that something is not right with AGS games. 

Can anything be done about this situation? 

Thanks for listening
Rick

I would also like to suggest that the engine include PNG support so that screen shots could be captured as PNG or so that PNG images could be read into dynamic sprites at runtime.  BMP is such a pain to drag around everywhere. 

I think his point is that MS is showing signs of Apple-envy and being the evil empire they are he fears that MS will require all third party applications be sold through the MS App Store.  This is of course in addition to the new-cell-phone-on-the-desktop windows paradigm.  it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

...
"We're trying to make sure that Linux thrives," says Newell, who reckons that the lack of games is what's holding back the alternative PC operating system. "So we're going to continue working with the Linux distribution guys, shipping Steam, shipping our games, and making it as easy as possible for anybody who's engaged with us - putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux, as well. It's a hedging strategy,"
...
Newell went on to express his concern for a possibly closed future for Windows with the arrival of the new OS. "I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space," he declared.
...

Full article: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/359898/newell-windows-8-is-a-catastrophe-for-everyone-in-the-pc-space/

From what I think I understand of your proposal, you would give users the ability to organize their projects in an arbitrary structure of their own devise.  Presumably, people would eventually settle on some sort of hierarchical structure resembling an OO paradigm. Inevitably features suggested by such organizations will be requested.  Implementation of such features can be easy or difficult depending on how the underlying data structures are defined.

[while]

Calin, Crimson,

Thanks for the info.   

Notes for manual update:

while
- check for infinite loops
- see also (noloopcheck)

noloopcheck
- check for infinite loops
- 150,000,000 loops per script execution
- reset on script completion or on wait() instruction
- see also (while, function)

... What I suggested here is just a change in how Editor Gui represent current project structure.

The PDF also shows an alternative project structure but but it also implies a somewhat different project structure from the current one.   So my point is that if we are going to go through all the trouble we may as well think it through and try to eliminate a few problems along the way.   The PDF outlines a different, more object oriented, structure than the current one and would no doubt take a tremendous amount of work. However there may be some good ideas that are worth pursuing and are more easily implemented.  I thought it was enough related to what you are thinking about the project explorer that you would be interested in seeing it.

If I call the following function 3 or more times I get the "infinite loop" run time error.  This code has worked previously without any problems.  Seems like the infinite loop counter ought to be reset when the function returns.  Putting in the Wait(1) instruction seems to cause the reset.  Hmmm, also putting in the explicit return also seems to trigger the reset.  In any case there needs to be something about this in the manual with regard to the while statement and the section about scripting loops.

Code: AGS

function InitModel() {
	int mx, tx;

	mx = 0;
	while (mx<2000) {
		// do something
		tx = 0;
		while (tx<50) {
    			// do something
			tx++;
		}
		mx++;
	}		
	Wait(1);     // Otherwise we get a runtime error for too maany loops??
}

There was a nice discussion about similar things in this thread awhile back ...
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=45165.40

where I posted this pdf with nice pictures. 
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/9957/entityconcept.pdf

IMHO, I don't see the point of just shuffling things around a bit without remedying any of the current editor's short comings such as the difficulties that occur when there are multiple game developers, inability to easily import/export all game entities, inability to support episodic games where subsequent episodes are developed and released are able to be integrated with the original game as they are released. 

@dkh, thanks for your thoughtful replay.

I am familiar with the security concern as it has been debated on the past decade many times. While there is some merit to this point of view, IMHO, this an obstacle only to 14yr script kiddies.  Anyone with a little programming skill could make a malicious plugin or engine hack and do far worse.  The more recent versions of windows do not allow unfettered writing to folders containing OS and program files without a password anyway.   

In any case, none of this is relevant to my current application of AGS.  I have a need for the functionality and wanted to know if anyone has done any similar work or has any such interest before I go off re-inventing the wheel.

@JJS:  ags_shell sounds like it is part of what I am looking for.  I'll go check it out.   Thanks

I think a bigger security concern ought to be the possibility of someone infesting the AGS engine/editor with malware so that every game produced would be a Typhoid Mary.  We don't have in place a formal process or procedure for detecting this kind of thing do we? 

I read the manual and know about that imitation very well.  I did ask about a "plugin" didn't I.   I have such a plugin but it was written some 10 years ago and don't have the source for it.  I don't know if it still works or not or not.  I thought there was some discussion about this a while ago and that perhaps something came of it or if not, perhaps someone may have a similar interest. 

If you can't reply without being an ASS then please just move along!   

So if there us anyone interested in collaborating on an OS plugin that would make file access and other OS functions available via AGS script please get in touch.

I thought there was a plugin that would allow file write to any path and to do other OS things? I have searched the forums and have come up empty.  Anyone know of anything that may be helpful or interested in collaborating on a new plugin?

Well this stinks...

I'm currently working on a contract in the Denver area, about 25 miles form where this happened.  I was at work when this was going down.   

tzachs:  I have been experimenting with docking to see two files side by side (.asc and .ash for example).  It's really nice to be able to do that but I can only get one file in the second editor pane.  Would you consider adding a feature to your version that would allow two multi-tab editor panes.  That would be a great feature to have, IMHO.

Found a couple of things you may want to look at.  They are probably not due to your changes but anyway  ...

1.  Add object to a room.  Double click blue cup to get sprite dialog.  Use sprite dialog to add a sprite folder (yeah I know WTF do that?). Folder gets added but now go to Sprite manager it's not there.  Go back to the add sprite dialog and it is there. 

2.  Add a room and then delete it.  Add another room and sometimes get a crash; other times get message "room4.crm already exists, overwrite?", click yes and all is well     

I don't think it is a difficult task. Engine already stores cmdline args, although they are used only during initialization. New script commands could simply create script objects of String type, that contain command argument, like:

Thats exactly what I had in mind.  I know you are doing a lot at the moment but please put it on your to do list.  Perhaps someday when you are bored you can get around to doing this.

Your hard work is greatly appreciated.
Rick