http://sciprogramming.com SCIProgramming.com, where we make adventure games using the Sierra Creative Interpreter. Just like Space Quest, Kings Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry! en-us computer,games,programming,community,adventure games 2007 - 2012, SCI Programming Community Sun, 20 May 2012 21:40:40 -0900 cloudee1@yahoo.com Empty SAC Designs Notepad 5 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3270 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3270#When:09:05:30AM Sun, 20 May 2012 09:05:30 EST Software You are right, I can script this task out myself - I didn't mean for you to put so much more effort into this, I was just hoping that there was a really trivial way to do it with your installer.

I'll just modify the dosbox.conf, dosbox.ini, game.ini, game.bat appropriately. Shouldn't be a problem.
http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3269 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3269#When:04:42:09AM Sun, 20 May 2012 04:42:09 EST Software There is the mounting that has to added, too. Are you adding a GAME.INI for each game? If so the one line in it needs to be set to Executable=run.exe. The other thing would be to set the "mount c" of each dosbox.conf to the game's folder. If you can't figure out how to do this from your script, let me know and I'll see what I can come up with. I would need a little information on how you are scripting this. Are you using a Pearl Script? What all do you have the script doing? Besides the game scripts, what files does your script add to each game? Any other relevant information that I should to know to customize this for your script? http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3268 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3268#When:21:30:57PM Sat, 19 May 2012 21:30:57 EST Software But when I install it, I don't think I've ever have to specify the DosBox location (and certainly not recently). I just click through the 'Next' dialogs and I'm all set - that's why I was thinking that a 'silent install' would be practical.

EDIT: Yeah, you've supplied a default path to DosBox, which I adopted. I never have to use the 'override' checkbox to specify the location. Even if it needed to, I would think that the path could be a command-line option. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3267 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3267#When:20:13:25PM Sat, 19 May 2012 20:13:25 EST Software There has to be some interaction. Without it, it would not be able find DOSBox. About the only thing that ends up in the registry from DOSBox is from the MRU cache or other things from usage (searches, opened in other programs, etc.) Even the official DOSBox installer does not track anything in the Registry. Without interaction the only way to automatically get the location of the user's DOSBox would be to do a file search on the whole system. Besides the time that that would take, if the user had more than one build of DOSBox on their system, the run utility would not know which one to use. A straight forward search would probably just take the first one it found and then quit.

That said, I suppose that it would be possible to do a new version that could refer to an ini or XML file or a registry entry to use some predetermined DOSBox. It could even include DOSBox in the same folder, but that would mean a separate DOSBox for each game. Perhaps just a separate script to be used in batch processing?

I wish my C++ skills were something more than nonexistant. I would love to take on Companion and/or Studio to update/modernize the interface. I would add some of the various tools and utilities, including seamlessly integrate the run utility and my other project. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3266 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3266#When:18:51:02PM Sat, 19 May 2012 18:51:02 EST Software I meant an unattended installation of your DosBoxRunSetup application, no GUI interaction. In my current development, I'll create a new game (via script) multiple times at a sitting; I was simply trying to eliminate a manual step. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3265 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3265#When:13:38:01PM Sat, 19 May 2012 13:38:01 EST Software I am not sure what you are trying to do. It is designed to be invoked by the run button from within the editor. On first run it does require some user input for DOSBox location, etc. From then on, it should simply run from the run button. An NSIS installer can be run silently, but it has to be compiled to do so. If you are looking for a solution for distribution of your game, a different tool would have to be designed. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=591.msg3264 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=591.msg3264#When:11:53:08AM Sat, 19 May 2012 11:53:08 EST Programming I just realized that these classes exist, just not with these labels. Here's how Studio classifies the words.

[code]
{0x000, "noword"}, // Actually exists in SCI games, discovered (11/11/00)
{0x001, "preposition"},
{0x002, "article"},
{0x004, "qualifying adjective"},
{0x008, "relative pronoun"},
{0x010, "noun"},
{0x020, "indicative verb"}, // (such as "is", "went" as opposed to _do_ this or that, which is imperative)
{0x040, "adverb"},
{0x080, "imperative verb"},
{0x400, "conjunction"}, // "and", "or", "nor", "if", "but"
{0x800, "subordination"}, // "until", "while", "with", "without" and "for"
{0x4FF, "anyword"}
[/code]

And here is how the FreeSCI documentation classifies them:
[code]
0x001 - number (not found in the vocabulary, set internally)
0x002 - special
0x004 - special
0x008 - special[Note 2]
0x010 - preposition
0x020 - article
0x040 - qualifying adjective
0x080 - relative pronoun
0x100 - noun
0x200 - indicative verb (such as "is", "went" as opposed to _do_ this or that, which is imperative)
0x400 - adverb
0x800 - imperative verb
[/code]

I find it interesting that the comment for the indicative verb is the same in both places which would seem to indicate that set of definitions borrowed from another. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=591.msg3263 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=591.msg3263#When:09:36:19AM Sat, 19 May 2012 09:36:19 EST Programming As I was working through modifying the vocabulary in my game, I corrupted it again. This time however, I noticed some word classes that I hadn't seen before, specifically 'conjunction' and 'subordination'. These do not seem to be documented in the FreeSCI 'SCI Specifications document'.

I was developing in Studio, so I cracked open the source are here is what I found in the ssresdecode.cpp file:

[code]
{0x400, "conjunction"}, // "and", "or", "nor", "if", "but"
{0x800, "subordination"}, // "until", "while", "with", "without" and "for"
[/code]

When I get a spare moment I will do further investigation.
http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=328.msg3262 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=328.msg3262#When:09:18:51AM Sat, 19 May 2012 09:18:51 EST Miscellaneous Doesn't look like it, here's some of the domain name registration info (it's in reactivation?):

Domain name: AGIGAMES.COM

Administrative Contact:

Reactivation Period (Reactivation-Pending@enom.com)
+1.4252744500
Fax: +1.4259744791
15801 NE 24th Street
Bellevue, WA 98004
US
http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3261 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=523.msg3261#When:08:52:04AM Sat, 19 May 2012 08:52:04 EST Software Collector - are there switches for a silent install? I'm looking to install this from the command line. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=328.msg3260 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=328.msg3260#When:06:14:19AM Sat, 19 May 2012 06:14:19 EST Miscellaneous It seems that agigames.com does not respond, maybe it's free again? http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=590.msg3259 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=590.msg3259#When:20:33:15PM Thu, 10 May 2012 20:33:15 EST Programming Yep, that was it. An empty string attempting to be converted to a number. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=590.msg3258 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=590.msg3258#When:19:35:18PM Thu, 10 May 2012 19:35:18 EST Programming I'm trying to debug a issue where a call to a procedure is causing my game to abruptly crash, window just closes. If I introduce a Print() statement immediately before the line that is causing the crash, the crash doesn't happen.

The procedure executes just fine under other circumstances. If I execute the procedure call with the same inputs in a more 'controlled' environment (in a room script with only that call in it), it works just fine.

Anyone seen this behavior before? Anyone have any ideas how to track this problem down?

EDIT: I've attached screenshots with the debugger. These are the last 2 calls before the crash. I'm pulling something out of a text resource. The next command is attempting to convert it to a number. I'm looking into both calls now.

I think the problem is that I'm retrieving an empty text resource, which is crashing the next call that attempts to convert it to a number. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=589.msg3257 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=589.msg3257#When:20:49:48PM Sat, 05 May 2012 20:49:48 EST Programming I think it's covered properly in several said string topics (Advanced Said() Strings, Said() Strings - Comprehensive Examples). My problem was due to programatically building the vocab & probably not something that anyone will run into.

In my opinion, I would think twice about changing any of the word classes in the vocab of the template game. There is only one word that comes to mind is the word 'with' (which I've done in the past during testing of the parser), but I'm not even sure if that's a really good idea. http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=589.msg3256 http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=589.msg3256#When:18:48:21PM Sat, 05 May 2012 18:48:21 EST Programming That sounds like something that have some kind of entry about it in the Wiki.