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Messages - AGKorson

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16
AGI Development Tools / Re: WinAGI Version 2.3.4
« on: January 24, 2024, 10:02:59 AM »
That would be awesome! I will get that to you shortly. Thank you so much for that!

17
AGI Development Tools / Re: WinAGI Version 2.3.4
« on: January 24, 2024, 02:14:30 AM »
Most of the installers I have written have been with NSIS. With NSIS it would be a trivial matter to check the Registry for previous versions or to uninstall a previous version. It also usually has a lighter footprint on the registry. You could easily have it use no more than uninstall information and file associations. It is easy to register DLLs, etc.
I recall giving NSIS a try in the past, but I struggled to master it. I'm sure you're right about it being a better installer authoring tool, but I just don't have the energy to figure it out.

The SysWOW64 folder is a redirect folder where 32-bit versions of DLLs and drivers are sent to keep them separate from the 64-bit versions. These are used by the x64 version of WOW (x64 version of Windows on Windows or WOW64  x86 emulator/subsystem) so 32-bit programs can run on x64 Windows.
Thx for that explanation. I figured it had something to do with 32 vs 64 bit, but didn't know for sure.

Perhaps just add a link to the GitHub on the WinAGI Wiki page instead of the zip?
I haven't made the repository public yet. I will do so at some point, but not until I'm ready. In the meantime, I don't mind sharing it privately if asked. I suppose I could update the zip files, but it's not like tons of people are clamoring to get the source code. I think I've had two requests for it in the past 15 years.

18
AGI Development Tools / Re: WinAGI Version 2.3.4
« on: January 24, 2024, 01:51:53 AM »
I haven't used WinAGI much, but out of curiosity, are there many known bad resource files of the official sierra AGI games? Like, are they few enough that you could detect them and put an additional message warning that the file decompiled etc properly, that these are just bugs present in the official game releases?  Or is that just an insane amount of work for minimal payoff?
Yeah, most Sierra original games have at least one resource with minor errors/non-conformities. I did imports for my copies of Sierra games (I only own one version of each, so I haven't tried all the different versions). Among the 18 games I checked, only GR, KQ2, LLLLL, MMUG, SQ1, DEMO2, DEMO3 and DEMO5 have completely clean resources. BC, DDPG, KQ1, KQ3, MH1, MH2, PQ1, SQ2, DEMO1 and DEMO4 have at least one resource issue. None of them prevent the games from running though.

When importing a game, if any resource issues are detected, WinAGI will show this dialog:


Maybe I could change that to make it clearer? If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I'm also seeing problems running v2.3.4 vs 2.3.2.  In 2.3.4 if I try and import a new game (KQ3 specifically), it hangs after decompiling but before opening the window where you select the ID name, the interp, the folders... all that stuff.

v2.3.2 works fine.  I did a full uninstall and re-install of each version before testing that.
Thanks for the confirmation. Version 2.3.4 is the one that I effed up. I rewrote the file retrieval functions for text files to handle different end-of-line markers, but failed to realize the changes would hang up if an empty file is encountered.  I've got it fixed and will upload a version that works correctly shortly.

19
AGI Development Tools / Re: WinAGI Version 2.3.4
« on: January 23, 2024, 06:47:46 PM »
Hi macca,

thx for the post, and welcome to the AGI programming boards!

The warnings when you import PQ1 are just that - the original resources in Sierra's released version of PQ1 had a couple of 'glitches' in their resources that don't affect the game at all, but are non-standard. WinAGI is just letting you know in case you want to rebuild/modify things that those warnings should be addressed.  You can ignore them completely if you want.

BUT, you have identified a very serious bug. The lock up is because of a change I made in 2.3.4 to address different types of text files and how they might indicate end-of-line. I thought that was a straightforward fix, but due to how the import function sets up the globals.txt file, the change causes WinAGI to lock up as you describe.

I am very sorry about that, and will get a fix for it ASAP, probably tonight.

In the meantime, you can work around it by manually creating (or editing if it already exists) a 'globals.txt' file in your game directory, and add at least one blank line (by pressing enter, then saving it). Do that before importing and then it will open correctly.

Again I am very sorry for that bug!

20
AGI Development Tools / Re: WinAGI Version 2.3.4
« on: January 23, 2024, 02:04:22 AM »
Good point about the installer - writing installers is not my strong suit, so it's important to uninstall the old version using its installer and THEN installing the new version. I don't know how to make an installer that does removal/updating of an existing version.

If the installer was giving a warning about some of the DLLs, that'd be the first place I'd look. If you happen to know specifically which DLLs, and what version of them are on your system, I'd love to have that info to do some testing.

SysWOW64 is a system subdirectory in the Windows directory- it has similar files as the System32 directory, but the 64 bit versions I think. (I'm not a Windows system expert though, so I could be wrong). I do know many of the files that WinAGI uses are there.

The zip file with the WinAGI source code on the wiki is very out of date. I haven't bothered updating it for years. If you want the files for the latest version, PM me your github ID and I'll send you a link to the repository.

21
AGI Development Tools / Re: WinAGI Version 2.3.4
« on: January 22, 2024, 04:26:39 PM »
That's not something I've ever seen or heard of before. If the installer ran correctly, all necessary files should be there, and it should work. If something was broken, I would expect it to be repeatable, not random. Makes no sense to me.

You're running W10? if so, there should be no problem. I run it (and occasionally do development of it) on a W10 system. Also on W11. It shouldn't matter, but are you running 64bit or 32bit? I've also seen it run on both of those systems.

In looking over the Install package, I can see there MIGHT be a possible problem with the text editor; WinAGI uses a custom editor control, but it relies on having the file riched20.dll installed, but my installer doesn't add it - it assumes it will be there like all other kernel files. Maybe that file is missing or corrupted? But even if that's the case, I would expect a different error instead of what you describe.

Only other thing I can possibly think of is that one of the Windows components used by WinAGI is the wrong version on your system but isn't being updated by the installer. If you are interested, I can send you a list of all windows components that WinAGI uses; if you check the versions/dates of them and send those data back to me, I can check against the list of what is working to see if there's a file that's problematic.



22
AGI Development Tools / Re: Introducing Sierra Quest: Power Pack Demo
« on: January 15, 2024, 11:18:20 PM »
Thanks for the compliments! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I kind of hoped you had added VGA palette capability that AGI256 had, seeing as you pretty much added all the other AGI patch features that Brian Provinciano and others have made for AGI in years past (AGISB, AGIMIDI, AGIMouse, etc).
Yeah, that one seemed like too much... it requires different formatted resources, new editors, etc. It felt like it was going beyond 'enhancing' AGI to creating something new. SCI already did that.

I did run into a couple bugs. If you pick up the 80s mix tape and the floppy disk and put them in the Walkman and floppy drive respectively and go back to where you originally found them you will find brand new items in their place that you can pick up a second time. Getting the floppy disk again didn't cause any issues, but getting the mix tape while it was already in the Walkman crashed the game when I tried to fast forward after trying to use it again.
Good catch. I'll get that patched shortly.


23
AGI Development Tools / Re: Introducing Sierra Quest: Power Pack Demo
« on: December 14, 2023, 09:30:02 PM »
I haven't gotten far, partly due to being too impressed at this piece of work but...


Seriously though, this is like growing up with ZZT and being introduced to MegaZeux.

oops. Well, what's an AGI game without a few graphical blunders? I forgot to mention Drew's super power: phase-shifting...

 I'll take a look at that and get it fixed soon.

Hmm, 8 is not 9... It's fixed now. I'll wait a bit to see if there are other bugs to fix before releasing version 1.0d. In the meantime, use this workaround:

"don't do that"

24
Forum Support and Suggestions / Re: AGI Wiki Is Broken
« on: December 14, 2023, 07:56:51 PM »
It's working. Thanks!

25
AGI Development Tools / Re: Introducing Sierra Quest: Power Pack Demo
« on: December 14, 2023, 07:00:19 PM »
I haven't gotten far, partly due to being too impressed at this piece of work but...


Seriously though, this is like growing up with ZZT and being introduced to MegaZeux.

oops. Well, what's an AGI game without a few graphical blunders? I forgot to mention Drew's super power: phase-shifting...

 I'll take a look at that and get it fixed soon.

26
AGI Development Tools / Re: Introducing Sierra Quest: Power Pack Demo
« on: December 14, 2023, 10:38:17 AM »
oh my gosh, how could I forget! I need to give a HUGE shout out to those who helped me finish this game. Several members of this community have lent their talents to help make this a reality. I could not have done this without them.

First of all, most of the background art and view sprites were drawn by Klownstein. He did an amazing job! When I first sketched out the game, I had some ideas on how it might look, but his artwork was lightyears beyond what I had envisioned.

doomlazer gave me a hand writing several of the sound effects in the game. I suck at creating music and sound, so you can thank him that you don't have to turn the sound off to enjoy the game!

doomlazer was also the principal playtester when I was working on polishing the beta version. He found a lot of bugs that I hadn't noticed, and made a ton of really good suggestions to improve the game play. I also got good playtest feedback from Threepwang and  lance.ewing. And vafada also helped with confirming which versions of the interpreter would work best with the demo game.

THANK YOU to all for your contributions.

27
AGI Development Tools / AGI Power Pack Release 0.0
« on: December 14, 2023, 10:30:02 AM »
As mentioned in the post below, the AGI Power Pack is now available for use. The 'prize' for completing the demo game is a link to the location of the actual Power Pack source files. (It's not really hidden- you could probably find it online if you really want it, but I thought it would be fun to make it a bit of a puzzle hunt to start with.)

If you decide you want to write a game using the Power Pack, it is super easy to implement. Just drop the logic source file that matches your target AGI version  into your AGI game and call it from logic 0 as the very first thing when your game starts. Once that's done, all the features of the Power Pack instantly become available!

Writing code to use the Power Pack features is easy when using WinAGI. Code snippets make adding new commands just as easy as adding regular AGI commands. And the extra features of the resource editors and tools make writing AGI games much simpler, whether using the Power Pack or not!

The biggest enhancements in the Power Pack include:
  • adds mouse support! including ability to load custom cursors, automatic support for menus, inventory selection screen, and save/restore screens; also supports 'click-to-move' control of ego
  • adds sound board and MIDI support! automatically detects presence of Sound Blaster or compatible sound board and MIDI device to provide four-channel sound support
  • moves logic message text to a separate memory segment, freeing up heap memory for non-text resources
  • modifies 'graphics' and 'text.screen' commands to allow displaying eighty columns of text, in addition to the default forty column modes normally used by AGI
  • adds a new 'auto-cycle' feature that will stop/start cycling an object when it stops/starts moving, whether due to changing its direction value, or if it hits an obstacle
  • MAJOR enhancements to the trace function; the window can be repositioned anywhere on the screen; variables and flags can be viewed and modified while the tracer is active; the output is better formatted to make it easier to read

Additional features include:
  • modify the character printing functions to allow use of extended characters in graphics and text modes, regardless of color
  • adds a new function to allow setting message box colors (foreground, background and border) to any combination of colors
  • modifies the color attributes and text printing functions so text will print with any combination of foreground and background colors on the graphics screen
  • adds support for custom status lines; variables and flags can be designated to 'watch' to determine when to do an update
  • adds new command to allow changing the mode of the string compare function in the compare.strings test command between binary (all characters match exactly), text (case is ignored but all other characters match exactly) or AGI (the default where case is ignored, and white space and several separator characters are ignored)
  • adds many new string manipulation functions, including strLen, strCopy, strConcat, strLeft, strRight, strMid, strTrim, strInstr, strFormat, str2byte, hex2byte, byte2hex, strUpper, strLower
  • adds new bitwise math functions (or, and, xor, not, shr, shl)
  • adds new commands to change the color palette, and also fading the display in/out for really cool graphics effects
  • adds new commands that let you change message text, menu text and inventory item text dynamically
  • adds new function that allows sending picture draw commands to the screen after the picture is displayed
  • adds new commands to load and play sounds by variable, and also to discard sounds
  • adds ability create/read/write/delete data files using string values
  • adds support for words in WORDS.TOK to start with non-letters, and also for words to contain extended characters
  • modifies 'clear.text.rect' and 'clear.lines' commands so that the color that is passed is used, instead of just using black or white; by passing negative values, the region is scrolled up instead of being cleared
  • modifies 'set.text.attributes' command to allow passing colors by variable, and to allow "pushing" and "popping" the current attributes to make it easier to manage color changes
  • modifies the 'get.num' command so it ignores non-numeric key presses
  • adds new command to allow setting the input line text programmatically
  • adds new command to allow changing internal clock to trigger 60 times a second, instead of 20, allowing more precise control over movement and cycle timing
  • adds a command to create a countdown timer feature to help create accurate time triggered events and actions
  • adds new command to copy the current input line or the previous input line to a string
  • adds new functions to get the priority and visual colors for any coordinate location on the screen
  • adds functions to allow retrieval of current date/time
  • adds new function to poll the shift, ctrl and alt keys, allowing greater control over keyboard events
  • adds new test command to check if a coordinate is occupied by a pixel of a given screen object
  • adds new format option for message text that allows access to messages in any loaded logic resource
  • adds new command to temporarily hide all screen objects on the picture display
  • adds new command to allow pausing the internal game clock while the game is still running

The Power Pack source files contain a ton of comments that explain in great detail how to use each of the features. You can also examine the source code for the Demo game for additional insight as to how to use the Power Pack to give your games a powerful boost.

And you can always drop me a line here, either in the forums, or by PM if you have any questions or comments.


I want to believe that the AGI community isn't completely dead, and that this effort might inspire at least one more quality fan made game. Help me AGI Community, you're my only hope...

28
AGI Development Tools / Introducing Sierra Quest: Power Pack Demo
« on: December 14, 2023, 10:16:58 AM »
At long last, here it is folks!
Sierra Quest: Power Pack Demo

The AGI Power Pack is an AGI logic script that takes advantage of a buffer overflow in the set.string command that allows direct manipulation of the program code within memory, unlocking new capabilities and enhancements in the AGI engine.

The Power Pack Demo game demonstrates all of these features so you can see what's possible. In the game, you are Drew, who has traveled to Oakhurst California to visit the former Sierra headquarters building. Drew is hoping to find some souvenirs from Sierra's golden age, including the fabled Power Pack project, long rumored to be an abandoned enhancement to AGI that was ultimately beaten out by SCI.

You will need to provide your own interpreter files, and the game will only run in DOSBox (or any other fully compatible MSDOS emulator, or on an original PC with MSDOS if you have it!)

The full source code for the AGI Power Pack and the Demo game will be publicly released shortly. Until then, if you successfully complete the Demo game, you'll be provided with information as to the location of the source files. If you do find it, please leave a message here. I'd love to hear about your success and any thoughts you have about the game or the Power Pack.


29
AGI Development Tools / WinAGI Version 2.3.4
« on: December 14, 2023, 10:14:59 AM »
A new version of WinAGI, 2.3.4, is available for download here: http://agiwiki.sierrahelp.com/images/1/1a/WinAGI_2_3_4.zip
(2.3.3 had a major bug in the NewGame function)

No major enhancements, but it fixes a couple minor bugs. If you're going to use the AGI Power Pack (see the post above), you should update to the latest version of WinAGI.

Enjoy!

30
Forum Support and Suggestions / AGI Wiki Is Broken
« on: December 14, 2023, 10:06:52 AM »
I was trying to upload a new version of WinAGI to the AGI wiki, and discovered it's broken. Something is wrong with the way it handles links to other pages.

Links that use a typical page/subpage hierarchy such as http://agiwiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php/Main_Page give a 'too many redirects' error, but if you format the link as http://agiwiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php?index=Main_Page then it loads fine. As far as I can tell, all internal links to other wiki pages are using the broken format. This makes it nearly impossible to navigate through the wiki.

As a workaround you can inspect the address of the page you want to go to then type the page in manually, adding the '?index=' syntax in place of the 'slash' syntax.

The SCI wiki has links that include the '?index=' format for the most part, so it navigates between pages without error. One exception I found is the 'Random page' link. It returns a page formatted in 'slash' syntax, but curiously, it doesn't give an error, it just dumps to the main page regardless of what the actual page address is.

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