SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

[troflip]

Let's use this thread to discussion improvements and major bugs in the alpha release I put out here. (updated 6/16/2015, 7:27pm GMT)

I'll keep editing this first post to summarize things.

RELEASE NOTES
------------
- Support for creating new SCI 1.1 games. Editing of SCI 1.1 views, pics, palettes, messages, scripts
- Pic Editor: VGA support. New zoom/final pane on the right. The "light up lines" icon is now "transform coords". Click on it and choose (for instance) the line tool, and you can move line vertices around. "Show priority bars" displays pri bars differently and lets you move them around on the right.
- View editor: eye-dropper tool to select color from image (and yes, I know, the working palette is way too tiny). Edit embedded view palettes from view menu.
- Tools->Extract all resources. Functionality to mass extract resources, generate view/pic bitmaps, and disassemble all scripts.
- SCI0 sound editing support.
- Drag wavs into the Audio view to add them
- Version Detection dialog
- Decompiler
- "Find in Files" now searches text and message resources, not just scripts.
- If you turn on "Tools->Preferences->Enable browse info", you can now do "Script->Class hierarchy". You can also jump around in scripts using the combobox at the top of the script editor. (WARNING: this feature has some bad bugs, and if you load another game while the browse info is being generated in the background, SCI Companion will crash)

RELEASE NOTES 6-10-2015
---------------------
- View editor pane has been "revamped". Palette is larger, and there is an edit palette button. The treeview of loops/cels is gone. You can use the arrows, as before, to select cels or loops, or you can use the new panes on the right/bottom. The loop selector pane also lets you reorder loops (and of course you can re-order cels in the cel selector pane).
- Fixed a number of bugs (striked out below)
- SCI1 sound is... functional. You can import a MIDI file, add it to the game, and add cues and loop points. I added the SCI0 death sound to the SCI1 template game, and it sounds pretty bad! So things are still kind of messed up. Other midi files I've tried sound pretty good though.
- you can preview palette cycling in the edit palette dialog (for pics)
- improved the selection rect in the palette editor
- I tried to get gif image sequences to import - it worked fine for most gifs, but for some reason not those exported from SV.exe! The library I'm using to load them loses all palette and indexed/color information for those gifs.
- support for extended char sets in fonts (previously it was locked to 128 characters, like SCI0 requires)
- copy-paste in VGA views was pretty busted, it is now working properly


RELEASE NOTES 6-15-2015
---------------------------
- things update without having to close/reopen the game when global palette is changed
- support import of multi-frame gif images into views, retaining the palette
- support for (and persistence of) midi output device for previewing sounds
- animate dialog shows transparency properly
- show duration in preview pane for sound and audio resources

RELEASE NOTES 6-16-2015
--------------------
- support for original aspect ratio (Tools->Preferences, check button at the bottom). The only place I can think of where I don't honor aspect ratio is in the pane in the font editor where you choose letters.
- some minor bug fixes

RELEASE NOTES 6-18-2015
----------------------
- bug fix: newly added cels don't get focus
- bug fix: deleting last pic command, or cropping commands -> position is lost and goes back to 0
- bug fix: resource deletion problem
- bug fix: can't set -ve y offset for cels
- bug fix: setting a loop that was a mirror to "none", then save. Reopen and it stays a mirror of another loop
- other minor fixes
- I forgot to update the version number (still 3.0.0.4)... oops
- beginning of polygon editor, but I've been busy fixing bugs, so it doesn't really do anything yet.

RELEASE NOTES 6-22-2015   (3.0.0.5)
----------------------
- Fixes for MIDI tempo change bugs (hopefully)
- Polygon editor, seamlessly integrated into the pic editor (full undo support)
- updates to template game (debug handler, plus other minor updates)
- labels for cel/view panes in the view editor
- visual changes to the resource tabs
- view cel paste corruption bug fix

RELEASE NOTES 6-25-2015   (3.0.0.6)
--------------------------
- "debugger" functionality. Run the template game using the red button and DebugPrint calls are routed to SCI Companion
- "Debug room" from the script editor. Script 16 is where you put debug room setup stuff
- added lots of defines to the template game (icon states, scripts, icon indices, etc...). Should make it easier to see dependencies
- text resource wackiness is fixed
- delete resource problem hopefully fixed for good now!
- some views from community members now part of template game
- the views in the game explorer are larger now, and the resource number is shown in the preview
- the polygon editor has an editbox for the points now
- speech bubble view resource (993) added back in from SQ5. SpeakWindow.sc uses it. Maybe someone can play around with that?

RELEASE NOTES 7-1-2015   (3.0.0.7)
----------------------------------------
- named polygons are now supported (so you can create the polygon by itself and do whatever you want with it)
- fake ego has option to observe polygons
- pic editor has a gutter around the top and left sides so you can easily extend polygons to the pic boundary
- cloudee's Adobe wavs can now be imported.
- template game updated to use KQ5 palette
- simple palette remapping functionality for views
- new pics inherit the global palette instead of a hard-coded one
- audio previewer has been updated to show bit/sample rates and describe how to add files

RELEASE NOTES 7-3-2015 (3.0.0.8 )
-----------------------------------
- remove support for old polys
- hopefully fix crash in pic side pane
- fix pics being garbage in SV.exe
- validate polygon winding order so user doesn't have to think about it
- update tutorial link in help menu
- fix painting glitch on right side of pic
- show all letters in font preview

RELEASE NOTES 7-8-2015 (3.0.0.9 )
----------------------------
- ability to adjust hue/lum/sat/tint of palette colors in the editor
- palette changes are now previewed on views/pics instantly
- from palette editor, save palette as a separate resource
- pics can now be previewed with different palettes, just like views
- fix bug with SCI0 having 0 as default package
- message resources can be imported (compatible with SV.exe) and exported from txt files
- "extract all" dialog has option to export messages as txt files
- wav files added as audio resources inherit the filename by default
- fixed issues with not recognizing certain wave files
- >22Khz wav files are automatically downsampled to 22Khz
- stereo wav files can now be imported (SCI Companion uses the left channel)
- background images up to 200px are supported (set the height from the pic menu, then import a new bg).
- sample resources for SCI1.1 are now available
- warning when importing a resource when there is already a resource of this number (instead of silent overwrite)


RELEASE NOTES 7-15-2015 (3.0.0.10)
----------------------------
- template game cleaned up, new fonts with extended char sets from kawa added.
- when importing pic backgrounds, you can specify custom palette ranges to map to
- when importing pic background, you overlay it on the current pic background. This is a powerful feature!
- default font edit color is black now
- you can paste commands from EGA pics into VGA pics, and invalid commands will be removed
- menu option to remove setvisual commands from pics (for EGA->VGA conversion)
- minor improvements to palette editor (shift-click anchoring, and easier visualization of used colors for light colors)
- warning in save resource dialog when you're about to overwrite an existing resource
- support for shifting colors in a view to a new section of the palette, for easy re-coloring of views.
- dithering support for importing image sequences to VGA views, and for pic backgrounds
- output pane (e.g. for debugging support) now keeps scrolled to the bottom as new things come in
- support for exporting loops as gifs
- paste in VGA pic editor now applies a tracing image, as it does in EGA
- insert object dialog re-done, and extensible to support both SCI0 and SCI1.1
- insert object from right click menu in script editor

RELEASE NOTES 8-4-2015 (3.0.0.11)
-------------------------------
- expanded support for importing images into views
- lots of fixes to the image import dialog
- dithering support and alpha dithering support in image import dialog
- undo support for nouns/cases in message editor
- easier way to choose "fake ego"
- more penstyles in view editor
- import image dialog support hue change now
- fixes to compiler for better error messages
- maybe it runs under XP now?
- "insert method" in script right-click menu
- lots of other minor fixes

RELEASE NOTES 10-14-2015 (3.0.0.12)
-------------------------------
- support for message audio
- support for script navigation/tooltips/autocomplete
- auto Lip-syncing
- ability to record audio right in the message editor

RELEASE NOTES 12-7-2015 (3.0.1.0)
-----------------------------------------------
- support for Sierra Script syntax
- updated template game with lots of renames
- ability to open most SCI2 resources, and edit most of them too
- custom syntax highlighting (modify syntaxcolor.ini in the Customize folder)
- built-in help
- support for plugins
- fix some font rendering issues
- game "profiles" for running under DOSBox or ScummVM (or custom)
- lots of other stuff I guess, it's been a while


RELEASE NOTES 12-9-2015 (3.0.1.1)
----------------------------------------
- Fix the compiler bug with SCI0

RELEASE NOTES 12-11-2015 (3.0.1.2)
------------------------------------
- Fix the pic drawing bug reported by cloudee
- Slightly updated help
- syntax highlighting of procedure and class names

RELEASE NOTES 12-23-2015 (3.0.1.3)
------------------------------------------------
(if you downloaded this prior to Dec 24, 05:10 GMT, download it again, small bug fix)
- reduce script size a bit
- many fixes for compiling scripts in interpreter versions other than the two template games:
    - Mixed Up Fairy Tales scripts compile properly now
    - KQ5 floppy should decompile ok (someone reported that some scripts didn't decompile)
    - KQ5-CD, scripts should compile properly now
    - SCI0: some games don't like it when you write empty export tables. Fixed.
- fixed bug where deleting a resource could remove everything from resource.map
- fix decompiler bug that caused unpredictable decompiles in some cases (sometimes success sometimes not)
- fix decompiler bug that caused problems in xmas card 1990 demo Game::handleEvent
- improved source code formatting
- fixed some issues when decompiling to Sierra Script
- generate compile error when number literals don't fit in 16 bits.
- template game fixes:
    - message case support
    - scale signal defines

RELEASE NOTES 1-25-2016 (3.0.1.4)
---------------------------------
- basic digital sound support for SCI1 (just so 1990 Xmas Card demo can have Sfx)
- fix loading of some SCI1 sound resources
- various compiler and decompiler fixes

RELEASE NOTES 1-27-2016 (3.0.1.5)
---------------------------------
- fixes for synonyms compile issues and said string decompile issues with SCI0
- some autocomplete fixes to prevent autocompletion inside strings and such
- resource names weren't applied when doing Save As resource
- Stop the weird o in SQ3 for Joystick
- updates to template game to fix SaveRestoreDialog issues reported in December
- updates to pixel positino of status bar in template game
- LValue tokens not properly cleaned (dungeon# not turned into dungeon_ in all cases during KQ6 decompilation)

RELEASE NOTES 1-28-2016 (3.0.1.6)
--------------------------
- fixed issue with multiple plugins

RELEASE NOTES 1-29-2016 (3.0.1.7)
--------------------------
- fixed issue with drag-to-add resource names being blank until a rebuild

BUGS
-----
- crazy colors when copy-pasting a background in a VGA pic, then corrupted palette when delete image.
- problems deleting script
- editing view palette doesn't save it back to view
- pen (and other?) vector commands need to be disabled for SCI1.1+
- sequence 0 should be disallowed
- issue with control key being "stuck down" when editing messages (no consistent repro)
- Need to enforce the position of gDongle global var (perhaps remove it completely, and handle it automatically?)
- fg/bg colors in palette don't update properly when switching views
- newly added cels don't get focus
- deleting last pic command, or cropping commands -> position is lost and goes back to 0
- message (and other?) resources keep coming back after deleting, but open wrong resource - MI
- can't set -ve y offset for cels
- setting a loop that was a mirror to "none", then save. Reopen and it stays a mirror of another loop
- adding multiple inventory items: they overlap in the inventory window (drawInvWindow bug?)
- pasting from cel to cel gets weird if destination cel is smaller.
- pic resources render badly in SV.exe - kawa
- text editor is messed up
- apparently still have an issue with deleting resources
- AddPolygonsToRoom crashes in ScummVM
- can't read KQ5 CD script resources properly. lofsa absolute, but exports are not wide.

FEATURE REQUESTS
---------------------
- fake ego should obey polygons
- button for deleting messages
- way to visualize polygon paths (lskovlun)
- export palettes (MI)
- import gif sequence (MI)
- paste tracing image in VGA pics
- choose view/pic type when "new pic/view" when no game loaded
- palette cycling preview in pic editor
- highlight foreground/background colors in view editor palette
- 4x3 aspect ratio (for preving/editing)
- show mm:ss in the resource list view for sound/audio resources
- consider hiding pic command pane for VGA pics
- support gif export for views
- upload patches to midi devices for preview.
- when exporting message resources, export headers too - cloudee
- show all font letters in font preview (omer)
- preview pic with different palettes
- tint palettes
- import export messaGes
- extended character issues - kawa
- fix up DosBox config file and options
- Add Wait call to main loop

[troflip]

One feature I was thinking might be useful is to be able to import images in layers for the pic editor. The workflow now (and presumably what sierra used), was to import your hand-painted backgrounds ( ) and then carefully draw priority regions that match up with the image. The alternative would be to track external files that get "composed" into a final image in the actual pic resource. For instance, you could have pic_100_0.png, pic_100_4.png, pic_100_15.png that represent images with priority layers 0, 4 and 15 for pic 100. Maybe you could even drag them around a bit to reposition the layers in the editor. Not sure if this would be useful or not - it would be a lot of work, so it depends how hard it is to draw the priority regions manually.

[MusicallyInspired]

I really like that multiple image file layer/priority import function idea!

[Cloudee1]

* Pic Editor...
   Selecting Copy from the visual screen, and then clicking paste, the image itself is pasted onto the background but all kinds of weird when it is the whole pic image. I am assuming that this is a feature that I need to explore more. However when deleting the image from the left pane, the pallette appears to get screwed up.

In this sense, how hard also would it be to add the ability to load tracing image from clipboard instead of file. Usually when I have imported a bmp to the pic editor, I copy the visual screen in order to use it as a tracing image on the priority and control screens.

* Script listings...
  I have rearranged a couple of scripts ex 100 became 800 for consistency. However after deleting 100 and removing the files from the src folder, the room still wanted to be listed on the main scripts page. But it took on the name of one of the scripts surrounding it, and only showed the decompilation. For a workaround, I just re-added a new room 100 script, but delete definitely does some weird stuff.

[MusicallyInspired]

Can we have an option to create resources for specific versions of SCI? Currently when you open the View or Pic editors without opening a game first they default to SCI0. Can we have a selection box to choose which version of the SCI resource we want to create?

[troflip]

In this sense, how hard also would it be to add the ability to load tracing image from clipboard instead of file. Usually when I have imported a bmp to the pic editor, I copy the visual screen in order to use it as a tracing image on the priority and control screens.

Hmm, so that's exactly how it works in SCI0. All that happened for VGA pics is that I changed the default behavior of paste to "insert the image" instead of "load a tracing image". How does it feel to use the "zoom" screen (on the right) to draw the pri/control screens? e.g. switch the "zoom" screen to visual, then draw on the pri/control screens on the main image.

Can we have an option to create resources for specific versions of SCI? Currently when you open the View or Pic editors without opening a game first they default to SCI0. Can we have a selection box to choose which version of the SCI resource we want to create?

Is there a reason you're creating new views/pics without a game loaded? I'm trying to figure out if this is an important scenario to handle properly. SCI versions are bit more complicated than just SCI0/SCI1/SCI1.1. The "version" for a game currently consists of 17 different values describing different features!

[troflip]

* Script listings...
  I have rearranged a couple of scripts ex 100 became 800 for consistency. However after deleting 100 and removing the files from the src folder, the room still wanted to be listed on the main scripts page. But it took on the name of one of the scripts surrounding it, and only showed the decompilation. For a workaround, I just re-added a new room 100 script, but delete definitely does some weird stuff.

I'm not seeing this behavior. Can you describe the steps you took in more detail? Also, did you check the box "remove blahblahblah completely from the game"?

[MusicallyInspired]

Is there a reason you're creating new views/pics without a game loaded? I'm trying to figure out if this is an important scenario to handle properly. SCI versions are bit more complicated than just SCI0/SCI1/SCI1.1. The "version" for a game currently consists of 17 different values describing different features!

From what I've seen and tested all SCI1 Views work in any SCI1 game and the same for SCI1.1 and SCI0. The only exceptions are EGA SCI1 games which just use SCI0 View formats, it seems. They work, anyway. I've loaded the EGA version of SQ1 remake's ego sprites into SQ3 with no problems before. Same with Picture resources.

As for the reason why, well for instance I'm working on a new Ego View for the template game and I don't need the template game loaded. Other scenarios include creating a library of View/Pic/Anything resources for people to use for their own games. It'd just be easier than loading a game with the version of SCI I want just to work on sprites that I don't intend to use for that game (or any game).

[troflip]

It's a good idea, but I think I'll consider that a low-priority feature request. I tried as much as possible to make "version" specific to resources, but there are still many places where code uses a global "version" of the currently loaded game. It would be a lot of work to fix properly (in fact, I should probably disable "new ***" when a game is not loaded), and the workaround is just to load a game of the version you need.

[MusicallyInspired]

Alright. I agree greying out New **** is a good idea for now.

EDIT: Oh, how about palette colour cycling previewing in the Pic editor?

Some comments. I love those extra small windows on the left hand side of the Pic editor. And the gradient feature is very useful!

EDIT 2: Oh, also for the View editor, I know you said you're aware that the palette box is too small, but is it possible that you can highlight on the palette which colours are selected for foreground/background? I'm thinking of Grafx2's feature where the foreground and background colours, in addition to be displayed in the foreground/background colour boxes, are highlighted on the palette as well (with a broken line border). The reason being it would be nice when using the eyedropper on a colour in the View to know which colour on the palette it is using. During 8-bit image editing using the right palette entry is almost as important as using the right colour, if you get I mean. Grafx2, btw, is an 8-bit image editor inspired by and works almost exactly like the old Amiga/DOS Deluxe Paint program, but made for modern systems.

Actually, this reminds me of setting dithered palette entries in SCI Companion for SCI0 Pictures where an "A" and "B" would appear on the colours selected for creating a dithered colour entry.

EDIT 3: One more thing, there doesn't seem to be an option to edit the palette for a sprite. Another option would be to have a checkbox to toggle whether the View has an embedded palette or not.

[troflip]

EDIT 3: One more thing, there doesn't seem to be an option to edit the palette for a sprite. Another option would be to have a checkbox to toggle whether the View has an embedded palette or not.

View -> Edit Palette

As I mentioned in the other thread, I didn't put it in the left-hand pane, because I need to totally re-work that for VGA views.

[edit:] oh, but it doesn't actually save it back to the view, does it? hahaha...

[Cloudee1]

* Script listings...
  I have rearranged a couple of scripts ex 100 became 800 for consistency. However after deleting 100 and removing the files from the src folder, the room still wanted to be listed on the main scripts page. But it took on the name of one of the scripts surrounding it, and only showed the decompilation. For a workaround, I just re-added a new room 100 script, but delete definitely does some weird stuff.

I'm not seeing this behavior. Can you describe the steps you took in more detail? Also, did you check the box "remove blahblahblah completely from the game"?

Alright, I moved script 255 (Controls) to 997...

First off I go into game.sh and add a new define  (define CONTROLS_SCRIPT         997)
Then I go in and create a new room with the number that I am wanting to put it in
Then I cppy and paste the original script into the new room that I just created
I change the script number to reflect the define (script CONTROLS_SCRIPT)
I compile.

Then I went into the main script listing and select the original controls script and delete
The checkbox was checked.
Then I open the physical src folder
find the original controls.sco as it was not deleted and manually delete it
find the rm997.sc and sco files and rename those to controls.sc and sco
In the main script screen, I select rm997 and renamed it to controls.

open game.ini and verify that 255 was removed and 997 was entered.

Everything compiled and rebuilt and scicomp closed and opened a couple of times during this process.


Now except for the anomaly highlighted in screen shot, everything appears to be working correctly. Including the toolbox listing of scripts.

[troflip]

Thanks Cloudee, I'll look into this.

Why are you moving scripts around though? I don't see much point, and I think that's only going to cause you grief, as there may be places that refer to these scripts via ScriptId (and via a variable, so it may be hard to search for these).

[edit:] ok, I'm still not able to repro (there was already a script at 997, so I used 979 - not sure what you did with your script 997). Maybe you can send me a zip of your project and I can look into it if you want. That's really weird it would show two different names for the same resource... it may be that resource.map got corrupt somehow? That would scare me. What does SV.exe show?

Also, why use New Room instead of New Empty Script?

[Cloudee1]

I am trying to get all of the lower numbered scripts out of the way. I usually (attempt) to use some sort of numbering scheme to my rooms. One project that I've got going is attempting to combine 5 parser based games into 1 point and clicker. I want the lower numbers for my rooms.

As for using new room instead of blank script, just habit I guess. For my point and click template I have my own room script template that I use, so from the start I am overwriting everything that is generated and copy and pasting over it.

I have found a couple of places where a script I have moved has been used by number reference. In those cases, I have just gone ahead and thrown in the game.sh define that I set up. DisposeCode, script 11, is one for instance that I had to track a bit more.

Here is my tester zipped up. I haven't touched the actual template that was packaged up. I'll have to look and see what is going on with 997... I swear it's not currently part of the 1.1 template.

[troflip]

Resource map has script 255 and 800:
0027: FF 00 14 2E 02    Script(255, 0)    offset: 00045C28
0027: 20 03 6D 2F 02    Script(800, 0)    offset: 00045EDA

But the script 255 resource map entry points to a package file entry that is identified as 800 (20 03):
045c28: 82 20 03 A8 02 A8 02 00 00 9C 02 00 00 00 00 01
045eda: 82 20 03 B0 02 B0 02 00 00 A4 02 00 00 00 00 01

I wonder if you compiled script 255, but had put (script TITLE_SCREEN) in it at one point... I'll try to figure out how this can happen. It looks like the heap resources also have this mismatch too.

[edit:] ok, I can repro this if I do a "compile all" with a script that has the wrong script number (or rather, a duplicate script number of another script)

[edit2:] no, there must be more to it than that. I thought I had a repro, but I didn't.