Spidweb

Hokay. I just put in some code that watches for Windows style line endings and adjusts for them appropriately. I'll probably upgrade the debug-version BoA soon. However, this will do nothing for the weird situation where the given line number for the error is over twice the length of the file. I'll look at it, but that's something really odd. - Jeff Vogel

"E-mailed the script, but I neglected to say that I am mainly using Scintilla. I also use EditPad Pro and others - but each of them understands Mac/Windows line endings." Could you resend it? Never got it at my end. "The problem is in the parser." I feel that remains to be seen. That the reported line number is more than twice the length of the script makes me suspect that your text editor is doing something funky. I am not sure that I am going to be able to make BoA work with every text editor using every setting. - Jeff Vogel

"Please don't think I'm being too 'pushy', but is it possible to make these upgrade/fixes in the form of patches, instead of having to download the entire app again?" I have never seen a program to patch a Windows app (all game updates I've ever seen just replace the whole .exe). Once I saw a program to patch Mac apps, but that was a long time ago, and it's a lot easier to patch Mac apps because of the way the programs are put together. So I don't think I can. - Jeff Vogel

Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it. Uploading v101c (Win)/v1.1c (Mac) now. Will link to and should work tomorrow. Sorry about that. - Jeff Vogel

"Have you received any scripts from Windows users that show that problem? If not I will semd you one showing an error, just for example, at line number 476, when in fact the entire script has less than 230 lines." Go ahead and E-mail me that example. And tell me what text editor you're using. - Jeff Vogel

Found the error. Typo in my code. Note to be put on the editor support area: print_big_str_color Has Wrong Name The call print_big_str_color is actually called print_big_str_num. It works exactly like print_big_str_color, as described in the editor documentation. - Jeff Vogel

I'm putting up a long thing on the support page about line numbers. I'll probably expand it soon. Hopefully this will help. If anyone wants to write an article on line numbers (perhaps incorporating my tech support message and some things from this thread), it would be hugely useful. But I really have to stress that this is not an issue of something I can do but won't because it's hard. This is something that really can't be done. The game can only tell you where it finds an error, where it sees that the script has gone off the rails. That this is sometimes in a different line from where the actual typo is is unfortunate, but unavoidable. - Jeff Vogel

Kelandon, I appreciate your confusion in this situation. Lord knows, in my years of programming, I've been annoyed by my share of cryptic or misleading compiler messages. But it really is inevitable. Consider example 2, in your case. You set a dialog string to be something long and strange, and then followed it with an unknown variable name (i.e. "Error"). The program correctly returned the line number where the error occured. A human can look at that and instantly say, "Oh. That's not right. A string shouldn't look like that." But you seem to expect my compiler to have some sort of AI which can interpret that quote as not being what the user intends. That can't happen. Or maybe it can, but its far beyond what any compiler I know of does. Example 3 is weird. Not sure why it's doing that. And BoA's behavior in example 1 is correct. Line 17 is where the error is. That's where you're using the name of a procedure call in a mathematical expression, which is naughty. The code doesn't tell you where you made your mistake, but where the syntax goes bad. Different things. It's not possible to do the first one, only the second. - Jeff Vogel

"Er, if you're waiting for Jeff, you may be waiting for some time." Yep. There are two possibilites for something like this. User error, in which case I don't have time to handhold every user over every thing. Or a bug. And I usually don't suspect a bug until at least two people have identical problems and can E-mail me clear reports explaining the situation here. Which is not really the case here. So GIFTSare2nice, good luck. And if you determine that you made an error, be sure to post what went wrong here so that others may benefit. - Jeff Vogel

Check the docs. There's a keyboard combination you need to use to turn on the keyboard shortcuts. } then, =, I think. - Jeff Vogel

Excellent! I'll sort through the links and come up with some useful info for the site. Thanks! - Jeff Vogel

The fix will be merged into the next Blades upgrade. I just wanted to fire off a quick update to help testers out. I don't care whether players cheat or not. That's why I make an editor. - Jeff Vogel

Can anyone recommend a good freeware text editor for Windows which is compatible with Blades line-numbers-wise? I'll link to it in the workshop. - Jeff Vogel

As I've said in other threads, I can't do much with reports like this. I need the actual files that are causing the error, instructions to reproduce it, and to be told whether it's on Mac or Windows. Send the files to spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com and I'll see what I can do. Anyone who submits a report, also tell me what text editor you're using. It's possible that it is throwing in bonus, invisible carriage returns in there, which would muck things up. - Jeff Vogel

I suppose I'm a little curious about this. I'm wondering if some weird text editor thing is putting unrecognizable characters in the script or something. Compress the ENTIRE scenario folder (all involved files) and E-mail it to spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com. I'll look at this. - Jeff Vogel

I think I might know what the problem people are having with line numbers is. In software and in BoA, each carriage return marks a new line. If you hit Return five times, that's five new lines. However, if you write a bit of dialogue longer than the width of the window and the text goes down a line, that is not a new line as far as BoA is concerned. If you write a very long message_dialog command that goes down 3 lines in your text editor, that's still just one line. And I think it is obvious that it has to be that way. After all, each text editor will display text in a different way. Only counting the number of Returns is consistent from application to application. A solution? if this is troubling you, get a text editor that it made for writing software code. BBEdit or any development environment (Visual C, CodeWarrior) work great. If I am misunderstanding the problem, I eagerly await clarification. If this covers it, I'll add a note to the support page. - Jeff Vogel

If you go to http://www.avernum.com/blades/scen_workshop.html you can download a new version of the Blades of Avernum game application. The debug commands will work in this application. However, the debug commands will still cause errors in the regular versions of Blades, so they must be removed before your scenario is released. I still have received no files I can use to reproduce the alleged bug having to do with incorrect line numbers in error messages. Such files are best sent to spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com. Be sure to mention whether the bug shows up on Mac or Windows. - Jeff Vogel

A fix for this will be available soon. I promise. - Jeff Voge

"I could certainly use the MSVC++ 5 project files, if you would be kind enough to send them." I'm afraid that this goes beyond the level of support I'm going to give for the source code. But good luck! "I believe you have to link libmm.lib or similar to get the sound functions and thereby compile correctly." That's probably it. The old multimedia stuff (like sound) requires a bonus library. "Apart from that, and hundreds and hundreds of warnings about unused variables which I removed, I had no problems compiling on Metrowerks." You can turn the extraneous warnings off in the project settings. I have a great fondness for CodeWarrior, but it is not perfect. - Jeff Vogel

If you are having problems with Blades kicking out the wrong line number for errors, send a scenario, saved game, and instructions to reproduce to spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com. Mention whether the error shows up on Windows or Mac. - Jeff Vogel

The sound calls are straight Windows API (heck, that code is from Windows 3.1), but I forgot to put the .wav files in the editor. If you download the current version of the Windows editor, you will find the sound files in the source code folder. - Jeff Vogel

I did Geneforge 2 on Visual C++ 5.0 (not 6.0). That game used exactly the same code base as the Blades editor, and it handled my pretty straight-forward C++ code just fine. Dunno about VC6, though I must stress that all the code I write is in C++. If your compiler is not built to handle C++, you may find it counter-productive to try to compile C++ using it. I'm finding myself glad I'm not in a position where Microsoft is proclaiming to me what C should be. - Jeff Vogel

It's just ordinary, run-o-the-mill, happy C++ code, and should run, with minimal tweaking, on any compiler suited to handle that. For example, it should only take a little poking to get it running on MS Visual C++ (which I have used in addition to CodeWarrior, with no problems). - Jeff Vogel

"Unless the source code is made available under an OpenSource <GPL etc> type licence I wouldn't want to spend the time working on it." Did you actually read the license that the editor is offered under? I think you will find it interesting. - Jeff Vogel

Que? Bug reports are best E-mailed to me at spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com. Not really sure what you're talking about here. - Jeff Vogel