Spidweb

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

Several of these questions are explicitly answered in the chapter on custom graphics. Of course, you can use any palette in a 256 color bitmap (as a brief inspection of custom graphics included with the game or a user-made scenairo would reveal). The bit depth thing is, however, a tpyo. You can feed the game an 8 bit or a 24 bit graphic. In the Mac version, you can also use 16 bit graphics. - Jeff Vogel

Since this is only post 12987 of the 1000000 times people will post saying, "Why doesn't the editor work?" I have to say one thing in my defense. The error dialog that comes up saying graphic 2000 is missing actually says, "Make sure the editor is in the Data folder on the Blades of Avernum folder." I tried. I swear I tried ... - Jeff Vogel

I'm uploading v1.0.2 of the Windows editor now. The only changes are adding the sound files I forgot in the source code and tweaking the text in one dialog box. Nothing exciting. - Jeff Vogel

Gah. There's something I need to tweak in the editor, so with I update it to 1.0.2 I'll add those sounds I forgot. - Jeff Vogel

Yes, Use &&. - Jeff Vogel

"Capture sounds intriguing. If you take away the party's equipment, can you give it back to them later? Fighting with sticks, rocks and kitchen knives would be an interesting twist. " It was to enable this somewhat cliched but still amusing scenario that I added the call take_item_char_item. - Jeff Vogel

"I'd got to wondering what text editor you used, since the Roses of Reckoning and Babysitting scenarios' text files look like they went through a blender when I open them up — lots of squares instead of hard returns, etc." The reason for that is that text editors can use two different characters to represent a line break: carriage return and line feed. And not all editors handle both of these well. It is stupid and annoying and inexplicable that anyone would make a text editor that can't recognize both. BBEdit is my text editor of choice, and I am pretty sure they have a cheap version (the main app is pretty expensive). I should look into this and make a link on the resources page. - Jeff Vogel

"I wonder what kind of program Jeff used to create the Avernum games (and possibly the Exile games). He must have had something a little more stream-lined, but it was probably lack-luster." I made Geneforge and Geneforge 2 (and am making Geneforge 3) with basically this editor and this system. It's not perfect, but I can't be accused of not eating my own dog food. By the way, relying on external applications is not a minus. Exactly the opposite. Scripts and graphics are best made using tools made for exactly that purpose. It would be a waste of time to make my own text and graphics editors when BBEdit and Photoshop exist and are, well, perfect. (By the way, hot tip. If you don't want to pay the full, high proce for Photoshop, get Photoshop Elements. It's a fraction of the cost and, unless you're preparing stuff for printing, just as powerful.) - Jeff Vogel

Just as a note, you might want to post these things in the Blades of Avernum Editor forum. They're much more likely to be seen by the relevant people and less likely to confuse and terrify regular players. - Jeff Vogel

Remarkable work. Very impressive. - Jeff Vogel

Just updated the editor for Windows BoA to v1.0.1. Cut/Copy/Paste were broken in v1.0. - Jeff Vogel

"Erm, speaking as an ignorant non-programmer type, shouldn't you include in the patch all of the files that were changed from the old version, including (if necessary) the corescendata files?" Not if the only thing that was fixed was one tpyo. I don't feel the added confusion was worth the benefit. You may feel differently, but you don't have to do my tech support.

This was actually fixed in Mac v1.0.1 (or maybe v1.1, not sure, but definitely Windows v1.0), though since the core data files are not replaced in the patch, the problem will remain on patched v1.0 installations.

"But I found another bug in DwtD, that was not there in v 1.0: I couldn't fulfill anymore Helm's task to find a secret entry to the castle. He does not react when I come back to tell him. Well, it's a side quest anyway." His prompt when the msision is done is mistakenly buried one or two questions down, but it's there. It'll be fixed in future versions. - Jeff