Niemand

There is an error there, it's just buried under the swarms of warnings about const correctness issues: Quote: Bl A Fileio.cpp:1257:32: error: too many arguments to function 'void load_outdoor()' Bl A Fileio.cpp:1190:7: note: declared here Bl A Fileio.cpp:1276:31: error: too many arguments to function 'void load_outdoor()' Bl A Fileio.cpp:1190:7: note: declared here Bl A Fileio.cpp:1507:32: error: too many arguments to function 'void load_outdoor()' Bl A Fileio.cpp:1483:7: note: declared here I'll have to take a look at the code to find out more. EDIT: I am not seeing that problem. Are you sure your working copy is up to date?

Despite massive causalities, the fax uprising has been quelled. (We would particularly like to thank our allies, the Floom people of Pollux b, who were instrumental in our eventual victory.) As I was unable in my last transmission to give you instructions on which material to study for this quiz, it will be a review of simple ideas which you should have learned in primary school or dentistry school. As usual, results will be returned in one week. Begin now, or later, but not so much later that you are unable to complete the quiz, unless you have already arranged a stable time loop so that you have completed the quiz before deciding to wait for a period of time which precludes completing the quiz. 1. The bornevian brown bat, native only to the tree in your backyard, is endangered. What organization can you turn to to save it? a. The E.P.A. (The Environmental Protection Agency) b. The Bavarian Illuminati c. The N.R.A (The National Rodent Association) d. The Mafia e. The F.B.A.Q (The Federal Bureau of Aesthetic Quality) 2. You are being sued by the Mobile Coffee Mound Corporation for infringement of character and second degree breach of copyright. You are being defended by the up-and-coming law firm Wolfram, Isaiah, and Plunck. What defense should you plan to use to win the lawsuit? a. Claim insanity b. Use a little known precedent from ancient roman law concerning the keeping of goats c. Claim that the alleged activities were the work of an evil duplicate d. Start a counter suit demanding damages for the suffering caused by the suit against you e. Plan no defense and poison the opposition's coffee instead 3. You are losing your hearing due to your work in the vacuum cleaner mines. What should you do about this problem? a. Go on a mad killing spree and massacre the company executives with a high powered hairdryer b. Spend your life savings on a pair of furry green earmuffs that won't protect your hearing but look awesome c. Organize a union to demand better sound protection in the mines d. Give up your worldly possessions and begin a new spiritual life to contemplate the mysteries of the clam e. Hire rich siberians to do your work for you 4. Fish pie, pie fish, fish fish fish pie fish. a. Teiresias b. Edgar c. The Duke of Windsor d. Albert the clam hunter e. Albrecht Dürer 5. You need to dust the lilies, but Robert refuses to come out of the koi pond. Reports have been received about dangerous tigers in the southern region of the garden. In the northwest, the power tools have once again risen up in rebellion. What do you do? a. Send for aid from the illuminati b. Retreat to the keep of Gard Nshed in the east c. Throw aside your vows and join the glorious rebellion d. Undertake a journey of spiritual enlightenment in the western orchards e. Fortify your position with petunias and clovian burning bushes 6. Your negotiations with the Slime-Lord of Tavak go poorly. He refuses to concede that you are neither an oblong nor a conflagration. You refuse to give in to his demands for a teaspoon of sugar. Can this dispute be resolved and the world saved from a terrible war? a. No, honor and sugar are more valuable than lives. b. No, you really are an oblong conflagration. c. No, you really want a war. d. Yes, honor can be retained via a duel of brickbats at a three quarters of a mile e. Yes, you may be a a burning ovoid, but you'll give him the sugar if he'll just shut up about it. 7. Mold and bread, flask and dance. a. Molten b. Mottled c. Molded d. Melted e. Medicated 8. Why can't you send your nose to Prague? 9. The Earl of Toravia has commissioned you to install an atomic bomb in his cummerbund, but if you perceive Berlin for any length of time, however short, the assassins will find you. If you set foot in the library, the tigers will attack, and if you think about the number eight, you will have a seizure. Describe how you will carry out your mission, assuming that your shoelaces have been tied together by malicious pixies. 10. You are responsible for the factory, and all fallings thereon. In addition to your rigorous training as a historian, you are equipped with a run down taser, a sturdy rucksack with a secret pouch for diamonds, a torch (flashlight, that is) that can be used to spot a prisoner at a thousand yards, and the respect of the assembly line workers. All is not well, however, as you fear that the Transylvanian mafia is planning to drop flowers on and then torch (burn down, that is) the factory. How can perform your duty and protect the factory? Bonus. Create a complete topographical map of Silence. Be sure to include all fluctuations and depravities. Express your answer using alphabetic characters only.

Quote: I am now experimenting with the ability to select a square and move all its contents in one go. This is a first step to a comprehensive drag and drop that would move everything in one go. A still think that there are a number of other things that we should do first. . . not, I admit, that I've been getting any work done on them. Quote: A Storage.cpp would be a good idea, it would store all the commented out and unused functions that presently clutter up the source code. No, unused code should be deleted, unless it is of particular interest (like the partial script interpreter source) or it is highly likely to be wanted later. We have version control for a reason: if we delete something we later realize we want, we just go back and copy it from an old revision where it still existed. By all means feel free to store for your own use any code that you've been thinking about or working on, but that doesn't yet or currently have a use, we just don't want the editor proper to be cluttered up with stuff that doesn't contribute to making it work. (I personally keep a directory for little test programs and prototypes on my desktop.)

I think you're looking at an old copy of the code; there's nothing like what you describe near that line in the ToT: Code: else{ current_terrain.info_rect[selected_object_number].right = // Line 1185 how_many_dlog(current_terrain.info_rect[selected_object_number].right, current_terrain.info_rect[selected_object_number].left, OUTDOOR_SIZE,"Set right boundary:");} I made a quick search of that file and couldn't find any occurrences of current_terrain.exit_dests which seemed to be out of place, but if you can find the problem again in the latest revision, let me know. (You may have to update your working copy later; my website seems to be down at the moment. Since the login page for the management panel is also down, I'm going to hope that this is general glitch which will be resolved without action by me.)

Assuming that those are inclusive ranges of integers (which I think is the case), 1-100 probably makes more sense, since it has 100 distinct possibilities rather than 101, allowing thresholds to be interpreted as percentages.

Agreed. It's nice way to give the player another choice (and another trade-off), and it's not a feature that ought to require sweeping changes in the game engine. The only possibly plausible argument I can think of against it is that if one is being picky about the details of character graphics, allowing dual-wielding necessitates the inclusion of extra set of graphics, at least for player characters. Creating graphics is, as I understand, a fairly big burden for Spiderweb, but I'm not sure whether the marginal cost from this would be high enough to make a significant difference, or whether Jeff would view the inclusion of the feature as really requiring the extra graphics.

Y-y-you've b-b-become a g-g-god! More seriously, that sounds really weird. I can't say I've heard of anything quite like it, but even as un-illness-like as it seems, I'd say that if it persists for a significant period (and particularly if that mild fatigue gets stronger as a result), you should consider seeing a doctor.

Quote: the useless wands just had a range of 0 Did this still at least allow you to shoot yourself?

May be late; buses too full of dumb undergrads; having to walk.

Quote: We need drag and drop for selected items. I am working on that now. That might be nice, but it is a big undertaking. I think we need to get other things cleaned up and synchronized first. Quote: Ctrl + RMB toggles selection mode. What does 'toggling the selection mode' mean? Also, Ctrl + RMB is a terrible choice since it can't be used on Mac OS: Control click is a secondary (right) click. Quote: Then there is a move selected object mode, clicking on a space then shifts the selected instance. I don't follow what the first part of this means. (Are you saying that you want to add an extra drag-and-drop mode which has to be switched into explicitly?) From the second part it sounds this isn't drag-and-drop at all, but allowing the user to click to relocate an object. Given what I understand, this does sound similar to the redraw mode I added for selected rectangles. In that case an important purpose is served since there is no other way to change a rectangle's shape. For objects which just have a position, like items and creatures this seems less worthwhile, since it doesn't accomplish anything that couldn't be done already with the arrow keys. It can, I'll grant, be a bit more efficient, and also give more flexibility of using the mouse rather than the keyboard, but it comes at the cost of complexity in terms of another mode. (Having to switch into a special mode also negates a good portion of the efficiency gain, I'd argue.) Actual drag-and-drop would likely be significantly better, in that it wouldn't require a special mode (from the user's point of view, anyway), and is a standard operation in many programs, but would involve (perhaps much) more complex programming. I think it could be done, but I'm not keen to jump into it just at present, given the hideous nature of the editor's event handling system (at least on Mac OS). Oh, and about selection indicators: Quote: Three white concentric rectangles stand out alright. It is hard to find distinctive colors that are not already used. Well, magenta is one. If you can think of another, I'm all ears. A list of already assigned outline or rectangle colors that I can think of: Click to reveal.. blue (friendly creature) black (neutral creature) red (hostile A creature) brown (hostile B creature) cyan (friendly, hidden creature) white (neutral, hidden creature) bright green (hostile A, hidden creature) yellow (hostile B, hidden creature) light blue (special encounter rectangle)

Yes, but in this case I know with good certainty that SDFs work sensibly. (As I noted, it wouldn't have been totally surprising if Jeff had done something odd here, but he didn't.) You are correct about the maximum string length. I really don't quite know what Jeff was thinking here, particularly since, in a rare fit of modernity, he doesn't put the strings into fixed sized buffers anyway. (In fact, he even uses operator new[] to allocate the buffers, rather than direct malloc![^1]) It's possible that the limitation to 254 characters stems from mistakenly writing >=255 (when checking for disallowed lengths), rather than just >255. Another possibility is that he had the number 255 in mind rather that 256 as the base as a result of having to deal with Pascal strings. [^1]: For anyone curious, there's enough of the script system left in the editor in global.h and EdParser.cpp to see how a lot of it works. The implementation is actually complete enough to run simple scripts that only do arithmetic and flow control.

(Bump) I've made some changes which seem to have gotten the crashing under control, and if you run Check for Updates... you should get it. This also should mean that it's safe to re-enable automatic checks (once you have the new version installed).

White isn't a viable option: it's already used as the outline color for hidden, neutral creatures. Magenta isn't very aesthetic, but it wasn't used for any other purpose and it stands out on pretty much every common background. EDIT: I also picked to put outlines outside since that way they look consistent across rectangles and things like creatures and items.

Indeed, but it takes a bit of care. (The linked to method actually stores signed 16-bit numbers, rather than unsigned, since Avernumscript only has signed int variables.) One could implement arbitrary precision arithmetic if one really wanted to, I think, but I can't imagine it being at all practical.

Sigh. So it seems there's a crashing bug in Sparkle for Carbon. I knew about this before the release, but it happened fairly rarely, and proved difficult to solve, so I figured I'd deal with it later (although I should have mentioned it as known bug, sorry about that). As I now find that I cannot launch the editor at all without it immediately crashing due to Sparkle, I apparently need to drop everything and try to fix this, as it's rather intolerable. The good news is that since the crash seems to only happen when Sparkle finishes doing its stuff, if I can get a fixed version out, broken versions should manage to update themselves. Now I just have to fix the bug, which I suspect lies at the interface of the two halves of the library, written by different people (both not me), using two different programming languages. Whee. EDIT: If, like me, you are completely unable to use the editor because it always crashes at start-up, you may be able get it running again with this stopgap solution: Download this preferences file, and drop it into your preferences folder (~/Library/Preferences/), overwriting your existing editor preferences. This will turn off automatic weekly version checks, so Sparkle won't cause trouble when the program starts. (You can also turn this off from a menu item in the editor, but that only helps if you can get it to run) It will also make the editor forget when the Blades of Avernum Files directory is, unfortunately, so you'll have to tell it again, and it will also overwrite your other preferences, but little as there is to those you shouldn't have too much trouble restoring them to what you like. This will not fix the underlying problem, but it should keep the editor from crashing unless you manually run an update check.

Excellent! As promised on the calendar, I will be there.

Yes. You'll need to enter it at the ATM Machine in order to buy an Automated Teller Machine. If you do that, I'd recommend that you buy one of the pricier models with an LCD Display, rather than one of the older ones with a CRT Tube. (It is much safer to use a screen which only shows pictures of other screens than one which functions by launching televisions.)

To get information about an old Windows bug, you would probably need to talk to an experienced Windows programmers or power user types. We may have some of the latter, but few if any of the former, and people mostly knowledgable about Macs won't be able to help much with this at all. Other than that, a couple of people already said most of what there is to say about it: Old versions of Windows used to crash a lot, newer ones don't so much, and haven't for a number of years.

Quote: So I see the various lists. Some are gone. Some are outdated. A lot of author's pages are gone. It doesn't matter that much if a given list isn't totally complete or fully up-to-date, there are plenty of scenarios to start playing. Also, to my knowledge TrueSite for Blade's collection is quite close to being complete. Quote: Or maybe I want to try BoE instead? I've heard the scenarios tend to be much better. But going back to the old Avernum interface is a big step, let alone Exile, after playing A6. I personally can't stand BoE, and have not been all that impressed with what little I've seen of the scenarios for it. It is a definite fact that there are a lot more scenarios for it, but if (like me) you can't stand its user interface, you may not be able to stomach playing them. Or, you may really like the stories as much as the old players. Since BoE is now free, there's no reason not to try it if you want. (Also, as you mention below, you're a story-type player, and there has been a lot of praise heaped on the stories in BoE scenarios, although I can't really speak to how deserved it is.) Quote: It'd be great if there was just a nice list of various campaigns. Like start with this, then go to this, then that ties into this, and this is a good standalone to build up levels before you go to that. Almost none of the BoA scenarios relate directly to each other plot-wise, but you're right that a good description of which ones are good for what is a bit lacking. You could get a sense by reading the scattered reviews and play-through threads, or you could just start playing scenarios. (The reviews are concentrated in two places, one of them being in the subforum of this one, so they're not hard to find. I could dredge up some of those play-throuh threads if you like, but they aren't that orderly, and are mainly written for an audience of people who've already played the scenarios.) Quote: I value plot over difficulty. A good story is more important to me than a strategic battle. Then there are definitely some scenarios here for you; see for example anything by Nikki or Lazarus. TM and Kelandon works tend to have a bit more emphasis on fighting mechanics, but lots of plot as well. (My own scenarios, I must admit, are not likely to be your cup of tea. They're mostly about battle tactics, although they aren't necessarily all that difficult.) There is, I think, a good deal of variation in available scenarios.

Quote: Many European universities offer exchange student semesters, so that a student can take a little part of his education in another country. Do US schools have such programs? Yes, it's something that they use a lot as an advertising point from what I've seen. Quote: I have heard stories of people get into trouble for the most minor and even no infractions when traveling to the US, which is a bit off-putting. I've personally never heard of such a thing happening to a foreign exchange student, and I've known or known of fairly substantial numbers of exchange students coming to schools I was at. It almost certainly happens occasionally, but not often enough to get attention.

You can't really chastise people for failing to recognize acronyms without context. F1 means the key next to Escape to me, unless I have some reason to think otherwise. (Although I did have the suspicion that it probably isn't yet possible to buy replacement keyboard keys through Steam.) Acronyms: Because the world need more name collisions. (Possibly my favorite acronym collision to-date: I once came across a German Macintosh developer asking what the 'NS' prefix on most Cocoa names meant. This was a natural thing to wonder about, since although in Apple's history, this abbreviation means 'NeXTSTEP', in German history it usually means 'Nationalsozialismus'.)

That would be silly, since 2^8-1 = 255, and to my knowledge Jeff enforces no such silliness.

SDFs are 8-bit unsigned integers, so they can store numbers in the range [0-255].

Quote: To show exactly which rectangle has been selected, I have added a sub-routine at the end of void draw_ter_large(). It puts a red, green and blue set of rectangles inside the existing identifying rectangles for specials, area descriptions and town entrances. I will extend this to 3D view and medium view. (I could just make it a solid red rectangle.) What I did in the Mac code to indicate selection is to draw a pink outline around the selected object. See for example place_creature_icon_into_ter_3D_large() (line 739 specifically) and draw_ter_3D_large() (line 2430 specifically) in Graphics.cpp in the Mac code. It isn't wonderful looking, but it can be applied consistently to every selectable object type, which I think is very important. It's also important that this look the same on both platforms, so we need to agree on how this will be done. I already have a pretty complete implementation, but I won't be averse to making some changes if they will improve it. Quote: It would be a good idea to alter the arrow keys to change the view if it goes off screen. Yes, it would. You can find my implementation of this around line 2340 in EdFcns.cpp in the current Mac code. In particular, the use of out_of_view_3D() is important (in my opinion) to make this look nice in 3D mode.

The macRECT type is a duplicate of the Quickdraw Rect type: Code: struct Rect { short top; short left; short bottom; short right;};//We also make the assumption //that short is the same as int16_t This is because Jeff used the latter in various game data structures which appear in savefiles, so the Windows code also needs to know about it. RECT, on the other hand, seems to be a Windows type: Code: typedef struct _RECT { LONG left; LONG top; LONG right; LONG bottom;} RECT, *PRECT; So, in general, it appears that in the Windows code, one should use macRECT for any game data, and RECT for drawing purposes.