DMuting CSB

[PicturesInTheDark]

Thanks for the upgrade.

I have some problems with editing the "level info":

when I try to add new door decorations to a newly created blank dungeon I cannot do so. Neither can I delete any added objects of the other three categories (wall decorations, floor decorations, monsters) once I added one or more of them.

I still cannot find any way to get past the wrong monster placement - the program now allows positions 0-3 for monsters and saves them, but the check still tells me they're improperly positioned. (Same game as the last one I sent you, just positions edited) Funnily enough, they were not wrongly positioned when I tested the game, so maybe the check is the only problem. Do you know why this still happens?

Also, what exactly does "mon_25" (in "monsters") stand for?

Regards, PitD

[Paul Stevens]

All of your reported problems are fixed in version 0.762.
Now you know why it is not version 1.0.

webpages.charter.net/pstevens1

I don't want to 'Delete' things like 'Floor Decorations'
because it would have the effect of changing all the
others that come after it. So I allow 'Replace'.

You still cannot 'Replace' or 'Delete' monsters from a
level. I have to think about that a bit. One thing I
wanted to do was prohibit you from putting, say,
three worms in a cell. I have not determined how I
should find the 'size' of a monster. So the other
options are going to have to wait.

'mon_25' has been changed to 'Lord Order'.

[PicturesInTheDark]

I think there might be a problem with no option to delete the decorations, because assuming you're in a level where you already used a lot of them you might have to replace one already used for a new one. Since you opted for the "no graphics version", this might be a bit confusing and not easy to keep an overview if you're not building a lot of dungeons. (I am not, so I always have to look up the names of decorations in DMute, which takes time and is making it harder to stay concentrated on the building process itself)

If I follow you correctly, the monster check still does not work, because worms or a dragon might also be placed by fours in a single cell at the moment. So what is the workaround? Using each of the positions for a monster? That would multiply the effort considerably and also is illegal if I remember correctly from an email you sent me. The problem there is to read the correct "size" of a monster and then allow/not allow 1/2/3/4 of them according to this data, right? Maybe someone else can help with where this information is stored in the code? Isn't it possible to simply attach a value to each monster, that tells CSBuild, how many of them are allowed on a cell and then you check when the "no of monsters" is set and allow/disallow it? (Since the options are 1,2 and 4 only, this should not be a major problem, am I wrong?)

As additional features I would still very much like to see informations about the objects the cursor is on (to the right side, like the teleporters or triggers), because for actuators and monsters this would mean a lot more information at a glance. Otherwise a lot of clicking is necessary if you want to look at a dungeon construction.

Is there a list of shortcuts that are not available/shown in the menus?

Regards, PitD

[Paul Stevens]

you might have to REPLACE ONE ALREADY USED for a new one
(emphasis added.... prs)

That is exactly why I allow you to 'Replace One Already Used'.
Use the 'Replace' button.

Unfortunately, in testing this I see that I have goofed. 'none'
is an option for decorations and it should not be. I'll fix that
shortly.
=============================================
The monster check does work. What does not work (and
I quote from my press release):

You still cannot 'Replace' or 'Delete' monsters from a
level.
=============================================
Isn't it possible to simply attach a value to each monster...?

It certainly is. And that is what I will do as a last resort. But
it is not considered good programming practice to wire things
into the code if the information exists in the data. So I will see
how the runtime engine does it. It might be in the graphics.dat
file. And I refuse to read the graphics.dat.
=============================================
Additional data to the right of the map.....

I agree. But I want to tread carefully. I already list the targets
of actuators, I believe. (I also see an error there!!!! An 'AND/OR'
gate causes a 'Not Implemented'. Oh, boy. What a rat race.)
I'll see if I can add a list of the first, say, ten items with an indication
of some sort if there are more.
=============================================
Shortcuts?

Nope. What do you want? A lot of control keys are available
and since most dialogs don't require the keyboard we could
probably use the alpha-numeric keys, too. Like place cursor
over cell and type 't' to plant a teleporter.

[PicturesInTheDark]

Ok I'll try to be more precise when writing.

What I meant on the decoration part was: If you designed a level and already used up all 15 decorations but decided you need another, there's no way to do this without having to re-assign/redesign, because existing graphics can be exchanged but you'd then lose attached graphics so far to the one replaced. For that a "delete" would be nice, but if that is a problem with the code, then we won't see it anyway.

Monster check. Sorry, not for me. I tried with the same dungeon.dat I sent you, still receive the same "monster improperly positioned" error, although they are not, neither in CSBuild (positions 0-3) nor in the game itself. But he shows an error for 3 out of the 4 monsters of each group on level 1. See for yourself. I can also send the file again if you wish so.

I definitely agree on the clean programming, I just wanted to know the reason for why you left it so far. BTW, that's the general attitude: I'm asking along, feel free to say "no" or "forget it", but as long as I'm testing I hope you don't mind my placing ideas and wishes here. If they are not implemented, fine. But otherwise I'd feel like wasting my time.

Regards, PitD

[Paul Stevens]

The last point first: Quite the contrary. I very much
appreciate your free testing and suggestions. I wish
there were others doing the same.

One of us does not understand about the decoration
business. Here is my understanding: The runtime engine,
and indeed the dungeon.dat and savegame.dat files
themselves, permit only 15 decorations on a level. There
are only four bits allocated. So I don't see how 'Delete'
can accomplish anything that 'Replace' does not accomplish,
functionally. Graphics do not get 'Attached' (that is your
word) to objects. The objects have a four-bit field that
tells which of the fifteen allowed objects on the level should
be displayed. It was one of many compromises that the
original designers made to fit this game onto a single
floppy disk and into 512K bytes of memory. So, if I 'Delete'
one of the decorations from the list then I have to run around
and check that nobody is using that particular graphic or
else it will be undefined and probably cause the runtime engine
to crash or, at best, display garbage. And if I delete decoration
number 3, for example, then decoration number 4 will become
number 3 and all the decorations throughout the level that
use decorations numbered 3 and above will change!

Moreover, all of this is the reason that I force you to go through
the extra step of allocating these decorations....so that you will
be aware of the limitation and have a feeling for what is actually
happening in the game. I think you have the wrong 'model' in
your mind.

So....if you "design a level and use all fifteen decorations and
then decide that you need another"...The only hope is to
split the level into two levels. That is the way FTL designed it.
You might as well try to squeeze two electrons into a hydrogen
atom; it will blow up.

In general, the editor is meant to reflect the actual structure
of the game. It takes care of some of the details for you such
as converting relative (x,y) offsets to absolute (x,y) coordinates.
And you get to specify the number of monsters rather than
the number minus 1, which is what gets put into the file.
But those are very linear transformations that are relativly
easy to understand. This philosophy is as more self-defense
than altruism; It ain't nice to fool Mother Nature and it is easy
to get caught trying.

You are certainly right about the 'Check'|'Monsters'. It does
not work for me either. (It worked for me the other day!!!).

[PicturesInTheDark]

Hi again Paul,

don't get me wrong: I was not (or am, for that matter) annoyed or anything when I stated why I am doing my testing, it was just an explanation. I feel that you did a very good job when designing CSBwin and CSBuild, especially with the extra insights into you way of working and programming philosophy. It's fun to test it and find suggestions to even improve the very nice feature list. I also hope to get around to the DSA's at some point, but at the moment they're too alien to me... ;)

I think the decoration issue was an understanding problem about one point I did not figure out or read correctly: you pointed out, that by deleting an entry the others would become the next higher one. That is what I did not assume, therefore following, that all so-far-number-3's (to stay with the example) would do exactly what you say, i.e. floating around undefined and causing glitches or crashes. But according to your definition, the biggest currently defined decoration would be the one to be unassigned. So we have the same concern, but had different approaches. The matter is settled with that, I guess.

The monster deletion is still an issue, though. Although bearing the same risks, I can now (for example) never delete "Lord Order" from my level 1 (I tried to include "mon_25" the other day to see what opponent it was), so once inserted (even by chance) they're in. Maybe there is a way to get around that problem at some point (if not now), allowing a replacement. Maybe we can get hints at some so-far unknown code parts from other experienced people around, say Sphenx, Beowuuf, rain, George....

Regards, PitD

[Paul Stevens]

Misunderstandings come easily via EMail and Forums.
We are agreed but perhaps don't know it.

The monster manipulation will arrive soon. I just
wanted to study the situation and ponder my next
move before I do something that has to be undone.

The monster size is built into the 'graphics.dat' file.
It may come to pass that people will edit the graphics
and make smaller or bigger worms or something. Turn
them into Snails or Whales. So I don't want to put
limits in the editor that will make it impossible to use
such creatures. But neither do I want the editor to
produce dungeons with lots of errors.

What I have done so far is to make CSBwin examine the
monsters when it loads a game. If it finds an error (for
example three worms in a cell) it fixes the error as best
it can and gives a warning. I am not yet sure what to
do with CSBuild.

One thing I am considering.......put some of the monster
characteristics into the game files. Initially these would take
on the default values of DM or CSB. But the designer could
edit them and the new values would override the values in
'graphics.dat'. In that way you could make more agressive
Screamers or have Screamers that drop DragonSteaks or
whatever. The size could not be different from the 'graphics.dat'
size and if it were the runtime would correct it and give a
warning. What do you think of that solution to my problem?

[ChristopheF]

Paul, you said:

I refuse to read the graphics.dat

The monster size is built into the 'graphics.dat' file.

I don't want to put limits in the editor that will make it impossible to use such [custom] creatures

If people create custom creatures with sizes different from the DM/CSB defaults, the result of their changes will be stored in graphics.dat.
If you don't want to restrict CSBuild to use the default DM/CSB creatures, you will need to read the correct sizes of creatures in the graphics.dat. But you refuse to do that.

Conclusion, you have to change you mind on something: either you always read the correct data from a graphics.dat file, either you restrict creature sizes to the DM/CSB defaults in CSBuild (like in an .ini file that could still be manually updated).

[Paul Stevens]

You say:

like in an .ini file that could still be manually updated).
=============================
I think my suggestion would be equivalent. The .INI
file would be 'built-in' to the game.

I prefer it to the .INI file because:
1) It keeps the information with the game. Othewise you
need to remember which .INI file goes with which game.
2) I don't like having the editor depend on several
auxiliary files. The 'tiles.bmp' is bad enough.
3) You can use the GUI editor to edit the monster attributes.

[ChristopheF]

But that means your solution will only work for dungeons built with CSBuild.
If someone creates a dungeon with another editor and an accompanying custom graphics.dat file with modified creatures sizes, the check feature in CSBuild could break things because CSBuild will not be aware of the changes in sizes. The user will have to manually set the creatures sizes in the UI before checking his dungeon.
It should work, but it is not very user friendly and there should be a clear notice about that before performing the check.

[rain`]

Why not allow for editing of "how" the monsters are placed, but not prohibiting abnormal possibilities?

For instance, allow someone to place 3 worms on a tile, but give a warning (not one that pops up, or has at least the option to "ignore this error from now on"). This way your not prohibiting anything, just informing people on mistakes that they are making.

If someone is infact editing graphics.dat files, changing the size of a creature etc, then they definately will know to ignore your warnings, and exactly how to gain the desired effect.

Quite simply, warnings rather than restrictions allow for ease of use and power =]. Also it will allow for people like bewuuf to continue hacking at the bugs and problems that CSB/DM has in order to gain that "wierd effect".

I'd love to check out your editor but im still stuck in my old mac (lol). I built my Windows-box with a nice setup but i had to send back the processor (defective product =[). Hopefully i'll be more active in about a week and a half =[

-rain`

[Paul Stevens]

========================================
Christophe:

You are right. You want to build your dungeon with
DMute and use CSBuild to check it for errors. Sorry.....
talk to the person who wrote DMute and have him check
his own file for errors. George is a good listener. I have
my hands full making CSBuild produce proper dungeons
without worrying about debugging someone else's work.

And I will be happy to put a 'Clear Notice' as part of the
checking procedure. Just tell me what it should say.
Something like this perhaps?:

CLEAR NOTICE! If you are using a graphics file with altered
monster sizes then the following warnings may be crap.
=========================================
rain:

A warning is exactly what you will get. Now....as to turning off
the warning....that is exactly what I proposed. If you read
my suggestion you will see that I would allow you to
redefine the creature attributes to suit your own taste.
And most things can be changed without changing 'graphics.dat'.
But that meant that I had to modify CSBwin so that
when you do something illegal it will not cause
CSBwin to crash. Because CSBuild cannot
guarantee that you are going to play the game with the
correct 'graphics.dat'. And (as I said in a previous post) I
do not want CSBwin to crash with designs that pass
CSBuild's checks. I don't like to receive 'Crash Reports'; they
make feel I have done something wrong.

At one time I considered having a "Preferences" menu item.
You could turn off checking for matching pairs of stairways,
teleporting the party into a wall, etc, etc, etc. The preferences
would be kept with the dungeon. I still may do this someday.
Then you could "Disable warnings based on creature size".
But for each illegal thing that I allow, I have to make sure that
CSBwin does something better than crash. That is the hard part.

[ChristopheF]

New bugs found in v0.762:

Tile editing can be done easily with the mouse, but:
- When you right click a door tile or teleporter tile, you can add a new teleporter on the same tile: door + teleporter on the same tile is not possible, two teleporters or more on the same tile is also not possible.
- When you right click an empty tile and try to add a new door, a "not implemented" message appear.
- If you right click a floor tile and click the new button to add a teleporter, then it add the object, but does not change the tile type...

I suggest that the ability to add a door or a teleporter through the dialog box "New" button should just be removed.

[Paul Stevens]

Thank you very much.

All three complaints are quite valid. I have added
them to the queue. They should be easy.
==================================
I will tell you why it is the way it is. At one time
I wanted to be able to change the destination
of a teleporter or the type of door. So I allowed
many teleporters or doors on the same cell. The
runtime would use the first one. Then, when you
wanted to change it, you would 'rotate' the list.
But rotating the list was hard to use because you
had to keep track of which one was currently on
the top.

Instead, I have implemented a 'Copy Teleporter'
command. It copies a teleporter from one location
to another. So you put the alternate teleporter in
a place that cannot be reached and then copy it
to wherever you like. I used this in the 1-D maze
of the 3D2D1D dungeon, for example.

[Paul Stevens]

CSBuild Version 0.763 is at:
webpages.charter.net/psteven1
My Queue is empty unless we want to allow
monster editing in CSBuild.

--Implement replace allowed monsters on level
--Disallow "New Door" in Edit Cell Dialog
--Disallow "New Teleporter" in Edit Cell Dialog
--List cell contents to right of map editor
--Fix "Not Implemented" for AND/OR in open cell
--Remove '<none>' option from Decorations list
--Fix 'Check|Monsters' - illegal positioning

Note: Microsoft has admitted that it is the
cause of last problem. A 'Global Optimization'
error. So now I am debugging Microsoft's code!

[ChristopheF]

A request for CSBuild:
When you right click a tile, the edit dialog appears. Would it be possible to highlight by default the first item in each of the lists in this dialog box, so that you don't have to select the item before being able to click 'edit' or 'delete' ? (if you want to edit/delete the first item, which is the case most of the time).

[Paul Stevens]

Yes. Good idea. The beginning of a new list.

Better yet....what I have always wanted was
to automatically 'Edit' a 'New' object. I'll add
that, too.

[PicturesInTheDark]

Hmm. I like the idea of changing monster sizes or what they drop after being killed. However, maybe you should combine that with the "preferences" idea you described. In that way you could add check boxes (for example including the ones so far available in the separate menu) so everybody could combine the checks he or she wanted.

The question is then how to make sure that the user does not build in things that cause CSBwin to crash if he does not use all the checks...?

Regards, PitD

[Paul Stevens]

When I make things impossible, people scream at me. I
assume they shout obscenities but don't write them down.

Therefore, the rule will be (all rules are made to be
broken) that I will try to allow what people want. But
if your design does not pass the 'Checks' then you cannot
complain if it causes a runtime crash.

Now in those cases where I relax the checks, to allow
three worms in a cell for example, I want to modify the
runtime to notice the problem, warn the player, and try
to fix the problem....in this case by discarding a worm and
placing them legally in the cell. If the runtime cannot fix
the problem it will say so....and you cannot complain if
it crashes.
=============
If we don't put monster editing in CSBuild:
Here is how it would work in the case of monster size....

--You use CSBuild to put three worms in a cell.
--CSBuild complains
--You turn off "Monster Size Checking"
--CSBuild no longer complains.
--You run your design with an edited graphics.dat with small worms
--Everything works perfectly because the design and graphic agree.
--The player encounters three small worms

--You run your design with original graphics.
--CSBwin complains and removes a worm.
--The player encounters two big worms.
==============
The real problem will arise when you edit the graphics
file. I have no control over that. So we will have to find
out by experience what mistakes are common and cause
problems for the runtime. And play it by ear.

[ChristopheF]

Few things aboug v0.763:

1) if you press the "tab" key in any dialog box to navigate between buttons, lists, checkboxes etc... , the tab order is not logical. Could you reorder them? (mainly in the Global info and level info dialogs). Thanks.

2) if you open the CSB dungeon, right click the tile at (00,19,15) (where the end of the game is located), select the text object and click "edit", a dialog box appears: "Strange but not fatal" "unknown text type". What is strange here? Why isn't it possible to edit that text like the others?

3) I find the tileset made by Gambit nicer than the default one. Could you rename the .bmp files so that Gambit's becomes the default? I think it will look more appealing to new users.

4) After using CSBuild for a few minutes, I have experienced serious slowdowns in all the applications I am running. I can see dialog boxes being drawn on screen nearly step by step (control by control). In CSBuild, when I click the Edit button for example, I have to wait for 2-3 seconds before the dialog box appears... As soon as I close CSBuild, everything comes back to normal.
Although I can reproduce that everytime I use CSBuild, I have not been able to find the cause of these slowdowns. Processor use is normal (CSBuild is at 0% when I use other applications, but they are still slow...)
FYI, I am running Windows XP SP1 on an Athlon 1,2 GHz.

[beowuuf]

Just for people's interest, you can use multiple teleporter tiles or door/teleporter tiles, with cloning, to create effects
Of course, you risk the wrath of the engine if the cloning goes bad. :)

As Paul said, the engine ignores multiple objects like teleporters and tiles on the same square - it seems to look at the tile hex first, then gets the extra information from the first object
So if you have a linked list with two teleporters, providing you copy only from the the second teleporter onwards to another (seperated) square, then you can multi-destination teleporters for objects and monsters (never party)
Similarly, having a door and a teleporter together, you could create a monster blocking door (for extra points, include a trigger so the party gets hit walking through the door to reach the monster)

Anyway, achademic, as its ben removed and i don't think anyone would have used it anyway :)

[Paul Stevens]

The slowdown problem.....Very bad.

I am using Win95, Win98, and Win2000. I use a
166MHz Pentium with Win95 and an Athlon XP1900+
with the Win2000.

I have never encountered anything like a 'slowdown'
even after an hour or so of editing. What can we do?
Can you make it happen doing only one thing within
CSBuild. For example: just do page-down/page-up;
will that cause the problem? How about right-click on
a cell followed by 'Enter'? Lots of times? Any ideas?
Perhaps just switching windows lots of times and doing
no editing whatsoever? Minimize/maximize lots of times?
Are you using Cntrl-Z?/Cntrl-Y?

What is the minimum you can do to cause it? If you
start CSBuild and then minimize it and just let it sit
there will it happen?

If we can isolate the problem to some sub-section of
the program there might be some hope of fixing it.

This sounds a bit more important than 'Tab-order'. I
am very sensitive to reports of performance problems.
This is a very straight-forward Windows application that
should use no significant resources. But it is certainly
possible to make big mistakes.

[Paul Stevens]

CSBuild Version 0.764 is at:
webpages.charter.net/pstevens1

This is an attempt to attack the performance problem
reported by Christophe.

I was of the opinion that I did not need to release
Device Contexts in my circumstances. They ARE a
limited resource. Perhaps XP treats them differently.
At any rate it is good practice to release them so
version 0.764 does release them and has debug code
installed to detect any failure to release them.

[Paul Stevens]

In Win2000 I was able to cause a crash with version 0.763.
My change in 0.764 corrected this. In 0.765 I corrected it
in what might be a better way.

[PicturesInTheDark]

A small addition: I encountered the slowdown on my machine as well but paid not much attention to it so far, since it is a very slow one by today's standards. I'm using a NB with a PII, 350 MhZ, Win 2000 (SP1).

Slowdown is visible when using the edit button (as Christophe described) and sometimes takes 2-3 seconds (rarely more). In few of these cases (1 out of 20 ?) CSBwin.exe crashes after giving an error message. I will test the new one for this effect, but could not identify any single reason so far.

Regards, PitD

[ChristopheF]

Paul, my 4 remarks were not ordered by decreasing importance ;) (I agree the slowdown is more important to fix than the tab order)

I have not used CTRL-Z nor CTRL-Y at all, so it is not related to the issue.

I have made some more tests.
With version 0.763:
a) Using page up / page down LOTS of times did not produce any visible effect on performance. Nothing either by switching windows a lot of times.

b) By repeating LOTS of times these actions:
Right-clicking on a tile and then pressing the 'ESC' key to close the dialog
I was able to notice a slowdown. However, it was not as important as the ones I had yesterday. I guess editing objects has a strong impact too, but I have not tested this specifically today.

With version 0.765:
the b) test did not produce the slowdown at all. I don't know what is a "device context resource", but I guess you fixed the right thing in that version. Thanks!

[Paul Stevens]

Let us hope that was what was needed. Things
should always be that easy!

PitD - You should not be tolerating program crashes
in silence. I know that real men are supposed to be
stoic in the face of pain. But think of it as a favor to me.
Please (PLEASE) let me know if this continues
with version 0.765. And I assume you meant 'CSBuild',
not 'CSBwin'. Either way, I can't fix it if I don't know about it.

[PicturesInTheDark]

I am not, don't worry. (And I receive no pride from standing pain either ;))
But since I could not reproduce the problem, I did not know what to tell you.
I'll promise to tell you anyway if you forgive inaccurate descriptions...

Regards, PitD