Sweet!

The new version of AGK is out, and the command limit bug is fixed! I should have AGK Particle Sandbox finished within the week.

Life is funny...

So I had an idea that would let me reduce the number of lines in AGK Particle Sandbox, thus letting me actually work on the code. The program uses a maximum of 12 text fields and 12 sprite backgrounds in each window, so I just create 12 text objects and 12 sprites when Sandbox starts, and shuffle them around for each of the windows. I put the 12 object ID's and sprite ID's in an array so I can loop through them, instead of giving each one a separate command.

Well, it turns out that a SetTextString() command counts for 2 lines when the compiler adds up how many lines it can handle before it chokes.

Technical details aside, what does all that mean?

It means that my bright idea actually LOWERED the cap on how many lines I can write. Ouch.

And here we go again...

I've again hit the limit on lines of code before the compiler crashes. So, I'm going to work on the user's guide, and also on another project.

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward

I've cleaned up my code a bunch, and this has cleared out enough lines so that I can finish up the last two windows. Mostly just moving all the text calls into a function, so I don't have to explicitly set size, color, depth, and position for each text object. The image browser window is done, that leaves the input/output window. And the user's guide, of course.

The Crashing Returns

I've hit the limit on Sprite commands, so unless this bug gets fixed, I can't do anymore work on AGK Particle Sandbox. I've reported the bug to TGC. For now, I'll just work on the documentation.

Images

Halfway done with the images window. After that it's the file output window.

Just One Look...

Getting close to finishing up the AGK Particle Sandbox, here's a first look...

May the Force be with you...

The particle Force Keyframes controls are done, and you can do some very interesting things with them.

Enter and escape!

I solved a somewhat tricky problem this morning. AGK Particle Sandbox has a lot of data fields that can be changed by the user. For each window, I include "accept" and "cancel" buttons, so the user has a chance to either accept the changed data, or cancel and keep the original values. Well, because I anticipate the Sandbox mainly being used on systems with attached keyboards, I want to use the standard convention of hitting the ENTER key for okay or accept, and the ESC key for cancel or exit.

Well, AGK's text input routine puts up an input window, and there's only two ways to end this input. Care to guess what they are? That's right, ENTER or ESC. And when the user is done with the input, the very last key that was hit is passed back to the running code.

So, every time I asked the user for an input, I was getting an extra ENTER or ESC keypress. Argh! The solution was to use a pair of flags to test for those two characters after an input, and just ignore them the first cycle through the program loop.

Not a big deal, but it lets me give the user a handy feature!

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I made a new banner for my posts in the Game Creators forums, maybe get a little buzz going about AGK Particle Sandbox.