| Kon-Tiki |
If I'm not mistaken, Picedit's written in C. I've just found a C compiler and a beginners tutorial to C. I'll [glow=red,2,300]TRY[/glow] to make Picedit better, if someone could send me the source code. I guess it'll take lots and lots of time, because I don't know anything of the language yet, so don't expect a new version of it next week. I'll do what I can, and hope it'll work.
Every help is welcome.
-Kon-'What am I getting myself into this time'-Tiki-
|
| Joey |
i thought u said u were gonna work on pascal? thats what you told me. u should concentrate on 1 language at a time. but if you wanna do C its up to you.
|
| Nailhead |
I think it would be more useful if PicEdit was turned into a Win32 app.
Just my $0.02
|
| Kon-Tiki |
Joey> I looked at both for a while. Because Picedit's made in C, C's looking quite a lot like AGI and you giving up on Pascal made me consider learning C and then C++.
Nailhead> I'm working with C for 20min. now, so I haven't got the faintest idea how to do that. I'll get a compiler that runs in Windooze so that'll make it possible (bubye Pacific) and see how I can make Win32 programmes. Maybe that's the best way to start for that.
Also, I didn't have any problems with Picedit being a Dos program. It just wasn't really user friendly, so I wanted to enhance that (and maybe, if I know how, put a copying-pasting feature in it.)
I'll go look into it and try to make Picedit for Windooze.
-Kon-Tiki-
|
| Joey |
oh ok. well good luck kon tiki.
|
| Kon-Tiki |
Found the source. Now I can start the real work, although the Windooze programming's still far too complicated and difficult, I'll improve Picedit, even if it was with a tiny bit.
Any suggestions for the better Picedit (or for the programming ;) ) are always welcome.
-Kon-Tiki-
|
| AGI1122 |
The only thing I can suggest is making it a windows utility instead of dos... this would be more usefull and easier to work with.
|
| VvTG (Joel) |
you would have to practically rewrite the program, I think, to make it a Win32 app. The PicEdit source uses some assembly language, if I'm not mistaken, and accesses the hardware directly. Windows doesn't let you access the hardware directly.
I'm not sure editing PicEdit's source is the best place for you to start learning C (it uses pointers heavily, for starters). Though if you want to try it, go for it. As for writing a Windows program, a compiler that runs in Windows won't cut it. You'll need to learn either the Windows API or a library such as MFC or whatever the Borland library is called that hides the API from you.
I don't mean to be negative here, but how much programming experience do you have? Are you just learning your first "real" programming language (i.e. C or Pascal instead of AGI)? If so, I should warn you that you won't learn the Windows API or any of the Windows libraries overnight.
I also think the most useful extension to PicEdit would be to make it a Windows program, but before you try it, you'll first need to learn C; then once you have a pretty good grasp of C (you should be comfortable with pointers and bitwise operations at the very least) learn a Windows programming library.
|
| Parabola |
how about support for loading custom 16 colour palette files 8)
also i think it would be great to make it win32.
it seems there are quite a few ppl out there with programming knowledge, i wonder why this hasnt come up before....
|
| mr-t |
It would be cool having picedit in windows. From Microsoft's perspective, DOS is dead, and picedit may die along with it.
BTW, this is the 4000th post on the AGI board! ;)
|
| Kon-Tiki |
Yeah, I wondered about why people with programming experience didn't do this earlier, but because they didn't it's up to someone else to do that.
For Joel: I've spoken to a friend of mine who's a professional programmer. He said the same thing about Dos and Windooze. He said it's better to start from scratsh and that it takes a couple of very frustrating months to learn C, but once you gain that knowledge, it's the best thing you can have. He also suggested to use DLL-files, which will be used (I think). Oh, and I never planned on doing this overnight.
First thing I'll try to do, is make a Windooze Picture editor. This'll mean I'll have to spend less time on Little Pirate, but I think this's more important for everybody, so I don't mind it.
As for the learning of the language:
1) Tim (from the OS dev.) wants to help me to learn making Win32 programmes (if I can get that d*mn newsgroup to work)
2) I'll use lots of tutorials from the internet
3) That friend suggested a book 'C' by Kernishgan (or something like that) and another guy, which I'll go look for in libraries
4)I'll ask lots of help from friends who know C for Windooze
5)I'll ask lots of questions here too (propably in this thread or in Off-topic.
Hope this'll be enough.
-Kon-Tiki-
|
| Joey |
i have visual C++ and a book for it. i also have an old book called Lets C. i have the disks with C on it, but they are 5 1/2". i have a 5 1/2" drive, but the disks are bad. what im saying is, if you need any help i can look it up.
plus, i am fine with this pic edit. take as much time as you need. if you want to finish your game first go for it.
|
| mr-t |
Your game should take priority over a new version of picedit as it is very good, Kon-Tiki. (Too many good AGI demos have fallen into the "I'll do it later/I won't) trap.
|
| VvTG (Joel) |
By "you won't learn it overnight", I mean it'll probably take you several frustrating months to get comfortable with Windows programming, the same way it will take you some frustrating time to get used to using C.
I've recommended these books in another thread somewhere on this board, but two of the most useful resources I own are C++ in Plain English by Brian Overland (has a very good C++ language/library reference) and Programming Windows by Charles Petzold. There's a good chance that almost any Windows programmer you'll ever talk to has heard of Petzold. It's sort of THE Windows programming book.
Like I said, I'm not trying to discourage you from working on this, I'm just trying to let you know that you've chosen a difficult first project. I happen to agree that C is a very valuable skill to learn. I'd also be willing to give you whatever C or Win32 programming help you might need.
|
| VvTG (Joel) |
One other thing: why use DLLs?
The main reasons for using DLLs are 1) to have code that can be updated (or replaced) without changing the programs that use it 2) to have code that can be used by multiple programs without having to include redundant code in each executable
If you're planning on writing a picture drawing routine or something like that which can be used by other programmers writing AGI utilities for Windows, then I can see the point. If not, then it sounds like increasing the complexity of an already complex project without much purpose.
|
| Kon-Tiki |
[attachment deleted by admin]
|
| Kon-Tiki |
I guess this'll make it a lot easier too.
http://vectorgraphics.sourceforge.net/
-Kon-Tiki-
|
| Joel |
What exactly are you referring to when you say "the vectorizing" in your text document?
If it means what it sounds like you mean, it would actually be considerably easier (and more efficient) to store the pictures in their AGI format and convert them to bitmaps when they need to be displayed rather than storing them as bitmaps and converting them to vector images when they need to be saved.
By the way, with the work I'm currently doing on the Base Logic Generator, I've written a picture resource C++ class that loads and draws AGI pictures. With some modification, it could be turned into a general-purpose pic resource class that allowed editing of the resource. Going along with avoiding duplicating work that's already been done, you could use it if you wanted to.
|
| Andrew_Baker |
Joe, Raf! One of our illustrious herd, eidolon, was working on a new version of Pic-Edit called APE, Another Picture Editor. If you can get in touch with him, you might find someone with a lot of work already done who could probably use a hand.
|
| lemur |
If you wanna get a good start on your c-project you should really try the Allegro API. http://www.allegro.cc
It's like an add-on for C/C++ with loads of great routines for loading of different picture formats, primitive drawings, vector calculations, blitting, etc. Besides the Allegro-community is great for helping out with problems. Making win32-applications is piece of cake aswell and you can use DirectX without knowing anything about the inner workings.
Good luck! The AGI-world needs a new picedit! No offense to the old one but it sure would be nice with a modern version. Importing and converting from different formats would be lovely.
|
| Kon-Tiki |
That picture resource class sounds usefull (now to find out what it means ::) , but that's where that book from the library's for.) It would be great if we could use it.
I was looking at the Allegro thing. I know it can be very usefull, but I don't have enough experience to see how :-\
so that'll rest for a while.
The vectorizing was a broad way of talking about a way to make the pictures vectored images. I was planning to find a way to do that while drawing. Seems like that's the same thing as Joel said, so no problem there.
Tried to contact Eidolon some time ago, but he didn't even receive the mail. I'll try again now and let you guys know the answer. I was planning to use APE and finish it, but couldn't find the source code nor APE itself.
I'm waiting for permission from my server to make a bot for an IRC-channel. I think such a channel'll be quite usefull for keeping in touch with others helping on the project (programming or guiding.) It would also be great if somebody with good Win32 C-programming experience would help writing it. It's always better to have some people working on such a project than only one.
-Kon-Tiki-
|
| Kon-Tiki |
Couldn't reach Eidolon. There was another mail adress mentioned in the error message where you could mail to if you're having problems. Let's hope this'll work.
-Kon-Tiki-
|
| Joel |
Well, for anyone dying for a Windows PicEdit, there's always Windows Linux AGI Studio.
|