textadventures.co.uk Forums

Squiffy Forum: JS arrays in squiffy

2021-01-03T15:47:35Z

Taking Var out of this code causes it to crash in Squiffy.

Actually, last night I poked around some more and found a conversation where someone talked about the same thing - JS variables and arrays do not cross into new sections - they are local to that section.

If you want to jump a variable to another section, you have to carry it across in a squiffy variable, using Set and Get commands. Which means arrays are out.

Which is okay. Last night in bed, I thought about it and figured a way to do it with just squiffy variables. I'm not sure how keen I am with this -an array would have been perfect. But you do what you can do with this application, I guess.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-03T12:45:07Z

Apologies mrangel, in my rush to test your code yesterday I must have left in K.V.s code as well because tests this morning show white space returning. K.V.'s solution is reasonably specific anyway as it is only used when panes are removed and I have given it a thorough check (I think!)

Quest Forum: Quest 6 - Remove default room name prefix

2021-01-03T08:56:57Z

Set "properName" to true.

QuestKit Forum: Visual Studio Code

2021-01-03T08:53:51Z

Sorry I've been busy with my father's funeral amongst other matters.

Actually I don't know any more than you. I have been using it to write (translate from BASIC) an Inform 6 game. I prefer the DARK theme for myself but there is also a menu choice - FILE/Preferences/Colour Theme to pick one that suits you.
With the I6 project, I just started a new file (I think) and began coding.
I'm still learning as I go, just as I did when working before I retired. (Life is just a continual schooling)

I'll try to get back to this fully in a few more weeks. Seems like I may have a bit of reading to do in order to catch up.

Squiffy Forum: JS arrays in squiffy

2021-01-03T06:34:39Z

Declaring a variable with var is optional, and makes it local to the current function.

Quest Forum: Quest 6 - Remove default room name prefix

2021-01-03T04:55:19Z

Whoops, it's yet another thread.
I've been searching through the code for a while now, but I can't seem to find a way to disable the default room name prefix (i.e, the word "The" it insists on putting before everything).

Quest Forum: Increasing Attribute value is not working for me

2021-01-03T04:28:41Z

yep thats working now. Cheers.

Quest Forum: Strange Attribute?

2021-01-03T03:47:00Z

I was just curious to understand what that attribute did. I was surprised that unchecking that box could break so much of my game so easily!

If I leave it checked (game.echohyperlinks = true), my aliases which contain text processor directives work fine. If unchecked, the directive's literal text will be printed out instead of the interpreted result of that directive. So I will leave it checked.

Quest Forum: Quest 6 - Giving rooms custom attributes, and checking them later

2021-01-03T03:44:02Z

Thanks. I ended up actually writing my own function to teleport them:

async function teleport(dest) {
	game.player.loc = dest;
	msg(`<b>The ${w[game.player.loc].alias}</b>`);
	msg(w[game.player.loc].desc);
	return true;
}

Squiffy Forum: JS arrays in squiffy

2021-01-03T03:06:17Z

According to what I'm reading, variables (and arrays) in JS are all global in nature. However, I'm not having a lot of luck seeing arrays in functions. An example:

[[Start]]:

    var Arr1 = [];
    Arr1[0]=50;

    set("test1",Arr1[0]); //works
test1={test1}

[[Next]]

[[Next]]:
    set("test2",Arr1[0]); //fails
test2={test2}

Any ideas on how to use an array in other places (either JS functions or other squiffy sections)?

Quest Forum: Quest 6 - Giving rooms custom attributes, and checking them later

2021-01-03T02:43:09Z

To move the player, use world.setRoom.
https://github.com/ThePix/QuestJS/wiki/Attributes-for-items#worldsetroomchar-roomname-dir-forced

Quest Forum: Quest 6 - Giving rooms custom attributes, and checking them later

2021-01-03T02:15:07Z

[nevermind]

Quest Forum: Strange Attribute?

2021-01-02T19:52:13Z

Without hyperlinks, it's just printing the command the player typed; and that shouldn't contain text processor directives anyway.

Oh, I see. With hyperlinks, it's replacing key (which is the object's name as entered by the player) with the link.

Which means your "however" seems to be spot on.

...except if the player entered the first few letters, wouldn't the link be just those first few letter?

Also, I think Dcoder had issues with the text processor stuff in an object's name (or alias), and Quest maybe got updated to handle that in 5.8? (If not, there's some modified code to handle it in his game, I think.)

Quest Forum: Quest 6 - Giving rooms custom attributes, and checking them later

2021-01-02T19:41:16Z

game.player.loc will be a string (the name of the room).

That part would need to be w[game.player.loc].foo.

I saw something on the wiki about teleporting the player, but I can't find it now for the life of me. I can't remember the exact terminology used, but something on that wiki says what function to use when moving the player to a different room during play.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T19:22:41Z

@mrangel, many thanks for the simplified code. I've tried it out on the cases that were failing and all seems perfect. I'll use a longer test tomorrow.

Quest Forum: Strange Attribute?

2021-01-02T19:18:56Z

KV I don't think that should be the problem. Without hyperlinks, it's just printing the command the player typed; and that shouldn't contain text processor directives anyway.

However, I do think that "{object:" + object.name + "}" should be "{object:" + object.name + ":" + key + "}" in that code; if the player types an object's alternate alias, it should echo what they typed.

Quest Forum: Increasing Attribute value is not working for me

2021-01-02T19:03:22Z

I can't see any problems with that.

I know timers don't work properly with precise times; but I'm not sure if using a floating point number for the interval will round it off, or just be ignored.

Does it work if you change

obfreefall1.value = obheight1.value  *  0.0048

obfreefall1.value = obheight1.value  *  3/625

?
That's the same number, but will round off the answer to be an int.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T18:31:16Z

I have no idea why Quest keeps setting the document's min-height to the height of its contents. That should have no effect at all, except introducing pointless white space.

You might as well do something like $('head style').last().append('#divOutput {min-height: initial !important}') in your init script, and not have to keep fiddling with edge cases.

Quest Forum: Quest 6 - Giving rooms custom attributes, and checking them later

2021-01-02T17:59:07Z

Anyone know how I would go about giving a room a custom attribute, and then having it checked later?
For example:

createRoom("testroom", {
	desc:"a cool description",
	foo:"bar",
})

if (game.player.loc.foo != "bar") {
        do stuff
}

...While I'm here, I might as well ask if it's possible to teleport a player to another room, and store their inventory somewhere else when they do so.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T16:11:58Z

Thanks K.V. I'd call it a joint effort but I still plan to buy another book from mrangel when I've finished the three I've downloaded already. I'm not currently working on any games so hopefully I won't be bothering the forum for a while.

QuestKit Forum: Publishing on Itch.io...

2021-01-02T15:48:44Z

It works perfectly now!

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T15:33:02Z

Hurray!

After reading through mrangel's posts in that old thread, that seemed like the fix.

So, mrangel technically solved this one.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T15:06:17Z

Many thanks K.V. I've used your new code in place of the old, tying it specifically to tidying up after panes are removed, and everything now looks perfect. I've uploaded a new version of the game and it seems to be coping with every sequence I throw at it. I'll try playing through to just before the end and then undoing back to the beginning. It'll take a while!

QuestKit Forum: Publishing on Itch.io...

2021-01-02T14:52:05Z

Oops... Try it now.

Quest Forum: Strange Attribute?

2021-01-02T14:48:59Z

 <function name="HandleCommand" parameters="command, metadata">

This part:

        shownlink = false
        if (game.echocommand) {
          if (metadata <> null and game.enablehyperlinks and game.echohyperlinks) {
            foreach (key, metadata) {
              if (EndsWith(command, key)) {
                objectname = StringDictionaryItem(metadata, key)
                object = GetObject(objectname)
                if (object <> null) {
                  msg ("")
                  msg ("&gt; " + Left(command, LengthOf(command) - LengthOf(key)) + "{object:" + object.name + "}" )
                  shownlink = true
                }
              }
            }
          }
          if (not shownlink) {
            msg ("")
            OutputTextRaw ("&gt; " + SafeXML(command))
          }
        }

https://github.com/textadventures/quest/blob/2e521f35b4e780ae440b0b43a34e20794e7c0adc/WorldModel/WorldModel/Core/CoreParser.aslx#L44

This line: OutputTextRaw ("> " + SafeXML(command))

It looks like it doesn't use the text processor when that is unchecked.

You could try changing it to msg("> " + SafeXML(command)), but I did not test it.

QuestKit Forum: Publishing on Itch.io...

2021-01-02T14:24:43Z

You never set the game's status to published, so it's not available for anyone but you.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T14:21:44Z

Man, I really wish I remembered doing all this. I have no clue where I came up with that code in UPDATE 2.

Anyway, it has something to do the min-height of the "divOutput" element.

Running this in the console after the undo makes the whitespace go away:

document.getElementById('divOutput').style.minHeight = null

So, try adding this line at the end of your undo script:

     JS.eval("document.getElementById('divOutput').style.minHeight = null")

Quest Forum: Increasing Attribute value is not working for me

2021-01-02T13:05:19Z

get input {
    if ((IsInt(result))) {
      obheight1.value = ToInt (result)
    }
    obfreefall1.value = obheight1.value  *  0.0048
    msg (" Recorded {obfreefall1.value} Seconds")
  }

Quest Forum: [Solved] Quest 6 - "can't access property "onCreation", hash is undefined"

2021-01-02T11:36:18Z

I would have suggested the same; it seemed odd to declare a local variable res and then discard it. But haven't seen the docs on this and wasn't sure how Quest 6 handles it.

Now I look at it, that seems an overly verbose way to create a template. To me, this seems both simpler and more intuitive:

const CYBERDECK = (procslots, memslots, driveslots, jackslots) => $.extend({},
	TAKEABLE_DICTIONARY, {
		procslots: procslots,
		memslots: memslots,
		driveslots: driveslots,
		jackslots: jackslots
	}
)

or even

const CYBERDECK = (procslots, memslots, driveslots, jackslots) => $.extend({
	procslots: procslots,
	memslots: memslots,
	driveslots: driveslots,
	jackslots: jackslots
}, TAKEABLE_DICTIONARY)

Quest Forum: Increasing Attribute value is not working for me

2021-01-02T09:11:53Z

The variable prints to screen as it should, such as - Time to Ground: 24
And I've been using IsInt and InInt as per above.

Timers and Timeout works fine when I enter a number as seconds, but not when I set it to expression and enter the variable.

Quest Forum: Strange Attribute?

2021-01-02T09:08:59Z

(Quest TA 5.8)

What does the "Display hyperlinks in commands" checkbox under the "Room Descriptions" tab of the game object do?

This checkbox corresponds to the Boolean attribute game.echohyperlinks (default setting is true).

I couldn't find an answer on the forums (or barely a mention). The reason I ask is that if I uncheck it (set to false), some of the object aliases in my game (that use text processor directives) fail to display properly.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T08:29:32Z

Hi K.V., Happy New Year!
Sorry, my posting was lazy! I should have provided code. I've now done that in the game where I noticed the problem:
https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/e4hrqb_vpeo4np1a0jel9g/l-too-another-mathemagical-adventure

To see the issue:

run the game online and type ABOUT to bring up a couple of pages of text
type CLEAR, which just uses ClearScreen to remove the text
type UNDO, which seems to insert the white space occupied by the text as a side effect of undoing CLEAR?

UPDATE
The problem seems to be in the code I use to restore the state of the game after UNDO, rather than UNDO itself, linked to code you gave me to deal with white space appearing when game panes are swapped out:
https://textadventures.co.uk/forum/quest/topic/w7mtakf7ykixomwl09kjfw/pain-with-panes-issue-3-expanding-whitespace

I'll experiment further!

UPDATE 2
You gave me the following code in 2018 to tidy up white space when taking out game panes:

JS.eval ("var reHeight = 0;  $('#divOutput').children().each(function(){reHeight += $(this).height();});  $('#divOutput').css('min-height',reHeight);")

Unfortunately that seems to fail after the use of ClearScreen. For example, in the posted game:

Type PANES twice to move panes in and out, showing all is fine
Type CLEAR
Type PANES twice again

On the second use, when removing the panes, white space appears. My easy workaround is to remove the use of ClearScreen but I'd love to know what was causing the problem?

Quest Forum: [Solved] Quest 6 - "can't access property "onCreation", hash is undefined"

2021-01-02T04:32:50Z

Ah, right. Thanks!

Quest Forum: [Solved] Quest 6 - "can't access property "onCreation", hash is undefined"

2021-01-02T03:27:38Z

Hello.

You're going to be mad . . .

You have to return res at the end of your function. This works:

const CYBERDECK = function(procslots, memslots, driveslots, jackslots) {
	const res = $.extend({}, TAKEABLE_DICTIONARY);
	res.procslots = procslots;
	res.memslots = memslots;
	res.driveslots = driveslots;
	res.jackslots = jackslots;
	return res;
}

createItem("cyberdeck", TAKEABLE(), CYBERDECK(1,1,1,1), {
	loc:"coffee_table",
	examine: "Your cyberdeck. It has slots for one processor, one stick of RAM, an internal drive, and, of course, a neural jack.",
})

BUT, since you extended the TAKEABLE dictionary in the template, you can leave the TAKEABLE() out of createItem, like so:

createItem("cyberdeck", CYBERDECK(1,1,1,1), {
	loc:"coffee_table",
	examine: "Your cyberdeck. It has slots for one processor, one stick of RAM, an internal drive, and, of course, a neural jack.",
})

REFERENCE

https://github.com/ThePix/QuestJS/wiki/Custom-Templates

Quest Forum: Increasing Attribute value is not working for me

2021-01-02T01:34:27Z

Are you sure you're waiting long enough for the timeout to trigger? It could take a few seconds longer than you expect.

I assume that you've checked the variable is an int.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T01:21:59Z

I played around with this for a few minutes.

I don't think UNDO should have anything to do with what text has printed or what text has been cleared. Otherwise, logic would dictate that UNDO should clear the text printed out in response to each action being undone and restore any text cleared due each action, and that would be illogical.

Quest Forum: [Solved] ClearScreen White Space Issue (was UNDO Issue)

2021-01-02T00:52:30Z

Hello.

I assume that any operation that uses ClearScreen can't be fully undone if any text has been cleared

That depends on how you define "fully undone".

There are a few people around here who will probably say making cleared text reappear is not UNDO's job. ( I'm not particularly saying that, but I don't have much of an argument against it, either.)

Regardless of that, I think there's probably a way to undo screen clearing. (I'm thinking about the way the transcript stuff works, but I can't think about it clearly enough to effect a solution right now. (I've been fooling around with the next Quest, and I just realized I've forgotten quite a bit of old Quest-ese.))

I don't want to sound negative, but I wouldn't bet that such functionality would ever be added to Quest 5 (although I may be mistaken). If you find a solution to this, you would probably have to include the code in each of your games.

is it possible to detect that this has happened within UNDO and give a warning?

I don't fully understand this question.

Do you mean that the screen clears after entering UNDO? If yes, this probably depends on the script that invokes ClearScreen, but I think you could code that script to check the current command before clearing the screen.

now also noticed that there is a 'white space' problem when undoing past an operation that uses ClearScreen, as the space for the text is restored but not the text itself!

It seems like I remember someone mentioning this previously? ( I ~~might be~~ am crazy, though.)

Opinion(s)

I am quite fond of UNDO (and making it fully functional), but, now that I've thought about it, I wouldn't call this thing with ClearScreen an UNDO issue. I would opine that this is something which should be handled by any author who chooses to clear the screen with ClearScreen during play -- an offense of which I have been guilty on numerous occasions.

Instead of using ClearScreen in a parser (especially a parser that has the UNDO feature), perhaps it would be better to print out a blank div which is the height of the output element. This is how the old text adventures did it (I think). It has the same effect, but the player can always scroll up to view everything printed during play.

I'm pretty sure this would look odd in Quest, though.

EDIT

I'm pretty sure this will do that ("that" meaning: create a screen full of whitespace):

msg ("<div style='min-height:100vh;'></div>")
msg ("Your screen just got cleared the old way!")

EDIT 2

Tested and approved (although it does act a little funny).

Quest Forum: [Solved] Quest 6 - "can't access property "onCreation", hash is undefined"

2021-01-02T00:26:51Z

Hi,

I'm getting the error mentioned in the title whenever I try adding a custom template to my game (and adding an object that uses that template). I'm not entirely sure how to fix it, so here's what I've tried so far:

The original code:

const CYBERDECK = function(procslots, memslots, driveslots, jackslots) {
	const res = $.extend({}, TAKEABLE_DICTIONARY);
	res.procslots = procslots;
	res.memslots = memslots;
	res.driveslots = driveslots;
	res.jackslots = jackslots;
	
}

createItem("cyberdeck", TAKEABLE(), CYBERDECK(1,1,1,1), {
	loc:"coffee_table",
	examine: "Your cyberdeck. It has slots for one processor, one stick of RAM, an internal drive, and, of course, a neural jack.",
})

And the code after I tried to fix it myself:

const CYBERDECK = function(procslots, memslots, driveslots, jackslots) {
	const res = $.extend({}, TAKEABLE_DICTIONARY);
	res.procslots = procslots;
	res.memslots = memslots;
	res.driveslots = driveslots;
	res.jackslots = jackslots;
	
	res.onCreation = function(o) {
		if (!o.isAtLoc(game.player.name)) {
			list.push("Take")
		}
		else {
			list.push("Drop")
		}
	}
}

createItem("cyberdeck", TAKEABLE(), CYBERDECK(1,1,1,1), {
	loc:"coffee_table",
	examine: "Your cyberdeck. It has slots for one processor, one stick of RAM, an internal drive, and, of course, a neural jack.",
})

QuestKit Forum: Publishing on Itch.io...

2021-01-01T21:39:31Z

... is easy! You can just upload the same .zip file textadventures.co.uk uses (as of QuestJS 0.5, the HTML file is called index.html).

It does give a lot of options, which does make it more complicated, but the basic principle is simple.
https://the-pixie.itch.io/professor-kleinscope

Quest Forum: Increasing Attribute value is not working for me

2021-01-01T20:49:30Z

Thanks.

Just 1 more question but - I'm trying to use a variable as a interval for a TIMER, but it doesn't seem to work for me.
I tried creating a timer "freefall1" , then using "Set Timer" and "Enable Timer", as below:

SetTimerInterval (freefall1, obfreefall1.value)
EnableTimer (freefall1)

I've tried a timeout:
SetTimeout (obfreefall1.value) {
msg ("My Timer")
}

I'm sure it's something basic...

Quest Forum: Exporting as a HTML5 archive?

2021-01-01T03:20:36Z

...Plus, I'd need to know where to get Quest 6.

Quest Forum: Exporting as a HTML5 archive?

2021-01-01T02:47:24Z

Well, if I haven't really started my project yet, surely switching to 6 would be easier.

Squiffy Forum: Interplanitary flight

2021-01-01T01:23:35Z

One funny story about the game (this was from a decade ago). A friend and I were writing our various pieces. When it came time to actually do your mental and physical states, I combined them. I figured that if you were injured or going mad, the affect would be pretty much the same on your effectiveness. So why quibble about open wounds and mental disturbance?

Since you had your mental state to worry about - long burns and the emptiness of space would make morale problematic - I added things you could buy and take in your ship. Booze, drugs, a bible, video games, even pornography. Each would give you a boost using them if you "got the blues".

Then my friend called while playing the game over the weekend. Right as he was about to do a critical final burn to enter an orbit (he HAD to be a the controls), there was a solar flare. So, his choice was to hide in his shielded sleep bunk or stay at the controls and manage orbital entry. He chose the latter and got a good dose of radiation, which dropped his health/morale.

So he calls me up after this and tells me the story and says, "You know, I used smut to heal radiation burns. Who would have thought..."

The next day, I was splitting morale from health.

Squiffy Forum: Interplanitary flight

2021-01-01T01:17:04Z

Trust me, even on that scale, Pluto was way far away. Generally you had to fly the entire game and get every fuel tank, air tank and power battery you could get to make the run. You'd accelerate steady off one of the inner planets, boosting hard and shaking your ship and body apart (if you took it slow, you took it longer and might not make it). Usually I'd be going 12+ squares a turn, just coasting along. That was when I'd tune my ship and try to heal my injuries from the high gees. Meanwhile, I'd have to figure the factorial of my deceleration to figure when I needed to flip and burn hard. And there was nothing worse than an engine failure on those last few burns to not have you slip right by and die just off Pluto.

So...

While reading your response, it gave me the idea of how to do this. What I'll probably do is mock it up over the next few weeks and put a demo out there so people can fly the bare bones version (just flying, nothing else). Eventually I'll put in all the other things my old game had - gambling, bomb defusing, assassins, everything. So, coming soon...

Squiffy Forum: Interplanitary flight

2020-12-31T22:23:58Z

(and Pluto, something like 285 or so)

I thought it would be more like 500 on that scale; but google says 355 (39.5 times farther than Earth)

need to know if there is some calculation to know how far each path square is from the 0,0 center.

You already know how to find a distance between two points using their (x,y) coords:
distance² = (x₁-x₂)² + (y₁-y₂)²

What you need here is probably distance², because the power generated by a solar cell is reduced according to distance squared from the sun. And with the sun at (0,0), the formula is even simpler: power gained per unit time is just your base power divided by (x²+y²).

Working out the average of all the squares they pass through in a day would be inaccurate; but probably close enough for a game

Squiffy Forum: Interplanitary flight

2020-12-31T20:38:45Z

Working out and idea for a game based on solar system flight. Assume the sun is at 0,0 and planets are slowly walking around a grid, so many squares from the sun (like, Mercury =3, and Venus=5 and Earth=9 (and Pluto, something like 285 or so)).

It would work very easily if, before you fly to another planet, you file a flight plan. This would take into account where you are starting and where you are going and set up a path of squares you need to move across before making it (using good old A2 +B2=C2 stuff). Once you start out, you are moving 1 square each day. Burn fuel and now it's 2 a day. But you need to flip and start decelerating before you get to your destination.

All fine and good. Again, you aren't running across a messy grid (with all those weird diagonals), you are moving along a path (determined by the location of planets on a grid).

My only problem I'm facing is ... electricity. I'm wanting that you need to swing out your solar panels to pick up power from the sun. The further away you are, the less well your gain is (past Jupiter, it's pretty much rubbish).

But lets say you are making the long haul from Uranus to Pluto, and they happen to be in conjunction (opposite sides of the sun). If setting up a flight path from, lets say, +200,0 to -300, 0 (with 500 path squares to cover) is there a way to determine how close EACH square of that path is to the sun? Because, in conjunction like that, you'll be swinging right past the sun and can get that critical power boost.

If I knew this, I could also know when you are in the asteroid belt (from your range to the sun). But I need to know if there is some calculation to know how far each path square is from the 0,0 center.

On this hinges everything.

Quest Forum: Game stylesheets?

2020-12-31T19:08:32Z

You can change the appearance easily; maybe you happened to try a few text adventures from authors who don't think that much about it.

Most of the games I've made are tests for some feature, so they look the same. The exception is Circus, which is a remake of a game I played in the 80s, so I made it look as much like the Commodore 16 version as I could.

Quest Forum: Exporting as a HTML5 archive?

2020-12-31T19:08:28Z

6 is built with this functionality in mind, but it's a different system, yeah. It's currently working, but the GUI editor is a work in progress, and converting between 5 and 6 is also WIP and may never be 100% perfect.

Quest Forum: Exporting as a HTML5 archive?

2020-12-31T18:27:43Z

The frontend of a Quest game is HTML and JS. The backend is a server-side application; so Quest needs to be installed on the server.

Quest 6 games can be exported as an HTML archive; but that's a completely new system.

Site Announcements and Feedback: The Quest Server Is Back Up

2020-12-31T15:59:18Z

The advertising on the site has disappeared again?