Screen Edit

[GreyGhost]

I've been working on this utility for about a month now and it's finally working well enough that I thought I'd put it out there for everyone to see. Screen Edit is a full screen editor with lots of features. You use custom characters (located at 7168 to 7679) to draw a screen and then save it to disk. It allows for multicolored chars and can use the inverse field mode (can get some interesting things happening with that). It requires a 3k expansion.
If you have any trouble with remembering which key does what, hit 'F3'. When you press the '1' key to view the char set you can use the joystick to select a new drawing cursor. Most of the other commands are pretty much self explaining. Using the joystick button is kinda tricky. Press it regular to add something to the screen. Press and hold for a little longer to erase something. When drawing you can hold the button down and move the joystick around, but you can only erase one char at a time.
I have one char file with this utility called 'DUNGEN'. I used LCE (found in the ML section of this forum) to make it and then renamed the chars file and added the extension '.CST'. When loading a char file you don't have to add the extension to the name. Also, the screens are saved in two parts with the extensions .SCR & .COL. Again, you don't add the extensions when you type in the name for loading or saving.

Let me know if you find any errors, and let me know if you think of a feature to add to it.

Go here to get it: http://robmurphysc.tripod.com/ and go to the projects page.

[Schlowski]

Just started it and played a little bit around, looks very good. Unfortunately I do not have the time now for more extensive tests, but I hope I will find some time in the future...

I'm feeling a little bit animated to start an RPG for the VIC

Björg

PS: Great character set, I really like it!

PS2: To all you original english speakers: Is it "an RPG" or "a RPG"? I was a little bit indecisive about that...

[ravenxau]

an RPG - don't worry, some people who speak english fluently cant get this one right

[carlsson]

(off-topic) Would this apply to any acronym starting on F, H, L, M, N, R, S or X, where each letter is spelled out separately? I.e. an SDL application, an XLR cable, an LDX instruction?

[Boray]

What is an RPG?

[Schlowski]

RolePlayingGame, something along the way of Ultima, DungeonMaster, and so on.
Everything where you create and develop your playing character(s) during gameplay, I would say...

Mostly (but not necessarely) these are medieval themes with magical/mystical influences like dragons, sorcerers etc.
But of course there exists other themes like SF, horror...

Björg

[GreyGhost]

I've been thinking of adding text to this program. I know that the reverse field text starts at character value 128, but there are more characters in between (64-127). Are these character values open for custom character data or is this part unuseable on a real Vic.

[GreyGhost]

Silly me thats screen memory isn't it?

[Jeff-20]

PS2: To all you original english speakers: Is it "an RPG" or "a RPG"? I was a little bit indecisive about that...

Some once argued that acronyms should follow the sound of the words represented. So, "a RPG" would be accepted because it would be understood as "a role playing game". However, this is now generally not accepted. MLA actually prescibes that "an RPG" is correct because the determination of the article is based only on spoken sound, and R is a consonant with a vowel sound (such as "hour"). Rules often change.

Off topic, most acronyms are no longer bound by periods (U.S.A. can now be written USA)... MLA, NASA, RPG are all acceptable. However, "Mr." and "A.M./P.M." are still preferred. So I guess there's no use in learning rules.

[gklinger]

Some once argued that acronyms should follow the sound of the words represented. So, "a RPG" would be accepted because it would be understood as "a role playing game".

If you want to be precise about things, "RPG" isn't even an acronym, it's an initialism. An initialism is an abbreviation whereby each letter is pronounced separately. An acronym is an abbreviation whereby the letters form a new word. For instance, FBI, VCR and BMW are initialisms whereas scuba (self contained underwater breathing apparatus), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) are acronyms. The subtle difference is lost on most people and as a result, the word "initialism" has fallen out of use and most people (incorrectly) use acronym to describe both forms.

Wow. The dullest post ever. Yay me.

[Jeff-20]

Right you is.

[carlsson]

So: an HTML page, an NTSC decoder, an LPGA competition and so on?

[gklinger]

So: an HTML page, an NTSC decoder, an LPGA competition and so on?

Precisely.

[aneurysm]

Good times!!