* Windows Installer for Xconq @ 2003-11-03 8:32 Eric McDonald 2003-11-03 17:27 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 6:45 ` Windows Installer for Xconq Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 2 replies; 18+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-03 8:32 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq7 Hello, Due to popular demand, I have created an installer program to assist in setting up Xconq on Windows. This can be gotten at: http://eric_mcdonald.home.comcast.net/xconq It should be entirely self-contained, meaning that you should not need to go out and install any supporting things first. I will improve it further in the times ahead. Some of the features: (1) Can choose install path. (2) Creates a menu in the Programs menu group in the Start Menu. (3) Creates a Desktop icon for xconq.exe. (4) Has an uninstaller. (5) Can be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs control panel. (6) Has shortcuts (in Start|Programs|Xconq) for HTML documentation. (7) xconq.exe is associated with .xcq files. Things that still need to be done: (1) Bind icons to the xconq and imfapp executables (which will also be reflected in the shortcuts). (2) Make xconq.exe run from any working directory. This will make feature #7 actually be useful. Once this is taken care of, you will be able to double-click on saved xconq games (.xcq files) and have them launch Xconq. TODO #1 should be quite easy. I will take care of it soon. TODO #2 might be easy, but I need to research it more. As always, feedback is welcome. Enjoy, Eric ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-03 8:32 Windows Installer for Xconq Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-03 17:27 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-03 18:09 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-04 6:45 ` Windows Installer for Xconq Eric McDonald 1 sibling, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-03 17:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eric McDonald; +Cc: xconq7 >Hello, > > Due to popular demand, I have created an installer program to >assist in setting up Xconq on Windows. This can be gotten at: > http://eric_mcdonald.home.comcast.net/xconq This is great! Precisely what we needed. I tested it and it works fine even on my somewhat unusal Windows setup. I saw only one minor glitch, and that is that the icons are drawn using 4-bit graphics, even though 32 bits are available. When I compile the icons into the exe file, the correct depth is used, so this is not just a setup problem. I just checked in the new document icons for Windows. So when you get around to binding icons, you could bind those to the xcq extension. Hans ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-03 17:27 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-03 18:09 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-03 20:14 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-03 21:21 ` Jim Kingdon 0 siblings, 2 replies; 18+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-03 18:09 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Hans Ronne; +Cc: xconq7 On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Hans Ronne wrote: > This is great! Precisely what we needed. Thanks. Glad you like it. > on my somewhat unusal Windows setup. I saw only one minor glitch, and that > is that the icons are drawn using 4-bit graphics, Interesting. Which icons? The installer and uninstaller icons? Except for a misguided attempt to borrow an icon from Xconq.ico for the Xconq documents, I don't recall having any other icons. > available. When I compile the icons into the exe file, the correct depth is > used, so this is not just a setup problem. Yes, this is my plan. I think that I will need to use windres, which is provided with Cygwin, to use the Xconq.RC file to make an obj file to link in. > I just checked in the new document icons for Windows. So when you get > around to binding icons, you could bind those to the xcq extension. Will do. Thanks. I also think it might be a good idea to toss up a GPL license screen at the beginning of the install process. I played with that yesterday but was experiencing some issues. And I envision a user being able to choose between a "Minimal" (xconq.exe plus game library and support stuff), "Standard" (Minimal plus imfapp.exe), and "Full" install (Standard plus the sources). I have rudimentary support for this in the install script, but nothing that is visible yet. I suppose "Custom" could also become an option, __but, one thing at a time. Eric P.S. I will check in my NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) script later this week. Nullsoft is the same company that makes Winamp, which is why the installer interface might seem familiar to some. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-03 18:09 ` Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-03 20:14 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-03 21:21 ` Jim Kingdon 1 sibling, 0 replies; 18+ messages in thread From: Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-03 20:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eric McDonald; +Cc: xconq7 >On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Hans Ronne wrote: > >> This is great! Precisely what we needed. > >Thanks. Glad you like it. > >> on my somewhat unusal Windows setup. I saw only one minor glitch, and that >> is that the icons are drawn using 4-bit graphics, > >Interesting. Which icons? The installer and uninstaller icons? >Except for a misguided attempt to borrow an icon from Xconq.ico >for the Xconq documents, I don't recall having any other icons. The installer dumps two icon files (Xconq.ico and Imfapp.ico) into the top xconq directory. I thought at first you were using shortcuts to the cygwin apps, but they are just plain icons. And they are drawn with 4 bits even though they contain 8-bit and 32-bit images. But so are my original 32-bit icons as well (I just checked) so it is clearly not related to your installer. Sorry about the confusion. Seems that XP prefers to use the lowest depth available when it draws an .ico file, unlike a .exe file where the best image is used :-/. So if you are going to compile in the icons this will not matter the least. Hans ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-03 18:09 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-03 20:14 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-03 21:21 ` Jim Kingdon 2003-11-03 21:42 ` [OFFTOPIC?] Doc Chow (was Re: Windows Installer for Xconq) Eric McDonald 1 sibling, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Jim Kingdon @ 2003-11-03 21:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: mcdonald; +Cc: xconq7 > And I envision a user being able to choose between a "Minimal" > (xconq.exe plus game library and support stuff), "Standard" (Minimal > plus imfapp.exe), and "Full" install (Standard plus the sources) I guess that makes sense. Imfapp is half a mebibyte on my linux system, and full sources seem to be about 5 mebibytes or so. Having an option to install sources seems more useful than many programs, as the xconq sources are kind of useful in understanding how the game works until/unless we get more documentation volunteers than we have now. I'd call the options something like "Normal" (everything you need to play xconq), "Designer" (includes files recommended for game designers), and "Source" (includes xconq source code, for those desiring maximum insight into xconq's functioning). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* [OFFTOPIC?] Doc Chow (was Re: Windows Installer for Xconq) 2003-11-03 21:21 ` Jim Kingdon @ 2003-11-03 21:42 ` Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 0 replies; 18+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-03 21:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jim Kingdon; +Cc: xconq7 On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Jim Kingdon wrote: > I guess that makes sense. Imfapp is half a mebibyte on my linux > system, and full sources seem to be about 5 mebibytes or so. Having I think I can get used to saying "mebibyte", but "kibibytes" really sounds like a brand of dog chow. Thankfully, a half a kibibyte (aka, binary kilobyte) is not known as a "kibble", in the way that half a byte is known as a "nibble". Otherwise, we would have all these Kibbles and Bits floating around. > the xconq sources are kind of useful in understanding how the game > works until/unless we get more documentation volunteers than we have > now. Yes. Absolutely agreed. If my motivation capacitor ever becomes sufficiently recharged (wrt documentation), I intend to mention the formulae used by each of the combat models for determining hits and misses and damage. Another good thing that could be done, imo, is using @ifhtml in the .texi sources, so that newer texi2html translators can include raw HTML (useful for including screenshots in the HTML versions of the docs). I still need to write up some things regarding compound terrain effects, but have been holding back because I think I should refine that code further to deal with my previously mentioned ideas about border and connector aux terains. > I'd call the options something like "Normal" (everything you need to > play xconq), "Designer" (includes files recommended for game > designers), and "Source" (includes xconq source code, for those > desiring maximum insight into xconq's functioning). I'll consider what you suggest. It's a dog's world, Eric ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-03 8:32 Windows Installer for Xconq Eric McDonald 2003-11-03 17:27 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-04 6:45 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-04 13:43 ` Hans Ronne 1 sibling, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-04 6:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq7 Hello, On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Eric McDonald wrote: > Due to popular demand, I have created an installer program to > assist in setting up Xconq on Windows. This can be gotten at: > http://eric_mcdonald.home.comcast.net/xconq > Things that still need to be done: > (1) Bind icons to the xconq and imfapp executables (which will > also be reflected in the shortcuts). This is now done. I also added a license screen to the installer and a components selector. There are now 3 install types available: Standard (for players), Premium (for game designers), and Everything (includes source code). > (2) Make xconq.exe run from any working directory. This will > make feature #7 actually be useful. Once this is taken care of, > you will be able to double-click on saved xconq games (.xcq files) > and have them launch Xconq. This is going to require deeper surgery. I might not get to it until the weekend. > As always, feedback is welcome. > > Enjoy, > Eric ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 6:45 ` Windows Installer for Xconq Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-04 13:43 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 16:37 ` Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-04 13:43 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eric McDonald; +Cc: xconq7 >> Things that still need to be done: >> (1) Bind icons to the xconq and imfapp executables (which will >> also be reflected in the shortcuts). > >This is now done. I also added a license screen to the installer >and a components selector. There are now 3 install types >available: Standard (for players), Premium (for game designers), >and Everything (includes source code). That's nice. But "Premium" really sounds like some kind of commercial service that people would have to pay for. Couldn't we have "Game Designer" instead, as Jim suggested? Hans ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 13:43 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-04 16:37 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-04 19:07 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 20:03 ` Brandon J. Van Every 0 siblings, 2 replies; 18+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-04 16:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Hans Ronne; +Cc: xconq7 On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Hans Ronne wrote: > >available: Standard (for players), Premium (for game designers), > >and Everything (includes source code). > > That's nice. But "Premium" really sounds like some kind of commercial > service that people would have to pay for. Couldn't we have "Game Designer" > instead, as Jim suggested? We could, but "Game Designer" makes it sound like that you are getting some kind of game designer, and not necessarily everything needed to play Xconq. How about "1-topping", "2-toppings", and "the works"? Or maybe that sounds too commercial (and a bit "cheesy"). Seriously, how about we just drop the fancy labels, and say "For Players", "For Game Designers", and "Everything"? Eric ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 16:37 ` Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-04 19:07 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 20:03 ` Brandon J. Van Every 1 sibling, 0 replies; 18+ messages in thread From: Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-04 19:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eric McDonald; +Cc: xconq7 >Seriously, how about we just drop the fancy labels, and say "For >Players", "For Game Designers", and "Everything"? Sounds fine to me. We could also use "For Hackers" as the last option. That would follow Stan's layout of the manual, which comes in three parts: Players Manual, Game Design Manual and Hacking Maunal. Hans ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* RE: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 16:37 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-04 19:07 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-04 20:03 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-04 21:25 ` Hans Ronne 1 sibling, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-04 20:03 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq > We could, but "Game Designer" makes it sound like that you are > getting some kind of game designer, and not necessarily everything > needed to play Xconq. Try "Modder." That's standard industry terminology for tweaking game files to effect rule changes. Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA Taking risk where others will not. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* RE: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 20:03 ` Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-04 21:25 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 21:36 ` Brandon J. Van Every 0 siblings, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-04 21:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Brandon J. Van Every; +Cc: xconq7 >> We could, but "Game Designer" makes it sound like that you are >> getting some kind of game designer, and not necessarily everything >> needed to play Xconq. > >Try "Modder." That's standard industry terminology for tweaking game >files to effect rule changes. True. But game design in xconq is something more than modding. It's not just like writing Civ scenarios. There is much more flexibility because of GDL. You are not tweaking a game but rather writing one of your own. So I think the term design is appropriate. Hans ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* RE: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 21:25 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-04 21:36 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-04 23:24 ` Brandon J. Van Every 0 siblings, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-04 21:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq > >Try "Modder." That's standard industry terminology for tweaking game > >files to effect rule changes. > > True. But game design in xconq is something more than > modding. It's not > just like writing Civ scenarios. There is much more > flexibility because of > GDL. You are not tweaking a game but rather writing one of > your own. So I > think the term design is appropriate. In standard industry terminonology, Modding encompasses writing game scripts with game specific languages. For instance, writing a bot in Quake C. If that's all you're doing, if you're not modifying source code, then Modding is the canonically correct industry standard term. Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA Taking risk where others will not. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* RE: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 21:36 ` Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-04 23:24 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-05 4:38 ` Hans Ronne 0 siblings, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-04 23:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq > In standard industry terminonology, Modding encompasses writing game > scripts with game specific languages. For instance, writing a bot in > Quake C. If that's all you're doing, if you're not modifying source > code, then Modding is the canonically correct industry standard term. To amplify, the commercial game Counterstrike is nothing more than a Mod of Half-Life. And it has sold more than Half-Life. Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA Taking risk where others will not. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* RE: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-04 23:24 ` Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-05 4:38 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-05 8:54 ` Brandon J. Van Every 0 siblings, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-05 4:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Brandon J. Van Every; +Cc: xconq7 >> In standard industry terminonology, Modding encompasses writing game >> scripts with game specific languages. For instance, writing a bot in >> Quake C. If that's all you're doing, if you're not modifying source >> code, then Modding is the canonically correct industry standard term. > >To amplify, the commercial game Counterstrike is nothing more than a Mod >of Half-Life. And it has sold more than Half-Life. Indeed. Because it is a modification of Half-Life. Which is what mod really stands for. The point I was trying to make is that an Xconq base module is not a modification of anything. You write it from scratch using certain basic objects (units, materials etc.) but how these objects interact is defined by you (through GDL). You have a lot more freedom that in traditional modding, where the rules of the mod are rather narrowly defined by how the original game was designed. To follow your example, the people who wrote Half-Life had no reason to put stuff in their kernel that was of no use in their game. The xconq kernel, OTOH, has been written to be as flexible as possible and to provide support for as many different types of interactions as are conceivable. Let me illustrate with an example that was discussed on this list last year. If you do a mod of Civ II, you are limited by a number of constraints on the number of unit types, how they interact, even what kind of messages appear during the game. One of the best Civ II mods ever written (in my opinion) was Harlan Thompson's Lord of the Rings scenario. However, when you play it you will get silly messages like "Your Gandalf has run out of fuel and crashed" because the Gandalf unit took the place of the bomber in the original game. Civ III is better in this respect because an effort was made to support modding, but it does not come close to what you can do with Xconq. If anything, I would call Xconq a game engine, or a game design tool, at least when it comes to writing new base modules. Hans ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* RE: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-05 4:38 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-05 8:54 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-06 5:23 ` Hans Ronne 0 siblings, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-05 8:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq Hans Ronne wrote: > > To follow your example, the people who wrote Half-Life had no > reason to put > stuff in their kernel that was of no use in their game. The > xconq kernel, > OTOH, has been written to be as flexible as possible and to > provide support > for as many different types of interactions as are conceivable. I am not an Xconq developer, I haven't even gotten a proper Windows build environment going yet. So, take my opinions for whatever you think they're worth. My opinion is, even if you have the best game designer tools imagineable, even if you can make really deep changes to Xconq gameplay with them, "Modding" is still the industry standard term for it. You'd just tout the absolute coolness, flexibility, and scripting power of your Modding tools. Whatever the power of those tools, Xconq is not really middleware. If it were, a collection of rather different games would be running on "the Xconq engine." Maybe that sounds like a chicken-and-egg pronouncement, but nothing is middleware until it's demonstrably in the middle of something. Middleware, for instance, would carry the connotation that your code is very much intended to be used for non-Xconq games, that development revolves around providing general purpose game engine features. I doubt that's the case, am I mistaken? Regarding the label "Hacker" for the source code stuff, I think that is both a confusing label and a very negative one. Confusing because Modders certainly hack at stuff, if not the source code. Negative because in many people's minds, it implies shoddy and undisciplined engineering. I don't think you want to communicate to the world at large that your Xconq source code is a pile of sphaghetti coughed up by hackers. Even if hacking the sources is fun in the eyes of many people. I would suggest the label "For Programmers" instead. I think "For Players, For Modders, For Programmers" is standard game industry terminology and creates the least amount of confusion, even if you don't think it's a perfect fit. Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA Taking risk where others will not. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* RE: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-05 8:54 ` Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-06 5:23 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-07 0:57 ` Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 1 reply; 18+ messages in thread From: Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-06 5:23 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Brandon J. Van Every; +Cc: xconq7 >Whatever the power of those tools, Xconq is not really middleware. If >it were, a collection of rather different games would be running on "the >Xconq engine." Maybe that sounds like a chicken-and-egg pronouncement, >but nothing is middleware until it's demonstrably in the middle of >something. Middleware, for instance, would carry the connotation that >your code is very much intended to be used for non-Xconq games, that >development revolves around providing general purpose game engine >features. I doubt that's the case, am I mistaken? I'm not arguing that Xconq is middleware either. But I think we may be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. There is nothing out there, to my knowledge, that resembles Xconq in that what you call modding (and the Xconq manual calls game design) is the primary purpose, rather than something you do to modify an existing game. That's why I call it a game design tool. If your question is: has anybody who intended to write a completely new game ended up using Xconq to implement it, the anwser is yes. Check out the Castiron Life project: http://castironlife.sourceforge.net and its implementation as an Xconq game module: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=868548&forum_id=198668 Also see the many posts by Elijah Meeks (the main CIL developer) earlier this year on the Xconq list. >Regarding the label "Hacker" for the source code stuff, I think that is >both a confusing label and a very negative one. Hacker certainly is a word with negative connotations for many people today. The wording is Stan's, not mine. He even wrote a manual "Hacking Xconq". But that was back in the days before Sobig.F :-/. Hans ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
* Re: Windows Installer for Xconq 2003-11-06 5:23 ` Hans Ronne @ 2003-11-07 0:57 ` Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 0 replies; 18+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-07 0:57 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq7 Hello, I put the new installer on my Xconq Web site. In case anyone cares at this stage of beating the dead horse, the labels are: For Players, For Game Designers, and Everything. Hans, I forgot to put a doc with the Everything bundle that mentions CVS access, as we discussed the other day. I will do that next time. Probably will be a simple duplicate of the one on the Xconq Web site (making sure that link URL's are absolute instead of relative, of course). I'll just make a shortcut to the doc that will show up in Start Menu | Programs | Xconq, where the other doc shortcuts currently reside. I still need to address the issue of an "All Users" vs. "Current User" install. Other than that, I think the installer is pretty much finished. Regards, Eric ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 18+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2003-11-06 5:23 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 18+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2003-11-03 8:32 Windows Installer for Xconq Eric McDonald 2003-11-03 17:27 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-03 18:09 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-03 20:14 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-03 21:21 ` Jim Kingdon 2003-11-03 21:42 ` [OFFTOPIC?] Doc Chow (was Re: Windows Installer for Xconq) Eric McDonald 2003-11-04 6:45 ` Windows Installer for Xconq Eric McDonald 2003-11-04 13:43 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 16:37 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-04 19:07 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 20:03 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-04 21:25 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-04 21:36 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-04 23:24 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-05 4:38 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-05 8:54 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-06 5:23 ` Hans Ronne 2003-11-07 0:57 ` Eric McDonald
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