Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Robert Goulding]

Using the latest windows TCL build, I'm having difficulty saving my games.
I can *usually* save it once (tho' sometimes not even that), but it does
nothing when I choose "Save" from the menu on subsequent occasions; "Save
As" brings up a dialog box with a suggested filename, but the save file is
not created.  The program then does not let me quit, since I haven't saved -
I end up killing the process, or resigning.

Doing almost *anything* in the Lord of the Rings game causes a lock-up or
crash (only in Windows; I think it works OK on the Mac, but I don't have it
here to check).

Finally, I am having difficulty figuring out what the 'attack' command is
for.  When I select it, the cursor turns into a cross-shape, but turns back
into a normal arrow pointer when it moves over any enemy unit.  Is this
normal, and is there a certain way I'm supposed to use this command.

Thanks,
Robert.

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Eric McDonald]

Hi Robert,

On Thu, 1 Jul 2004, Robert Goulding wrote:
> Doing almost *anything* in the Lord of the Rings game causes a lock-up or
> crash (only in Windows; I think it works OK on the Mac, but I don't have it
> here to check).

I'll look into it this weekend.

> Finally, I am having difficulty figuring out what the 'attack' command is
> for.  When I select it, the cursor turns into a cross-shape, but turns back
> into a normal arrow pointer when it moves over any enemy unit.  Is this
> normal, and is there a certain way I'm supposed to use this command.

The attack command allows you to attack an enemy (without having 
the UI choose between firing and attacking). To attack, place your 
cursor over the enemy and then press 'a', and that should do the 
trick.

Eric

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Hans Ronne]

>Using the latest windows TCL build, I'm having difficulty saving my games.
>I can *usually* save it once (tho' sometimes not even that), but it does
>nothing when I choose "Save" from the menu on subsequent occasions; "Save
>As" brings up a dialog box with a suggested filename, but the save file is
>not created.  The program then does not let me quit, since I haven't saved -
>I end up killing the process, or resigning.

I tested both "Save" and "Save As" under Windows 98 as well as XP, and they
both worked fine. This was with my latest binaries (2004-06-12) from the
Xconq ftp site. There were some problems with saving files earlier, if you are
using obsolete binaries. Also, it is not possible to save under XP if you are
running Xconq from a network volume. But I presume you are not doing that.

>Doing almost *anything* in the Lord of the Rings game causes a lock-up or
>crash (only in Windows; I think it works OK on the Mac, but I don't have it
>here to check).

I saw some problems that may be due to bugs in the build code, hopefully
fixed in the next binaries.

>Finally, I am having difficulty figuring out what the 'attack' command is
>for.  When I select it, the cursor turns into a cross-shape, but turns back
>into a normal arrow pointer when it moves over any enemy unit.  Is this
>normal, and is there a certain way I'm supposed to use this command.

Cursor support is not as good under Windows. On the Mac or Linux, you
would see crossed swords indicating that the unit may be attacked instead
of the generic arrow cursor. But the command should still work, as Eric
explained.

Hans

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Robert Goulding]

>
> > Finally, I am having difficulty figuring out what the 'attack' command
is
> > for.  When I select it, the cursor turns into a cross-shape, but turns
back
> > into a normal arrow pointer when it moves over any enemy unit.  Is this
> > normal, and is there a certain way I'm supposed to use this command.
>
> The attack command allows you to attack an enemy (without having
> the UI choose between firing and attacking). To attack, place your
> cursor over the enemy and then press 'a', and that should do the
> trick.
>
> Eric
>
>

Still can't get this to do anything in the latest Windows build - and in the
native OSX build, hitting 'a' causes an immediate crash (when playing the
standard game).   If you can't reproduce this, let me know if there are any
diagnostic reports I could send you.

Robert.

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Hans Ronne]

>Still can't get this to do anything in the latest Windows build - and in the
>native OSX build, hitting 'a' causes an immediate crash (when playing the
>standard game).   If you can't reproduce this, let me know if there are any
>diagnostic reports I could send you.

The OSX problem was a pointer bug in the Mac interface. I will check in a
fix soon. There seems to be some other problems with the attack command as
well. I will look into this.

Hans

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Hans Ronne]

>Still can't get this to do anything in the latest Windows build - and in the
>native OSX build, hitting 'a' causes an immediate crash (when playing the
>standard game).   If you can't reproduce this, let me know if there are any
>diagnostic reports I could send you.

I have now checked in fixes to the MacOS X problems (there were actually
two of them). Thanks for reporting this bug.

I have also tested the tcltk interface both under Windows XP and MacOS. The
attack command (both typing 'a' and using the menu) seems to work fine.
However, you now need to click on the unit that you intend to attack (the
interface prompts "Attack  where?"). As far as I recall, this is not how
things worked previously. Just putting the cursor over the enemy and typin
'a' should do the trick, as Eric explained, and this is indeed how the Mac
interface works.

Hans

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Jim Kingdon]

> However, you now need to click on the unit that you intend to attack (the
> interface prompts "Attack  where?"). As far as I recall, this is not how
> things worked previously.

For tcltk, it has been true as long as I can remember.  At least, I
think so.

> Just putting the cursor over the enemy and typing 'a' should do the
> trick, as Eric explained, and this is indeed how the Mac interface
> works.

Cursor as in the mouse pointer?  That seems a bit odd.  Normally the
mouse pointer only affects mouse clicks/drags and there is a separate
concept of "selected item" which keyboard commands act on.  I dunno,
maybe I could get used to it.

Now, moving the cursor over the enemy shows a little "attack" icon,
which perhaps is confusing because clicking there means overrun
rather than attack.  (or maybe it is an overrun icon....).

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Hans Ronne]

>> However, you now need to click on the unit that you intend to attack (the
>> interface prompts "Attack  where?"). As far as I recall, this is not how
>> things worked previously.
>
>For tcltk, it has been true as long as I can remember.  At least, I
>think so.
>
>> Just putting the cursor over the enemy and typing 'a' should do the
>> trick, as Eric explained, and this is indeed how the Mac interface
>> works.
>
>Cursor as in the mouse pointer?  That seems a bit odd.  Normally the
>mouse pointer only affects mouse clicks/drags and there is a separate
>concept of "selected item" which keyboard commands act on.  I dunno,
>maybe I could get used to it.
>
>Now, moving the cursor over the enemy shows a little "attack" icon,
>which perhaps is confusing because clicking there means overrun
>rather than attack.  (or maybe it is an overrun icon....).

Well, in the Mac (native) interface the attack command works exactly like
the fire command does in both the Mac native and tcltk interfaces. Meaning
that if you position the cursor over an enemy unit, you only have to type
'a' in order to trigger an attack. No clicking on the map is required. This
is completely analogous to firing by putting the cursor over an enemy unit
and typing 'f'.

Now, the tcltk interface instead asks you "Attack where? (click to set)"
when you type 'a'. And then you have to click on the enemy unit in order to
trigger the attack. I thought that this was new behaviour, and that the
attack command used to work like the fire command (and the attack command
on the Mac). However, you are probably right. I'm not sure when I last
tested the attack command in the tcltk interface.

In any case, this raises the question if we should make both interfaces
work in the same way, and if so, how. I think the way the Mac interface
works is easier from a player point of view. It saves you one click. And
every click counts in a game like this.

Hans

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Eric McDonald]

Hans Ronne wrote:

> Meaning
> that if you position the cursor over an enemy unit, you only have to type
> 'a' in order to trigger an attack. No clicking on the map is required. This
> is completely analogous to firing by putting the cursor over an enemy unit
> and typing 'f'.

Right.

> In any case, this raises the question if we should make both interfaces
> work in the same way, and if so, how. I think the way the Mac interface
> works is easier from a player point of view. It saves you one click. And
> every click counts in a game like this.

While I agree that it may save a click, I also think that this behavior 
is rather counter-intuitive. When I first started playing Xconq, I just 
assumed that the fire and attack commands were broken, until I 
accidentally discovered how they worked one day. To do a normal 
'advance_into_cell' or whatever, one must click on the 
destination/target; I think it would be consistent to require the same 
to do a more specific action such as attacking or firing.

Eric

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Robert Goulding]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Kingdon" <kingdon@panix.com>
To: <xconq7@sources.redhat.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash


> > However, you now need to click on the unit that you intend to attack
(the
> > interface prompts "Attack  where?"). As far as I recall, this is not how
> > things worked previously.
>
> For tcltk, it has been true as long as I can remember.  At least, I
> think so.
>
> > Just putting the cursor over the enemy and typing 'a' should do the
> > trick, as Eric explained, and this is indeed how the Mac interface
> > works.
>
> Cursor as in the mouse pointer?  That seems a bit odd.  Normally the
> mouse pointer only affects mouse clicks/drags and there is a separate
> concept of "selected item" which keyboard commands act on.  I dunno,
> maybe I could get used to it.
>

I still don't get this to work in the latest WinTCL build.  Hitting 'a'
turns the mouse into a cross pointer and prompts "Attack where?".  Clicking
on an enemy unit has no apparent effect (and, if 'a' is hit when the pointer
is *not* over an enemy unit, the cursor turns into a cross, and then back
into an arrow as soon as it is over an enemy unit - again, no effect with
clicking.

Robert.

Re: Problem saving game in Win TCL, and crash

[Hans Ronne]

>I still don't get this to work in the latest WinTCL build.  Hitting 'a'
>turns the mouse into a cross pointer and prompts "Attack where?".  Clicking
>on an enemy unit has no apparent effect (and, if 'a' is hit when the pointer
>is *not* over an enemy unit, the cursor turns into a cross, and then back
>into an arrow as soon as it is over an enemy unit - again, no effect with
>clicking.

You need to be adjacent to the enemy unit for this to work. If you are, and
your unit can attack, it will attack the enemy unit when you click on it.

Hans

Saving games in Win TCL fixed

[Hans Ronne]

I have now checked in a fix to the Open/Save game bug on the Windows
platform (the problem was with saving games that had been restored). The
bug was not in the C code but in the tkconq.tcl script file, where the
popup_open_dialog procedure did not save and restore the working directory,
thus causing path-finding problems.

To fix the problem in your own tkconq.tcl file (until new binaries are
available) jus make the folowing change:

proc popup_open_dialog { } {
    set dname [ game_homedir ]
    set rslt [ tk_getOpenFile -initialdir $dname ]
    # Empty result cancels.
    if { "$rslt" == "" } {
	return
    }
    # Set the working directory manually to the game file location (needed
    # in both MacOS and Windows).
    set home [ pwd ]  	# <------ ADD THIS LINE
    set dname [ file dirname $rslt ]
    cd $dname
    start_saved_game "$rslt"
    cd $home 	# <------ ADD THIS LINE
    popup_variants_dialog
}

Hans