GuideMe (TeaseMe v2.0) - Current Build 0.4.4

[PlayfulGuy]

Thanks Philo.

That really needs to be documented in the wiki. There is no mention of an addPref method. Will adding a preference in this way also make it appear in the Guide Preferences menu?

While looking for something else I also noticed a <Pref> entry in the XMLNodes section and read up on that, and discovered that defining the preferences that way made everything work, so I'm not sure about your comment that keyExists is looking for the description. It seemed to work once I defined the settings in <PREF>.

You should also add a simple note on the GuideSettings page that says "guide settings are created using the PREF xmlnode and set and retrieved using ...", or something like that. It would have saved me hours of wasted time.

I had not noticed <Pref> in the wiki before because the pages list on the right is limited to 15 pages and I forget to click the "Show More" button at the bottom. I won't forget again though. Lesson learned.

Now, another question/request: Are there plans for a trophy or milestone type feature? What I would like to do is have a tease start out with certain paths available, and completing a path opens up new paths. So I would need to set some kind of flag like FinishedPath1, and this flag would have to be saved like GuideSettings, but I don't want the user to be able to edit the setting.

Guideme is a huge advance over Teaseme. Thanks for all the hard work on it.

Playful

Philo,

I took the sample code you provided and wrapped it in a simple Guide for testing and it worked properly for userSettings. I then modified it so that the start page sets three guideSettings (a string, a number and a boolean) and modified your code to use guideSetting instead of userSetting.

guideSetting definitely does not work. the keyExists call always returns false. The jscript.log is in the spoiler below. This time I'm sure it's not just me.

If they are new preferences you need to use addPref not setPref
Key, Value, Text displayed in Guide Preferences

guideSettings.addPref("myGuideName", "This is my name", "Please enter the name you wish to be known by");
guideSettings.addPref("myGuideage", 27 "Please enter your age");
guideSettings.addPref("myGuidecbt", false, "Do you like cock and ball torture?");

However key exits is looking for the description not the key
So I will fix that.

And one other question - is it possible to override the saved state and force a tease/guide to always start at the beginning? It often doesn't make sense to jump in to the middle of a tease.

Not at the moment but I will look at adding a node in the tease xml for when it is loaded.
I will also add something accessible from java script, as it may be useful to force a restart part way through a tease, e.g. if they fail they have to restart from the beginning.

[philo]

The prefernce fix was for an earlier version it is handled automatically now.
A couple of things to check, it creates a copy of the current picture at the correct size for your screen in the main directory.
Check to see if the image is being created.
Otherwise in the logs directory there is a file guideme.log which will have any errors if you can upload it somewhere and pm me the link I will have a look to see if there is any hint in there.

It doesn't seem to be creating a picture in the main directory.
And in the logs directory there is no guideme.log -- is there always supposed to be one or is it created only when errors occur?

Try going into application preferences and turn debug on, that should generate a lot of lines in the log

[Kazek]

The prefernce fix was for an earlier version it is handled automatically now.
A couple of things to check, it creates a copy of the current picture at the correct size for your screen in the main directory.
Check to see if the image is being created.
Otherwise in the logs directory there is a file guideme.log which will have any errors if you can upload it somewhere and pm me the link I will have a look to see if there is any hint in there.

It doesn't seem to be creating a picture in the main directory.
And in the logs directory there is no guideme.log -- is there always supposed to be one or is it created only when errors occur?

Try going into application preferences and turn debug on, that should generate a lot of lines in the log

Checked the debug box on, hit save, reopened preferences to make sure it stuck (and the box was still checked). Started the Skirmish guide. According to the zip folder the Skirmish guide came it its version 0.1 of that guide -- in case it's a bug in the guide and not the main application.

After going through a few places in the guide where pictures should appear and there weren't any I exited the program to check for the log file but there still wasn't a log file. After opening the GuideMe app again I checked the preferences and debug was now unchecked -- so it doesn't seem to be saving preferences past a single session either.

[philo]

Checked the debug box on, hit save, reopened preferences to make sure it stuck (and the box was still checked). Started the Skirmish guide. According to the zip folder the Skirmish guide came it its version 0.1 of that guide -- in case it's a bug in the guide and not the main application.

After going through a few places in the guide where pictures should appear and there weren't any I exited the program to check for the log file but there still wasn't a log file. After opening the GuideMe app again I checked the preferences and debug was now unchecked -- so it doesn't seem to be saving preferences past a single session either.

Hm, did you put it in the program files directory?
windows sometimes makes this read only .
It sounds like it might not have permissions to write to the directory where it is trying to write the pictures or the preferences
If it is in the program files directory try moving it to somewhere where it has permission to write.

[philo]

That really needs to be documented in the wiki. There is no mention of an addPref method. Will adding a preference in this way also make it appear in the Guide Preferences menu?

While looking for something else I also noticed a <Pref> entry in the XMLNodes section and read up on that, and discovered that defining the preferences that way made everything work, so I'm not sure about your comment that keyExists is looking for the description. It seemed to work once I defined the settings in <PREF>.

You should also add a simple note on the GuideSettings page that says "guide settings are created using the PREF xmlnode and set and retrieved using ...", or something like that. It would have saved me hours of wasted time.

I am a developer, we hate doing documentation so it always gets left until last
I am more than happy to add people into the wiki so they can update it or to add stuff if people send it to me.
I will get round to updating it at some point, it's just there always seems a bit of coding that needs doing first

Now, another question/request: Are there plans for a trophy or milestone type feature? What I would like to do is have a tease start out with certain paths available, and completing a path opens up new paths. So I would need to set some kind of flag like FinishedPath1, and this flag would have to be saved like GuideSettings, but I don't want the user to be able to edit the setting.

What like scriptvars? or do you mean so it does not get reset if they do a restart?
Script Variables get stored in the state file whilst doing a tease and are re-loaded when they come back into the tease.
I could do a hidden guide preference that would not show up in the preference screen

[PlayfulGuy]

That really needs to be documented in the wiki. There is no mention of an addPref method. Will adding a preference in this way also make it appear in the Guide Preferences menu?

While looking for something else I also noticed a <Pref> entry in the XMLNodes section and read up on that, and discovered that defining the preferences that way made everything work, so I'm not sure about your comment that keyExists is looking for the description. It seemed to work once I defined the settings in <PREF>.

You should also add a simple note on the GuideSettings page that says "guide settings are created using the PREF xmlnode and set and retrieved using ...", or something like that. It would have saved me hours of wasted time.

I am a developer, we hate doing documentation so it always gets left until last
I am more than happy to add people into the wiki so they can update it or to add stuff if people send it to me.
I will get round to updating it at some point, it's just there always seems a bit of coding that needs doing first

Now, another question/request: Are there plans for a trophy or milestone type feature? What I would like to do is have a tease start out with certain paths available, and completing a path opens up new paths. So I would need to set some kind of flag like FinishedPath1, and this flag would have to be saved like GuideSettings, but I don't want the user to be able to edit the setting.

What like scriptvars? or do you mean so it does not get reset if they do a restart?
Script Variables get stored in the state file whilst doing a tease and are re-loaded when they come back into the tease.
I could do a hidden guide preference that would not show up in the preference screen

If you add me to the wiki I'd be happy to help with documentation.

And yes, like scriptvars, but does not get reset if they do a restart. My idea is like a lobby for a series of challenges. You (the tease) always start in the lobby. The first time you only have one door. If you go through that door and complete that challenge, the next time you have two doors. From then on you always have those two doors. The second then opens a third and so on.

PG

[Zany_Woof]

I am having trouble with all GuideMe teases. Heartclub crashes when i have to knock on the door, Skirmish crashes after 1/2 character creation, even the tutorial crashes on the second page of chapter 2. I think it has something to do with tring to play audio.
Any help?

[PlayfulGuy]

Hi Philo,

I notice that Guideme limits the space available for buttons even when there is little or no text on the page. This is quite different from Teaseme. If you look in the attached image from Guideme you can see (barely) that there is another button that has been pushed off the bottom of the screen. The other image is a card game I did in Teaseme. You can see I was able to add 56 buttons without trouble.

I know it's not a problem for most teases, but I thought I'd mention it. I think Guideme should be able to seamlessly handle anything Teaseme could.

On another note I was experimenting with dynamically changing the text on a button using scriptvars and the <span>variablename</span> notation and found that it doesn't work. Would this be hard to implement?
Example code:

Spoiler: show

Code: Select all

   <javascript>    <![CDATA[    function pageLoad() {        scriptVars.put("_ButtonTest", "User Settings");                };    ]]>         </javascript>      <Text>        <u><b>GuideMe testing and samples</b></u>        <p>Select a topic</p>    <p>        _ButtonTest=<span>_ButtonTest</span>      </p>      </Text>            <Image id="start.jpg" />          <Button target="testPage"><span>_ButtonTest</span></Button>  

Doing it this way gives me more control over how the buttons are placed. If I have two buttons that always have the same text but want to alter the text on a third button depending on circumstances, using override.addButton() always puts the button at the "top" of the list. To control the order I'm then forced to add all three buttons using override.addButton().

Cheers,

PG

[philo]

I notice that Guideme limits the space available for buttons even when there is little or no text on the page. This is quite different from Teaseme. If you look in the attached image from Guideme you can see (barely) that there is another button that has been pushed off the bottom of the screen. The other image is a card game I did in Teaseme. You can see I was able to add 56 buttons without trouble.

I know it's not a problem for most teases, but I thought I'd mention it. I think Guideme should be able to seamlessly handle anything Teaseme could.

There are hidden sliders that allow you to change the size of the button window.
You can also change the font size.
So it will cope, however it could be more elegant.

I will have a look at how easy it is to dynamically size it.

On another note I was experimenting with dynamically changing the text on a button using scriptvars and the <span>variablename</span> notation and found that it doesn't work. Would this be hard to implement?

Have had a look and it should be fairly easy, have changed the code but not tested it yet

[guardianx]

Now, another question/request: Are there plans for a trophy or milestone type feature? What I would like to do is have a tease start out with certain paths available, and completing a path opens up new paths. So I would need to set some kind of flag like FinishedPath1, and this flag would have to be saved like GuideSettings, but I don't want the user to be able to edit the setting.

If you add me to the wiki I'd be happy to help with documentation.

And yes, like scriptvars, but does not get reset if they do a restart. My idea is like a lobby for a series of challenges. You (the tease) always start in the lobby. The first time you only have one door. If you go through that door and complete that challenge, the next time you have two doors. From then on you always have those two doors. The second then opens a third and so on.

PG

Hi, you're basically asking for a soft reset vs hard reset (File->Restart). Soft reset feature can be accomplished with some clever javascript.

A tease I'm working on demonstrates this by doing two things:
1. Whenever tease is loaded, always start from the beginning (perform a soft reset).
2. When the tease is completed, unlock a bonus stage button selectable from the start page. As long as the user never performs a hard reset, this bonus stage will always be accessible.

To always start from the beginning, I include a call the following function on each page:

Spoiler: show

Code: Select all

     function pageCheck() {        var vLastPage = scriptVars.get("vLastPage");        if (vLastPage != "" && vLastPage != "start") {            if (vLastPage == guideSettings.getCurrPage()) {                overRide.setPage("start");            }        }        scriptVars.put("vLastPage", guideSettings.getCurrPage());    } 

Hope this helps!

[PlayfulGuy]

Now, another question/request: Are there plans for a trophy or milestone type feature? What I would like to do is have a tease start out with certain paths available, and completing a path opens up new paths. So I would need to set some kind of flag like FinishedPath1, and this flag would have to be saved like GuideSettings, but I don't want the user to be able to edit the setting.

If you add me to the wiki I'd be happy to help with documentation.

And yes, like scriptvars, but does not get reset if they do a restart. My idea is like a lobby for a series of challenges. You (the tease) always start in the lobby. The first time you only have one door. If you go through that door and complete that challenge, the next time you have two doors. From then on you always have those two doors. The second then opens a third and so on.

PG

Hi, you're basically asking for a soft reset vs hard reset (File->Restart). Soft reset feature can be accomplished with some clever javascript.

A tease I'm working on demonstrates this by doing two things:
1. Whenever tease is loaded, always start from the beginning (perform a soft reset).
2. When the tease is completed, unlock a bonus stage button selectable from the start page. As long as the user never performs a hard reset, this bonus stage will always be accessible.

To always start from the beginning, I include a call the following function on each page:

Spoiler: show

Code: Select all

     function pageCheck() {        var vLastPage = scriptVars.get("vLastPage");        if (vLastPage != "" && vLastPage != "start") {            if (vLastPage == guideSettings.getCurrPage()) {                overRide.setPage("start");            }        }        scriptVars.put("vLastPage", guideSettings.getCurrPage());    } 

Hope this helps!

To use your terms I am asking for a hard reset feature. To my thinking, for most teases it simply doesn't make sense to save the state of the tease and jump back in to the middle of it the next time you open it. The vast majority of teases are designed to start at the beginning all the time.

Ideally I would like to see an additional setting like

Code: Select all

   <Settings>    <SaveState>false</SaveState>  </Settings> 

and I believe the default should be false for backwards compatibility with Teaseme v1.

I am also asking for the ability to define what I think of as Achievements. Once you have the achievement, even doing a hard reset would not erase that achievement.

Of course that does mean there should be a way to manage those achievements, but if they were stored in a separate XML file you could always edit that file.

PG

[guardianx]

To use your terms I am asking for a hard reset feature. To my thinking, for most teases it simply doesn't make sense to save the state of the tease and jump back in to the middle of it the next time you open it. The vast majority of teases are designed to start at the beginning all the time.

I don't disagree with anything you said. Just wanted to point out that you can can work around the issue with javascript.

Ideally I would like to see an additional setting like

Code: Select all

   <Settings>    <SaveState>false</SaveState>  </Settings> 

and I believe the default should be false for backwards compatibility with Teaseme v1.

I am also asking for the ability to define what I think of as Achievements. Once you have the achievement, even doing a hard reset would not erase that achievement.

Of course that does mean there should be a way to manage those achievements, but if they were stored in a separate XML file you could always edit that file.

PG

Yes, these are good ideas, again not disagreeing with anything here either. Just wanted to point out it is possible to work around it.

As it currently stands, achievements can be simulated by using soft restarting a tease trick as mentioned above. Achievements will be tracked as long as user doesn't do a hard reset.

What my tease does is as follows:
1. During the pageLoad() event for each page, perform a page check.
2. If user loads the tease and save state is somewhere in the middle:
- PageCheck will reset the page to start page.
3. If user completes tease, unlock bonus. Return to start
4. Start page shows additional bonus button if bonus is unlocked.

The resulting effect is:
Whenever you load the tease, it will always start from the beginning. If you complete the tease, you will always have access to the bonus content - until you perform a hard reset (file->restart).

I'm very close to completing my first tease, you'll get to see it in action for yourself soon.

[UserZero]

How difficult would a linux version be?

[philo]

How difficult would a linux version be?

In theory simple, all the components have been chosen because they work on windows, mac and linux.
In practice it takes a while to get them working, Takenaga is working on getting mac working.
I had an early version working on linux, without audio or video.
If you want a Linux version let me know whether it is 32 or 64 bit and which version and I will see if I can get it working

[Takenaga]

How difficult would a linux version be?

In theory simple, all the components have been chosen because they work on windows, mac and linux.
In practice it takes a while to get them working, Takenaga is working on getting mac working.
I had an early version working on linux, without audio or video.
If you want a Linux version let me know whether it is 32 or 64 bit and which version and I will see if I can get it working

The program is working on a Mac (only from within my development environment). I am struggling with packaging the whole thing for distribution.