TKE

[Krom]

Because it's a pain to get an error message "You need crap.dll" or "Can't Create D3D Device" - how do user knows he needs exactly these:

TKE actually uses .NET (it has to, it's in C#) - it's not like you'll get away with only the registry keys
It shouldn't need much in the way of updates though, you only need the following things:
XNA Framework 1.1 (2.0 will Not work, it's not backwards compatible)
.NET Framework 2.0 (3.0 may also work, but 3.5 shouldn't)

When you get most of the games everything needed is included already on CD/DVD (such as required DirectX, codecs). Redist would be needed at least.

I tried it with my tools - not to include all used libraries - this decreased tools size noticably (1.5mb > 300kb) but I got too many "What do I do - I have no vclcrap.dll, can you send it to me please?".

Thing is you code in a environment not everyone expected to have

[Lewin]

Hi,
I agree with Krom, you should include ALL extra things required. I didn't have XNA or .NET until I wanted to test out a version of TKE. Even if it adds a bit to the download/CD, I think it's a good idea. The internet these days is fast enough to handle the extra data.
Lewin.

[harold]

Well maybe
I'm allways very annoyed when some downloaded game that took 4GB or so includes gigantic redists for things everyone already has such as DirectX - waste of time
So...
What if I write a .NET 1.1 program (comes with XP so there is no excuse not to have it) that figures it out and auto-downloads + installs the required redists?

[Lewin]

That's a great idea, if you can manage it. Anyway, for now just make TKE and forget about distribution.
I agree with you, but it is more annoying to find that you don't have the required files and don't know where to get them from. I had trouble finding XNA (I had to ask Merchant_992 in the end :oops: ) so for noobies it would be impossible.
Lewin.

[harold]

Damn microsoft.. there is no way to target .NET 1.1 anymore unless I find a copy of Visual C# Express 2003 - but it seems like it doesn't exist on the entire internet

Well I'm not about to write complex stuff like downloading&installing in native code.. .NET 2.0 maybe? surely people can find that..

PS: this forum reminds me of the days that I still played Kings of Chaos, clicking over 100 times per minute to get an army quickly..

[Lewin]

I had to edit this post, forum clams it looks like ha-king!!!! Hence the miss spelt words, grammar, etc. I hope you can still read it.

Why do you have to use . N E T for everything? Can't you wirte the sipmle instaler in another lagnuage? (C baesd too possibally?) It's not too compllex, you can use an extenrall prorgam to make the dowlnoad (like wget, PM me about it) and then just runn the flie and tell them to "fololw the promppts"

Or you could just provide the .NET 2.0 instaler with the tool. (otherwise what's the use of a programme to install .NET if it requires it its self?) Yeah, people may be able to find it. It's the XNA thing I'm worried about, that is quite hard to find.
What about you provide a li-nk to the microsoft .NET 2.0 down-load page if they try to runn the instaler without it instaled?

Lewin.
P.S. Finally!! I had to change almost every word before I could post this. Has anybody else encountered this problem? The funny thing is, we're not hacking!!

[harold]

Really odd problem with the forum.. I've never had that.. but I have to hit "submit" countless times to post

edit: yea I'm also getting that hacking attempt error page now

Ah well, I usually have no trouble writing C or C++ but the trouble is, it's really much harder to do things like down-loading with them than it is in C#
Then there is wg-et.. that's kinda cheating but I may consider it..
It's still harder to download a file using wge-t than it would be in C# though

And, there are lots of . N ET programs out there, most of them requiring 2.0 - checking whether X NA 1.1 is installed and downlo-ading + installing it if it isn't is a piece of cake with . N ET 2.0

[Thunderwolf]

Damn microsoft.. there is no way to target .NET 1.1 anymore unless I find a copy of Visual C# Express 2003 - but it seems like it doesn't exist on the entire internet

Not quite. Search for Visual Studio's Open source rival, SharpDevelop. With that one you can target .NET 1.1... (I have version 2.1) You may need a couple of minutes to find out how it works, but you should get the hang of that one in a few minutes, as it is very similar to Visual Studio (even though it's much smaller).

b.t.w. I've never had such problems with this forum though...


just as always, re-click the go button if it doesn't show up.

[Lewin]

Then there is wg-et.. that's kinda cheating but I may consider it..
It's still harder to download a file using wge-t than it would be in C# though

So what if it's kind of cheating. It would work. The exe is very small (a couple of hundred KB at the most)
Why is it harder? If you ask me it would be easier. The only thing harder would be getting a live progress bar, but it does output that so you should be able to convert it to a percentage without too much trouble.
Are you talking about the w-get supplied with Cygwin? (that's what I mean)
Lewin.

[harold]

In C# you just create a WebRequest with a string as url and then you just get every byte from the resulting stream (possibly write them out to a file), everything will go through the program so a progress bar is easy - nothing hard involved. Using w-get you'd have to create a process with commandline arguments and then do something with the resulting file, progress bar is possible.. but that would involve reading from the standard output in weird way
No progress bar is really bad for dumb users who will think it is doing nothing even though it says it is - they'd close it and complain that I write non-working programs.. yea I've had that before but in a slightly different way (with command line programs that "did nothing")

[Lewin]

In C# you just create a WebRequest with a string as url and then you just get every byte from the resulting stream (possibly write them out to a file), everything will go through the program so a progress bar is easy - nothing hard involved.

Wow, that's a useful command. (I don't think it's quite that easy in Lazarus...)

Using w-get you'd have to create a process with commandline arguments and then do something with the resulting file, progress bar is possible.. but that would involve reading from the standard output in weird way

Or, if you know the size of the download (or know it approximately) then you could just check the file w-get is writting every 10 seconds and update the progress bar as it gets bigger... (or as bytes are set from 0 to something else, if w-get pre-prepares the file)

No progress bar is really bad for dumb users who will think it is doing nothing even though it says it is - they'd close it and complain that I write non-working programs..

LOL, I can just imagine.... I understand that a progress bar is absolutely necessary.
Does the thing Thunderwolf sent help you at all?
Lewin.

[harold]

He sent something then..?

edit: now getting the old version of sharp develop, the new one (which I already had) didn't like .NET 1.1 either - even though it should according to the website (maybe something with my comp though? dunno)

[harold]

On a different matter, I "solved" UPnP. Or atleast I "solved" it enough to work mine and jbsnorro's computers - which does not proof it works everywhere but it's a good clue in that direction (because JBSnorro's router is sortof strict)
"Solved" insofar that it successfully adds a port forwarding rule that works.
This means that people behind a NAT device will not have add port forwarding rules (unless they do not have UPnP enabled, but then it's really their own fault..) - which is rather more arcane than finding and installing the various frameworks that are needed (but don't worry, I'll do something about that, too (I hope))

[Krom]

I wanted to ask harold, how do you organize GUI controls in TKE (Buttons, Images, and other elements). Do you use standard XNA classes or do you have to write own ones?
How do you manage in-game toolbar on the left, it has to display plenty of various data depending on buildings or units being selected...

[harold]

There are no standard XNA gui controls, so I can't use them either.. so they're all custom..
I don't, yet. That is, there is plenty of code in place, but the units "don't want to tell me what they are" yet
I'm afraid we have JBSnorro's university to blame for this, if they'd given him more time he could have finished it

So far, it assigns the unit/building to a field in a special control, but the only thing it does with it is ToString-ing the object and putting that on a label. I could use reflection to retrieve the private fields of the object but that's messy and unclean..