[RoSS]

Well, you can copy a block from the overlay to the vlayer pretty easily, and then you can definitely reference a sprite from the vlayer...

[Koji]

Yeah Sprite references cannot be made from the overlay, just the board, and the Vlayer. HOWEVER, the board's are now nearly limitless in possible size (provided you have the resources), So just make your boards ever larger to add sprites, and restrain the player from seeing thoes sections of board.

[Exophase]

As far as I can tell there's only one real advantage in allowing sprites to be referenced from overlay, and that's that the overlay is the only place you can write strings to. A simple subroutine to write a string in vlayer is easy though. You can also write to overlay and copy to vlayer

Aside from that inconsistency the overlay is the least practical place to reference sprites. Board was chosen originally because you can at least hide them with overlay. Vlayer is the best place to load them if you have a free ranging board (where the player moves around)

- Exo

[Pyro1588]

exo: are you going to add a way to write directly to the vlayer? i remember this got in my way awhile back when i was doing a sprite-based stat menu engine.

[Exophase]

Pyro1588, on Dec 1 2005, 09:21 AM, said:

exo: are you going to add a way to write directly to the vlayer? i remember this got in my way awhile back when i was doing a sprite-based stat menu engine.

Eventually that will be added.

- Exo

[T-Bone]

Wow i remember when i was waiting for that. Can't wait... infact i can wait... since i already have

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 02 December 2005 - 08:07 AM

[Val]

I'm just gonna go ahead and toss this out there...

Would it be possible to add more than one overlay?

[Exophase]

Guy, on Dec 6 2005, 09:58 PM, said:

I'm just gonna go ahead and toss this out there...

Would it be possible to add more than one overlay?

No. However, with the vlayer and sprites it's really easy simulate this.

- Exo

[Frobozz]

Yeah. In fact you might as well just ignore the overlay now that we've got sprites.

[VinceP]

Maybe this has been brought up before. It's really something that I would love - the ability to rearrange boards in the board selector. So you can reorder them for organization. While I'm at it, what about board importing/exporting?

Rearranging the board list would really help me keep my "place" in my MZX creations.

[Val]

VP, you already CAN import and export boards. Alt+X to export, alt+I to import.

[VinceP]

Ah, didn't see that.

[Roto]

Hey Exo. Firstly, the new features that have been added since the last time I used MZX (several years ago) are a huge help, so kudos for keeping this thing running.

Anyway, wishlist (tell me if any of this is already in there and I just haven't seen it): instantiation with instance variables, inheritance (copyrobot with the ability to override parent labels would help a lot in this respect), arrays (which would be easy with instantiation), and more global robots (maybe ability to make a single robot on one board globally applicable, if that's possible).

Oh yeah, and syntax shortcuts to make it easier for programmers. Like changing (counter) = (value/counter) automatically to set (counter) (value/counter).

This post has been edited by Roto: 30 December 2005 - 07:13 PM

[Micah]

I want mzx ported to windows.

[VinceP]

I want mzx ported to dos.

[Superfunk]

That's what it was ported FROM.

[VinceP]

No it wasn't.

[Koji]

Yes, it WAS.

[paulguy]

Arrays can already be stimulated. "poo[&ass&]"

[Exophase]

Roto, on Dec 30 2005, 01:21 PM, said:

Hey Exo. Firstly, the new features that have been added since the last time I used MZX (several years ago) are a huge help, so kudos for keeping this thing running.

Anyway, wishlist (tell me if any of this is already in there and I just haven't seen it): instantiation with instance variables, inheritance (copyrobot with the ability to override parent labels would help a lot in this respect), arrays (which would be easy with instantiation), and more global robots (maybe ability to make a single robot on one board globally applicable, if that's possible).

Oh yeah, and syntax shortcuts to make it easier for programmers. Like changing (counter) = (value/counter) automatically to set (counter) (value/counter).

I'm not changing Robotic in such ways in MZX 2.x, and I don't consider this thread to be applicable to MZX 3. Most there is spec'd already for Exotic. Arrays probably won't be changed syntactually, and will still be something like array(index), but there'd be foreach style pattern matchers and the lookups would be optimized. Look at Exotic.txt in the docs section of the sourcecode for some of the Exotic spec.

For syntax shortcuts you can try extended macros, although that won't let you do things like that; there isn't a serious advantage of using infix = for assignment (plus it's used for comparison in expressions). I prefer for assignment to be very explicit and top level only.

- Exo

[ShloobeR]

funkbrat, on Dec 30 2005, 09:48 PM, said:

That's what it was ported FROM.

oh funkbrat you do make me laugh

[VinceP]

MZX 3 pshhaaww right.

[Pyro1588]

add a smallhacker sirotrax counter.
vincep: there has been talk of it, actually.

[Goshi]

When do you plan on re-enabling palette editing support with the mouse, editing palettes with a keyboard is such a pain you know >_>

[Bramble]

It is? I always thought it was easy enough.

Alt+E dum dee dum hmm I want to make this white a little grayer. Alt+RGBRGBRGBRGBR there we go. Need purple BRBRRBRBRBG nice nice there we go!

[Revvy]

I never even knew you used to be able to do it with the mouse!

[Spectere]

Bramblekid, on Dec 31 2005, 06:40 PM, said:

Alt+E dum dee dum hmm I want to make this white a little grayer. Alt+RGBRGBRGBRGBR there we go.

Or you could just use ALT+A like the rest of us do.

[Exophase]

Goshi, on Dec 31 2005, 04:51 PM, said:

When do you plan on re-enabling palette editing support with the mouse, editing palettes with a keyboard is such a pain you know >_>

Never. Same goes for any of the "click on this hotkey help to make it happen" things. Is it really harder to just press the key? Better learn to like it.

- Exo

[Goshi]

Exophase, on Jan 1 2006, 12:18 PM, said:

Goshi, on Dec 31 2005, 04:51 PM, said:

When do you plan on re-enabling palette editing support with the mouse, editing palettes with a keyboard is such a pain you know >_>

Never. Same goes for any of the "click on this hotkey help to make it happen" things. Is it really harder to just press the key? Better learn to like it.

- Exo

=(

Honestly though I always used mouse use the menus but now that the support for it is removed the mouse support is pretty much useless for me

[Bramble]

Spectere, on Dec 31 2005, 08:07 PM, said:

Bramblekid, on Dec 31 2005, 06:40 PM, said:

Alt+E dum dee dum hmm I want to make this white a little grayer. Alt+RGBRGBRGBRGBR there we go.

Or you could just use ALT+A like the rest of us do.

Whoops, hehe. Boy, I love you guys.