[Risu2112]

I would like to renew my request for a (read only) "number of commands executed last cycle" counter.

[Dr Lancer-X]

easy enough to add but when do you expect to actually see it in MZX? =p

[burstroc]

a mod or something to put santa hats on all the people-like characters!

[zombieguy]

T-bone6, on Dec 16 2006, 11:54 AM, said:

Another Suggestion: Sound Effect Loop
This may or may not be exactly new but its defiantly something I've been trying to do for MANY years with MegaZeux and secondary audio programs. I've made a post about this suggestion recently:

http://www.digitalmz...showtopic=11442

I basically want to be able to loop a sound effect. It sounds quite easy to do by changing the music to a wav or ogg of a sound effect but what if i want music to play aswell as have a sound effect loop?

I thought of one idea that could make this work, but i failed:

http://www.digitalmzx.com/forums/index.php...pic=11073&st=30

It would make sense if we could utilize the "WAIT PLAY" command for when playing a sound effect: play "&sound.wav&". But however this does not work.

I've tried to work around this by slipping a sound effect loop into a music track but my problem is, what if i want a certain area or action to loop sound in the game? By changing the WAIT PLAY command this would help, if that's at all possible. It will not create any incompatibility issues by adding this feature to that command; as long as it can still wait play for SFX sounds (example: abcd-a)

I too would also very much love looping sound effects.

I'm kind of afraid to ask, but will Exophase be doing anything other than bug fixes with mzx, like implementing new features?

This post has been edited by zombieguy: 18 December 2006 - 02:55 AM

[RoSS]

Exo mostly created this thread to laugh at everybody's bad ideas. This isn't serious ;)

[Spectere]

Well hey, a few suggestions made it in, so it's worth a shot, right?

[Dr Lancer-X]

The fact that people are still asking for features seems to be a matter of 'people not getting it' on an epidemic scale

[zombieguy]

What, so something like loopable sound effects is something that should simply be laughed at when all it can do is improve MegaZeux? If Exophase truly believes that, then he's a real prick.

[Dr Lancer-X]

No, it's the matter that he thinks a feature, any feature, mentioned in here is going to make it into MZX in the near future.

That's just being naive, and it's pretty funny!

[T-Bone]

well not really a feature then. I just want the WAIT PLAY command to be "fixed".

[LogiCow]

Not much of a request, but the wait command only waits up to 255, and it's somewhat annoying.

a wait command that goes past 256 would be good.

[ajs]

zombieguy, on Dec 18 2006, 05:28 PM, said:

What, so something like loopable sound effects is something that should simply be laughed at when all it can do is improve MegaZeux? If Exophase truly believes that, then he's a real prick.

The problem with this argument is that something you find important might not be something he finds important. MZX is open source, if you want a feature badly you can either do it yourself or find somebody capable of implementing it on your behalf. Then, through the proper channels, see that feature added.

Exo has enough on his plate dealing with the new ports and fixing bugs people find in MZX, and his other commitments (namely gpSP). Perhaps his successor (if there is indeed one) will have the time to implement some of the less audacious features on this thread.

MZX might be slow moving, but just compare the latest DoZ games to those of 5 years ago. The new features are widely used and have significantly enhanced the quality and variety of games. I think you should go easy on the only guy that still cares (or used to care) about specially considered, responsible MZX development.

--ajs.

[CJA]

Two shortcut keys in the editor. One that works the same as the "Find" button in the CTRL+F dialog, and another that works like "Replace."

[Val]

Also a read-only counter that tells you the viewport height and width would be useful!

[Xx*SaturnineMatthias*xX]

I'd honestly like to see an 8x8 character mode.

Using 8x8 wouldn't need a world or char set format overhaul - you'd simply ignore the last 6 bytes of each character, or use them for other things.

Using 8x8 characters wouldn't deviate from the text mode-esque graphics style - 80x25 8x8 (640x200) was a bona fide CGA/EGA text mode.

8x8 characters would allow for better divisions (quarter chars and the like, because 8 is more divisible than 14) and true diagonals, at the cost of information.

Also, a x2 multiplier could be used to make the resolution 640x400.

[Spectere]

NihilistMatt, on Dec 27 2006, 06:59 PM, said:

Using 8x8 wouldn't need a world or char set format overhaul - you'd simply ignore the last 6 bytes of each character, or use them for other things.

No, it'd require an overhaul of the rendering engine (or at least a major change to it) instead.

[Frobozz]

Spectere said:

No, it'd require an overhaul of the rendering engine (or at least a major change to it) instead.

That's the typical response. Actually I don't see how it would be that difficult. Granted you'd have to completely change two of the functions in graphics.cpp (update8 and update32 to be precise). Shouldn't be too difficult to hack it in.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Not just update8 and update32, unless you want the display size reduced to 640x200 (from 640x350).

Remember that the display is still 80x25, and expanding that will NOT be easy because it's hardcoded throughout MZX =p

[asiekierka]

NMatt, no, or Exo/ajs/whoever will leave us just ONE pixel per char, and we'll need to use a 80x25 MZX window

[Dr Lancer-X]

pfft, you won't even get one pixel per char. we'll take away your window, too!

[Xx*SaturnineMatthias*xX]

Lancer-X, on Dec 30 2006, 09:09 AM, said:

Not just update8 and update32, unless you want the display size reduced to 640x200 (from 640x350).

Remember that the display is still 80x25, and expanding that will NOT be easy because it's hardcoded throughout MZX =p

I didn't say make it 80x50 or 640x350 (though the latter would be pretty nice, it'd result in non-square stretched characters, which would defeat the purpose of 8x8...

640x200 would however be a pretty abnormal aspect ratio (I suppose you could cure it by using 2x1 characters and the height multiplier to make up a pseudo-320x200 (640x400) mode...)

This post has been edited by NihilistMatt: 06 January 2007 - 01:19 AM

[Spectere]

640x200 is an official, documented CGA resolution, actually. Purely monochromatic to boot. Kinda lame unless you really need the horizontal space, really.

And yes, it would look pretty odd for most things.

[Xx*SaturnineMatthias*xX]

Spectere, on Jan 6 2007, 07:00 AM, said:

640x200 is an official, documented CGA resolution, actually.  Purely monochromatic to boot.  Kinda lame unless you really need the horizontal space, really.

And yes, it would look pretty odd for most things.

You could always use clever usage of the viewport to get a centered 320x200...

Also, wouldn't square characters have uses in like the per-pixel fields? I dunno how this'd work but...

Also, whilst we're on the subject of weird and pointless graphics mode hacks, is there any way to drop every other column in SMZX mode (or "squash" the image horizontally) and make it literally 320x350? I know, strange portrait-y aspect ratio, but it'd make SMZX graphics look less stretched out.

(You could always combine the two to get 320x200x4 graphics )

This post has been edited by NihilistMatt: 15 January 2007 - 05:24 PM

[Padz]

I think a key in the editor to go to next/previous board would be good. So many times i've needed to change an engine or something on every board this would save a lot of time.

[CHEZZY]

There should be a way to undo your last action, say ctrl+z. For example, you just put customblock over the main robot and accidentally saved it, then you scream and throw the computer out the window. I think doing this will save a lot of money on new computers.

[Spectere]

NihilistMatt, on Jan 15 2007, 12:22 PM, said:

You could always use clever usage of the viewport to get a centered 320x200...

For a CGA adapter there wouldn't really be much of a point to that since its most commonly used graphics mode is 320x200, which allows four colors (out of two official -- and one unofficial -- 3-color palettes in either low or high color intensity mode, with a background color that can be set to any one of 16 colors at any time).

CGA's really really primitive.

[zombieguy]

CHEZZY, on Jan 16 2007, 11:26 AM, said:

There should be a way to undo your last action, say ctrl+z. For example, you just put customblock over the main robot and accidentally saved it, then you scream and throw the computer out the window. I think doing this will save a lot of money on new computers.

Backups, backups. That's partially why they're there, so people won't go asking for an Undo button.

I'll be extra nice and pretend you're an idiot.

In config.txt:
backup_count = 6
backup_interval = 120
backup_name = backup
backup_ext = .bak

Easy (btw, these are also my settings :P). If you need the backup files, just rename the extension in windows from .bak to .mzx. Also remember to delete all the .bak files before you release your game.

I'm positive it's been explained before why there can't be an Undo button, but I can't exactly remember the explanation. It's possible that it'd just be really hard to add one to MegaZeux, or that people have always just been "nah use backups instead".

[Mr. Apol]

requesting the ability to use the numpad to control things in mzx. doesn't seem to work on any computer i've tried it on.

[CHEZZY]

Zombie I totally forgot, damn it I could have fixed arkon easy

[zombieguy]

Currently there doesn't seem to be a way to stop spacebar from freezing the default player, even if you're not using default bullets at all. This is quite fail on MegaZeux's part.
It'd be nice if in Board Settings - "Can shoot" when unticked would not freeze the player when spacebar is held. There's no reason at all for spacebar to prevent the player from moving if 'Can shoot' is unticked, and it frees up the key for other things (which is why I'm requesting this).
Also no-one better not say something like "use sprites instead". >:(