Open and save audio file from hotspot - possible?

This forum is meant for posting anything related to Adventure Maker that doesn't fit in the other forums.Please post technical questions in the Technical Support Forum!

Moderators: time-killer-games, Vengeance66, Candle, reneuend, GM-Support

Open and save audio file from hotspot - possible?

Postby Mystery » Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:51 pm

I had the idea of making a puzzle with an audio file that I would manipulate a bit. The player should then be able to open/save the file (e.g. triggered by clicking a hotspot) to work with it in another software. Would this be possible with AM?
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:41 pm

Hi Mystery,

Not sure what you have in mind but yes, with scripting most things can be done... including opening and savind files :wink:

Please post some more details that way I maybe can help you in the right direction.

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Sun Jun 25, 2006 8:22 pm

I didn't expect such a quick answer, thank you ShadowHunter :)

Well I thought of a room/cave where the player finds a device that once switched on, plays a strange sound (thought of slowing down speech or reversing speech or something like that - I will have to check what I can do that players can reverse with simple software that is available for them).
Then the player has the choice to take out the medium and examine it. This is the moment when the player should be able to trigger an action that will make it possible to save that sound file to his/her pc and open it in a player that would allow him/her to reverse my previous changes in the soundfile. This way the player could identify e.g. a spoken code or another hint.
I just have this idea in large lines, I didn't plan anything specific yet. I wanted to make sure first, if something like that would be possible.

So there should be a choice (either by clicking on a hotspot or by answering with yes in a popup-window to save a sound file from the exernal folder to his/her pc and work out the hint/solution by reversing my changes on it.

Hope this was clearer. I'm curious what ideas you have and thanks in advance (even if wouldn't work at last) :)
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:33 pm

Hi Mystery,

I'm not sure if I can code a CommonDialog object in AM, I hope GM reads this and is able to give a hint.

However I can make it by means of a small plugin, no problem. It would work like this:

1. Click hotspot
2. A normal "save" dialog will appear
3. The user chooses a location to save

Is this what you need or is it not "game" looking enough... cause the dialog thing can be dropped and the audio file can be copied to the users desktop for example.

Please let me know :wink:

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:47 pm

ShadowHunter, that sounds wonderful! :)
Any help on your part is appreciated. I think the save dialogue is no problem at all and players can choose where they want to save the file.

I suppose that this hotspot can be made invisible just like any other hotspot, is it so? Then I would build in first a decision of the player if he/she wants to examine the sound further and if the player says yes, the hotspot turns visible.

All in all that sounds really great!
Take your time with that, I won't need it so urgently. But I would be very thankful if you could help me on that. Thank you very much in advance :)
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Thu Jun 29, 2006 11:53 am

Hi Mystery,

It is really comming together... the plugin will provide a "common dialog" functionality and some basic file commands like copying, deleting and renaming all with error-traps (file already exists, does not exist, read-only, etc)

You will be able to use a Save dialog, a Load dialog and a Color picker.

It also has ways of providing the full path to special folders like desktop, favorites, fonts, etc...

All can be used invisible too if needed.

I hope to release it soon.

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:46 pm

That's great news ShadowHunter :)

Since I'm very busy with finishing my research project in the next 4 weeks, it's not urgent.
I'm just happy that I can include my idea (and maybe even more as it seems) into my game.

Thanks for the update!
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Thu Jul 20, 2006 8:27 am

Hi Mystery,

Just a small update... I have almost finshed the CommonDialog plugin :D

There where some delay's because of some strange code behaviour but now everything is solved.

I'm now making a small demo case and writting a small manual.

I hope to upload it sometime next week 8)

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:21 pm

That's phantastic news ShadowHunter, I'm looking forward to it :)
And thanks for the update.
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:57 pm

Hi Mystery,

I'm proud to announce my latest plugin: CommonDialog 1.1

It provides all you need and tons more :D

- Open dialog
- Save dialog
- Color picker
- Renaming files
- Coping files
- Deleting files
- Check if a file exists
- Silent mode
- Customable caption
- File error trapping

The demo shows how to use these features and includes also a full tutorial in the source code. The demo uses besides the CommonDialog plugin also KeyGuard for a stylisch interactive interface.

Click here to download the demo (2.00 Mb)

Hope you like it :wink:

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
Last edited by ShadowHunter on Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:27 pm

Hi ShadowHunter,

Your demo looks great, I have never thought that it would be so multifaceted at the end. Wonderful! And thank you very much for all the work with it :D

I'm going to download the plugin and try it out. As I understood it can be customized to save and open also other file types (like .jpg or music files). Let's see how quickly I can handle it .
I'll post how successful I was or questions if something is not quite clear - I hope you don't mind answering silly questions :wink:

Thanks once again!
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:39 pm

Hi Mystery,

Yes you can easily add extentions, captions, default filenames and paths... it's pretty versatile :wink:

The download is only the compiled project... I will make the source available this week.

Hope you like the demo :D

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:45 pm

Yes, very much, the demo looks great, very professional. :D
Okay, I thought the plugin was also ready for download, but no problem at all. I got enough to do. Today I made again some pictures for the second part of my new game and there's a lot of work ahead of me making the puzzles (I hope that I can realise them according to my ideas -I tend to want more that I'm able to do, lol).

Looking forward to trying out the plugin myself and have a nice evening :D
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Sun Jul 30, 2006 5:24 pm

Hi Mystery,

I finally managed to find some spare time to make to source demo code and seperate plugin's available :D

You can download it from here (167 Kb) - NEW: VERSION 1.1

Hope you find it useful.

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
Last edited by ShadowHunter on Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:09 am

This is wonderful and thank you very much for the time you invested to make this plugin. :D

I have downloaded it (a Common Dialogue Demo folder, a Plugins Folder with the folders "CommonDialogueAM" and "KeyGuard").
Now just to make sure: Do I have to move the contents of the downloaded plugins folders into the Plugins folders of AM?
I'm sorry for asking such silly questions but I don't want to make things wrong.
Thanks for your answer in advance :)
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:10 pm

Hi Mystery,

Yes, copy KeyGuard and CommonDialog OCX and PL1 "FILES" in the AM plugins folder and start the the demo.

See the readme.txt file too.

Glad you find it useful :D

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:58 pm

Yes, I admit, I should have read the text file before asking :wink:

Meanwhile I have studied your demo and the explanations in the VBS Procedures.
I'll need now some time to experiment with it and to try it out for my own project - having only a very amateurish knowledge of VBScript. But I'm confident that I won't have difficulties using it. I think that my games will benefit from this plugin as it provides some new features that can be used.

For the time being only a small question: Giving you credit and adding a link to your website is self-evident as I have done already before if I used any of your demo-scripts or made a puzzle based upon your example. However I'm not sure what you mean with sending you a "full licensed copy of the project". Could you please clear this point for me?

I would like to thank you again very much for taking up my question to make this plugin which gave you a lot of work I'm sure :D
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Tue Aug 01, 2006 1:03 am

Hi Mystery,

I love to receive a full copy of the game or project on disk (when available or too big to download) or to be able to download it from your website... sometimes this included a key or other license.

This way I can see what game creators come up with by using my plugins. I also add it to my portfolio. I am really happy to see how many CD-roms and other small projects I already have received :P

It's a small push for me to go one :wink:

It's not an obligation but more a favor...

I hope you are able to figure everthing out, if not please don't hesitate to ask :D

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:35 pm

Thanks for clearing this point for me, now it is clear :)

If I have any problems or questions in connection with the plugin, I will post them here. Thank you for your support :D
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:23 pm

Hi,

You are most welcome :D

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Sat Aug 05, 2006 2:56 pm

I had some (not much though) time to play a bit with the demo and try out the CommonDialog Plugin.
I think that I will be able to use it as your manual and your examples are very clear and I could make own small demos to learn more about it.

What I noticed are the following:

1) The Save Dialog opens always the last folder that was opened by another kind of "dialog" (e.g. if I imported a file into a program or other file) before AM was running. If I understand correctly what it should happen in your demo: go to the Desktop and save a suggested textfile there. For me it goes to my last opened folder and does not suggest a textfile, just shows the filter. If I click on save, nothing happens of course. I tried it also in an experimental project of mine, and the result was the same. I'm not sure yet what the reason is and I haven't tried it with an .exe yet.
I think I'll do some more experiments and try it also with an executable to find out more.

2) If I open and run your demo while my 3D software is running, the default font size (that I can't change manually in this software), is automatically changed by the demo. I would guess that the default size is around 10-11 pt and after the change around 13-14pt. I have reproduced it a couple of times.
There is nothing more to it because the 3D software works properly (and I'm glad that I can see the text better in my software :wink: ) and if I restart the software the default font size is back, so just as a general information to you. I don't know if it affects any other software in the same manner (if run during a game using KeyGuard and/or Common Dialog).

3) Once I was caught in an error loop when I clicked on Silent Copy. It said that there was already a file with the same name on my desktop and asked if I wanted to replace it. No matter what I clicked (okay or quit) an error message (execution error) appeared and a new similar window opened. This continued until I had 10 similar windows open and decided to quit AM with my task manager. But this happened only once so it was probably random as with all software happens from time to time.

Please tell me if I misunderstood what the Save Dialog should do or if you have any ideas how to fix it in case that I understood its intended functioning correctly.
Thank you in advance for your answer and I hope I didn't cause you headaches :)

EDIT:
I think for my current needs I have found what I need and can just use the "invisible copy from AM external folder to the users desktop" successfully under any conditions :D
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Sun Aug 06, 2006 11:47 am

Hi Mystery,

I am able to reproduce the SAVE dialog always opening the last visted folder... I will try to find a solution.

As for the 3D sofware issue I do not have an explenation for that at the moment. Can you tell me what software you are using ?

I will try to expand the error trap in silent copy mode though I'm not yet able to reproduce the error. I will look deeper into this.

Thanks for the feedback, expect a fix soon.

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Sun Aug 06, 2006 11:54 am

I'm using Cyber Motion 3D Designer v 11.0. But as I said this is not a problem.
I just wanted to give you this information in case that other software might experience the same effect when running during an AM game using the plugins. I haven't tried it with running other software at the same time with your demo yet.

For the error: it occured only once so far so probably it was a random error. If I experience it one more time, I will pay more attention what I did and add this info aswell. For the time being there is no reason to look further into it I think.

Thank you for the quick reply :)

And just by the way: I have decided to make an extended version of my new game and add a new part using the Common Dialogue. So probably you will be able to see soon a first game using your new plugin :D
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:41 pm

Hi Mystery,

The SAVE dialog issue has been fixed, you can now define in which folder you want to open the SAVE and LOAD dialog :wink:

It was indeed a bug... :oops:

The error trapping for silent copy, deleting and renaming files is also extended... I hope the error never occurs again.

You can download CommonDialog v1.1 from the plugins thread.

Hope this helps,

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:57 pm

Thank you very much, that was quick. I have downloaded the new version and will try it this evening :D

(And no need to turn red, bugs are normal for any kind of new things :wink: )

EDIT:
I couldn't wait till this evening and tried it. Perfect! :D
But I had the following message when I wanted to start your new demo. It worked perfectly after I hit the ok button but I'm not sure why this message was displayed (I didn't have any crash before that)
Attachments
Error message.JPG
Message when starting the demo
Error message.JPG (21.81 KiB) Viewed 18034 times
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:10 pm

Hi Mystery,

This might be a late response (just saw the edit) :wink:

The error received is a typical Adventure Maker error and is not related to the plugin.

What does the error mean ?

In the early days of AdventureMaker many small files were used to store actions for hotspots, frames, etc... because it toke so long to install these files GM had all those files into a few files. (just open a file and you will see ---- SEPERATOR ---- to indicate this)

However, the engine of AM still works the same way as it did before so the files are seperated again into the orginal files and stored in the TEMP folder when you open a specific frame, edit or runtime. When you navigate away from a frame the files are wrapped again into one file, copied to another folder and removed.

When a project was closed or loaded in a unexpected manner or whenever a new frame is loaded (sometimes it happens also random) while the TEMP folder still contains these unpacked files this error occurs.

Well I hope this helps you to understand what happend. There need to worry about this error :wink:

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:21 pm

Thank you for your answer ShadowHunter, now I understand what happened. I didn't really worry, just wanted to tell about it. :)

And by the way I'm glad that I was even able to read this message as I had the message that I am banned, so I had to work some time until I had an appropriate IP number (I have dynamic IP) :wink:
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland

Postby ShadowHunter » Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:46 pm

Hi Mystery,

In case you get banned again (this must have happend by accident - I was banned last week too :wink: ) please mail Candle or me so it can be undone.

Kind regards,

ShAdOwHuNtEr
User avatar
ShadowHunter
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Belgium

Postby Mystery » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:00 pm

What? You aswell? I'm reliefed then :wink:
Yes, I just got Candle's email, I wrote it down so that I can contact him and get unbanned next time.
I didn't have any problems, but then it started and happened several times already. I must get a "bad" IP number over and over again lately :wink:
Anyhow, thanks for your answer again.
User avatar
Mystery
Forum Admin and Games Page admin
 
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:12 am
Location: Switzerland


Return to Adventure Maker General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

cron