intfiction.org

I just released version 0.9 of Hugor, a Hugo multimedia interpreter for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. The changes since the last version are:

• The scrollback window is now triggered when trying to scroll upwards, and can now be displayed as an overlay over the game window.
  
• Margins to the left and right of the game window can now be configured.
  
• On Mac OS, the application now recognizes .hex files. You can drag&drop games into the application icon, or run games directly from Finder.
  
• MIDI music looping should now work on Mac OS. Previously, the MIDI track would only play once.
  
• Some games with corrupted MP3 tracks (like "Trading Punches") would result in no sound being played. This has been fixed.
  
• Text rendering was off by 1 pixel. This has been corrected.

Special thanks to Marc Simpson in helping with this release by sending patches for configurable margins and the scrollback changes!

(For people wondering why some of Iain Merrick's issues with the interpreter in his XYZZY review have not been addressed (not reflowing/repainting the game text when resizing the window and not having scrollbars instead of a scrollback window), the issue is that it's impossible. The graphical version of the Hugo engine does not allow for any of that, since the model used by the engine is the same as that of legacy DOS games using the VGA framebuffer without a windowing system.)

You can download the new version on Hugor's IFWiki page:
http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Hugor

The configurable margins are FANTASTIC. Thanks, guys.

Well, you've done it. I've switched from the main engine to Hugor. Well done.

But, the trouble with having me as a user is that I immediatly start asking things. But Hugor is so good already, I have only one thing to ask for.

Could you please look into updating transcripts on the fly, after each turn, instead of after-X-turns/when-Hugor-closes/whenever-it-is-they-are-updated? I use Trizbort to automap, and it pretty much relies on transcripts being updated on the fly - as they are with ZCode, Glulx and TADS games.

EDIT - No, that's not the only thing. I've one further suggestion and one question.

Suggestion: currently the configurable margins also affect the status bar. The result may be a bit odd, visually, especially if the background colour of the status bar is NOT the same colour as the main text background. Could you look into keeping the status-bar at 0px margin? Maybe make it toggleable?

[Question: "Extra butter"? What's that one about?]
Nevermind, figured this one out. Heh.

EDIT 2 - I'm such a pain, but question #2:

Is there anything at all that Hugor doesn't do that the main Hugo engine does? What prompted this question was me going through older posts and seeing a mention that video didn't work - but that was the very first post, so maybe it does work now, and I was just wondering about any other known shortcomings.

There, shutting up now.

Sounds like a good idea. I've now set the script file to flush before every input operation. Current builds can be found here (they're now also carry the build date in their filename so newer builds can be identified easily):

http://foss.aegean.gr/~realnc/hugor/testing/

Trizbot should now work with the transcript.


Unfortunately, that's not possible. The Hugo engine does not support windows, so the interpreter has no idea which part of the game screen is the status line. Games are free to paint everything they want on the screen, so the interpreter paints it but has no idea what it is that it just painted.

Separate status line information is only available in the text-only version of Hugo (as used by Glk interpreters, for example Gargoyle.)


It's still video that's missing (hopefully I'll be able to add support for it in a cross-platform manner.) A compass rose is also missing, but that's not an engine feature. It's very easy to implement (it just outputs directional commands as if the user had entered them when a direction is clicked) but I'm not sure how useful that one is; do people actually navigate around in IF using a compass rose?

Wonderful, thanks a bunch.



No biggie, it's just a cosmetic nicety anyway.



Here's hoping you do. Of course, not many Hugo games out there actually use videos, but still, someone might, hey?



I don't, and I'm not sure it's useful at all, but my philosophy has pretty much always been "someone might want to use it". If the main interpreter does do it, it might be best to implement - I don't know how possible it is to make hyperlink games in Hugo, but it's possible (if unlikely, given the many alternatives) that someone might try to do away with the command promp at all and rely on the compass rose for navigation.

If it's easy to implement, my first suggestion is always "then please do implement it". Having said that, I agree its usefullness is limited at best.