I've set the title... This can at least allow me to check if metadata can be read, however I see the music field is missing

Before I move on I need to make sure that music loading in combination with loading a map becomes possible. For that I first of all need to import a certain file first which my system is now looking up. Then I also need to adept the map to make sure the music loading can be done. Next, the Kthura main metadata cannot yet be read by Apollo Scripts, and to make that possible I need to adapt Apollo... All in all I got work to do!

IT WORKS!!!!!

I've undummied the WaitMinTicks and now see if the text appear speed is acceptable!

Well That "fixes" the game at least, but the bug causing this remains, so this is why I said "void" in stead of fix

And let's see what happens next

I've forced the system to create a new table in a new class record

I think there's a bug in neil when it comes to tables in a class

That's odd

Now that's odd... The table pointer DOES appear to be different every time....

let's see

That didn't make any difference

Let's see

Okay, all textboxes contain the same data.... Something must have gone wrong when translating the scenario loader to Neil

I need another test to get a few things straight for myself

The scenario file looks the way it should, so clearly something must have put the loader out of order

For some reason all lines of a scenario are always put in the same textbox and also in all textboxes... Oddly enough the lines do not all get generated on screen, so I wonder

Let's see!

Now I wanna see why the number of lines is damn high

A little error elsewhere did at least allow me to find out that the generation routines themselves are good... But the crux lies in that for some reason, all textboxes are claimed to have 103 lines... That should never be the case, so I need to sort out why this is happening

The math formula shouldn't be wrong (if it was, Dyrt would have had the same issue)... It is likely though that some basis numbers to start stuff with is not in order.

It's just the height of the textbox that is failing

And the ember bar is generated accordingly

What does go well is the positioning and howing of the portrait of the person who speaks, though

What I do see though is that the generation of the textbox is completely bogus

And now the loading bar also appears

Okay, where were we?

Something missing in the flip call, and it didn't cause a syntax error?

Okay, the events poller does work (that allows me at least to get out of the game without trouble and risking memory leaks), but the flipper does not, and I wonder why

Let's see

A few obvious mistakes have been fixed, though

I've put minticks on dummy in the script to make sure that cannot be the evil

I already had the feeling events and flipping were NOT properly handled by the script, but only by the core

Infinite loop

...

Wrong method reference?

Well, let's see now!

Case error... Yeah, when making direct links with Lua that is still possible

But doesn't explain why WaitMinTicks doesn't work and is considered a "nil" value

That takes care of that one

Perhaps this should avoid this issue

Ah, analysing what happened (I should have known this), it's clear " is the evil here (as always)

I've seen a lot of crap happening before, but never in my life as a coder have I seen scenario text being dumped as an error message

Test numero... what number are we?

Link up code typo

And sometimes I wish Windows wasn't so damn stubborn about which app to show, when I need another!

Has been completed in the meantime

And another test is in order I suppose

Success

Let's compile it all

And that should link it all together

And the linkup script

It seems that apollo did not yet have TextWidth/Height feature.... I've planted it into the engine

I know I still got a lot to do, and I must stick to it, but I also need my rest!

MOAR MOAR MOAR!

MOAR fixes

Well?

Forced a cockroach to get working

Another one then!

missing link

Well....

I guess I didn't do that one too well

Let's see then!

All gone now?

That didn't work too well?

At least the Neil general syntax errors are all gone... Now to deal with "Unknown Identifiers"

Getting there.... slowly....

Lua/NIL/Neil conflict

Well?

More "do" and "then" that Neil doesn't tolerate

How many tests am I on already M?

Conflict

More syntax errors

It was just bothering me

White line had to be a red line in the New Game screen

Fix in Neil itself

Well, at least I've come to the point the process speeds up a little

Will certainly not be the last one... I think

Another conflict

Okay, that was stupid!

Lost track of counting, mind you!

Neil/Lua conflict

NIL/Neil conflict ~= is allowed in NIL (but counted as "deprecated"), but forbidden in Neil

I am only not sure if all functions are covered in Neil, but most likely yes.
I will have to sort things out!

I've dummied the call to the string library. Why, because Neil has 90% of all the functions that NIL has in that library already built in, so no need to create an extra library for it, and now it only causes a crash.

Yes! An error appears, but this error DOES AT LEAST CONFIRM that the library itself is now properly being read!

I think I found the issue!

The boolean contains "true".... Which would mean nothing is returned by the library (cannot be since the library is a module so it must return a group/class and not 'true') and thus 'true' is given to make sure no errors pop up...

This may NEVER be a boolean! Why does it insist we're dealing with one?

Okay, it also appear to work the other way around

The "GET" link appears to work, but now the "SET" link

MOAR Syntax errors

Syntax Error

Neil should now support linking... Well SHOULD....

I wonder why Neil didn't back out on the keyword "link"

I do need a break first, though!

This is NOT good! The error doesn't make sense at all, and implies a few things.... I guess I may need to go back to the drawing board about that one!

Take XI

References to outdated debug crap which was no longer useful, and now only causing errors

Take X

I hope?

So ONE little unknown identiefier managed to sneak past me, eh?

take IX

None can tell if this works now, although my expectation is, it won't!

And linked to it so that should work

Alternate function for BoxPic

Boxpic was a feature used in Dyrt which had to make sure that all pictures for textboxes, but also in other purposes where the same size...

Star Story however has a completely different setup, so things should be done in a different manner also

One case of DarkText voided

GetFont doesn't exist in Apollo, so I replaced it with the equivalent that Apollo DOES have!

So far so good!

Take VIII

Several unknown identifiers

Now "DarkText" is a library that was needed in Dyrt due to the used background, but in Star Story it's not needed, and will in fact only slow the the down needlessly, that should be removed

I removed to two "self" as they were both just mentioned in a destructor and that doesn't yet work very well

The __LANG macro is now defined so that should work now!

= __LANG in line #54(BOXTEXT)
= SELF in line #??(BOXTEXT)
= SELF in line #??(BOXTEXT)
= BOXPIC in line #121(BOXTEXT)
= DARKTEXT in line #126(BOXTEXT)
= DARKTEXT in line #144(BOXTEXT)
= ERROR in line #180(BOXTEXT)
= ERROR in line #186(BOXTEXT)
= ERROR in line #191(BOXTEXT)
= ERROR in line #209(BOXTEXT)
= GETFONT in line #211(BOXTEXT)

Frankly, odd as it may seem this is good to see... It shows me that the main issues have been taken care of, and that the issues at hand are solely there due to calls to stuff Neil shouldn't support in the first place, but NIL did, so I just need to lead that otherwise, and that some libraries I won't need in Star Story but I did need in Dyrt are called, and that is just a matter of replacing functions.... The actual syntax issues (which I was most worried about) appear gone now, as this report only appears when that kind of stuff is taken care of!

(Although it is possible the translation still generates invalid syntax in Lua, so let's not celebrate too early).

Take VIII

Scope issue

Take VII

Does it do now then?

Did Neil not yet support "do" scopes?

Take VI

NIL/Neil conflict (x2)

Take V

Neil does NOT wanna see do and then at the end of for/while/if

Take IV

Neil doesn't like ~= (and it's dirty syntax in Lua anyway)

At least the syntax errors in the linker appear fixed.... But the most complex part has yet to come

Ah.... Window file conflict

Fix ignored

Take III

Syntax Error

Take II

Code Typo

Take I

Time for the moment catastrophale

I think I'll prepare my dinner first, though

Well, the big catastrophe is about to begin.... I hope it will work out....

And the log should now start (without audio)

And from here there's no telling where things will lead to....

Loaded linked

The link code is present now!

Some links must be set up first though... I only did the base code so far....

In theory the boxtext routine should work, although I highly doubt it

It is important to note that I now need to work a few things out as the system will really not know at all now what to do with all this crapload of code

That link will be VERRRRY important!

Callback for Boxtext in the field routine

Nothing really springs in the eye now that could cause trouble, but I'm sure there are thousands of things there that can and WILL cause me trouble.

Ah voice acting stuff is present, but dummied.... Well that's a later concern, but I gotta keep it in mind I suppose

Adaption for Eric's big secret in Dyrt has no value at all in Star Story, so let's dummy that code!

Color changes applicable for Star Story

Quick link to the color function... I don't wanna have to replace all that crap

Neil doesn't require the keyword "void" at constructors and destructors... (In fact, NEVER place them in Neil)

I've copied the boxtext routine from Dyrt, however, the former being in NIL and the latter in Neil some adaptions are required, not to mention that NALA was (thanks to MonoGame) set up in a way that is just garbage... Now in Apollo I can (thanks to SDL) set it up more properly!

Basis set up for the scenario configurator

Before the audio comes into play I first need to make sure the actual boxtext routines will work, so fo rnow the focus must be put onto that.

No errors (that was unexpected), but the logs look fine

Again!

That should be fixed now

I *DID* get an error, but not the error I expected

And Now to see what'll happen!

Link to mapscript itself established

I've added an extra line which should confirm always that Lovejoy's rant function should start... Now the chance is big the game will crash anyway, as I made a link to a few features not yet present in Neil.

And now first a few Dyrt duties

The log says everything's okay now... All I can do for now is trust on that, as the Lovejoy's intro is not yet fully scripted... That will happen soon, though!

Let's throw in another test!

I'll do it manually this time, but this really should not be possible in any way!

Scheduling itself works, but when the calling comes it complains about an expected string value (which should have been given automatically if missing, so WTF is the computer talking about?

Let's see now!

No static member "Schedule" exists???

Another test then!

Dang!

Let's see how things work out now!

Ah, there was a missing link to the mapscript scheduler

Clearly the scheduler has not been called

And again!

Sometimes cheating can be so much fun

So let's put it all to the test and see what results my console returns!

I cannot yet check if everything works the way they should but at least these debug lines can tell me

This will allow all scripts to schedule mapscript calls for the next cycle

I've linked the schedule requestor to the Map linker

Running a full backup now... This can slow down my computer terribly, but sometimes this is needed, you know!

I've written a way to void those

And suffering from some issues also

Was overdue

Illegal class call

Conflict NIL-Neil

Type bug in Neil

Very likely the game will produce MANY MANY crashes now!

Some pre-config done

I've set a small measure that can help me to quickly reload all scenario.... This is an experiment to make it possible to change the scenario language in game. No promises I'll make it happen, but at least I can try

I DID do some adaptions to the scenario loader, but I fear I got a bit of a way to go in order to put it into good use...

The one written in NIL I got may very likely only need to be adapted so I can use it in Neil, although some issues may be there....

Now I do need to make sure the scenario loader is properly transferred to Apollo.

And with a littlebit of luck (unless I can get more done on the GJ API), we'll see.... I may only need the scenario editor now to do some spelling error checks... hahaha

That part has been written out.

Part of the scenario done

RL business