Angband 3.3.0 is out

[kaypy]

On the topic of help files, whatever happened to the brief command list page? That was probably the help file I wound up actually using the most (or these days, the file I go looking for and cant find the most)

[buzzkill]

In order to search you first need to know what you are looking for. nubes would not know that, so search would be useless to them.

They they wouldn't be looking in the help files if they weren't looking for something, probably something they encountered in game. A noob could open a pdf and search for 'nexus' if hit by a nexus attack, and probably find what he's looking for. Not so easy with inline help unless you know where to look, in which case you probably already know what you need to know, so you wouldn't be looking in the first place.

[soyaki]

Congrats

Is it too late to say congrats on the release? 'Cause, congrats. And thanks.

/End threadjack

[Nomad]

I have vague ambitions of one day taking a crack at rewriting the whole of the inline help from the ground up. A lot of it can be made much more concise, and it really needs to be broken down into more logical sections, with properly descriptive names like "Items and Equipment", "Resistances and Status Effects", etc. Alas, I'm probably a little busy to take it on as a project right now, but it is something I've been poking at off and on. It would hopefully make it both easier to keep updated in future, and more helpful as a resource for looking up specific details.

[Timo Pietilä]

You can't search inline help. You pretty much have to know what your looking for in order to find it. That's great if you already know the game, not so good for the nubes.

In order to search you first need to know what you are looking for. nubes would not know that, so search would be useless to them. Search is actually useful for the veterans that know what they are looking for and need to refresh their memory about exact numbers of something or something like that.

Inline help (help, not some strategy guide), does not need to be complex to be useful. For roguelikes explanation of different screens, commands, options, macros and inscriptions and short terminology guide is sufficient. Read those and everything else should be relatively obvious from the screen itself.

[buzzkill]

If I would need to choose between the two, I would choose inline help.

You can't search inline help. You pretty much have to know what your looking for in order to find it. That's great if you already know the game, not so good for the nubes.

[Timo Pietilä]

I prefer an inline help. Opening PDF means, acrobat application starts up, another window where i need to use the mouse. Too much hazzle, compared to a simple inline help.

I do agree that keeping two help sources up-to-date is a pain tho.

Cheers,
Tibarius

If I would need to choose between the two, I would choose inline help.

[Tibarius]

inline help

Originally posted by fph
do we need a plain-old-ASCII inline help where there's a professionally formatted PDF sitting around in the same directory?

I prefer an inline help. Opening PDF means, acrobat application starts up, another window where i need to use the mouse. Too much hazzle, compared to a simple inline help.

I do agree that keeping two help sources up-to-date is a pain tho.

Cheers,
Tibarius

[myshkin]

I should be able to check it out tomorrow, and see if my older laptop still boots. I'll need some serious hand-holding though, I probably have xcode but I haven't done much of anything with it besides an aborted attempt at some applescript a long long time ago.

It should be pretty straightforward.

• Download the source
• Open Terminal.app
• cd to the directory containing the source tarball
• Run tar xzpf angband-v3.3.0.tar.gz
• Run cd angband-v3.3.0/src
• Run make -f Makefile.osx

The app bundle should then be in your parent directory, if all went well.

[bio_hazard]

It will probably crash at startup. That's what other people were seeing, at least. If you have XCode installed, I would happily accept a build from source of 3.3.0, especially on a 10.4 PPC. That *should* run everywhere. I have yet to discern the compiler flags or other modifications that permit me to make a similar build on a >10.5 Intel machine.

I should be able to check it out tomorrow, and see if my older laptop still boots. I'll need some serious hand-holding though, I probably have xcode but I haven't done much of anything with it besides an aborted attempt at some applescript a long long time ago.

[myshkin]

I should be able to try it on a 10.4 Intel- I'll have to see if my old PPC powerbook still works. Is there anything in particular that you expect to be problematic?

It will probably crash at startup. That's what other people were seeing, at least. If you have XCode installed, I would happily accept a build from source of 3.3.0, especially on a 10.4 PPC. That *should* run everywhere. I have yet to discern the compiler flags or other modifications that permit me to make a similar build on a >10.5 Intel machine.

[bio_hazard]

I know. Now, if someone with real OSX programming knowledge were to come along, the port might be in somewhat better shape. There are still a few places where the code needs cleaning, and I have a suspicion that, since I built it on 10.6 Intel, people with 10.4 PPC machines will still have problems running it. I would love to hear positive or negative reports about that.

I should be able to try it on a 10.4 Intel- I'll have to see if my old PPC powerbook still works. Is there anything in particular that you expect to be problematic?

[dos350]

WOW~!~~ omg legit,, i hope this is good, , ill try and maybe post wat im thinking later!

ty 4 the effort , plz no rage in future~

[myshkin]

Thanks! There are at least a few of us OSX-ers out here.

I know. Now, if someone with real OSX programming knowledge were to come along, the port might be in somewhat better shape. There are still a few places where the code needs cleaning, and I have a suspicion that, since I built it on 10.6 Intel, people with 10.4 PPC machines will still have problems running it. I would love to hear positive or negative reports about that.

[bio_hazard]

I did a slow, but not terribly detailed pass through the help files while updating qwerty's LaTeX source to match the help files. I undoubtedly missed things, though. I'd greatly appreciate anyone else's looking through the help files and/or the manual for inaccuracies. As Magnate said, we hope to have just one set of source files for documentation by 3.4.



I've built a 3.3.0 OSX dmg; it should be on rephial as soon as someone with access uploads it.

Thanks! There are at least a few of us OSX-ers out here.