FAangband 0.3.0

[Seany C]

Very minor display bug (apologies if it's already noted) - on items with a lot of properties (a stack of 3 HA spears, for example - ta, Boldor), the item properties won't fit on a 'normal' size main window when IDed, and pressing any other key takes you out of the ID screen, instead of, say, scrolling down...

[Nick]

Very minor display bug (apologies if it's already noted) - on items with a lot of properties (a stack of 3 HA spears, for example - ta, Boldor), the item properties won't fit on a 'normal' size main window when IDed, and pressing any other key takes you out of the ID screen, instead of, say, scrolling down...

No, that one's new, thanks. I've found several others, though, like the right flags (Hold Life, etc) not always showing up on the 'C' screen, and shops only showing the correct details of the top one of a stack of rings of protection. Oh well, my 0.x.0 releases are always a bit buggy, I guess. And no gamebreakers yet.

*crosses fingers*

[Psi]

Sorry if these have been reported:

Autoroller - S doesn't simply restart any more (is that a feature rather than a bug?). Seems to be Esc now.
Can't use cursor keys on spec screen.
Fire object using right cursor key fires it down!
Buying objects 'all' should equate to as many as you can afford if you can't afford all.
I couldn't look at a mimic potion without resorting to targetting via the 'o' key which is possibly related to...
Targetting does 'strange stuff' when trying to use cursor keys to move between selections.
I just found some excellent armour. Wore it and then tried to access char screen ('C') and the game crashed with a memory exception. Hadn't saved to that point so was very annoying.

[Nick]

Autoroller - S doesn't simply restart any more (is that a feature rather than a bug?). Seems to be Esc now.

S only restarts from the last birth screen; Esc anywhere takes you back one.

Can't use cursor keys on spec screen.

Yep, that's a bug - the spec screens need to be properly converted to menus (like, eg, recall points have), and I half did it. Then it went in the 0.3.1 pile with spellcasting and item selection.

Fire object using right cursor key fires it down!

I can't replicate that - I have three ways of getting right arrow on my laptop, and they all fired right (in both senses), as did the mouse. Maybe there's some wacky pref thing going on.

Buying objects 'all' should equate to as many as you can afford if you can't afford all.

Agreed. Imported wholesale and insufficiently checked from V

I couldn't look at a mimic potion without resorting to targetting via the 'o' key which is possibly related to...
Targetting does 'strange stuff' when trying to use cursor keys to move between selections.

Yes, possibly *looks knowledgeable*. I have done very little (nothing?) to targetting this version, but I'll check all that and see if I can work out what's going on.

I just found some excellent armour. Wore it and then tried to access char screen ('C') and the game crashed with a memory exception. Hadn't saved to that point so was very annoying.

OK, that's really annoying. I had some memory issues with the 'C' screen, but thought they were pretty much sorted; I suspect it's something to do with the way I've imported big chunks but not all of the V file/memory handling stuff. I guess the workaround is to save before hitting 'C'

This version was in some ways not as ready as I would have liked, but I thought it was worth getting the gameplay changes out to get some idea of how much rebalancing was needed. Keep the damn bug reports coming.

[Psi]

I can't replicate that - I have three ways of getting right arrow on my laptop, and they all fired right (in both senses), as did the mouse. Maybe there's some wacky pref thing going on.

Ok just started a new game to test this.

Firing up and down is fine with cursor keys.
Firing right fires down but...
Firing left fires vaguely SE but below the diagonal! Very strange.

I've just fired up 023 to compare and that works fine (this is all on XP btw)

[Psi]

OK, that's really annoying. I had some memory issues with the 'C' screen, but thought they were pretty much sorted; I suspect it's something to do with the way I've imported big chunks but not all of the V file/memory handling stuff. I guess the workaround is to save before hitting 'C'

Damn I've done it again without thinking. Just found an excellent shield, equipped it and pressed 'C' and the game crashed

[Psi]

OK, that's really annoying. I had some memory issues with the 'C' screen, but thought they were pretty much sorted; I suspect it's something to do with the way I've imported big chunks but not all of the V file/memory handling stuff. I guess the workaround is to save before hitting 'C'

Hmmm... not sure that work around works. Started a new game, found an amulet, equipped it, save, 'C', crash, reload, 'C', crash, reload, 'C', crash... etc

Game is unplayable for me

[Psi]

Done some more testing. If I start a new character the 'C' screen works. However once I select a speciality it will then crash when I try to access it.

[Nick]

OK, the morning brings fresh perspective.

• For the firing thing, try activating the lib/pref/font-win.prf file - I disabled it by renaming it font-win.prfx so as to avoid the invisible walls problem in Vista, but forgot to tell anyone...
• The crash bug still has me beaten. It appears to be a memory handling issue with the windows port; I have a couple of ideas that I'll check out later today.
• While you're in testing mode, does (a) picking up a bunch of extra items or (b) setting a subscreen to display the extra player info cause a crash?

[Nick]

OK, I've tested in XP and am getting exactly the same problems - firing weirdness, craching at the same places. Tried recompiling it in XP - still the same. None of these happen in Vista (although it does crash on exiting). I'll try and work out what's gone wrong and do a new compile...

Anyone else having windows issues?

[takkaria]

OK, I've tested in XP and am getting exactly the same problems - firing weirdness, craching at the same places. Tried recompiling it in XP - still the same. None of these happen in Vista (although it does crash on exiting). I'll try and work out what's gone wrong and do a new compile...

Anyone else having windows issues?

I recommend running the game under valgrind and do the same things. Even though the problem doesn't manifest on Linux, it's still there, and valgrind will find it if it's memory-related. I've found a fair few Windows-only bugs by doing that.

[Nick]

I recommend running the game under valgrind and do the same things. Even though the problem doesn't manifest on Linux, it's still there, and valgrind will find it if it's memory-related. I've found a fair few Windows-only bugs by doing that.

Yes, this was something I tried, and I just have again. If I run the SDL port, all I get is a few entries inside libraries, and a few from initialising SDL. Once the game is actually running, nothing. This is part of what is leading me to blame windows. For my windows compiles, I have msys and mingw set up in Vista; if I attempt to use gdb in my msys window, the game crashes nicely but gives me ~6000 lines of backtrace, most of them empty and the rest (that are left in the window) uninformative; the windows executable runs fine using wine in linux, but valgrind on that gives nothing, I suspect because it's actually memchecking wine.

That's what you get for trying to help

[pav]

Run native Linux app on Linux, and fix Windows-specific bugs. That's the beauty of it. Also make sure you have debug symbols in - the backtrace you describe looks like it was made on a binary that's stripped.

[Nick]

Run native Linux app on Linux, and fix Windows-specific bugs. That's the beauty of it.

That's what I usually do - the problem this time is that there is no hint of the bug in the linux native app.

[Goes away and checks this is the case, finds that it isn't and locates bug]

OK, thank you everyone. I will fix this (and some of the other bugs I've found while I'm at it) and get the fixed version out in the next couple of days. The bug was not windows related - I was simply trying to look at entry -1 of the notes array. This also explains the latest occurrence of Nowhere Town...

Moral: Just because you remember doing something doesn't mean you've actually done it.

[Nick]

Bugfixed versions of FAangband 0.3.0 (source and windows port) are now available here. OS X port hopefully available soon, WinCE port available when I can work out what's wrong with it as it is.

Bugs fixed include the notes bug which was causing crashes and other weird behaviour, arrow scrolling in the specialty menu, initialisation bug which was making vaults generate incorrectly (if you're just copying the new executable over the old one, removing lib/data/vault.raw will make sure this is fixed), monsters speaking in tongues.

Bugs not fixed include dodgy bonus updates (ctrl-R to refresh the screen if you think your speed may be displayed wrong), occasional placing of the player in a wall when entering a river level, arrow keys giving unexpected results for firing and throwing in Win XP (this has me baffled; currently I'm blaming a pref file issue, as usual).

Probably worth mentioning too that the file lib/pref/font-win.prf has been renamed to font-win.prfx because loading it in Vista makes walls display as blanks; if you're using an earlier version of windows (a) congratulations and (b) remove the x from the end of the name and you'll get block walls back again instead of #s.

Current plan is that the next thing I release will be 0.3.1, which will have all the menus converted properly, low level code base (I hope) more uniform and stable, better terrain handling, and maybe some overhauling of the monster list (notably dragons). But if there are any more showstopper bugs, let me know and I'll do another bugfix.