FenPhoenix on 10/4/2019 at 22:01
The Windows UI is a barrel of fun ain't it? :laff: There's more hacks than regular code!
Jax64 on 10/4/2019 at 22:28
Ha, that is certainly true. I have heard of, and been in myself, quite the variety of Windows UI horror stories.
I noticed you are are now using an older version of RichTextBox as well which makes some RTFs from older missions display properly. While this is very nice, it seems to have had an effect on the horizonal lines used to separate sections in GLML texts, which are now garbled near the right side. I seem to remember you saying something about them being stretched images, which is likely the reason for this change.
FenPhoenix on 10/4/2019 at 23:06
Argh. I can't win with this stuff. If I use the latest version, then transparent images don't look right, they're displayed with a black background. But only on Windows 10.
I implemented a hack to mostly fix the garbled right sides of lines. It should now only happen at unreasonably high zoom levels. That should work while I see if there's a better way.
The need to support RTF files is a huge liability what with the Windows rtfbox being really the only choice, but it has to be done. If it were up to me, I'd just write my own RichText reader and displayer, but the spec is longer than most novels and I don't have much experience in full-on parsing or rendering. :(
Jank hurts the pride, is all. So I'll see what I can do to really smooth this junk out.
Jax64 on 11/4/2019 at 02:00
The hack works well for the time being. Unfortunately, you seem to be correct about the Windows RTFbox being the only realistically viable solution, since it is not especially good, but I imagine it is possible to remedy some of its more irritating shortfalls, albeit using disproportionally complicated methods.
Unrelatedly, I also noticed it is impossible to follow links in a readme. Unlike the above, this shouldn't prove to be terribly difficult to fix.
Stingm on 11/4/2019 at 02:33
Let me add myself to the list of hate. I would love System Shock 2 support as well. Please!
Stingm on 11/4/2019 at 02:40
Let me add myself to the list of hate. I would love System Shock 2 support as well. Please!
FenPhoenix on 11/4/2019 at 02:51
Kay, got a better fix in for the horizontal lines: they now only extend to twice current screen width, which is well below the point of triggering the problem, and zoom is also capped to a lower and upper bound. That means if you zoom out really far, they'll be revealed as not extending all across the screen, but whatever, if you zoom out far enough for that then you can't read anything anyway.
Also added clickable links.
SS2 support written down in the todo after a dramatic scream to the sky.
bob_doe_nz on 11/4/2019 at 03:17
OK, I cannot replicate this. I deleted and copied it over again. Either I'm not doing this right or I'm seeing taffing stars.
FenPhoenix on 11/4/2019 at 03:39
Alright. Sounds like it was just a UI hitch, where it detected the game type correctly but just didn't refresh the list. As far as I can tell and as far as I've specced it, it's always supposed to refresh the list after an automatic game type scan, but not for a manual "click-on-a-blank-game-type-FM-and-it-scans-just-that-one" scan. That's so that you can move through the list without FMs disappearing out from under you. But that's only if you cancel an auto-scan, cause otherwise you should never be left with blank-game-type FMs in the list. Anyway, if you or anyone else experiences this sort of thing again, please let me know and try to note down what you did in as much detail as possible.
Otherwise, (
http://fenphoenix.com/apps/AngelLoader/AngelLoader_v1.0.2.zip) version 1.0.2 is up!
The Elusive One on 11/4/2019 at 05:31
Regarding your problems with RichTextBox, have you thought about using an alternative?
Maybe try looking at TX Text Control Express, it is 100% free and it supports RTF and HTML in the free version:
(
https://www.textcontrol.com/sites/tx-text-control-express/) https://www.textcontrol.com/sites/tx-text-control-express/
The free version is of course limited in various ways, so I don't know if it's missing anything you need for AngelLoader or if it conflicts with your license model. :)