Hey guys,
As Sing and Maniac have already posted, there is some incompatability with the dialogs in TWX and Win7. We're still working on a long-term fix, but I've created a basic file dialog that will work in the mean time. I post this here as more of a hotfix for Win7, but it is also a current build of the source code, so there are some other improvements / changes as well, albeit undocumented for the moment. I'll try to correct this soon.

This hotfix is a long ways from perfect, and you can easily get an I/O error 21 (select a:\ for example), but it is functional and doesn't crash in Win7. Be aware that this is the executable only, and you will need to remove existing game data and rename your existing TWX exe file, then drop this in your TWX directory.

If you use this version and figure out some of the new features, don't base tons of code around them as they are subject to change before the final version.

Regards,
+EP+

Thanks EP

I'm already planning an update for this coming weekend. Most of my focus has been the file dialog crash issue, but I'll try and pack a few other updates in before then as well. Regardless, there will be an update to the file dialog by then.

On a side note, has anyone encountered the crash on exit bug with the new build?

Thanks,
+EP+

EP
Am evaluating Delphi 2009 for TWX development and compiled TWXProxy.

The good news I got it to compile and run with a little bit of effort.

The bad news is there is going to be a lot of work involved to get it to compile and run correctly.

Delphi 2009 has decided that Unicode strings are the future. Their reasoning is better left for another thread.

The only way I could get it to run was to start off with a new database as it was having issues with reading
strings as they are expecting Unicode strings and the old program wrote Ansi strings.

For the non programmers here are some of the problems.

Ansi strings were one byte/character while Unicode strings are multi-byte. This causes problems because there
are some memory allocations that at the time TWX proxy was written were considered standard operating practices
that assumed that strings were 1 byte/character. This practice is/was also widely used in the communication protocol.

IMHO the solution is going to be more effort that the gains involved keeping TWXProxy half way modern.

I am going to throw out a suggestion that we port TWXProxy to the .Net platform. This will allow us a larger toolbox to
solve problems and potentially more developers.

Oh before I forget ... The FileDialog crash is still in the 2009 libraries on Win 7, I ran the program and was disappointed to find
that I couldn't read anything from TWX as it was Unicode but I opened a FileDialog and closed it and right on schedule it crashed with the infamous what I call the BABE* error.


* This is a difficult error a geek to track down because everyone knows that geeks have no experience with BABE's.

Instead of .net, can we port it to something truly open source? FPC maybe? I hate .NET with a passion.

Yes that could be done but then we are in the same boat we are in now... How many people know Pascal versus
C#/C++/VB or any other of the net languages.

It can be done but we don't really gain anything. I was suggesting .Net for increasing the number of developers.

Porting to FPC probably will be easier tho... and porting to Delphi 2009 can also be done it is just going to require
time and effort.

Quite a few. If you can code in C++, you can code in OO pascal.
Learning a language is easy. Living with a language is not.



Yeh, but I don't think it will increase the number of developers. Sure, more people know
.NET in general, but anyone capable of coding in the TW world is capable of learning either
language just as well.

The real question goes to which is most likely to provide a stable long-term platform for
an open source application. Writing an open source app in a proprietary language is a bit
perverse.



Yeh, but Delphi 2009 requires us to get a copy of delphi 2009, which isn't cheap. Cost is
a serious issue.

Porting to Free Pascal is gonna be a PITA.

I have the FPC libraries and what ever along with lazarus.

First problem I found was lazarus doesn't like spaces in the project name. Ok not a big problem renamed my directory
Next problem lazarus didn't like the spaces in the path to the libraries/units. Ok not a big problem make some junctions to the
correct directories.


It chokes at an assembler routine inside of the Graphics unit which I hacked to make it compile then it gives me a Circular reference
between units Types and Windows.... I added some more path(s) to the compiler options to choose the correct versions of files to only get another whole boatload of errors in Borland's own System.pas and these errors I don't know how to fix at the moment.

Error message(s) says
src\Win32\rtl\sys\System.pas(254,31) Error: Identifier not found "Integer"
src\Win32\rtl\sys\System.pas(368,24) Error: Identifier not found "PWideChar"

where src is a junction (think linux symbolic link) in my project directory that points to the Turbo Delphi Lite source directory

If Integer is not defined in the System.pas unit where in the HE (hockey stick) (hockey stick) is it defined.

I do not know if I have my environment set up correctly nor do I know if lazarus is even "usable for porting Delphi code" so if
anyone wants to suggest a fairly simple process for setting the correct paths to get the Borland Units to compile please jump right in .... I have about 3 hairs left on my slightly^W mostly balding head.

Well yeh, it won't be easy. Easier than porting to .net tho, you'd have to rewrite all of it for that.

From what I understand Lazarus is mostly compatible with delphi, but not entirely. I do not think you're going to get the borland units to compile. Lazarus is multi-platform, it's not designed to work with windows-specific components.

I've committed new code to the SVN server. I removed the file dialogs that I introduced last week, and instead have the original dialogs working for Win7 in a way that doesn't cause them to crash. However, they look like they are from Win 3.1, but those are the breaks... for now. They do not revert to this old style under XP, which should make most ppl happy. Still, I believe these are temporary fixes, and am working on a long-term solution.

I believe most math works as in 2.04, but it hasn't been thoroughly tested. Please let me know if you guys see a script that appears to fail due to rounding errors. The only one I know for sure that is broken is my haggle, but it is especially sensitive to rounding changes, and was expected.

I'm on the verge of significant performance improvements to TWX script execution. I was hoping to have it in this build, but I couldn't pull it off in time. Maybe in the next build. For now, enjoy the attached build. As before, it is the stand-alone executable.

+EP+

Get a move on! I think the last time I logged on here you were saying "just working on getting twx finalized, should have it finished and posted soon." Nothing much changes

Ah ha ha, who knew Kemper was watching?

I've actually been inspired the last few weeks, and have made 3 code updates in 3 weeks. Nothing too earth-shattering, but steady progress. The problem is that these moments of inspiration have to coincide with free time, and that just doesn't happen as often as I'd like.

this is kind of going off topic, but has anyone with win7 noticed any other programs not working well? the kind of stuff you would use all the time like icq, AVG antivirus? Adaware? and do you need a super machine to run it like vista?? my laptop is a dual core 2ghz with 2gb of ram, could i run it on something like this? My brother tried to install it on his machine yesterday and it said he had insufficient space when he has 150GB free

A 2gb/2core/2ghz would run it fine. The OS takes up about 10gb by itself, but that quickly expands to 20gb once you have all the little stuff installed. I wouldn't install it on anything less than a 100gb drive/partition.

Win 7 has it's own anti-virii program, but both avira and avg are reported to work. Pidgin works great, never used the default ICQ client (yuck).

One downside is unless you're running vista, you can't direct upgrade. You have to move stuff off, reformat and move stuff back. That means getting an external hard drive for a backup, basically. The OEM upgrade ver is like $100.

Just checking up on the upcoming release of another TWX.

the most recent seems to work on Win 7. thanks for that EP

wondering if they next version will not have have that Win 3.1 looking (load script) interface... ?

also.. what other changes on the horizon?