F200 touchscreen problems

[Ian Price]

Hi Gernot

Just though I'd post here to let you know that the F200 still appears to have problems with the touchscreen. Youre recent fix apeared to resolve the problem, but it's since returned as well as other problems.

See this thread http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=40458&st=225 over at www. GP32X.com for more info. Manjuu has been a regular an loyal tester since day 1 and he's been great. My game was working for him, but it appears to have caused problems with having to recalibrate the F200 screen.

In fact, after the last GLBasic update, my testers informed me that the game just black screened - I found this to be the case when I tested it on my F100. Reverting back to an older GLB solved the problem.

[Kitty Hello]

Oh no! I've seen it. It's bad.
I'll check what it is...

[Kitty Hello]

Yay!

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

GLOBAL info$
info$ = PLATFORMINFO$("device")The problem is this: You're assigning a global variable with a function call. Globals get initialized before the main starts and might get called before some constructors are finished. Thus, your game crashed here.
Please call it the way I showed above, creating an empty global variable and assign to it at runtime in your main game function.

Also: When you're saving your progress, you have:
OPENFILE ...
WRITEBYTE ...

Please, check if the file could be opened at all, or the game will bail out here:

IF OPENFILE ...
   WRITEBYTE
ENDIF

The touchscreen works great and it plays & feels lovely!

[PeeJay]

Ooops, you'll find the same in my Danger Mouse source code, so that will need tweaking Gernot (or you could just download it from my webby, I guess, as that was compiled with an earlier version )

Aaaargh, I've just notices the latest version fiddles with the PLATFORMINFO$ command too - a bit more editing required then Oh, you haven't updated the help file to reflect the changes, btw ....

[Ian Price]

OK I'll change that first bit, but...

I do check if the file can be opened Gernot, by first making sure it actually exists - I use something like the following...

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

OK=DoesFileExist (blah...)

If OK Then ...I've never had the game bail due to not having the data - it will happily play a level that doesn't exist, because it's not trying to load something that's not there: it always checks first.

But this still doesn;t explain why the F200 touchscreen is screwing up, and not just my game, but Achim's as well. It also works fine for some people, but not others.

BTW I've a new update ready, that adds extra functionality and speeds up menu access in-game and in the Puzzle Editor (and a couple of new levels). I'll upload it later.

[Kitty Hello]

You did that for LOADING the things. Not when saving (in my version). Anyway
With the latest version the touchscreen should not screw up anymore. I tested a lot and a lot. No more bugs for me. Even w/o SHOWSCREEN it's working now. MOUSEWAIT also. If it's not working now, I need a shrink.

I'm sorry for all the troubles with the touchscreen and for your GLOBAL problem. I hope it's not leaving a "fart smell" on your GLBasic experience.

[PeeJay]

I hope it's not leaving a "fart smell" on your GLBasic experience.

As for me, the fact I am still coding in GL kinda answers that. Oh, and the fart smell is me - sorry - I had a stir fry last night and I do love loads of onions

[Ian Price]

Actually, the progress file can never not exist - I check at the very start of the game if it exists or not - if it doesn't it automagically create it. Try it. You can remove the .CFG file completely. Run the game and turn off at the title screen. CFG file will be there - hence I don't need to test if it exists when saving progress

Anyway... I've got a pretty poor sense of smell. Even with the problems I've had, I've really enjoyed using GLBasic, and will definitely be using it in the future. My game has turned out exactly how I wanted it with no real fuss (other than touchscreen woes), but now that's sorted, so I'm a very happy bunny.

Cheers Gernot

[Kitty Hello]

KK. I noticed that problem, when I debugged the game and the whole folder structure was missing in my debug-directory. Anyway.
Good to see it all getting solved, slowly.

[Moru]

About the file writing discusison: Are you also checking that you have permission to open the file for write access? It's not enough to just check the file exists, if you are running the game from a CD it will say that the file exists but when you open it for writing the game will crash, if you are lucky it will say why but most likey the user will just get thrown out without a message wich makes for unhappy gamer deleting the game that isn't working :-)

[Ian Price]

It's for GP2X - which doesn't have a CD!

[Moru]

CD was just an example that was easy to explain, it can just as well be a file that got the write-protection bit set because you copied from a CD to the memorystick.

[Ian Price]

I'm not sure what this is all about really, as I've never had my game crash, neither have any of the testers, when using it correctly on pc or GP2X.

The game is perfectly stable as it is, and as it was intended to be used. If someone wants to run it in an unspecified way, then there may be unspecified problems. It'd be like me ripping Windows Vista onto a memory stick and blaming Microsoft for it not working/installing/running  properly.

The blackscreen was only brought on because of a recent change Gernot made with regard to obtaining device info in GLB, at no other time has the game failed. I only created this thread because of touchscreen problems.

The touchscreen problem has been solved, as has the blackscreen - neither of which were down to my coding.