Don't click here. It doesn't have to be you. NO!!!! DON'T CLICK HERE!!

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  Don't click here. It doesn't have to be you. NO!!!! DON'T CLICK HERE!!

Author Topic:   Don't click here. It doesn't have to be you. NO!!!! DON'T CLICK HERE!!

Jakk posted 07-06-2003 01:37 BST
anyway. I was wondering. Animated pictures wont run. I know why so its no use telling me why they wont run, I'll just ignore you. Would it be possible for them to ran as a program? when it says you can run a file, could you run a gif animation? The reson I'm asking and not doing it for myself is because i had to delete everything on my computer, and I lost quest pro. I've been too lazy to download the little trial quest thing.
I think Im Back posted 07-06-2003 03:25 BST
I haven't tried it out, but in theory, yeah it should work perfectly opening a file called picture.gif or whatever. The only thing is you have to take into account what the user's system is like.
If i'm playing a game, and it opens a gif, jasc animation shop pro would open up and then display all the frames of the gif file.
Things like that are the problem with just running the files. Sure in windows xp it would open the built in image viewer, so perhaps you could rely on that, but for users of other systems and such it would most likely be trouble.
The only way off the top of my head to get around this would be to make(or find) a small executable program that can view(or open) all the files you'd be using in your game and distribute that with your game. To explain more, it'd be a small program your quest script called open and perhaps sat in the system tray and temporarily overrides the system settings of what to use to open the files you want. That should make sense, I don't know.
MaDbRiT posted 07-06-2003 06:59 BST
Hi guys
For my teaching pieces written with Quest, I have a little home made 'exe' file that I can stsrt and pass the name of the animation file I want it to show - the effect looks like showing a static picture in Quest does normally.
So yes, perfectly possible to do this, but bear in mind that it requires the security settings of Quest to allow running of exe's.
I use a similar idea to bundle regular graphics into one exe file that cannot be easily peeked at, passing the name of the pic I want shown to the exe. Until Alex gives us a way to bundle sound/graphics into one 'resource' file a do it yourself approach has to be taken :-)
Any idea when we'll get a 'bundled resource' option Alex? Personally I'd prefer to have the graphics etc as an external optional file so that people have the choice of a conventional text only experience, or the full graphic version. This way the text only types wouldn't have a graphic/sound bloated 'cas' to download if they didn't want the extras.
Anyone else have a view on this?
Al
Alex posted 07-06-2003 11:50 BST
Bundling of resources into the CAS file has been on my "to do" list for a while now, so I think I'll add this feature to the in-development Quest 3.5. Having the graphics as an optional extra is a nice idea too, so I'll have a stab at implementing that too.
Alex posted 07-06-2003 11:58 BST
Also I've found a way of playing animated GIF files which doesn't require me shelling out large amounts of money or bloating the Quest install, so that's another new feature coming soon...

Author	Topic: Don't click here. It doesn't have to be you. NO!!!! DON'T CLICK HERE!!
Jakk	posted 07-06-2003 01:37 BST anyway. I was wondering. Animated pictures wont run. I know why so its no use telling me why they wont run, I'll just ignore you. Would it be possible for them to ran as a program? when it says you can run a file, could you run a gif animation? The reson I'm asking and not doing it for myself is because i had to delete everything on my computer, and I lost quest pro. I've been too lazy to download the little trial quest thing.
I think Im Back	posted 07-06-2003 03:25 BST I haven't tried it out, but in theory, yeah it should work perfectly opening a file called picture.gif or whatever. The only thing is you have to take into account what the user's system is like. If i'm playing a game, and it opens a gif, jasc animation shop pro would open up and then display all the frames of the gif file. Things like that are the problem with just running the files. Sure in windows xp it would open the built in image viewer, so perhaps you could rely on that, but for users of other systems and such it would most likely be trouble. The only way off the top of my head to get around this would be to make(or find) a small executable program that can view(or open) all the files you'd be using in your game and distribute that with your game. To explain more, it'd be a small program your quest script called open and perhaps sat in the system tray and temporarily overrides the system settings of what to use to open the files you want. That should make sense, I don't know.
MaDbRiT	posted 07-06-2003 06:59 BST Hi guys For my teaching pieces written with Quest, I have a little home made 'exe' file that I can stsrt and pass the name of the animation file I want it to show - the effect looks like showing a static picture in Quest does normally. So yes, perfectly possible to do this, but bear in mind that it requires the security settings of Quest to allow running of exe's. I use a similar idea to bundle regular graphics into one exe file that cannot be easily peeked at, passing the name of the pic I want shown to the exe. Until Alex gives us a way to bundle sound/graphics into one 'resource' file a do it yourself approach has to be taken :-) Any idea when we'll get a 'bundled resource' option Alex? Personally I'd prefer to have the graphics etc as an external optional file so that people have the choice of a conventional text only experience, or the full graphic version. This way the text only types wouldn't have a graphic/sound bloated 'cas' to download if they didn't want the extras. Anyone else have a view on this? Al
Alex	posted 07-06-2003 11:50 BST Bundling of resources into the CAS file has been on my "to do" list for a while now, so I think I'll add this feature to the in-development Quest 3.5. Having the graphics as an optional extra is a nice idea too, so I'll have a stab at implementing that too.
Alex	posted 07-06-2003 11:58 BST Also I've found a way of playing animated GIF files which doesn't require me shelling out large amounts of money or bloating the Quest install, so that's another new feature coming soon...