Shadowdarke's BYOND website

One of the long standing errors in Darke Dungeon that has probably cost me a great many players is a javascript error on the Appearance Page of Character Generation. The reason I have so much trouble with it, is that it works perfectly on every single computer I have access to. Many of the people experiencing trouble even have the same OS and browser configuration I do, so I haven't a clue what the trouble is. If I can't reproduce it, it's hard to fix it.

That's why I come here pleading for testers. Anyone willing to help, especially people who have experienced script errors at character creation in Darke Dungeon, please try these pages using Internet Explorer. Since BYOND currently only supports IE, I haven't even begun to make Mozilla or other browser versions.

http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/ dhtml/overview/filt_14.htm is the Microsoft demo of the filter I'm using. Everyone should have no problem getting it to work.

http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/dd/test/old_method.htm uses the old method and should produce the same errors that you experience in Darke Dungeon, if you get them.

http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/dd/test/index.html is the revision and I'm hoping it corrects the script errors.

http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/dd/test/i2.html is another possible fix.

Please try each version and post your results!

All visible sections of the interface should work without errors.

• Click or drag the 3 sliders on the color bars to adjust the colors of the icon on the left.


• Click "Skin", "Eyes", and "Hair" to select which part to adjust.


• Click the 1x, 2x, or 4x buttons to change the preview's zoom factor.


• Click the hairstyles under "Hair Options" to change style.

Thanks for the help. :)

Several of my libraries have been BYONDscape exclusives for years now. I've decided to set them free. :)

These libraries are now full access for anyone:

sd_DynamicAreaLighting

Fast and easy dynamic lighting. (Needs some serious work for BYOND 4.0. The changes to view() have been a real problem.)

sd_tree

Navigate lists of datums through a collapsable tree view.

PixelProjectiles

Pixel based directional projectiles

I love blogging, can't you tell?

I'm looking for opinions on improving the tutorial in Darke Dungeon. I welcome your discussion at http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/forum/ forum.cgi?action=message_read&id=3288&forum=4. :)

The time has come. Darke Dungeon is due tomorrow. People following the DD news page already know that I had some delays this month because my Mom had a heart attack. Now I have a choice to make. Do I release what I have, or let the deadline slip. I'm not real happy with either choice. Releasing now means that people will be playing it when it's less than its best. Even if I make it better in the future, most people will judge it by their first impression. On the other hand, I consider the deadline to be a promise to the fans and I take my promises seriously.

This release is for the fans, and I would like to have their opinions on the matter. I'll leave the comments open for non-members and members alike. Tomorrow at 10:00pm Eastern, I'll tally the votes. Should I release it tomorrow, in a week, or take another month or more?

Anyone who works on a project on more than one computer has run into a situation where they accidently modified an old obsolete version of their code.

I did that this morning with Darke Dungeon, doing a couple hours work and then remembering that I hadn't extracted the zip file containing my latest updates. With over 30,000 lines of code in 88 files across multiple subfolders, I didn't look forward to checking the modification dates and doing a line by line comparison of the touched files. I wished I had a CVS repository for the thing.

Thank the higher power(s) of your choice for Google. After a page or so of mediocre crippleware I found a real gem in Compare and Merge. It will examine your folders to find which text files have differences. Then you can examine the files side by side with synchronized scroll windows and a color coded bar showing you where the differences are and copy/delete/edit the content of each file. A single drag and drop (or select and click) will transfer changes from one file to the other. It is a truly marvelous piece of shareware with a generous 50 comparisons before you have to register. Frankly if you need to use it more than 50 times, I think you'll find it well worth the price. (I used 10 of my 50 freebies on the Darke Dungeon problem this morning.)

For those of you who don't believe anything is worth the price unless it's free, I also found DiffDaff. This freeware does all the comparisons and difference highlighting with side by side comparisons that Compare and Merge does, but you can't edit the files from within DiffDaff and it doesn't have that oh-so-handy color bar showing you where the diffs are. It's great for freeware (and far better than most of the crippleware I went through before finding it) but those two missing features make Compare and Merge my personal preference.

I welcome reviews of similar packages. I'd love to see if there is anything better than Compare and Merge before I buy the package.