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Cream of the Crop 21
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Cream of the Crop 21 (Terry Blount) (October 1996).iso
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DEMOS.TXT
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1995-04-02
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All about Demos for DMapEdit
----------------------------
Hopefully you've already seen the old demo I made with beta 6. If not,
well..
Demo files for DMapEdit have the extention '.rec', which stands for
recording. By default, DMapEdit will use 'demo.rec' if you don't give
it a filename. To play a demo file, you use the '-play' switch:
dmapedit -play <-- playback the demo.rec file
dmapedit -play doors <-- playback the doors.rec file
With a demo running, the word 'demo' will flash in the upper left-hand
corner of the screen just under the toolbar. This is just there to
remind you a demo is playing. During playback, all control functions
(mouse and keyboard) are read from the demo file, instead of you the
user. You can stop playback at any time by pressing 'ESC'.
During playback, windows will most likely appear from time to time
containing information for you to read. This is to explain what the
'demo' is doing. With demo mode, I wanted to try and make it so that I
could show each and every user of DMapEdit how to use my editor, without
actually having to be there to show you myself. If I was there teaching
you how to use it, I would talk to you and tell you exactly what I'm
doing as I do it. Since I'm not really there, though, these windows
serve that purpose.
I call these windows 'info boxes'. When an info box appears, DMapEdit
will wait until you read it all. When you are done reading it, all you
need to do is press any key on the keyboard to continue, except 'ESC',
since this will stop playback.
Playback will automatically end when the end of the demo file being
played is reached, or when DMapEdit terminates. In the first case, an
info box will appear informing you that the demo is at an end. You will
once again have full control of DMapEdit at this point.
---------------
Recording Demos
---------------
In addition to simply being able to play demos, you can also record your
own demos. This can be useful for many reasons:
* Someone you are trying to explain something to can't make heads or
tails of what you are saying, and you can't get together with him/her
to actually show them. An example is worth 10,000 words. (Just a
simple picture is only worth 1,000!) You can create a demo for them
to explain it all.
* You've found a bug in DMapEdit that you can reproduce at will, but
can't seem to explain the bug to me very well. You can create a demo
that demonstrates the error happening.
* You can create a tutorial on DMapEdit usage, or on how to create a
PWAD from start to finish, or whatever. Beats reading a big long file.
As you can see, the common theme here is 'DEMOnstrating' your ideas in
real time. Ok, so how do you do it?
Basically, you follow the same format for playing a demo, except you use
the '-record' switch:
dmapedit -record <-- record the demo.rec file
dmapedit -record doors <-- record the doors.rec file
Please note however that this will erase whatever file already exists
with that name, overwritting it with your new demo. If you want to
append to an existing demo, see below.
Once DMapEdit is up and running, all mouse and most keyboard commands
are automatically saved as you go along. The reason I say most keyboard
commands is that currently only normal keys and Alt-keys are saved.
Holding down the Shift or Ctrl key when using the mouse buttons will not
save properly. Only the fact that the mouse button was pressed will be
saved, so playback will react differently from your recording if you do
this. I will correct this later when I come up with a good solution.
The word 'recording' will flash in the upper left-hand corner of the
screen just below the toolbar to remind you that it is recording a demo.
"So what about the info boxes?" you are probably asking. When you are
ready to have an info box display, simply press the ` key (not the ' key!),
which should be located just below the 'ESC' on most keyboards. This
will pop up a big empty window for you to put your message in. It's not
the world's greatest editor or anything, but it does support cursor
movement, insert, delete, page up/down, home, end, and word-wrap. If
you find what you want to say is more than will fit in the window, put
it into 2 windows instead, one right after the other.
When you are done typing in your message to the user, pressing 'ESC'
will save the window and let you continue where you left off. A word of
warning, however. Info boxes are really only meant to be displayed from
the 'main editing loop'. This would be were you actually dealing with
the map directly. Basically, if any type of yellow window is displayed,
you are not in the main editing loop, and you shouldn't bring up an info
box there. While I thought I coded it to work at such points, it
doesn't seem to, so until I can get it working at such points, avoid
using it there. Back out of the windows first to the main editing loop
first. 'ESC' will work just fine to get you out of the windows, by the
way. Using 'ESC' in the main editing loop, however, will stop recording
of the demo, instead of quitting DMapEdit, which 'ESC' normally does
when not in Demo mode.
Ok, so that about covers everything, right? Well, there's a few more
things you might be interested to know about..
While you are playing a demo, you can at any point switch over to
recording mode by pressing 'Alt-R'. This can be very handy to pick up
where you left off on a demo you started but didn't finish for whatever
reason (got sleepy, ran into a bug, power failure, etc.) This is in
fact the reason I put it in. I got tired of having to start all over
from scratch each time I ran into a bug, or didn't like the direction I
took with what I was doing and wanted to rewrite it. Once you are in
recording mode, however, there is no way to switch back to playback
again or anything. Anything else that was in the demo beyond your
'take-over' point is history.
If you happen to create any really good demos, feel free to send it to
me. I'll add it to the library of demos I distribute with DMapEdit, as
well as the official DMapEdit homepage.