Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / User Based DBP Online Help Files

Author
Message
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 15th Jun 2005 22:33
Neither as yet

Both are on the To-Do list...

I might pull some time out from studying ( need a break ) and see if I can get a "Preview" type thing put in so that you can see what it'll look like before posting, just to make sure everything's dandy

Thanks for adding that example and note so far

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Lampton Worm
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Sep 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 15th Jun 2005 22:57
No worries, its very handy. I used to use the online manual at realgametools back in the day, but this one is much more interactive
Peter H
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Feb 2004
Location: Witness Protection Program
Posted: 16th Jun 2005 03:28 Edited at: 16th Jun 2005 03:28
If you want me to i'll fill in syntax...but i'm too lazy/busy to fill in examples

"We make the worst games in the universe."

Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 25th Jun 2005 18:41
Peter_,
Thanks for the offer, but I changed my mind...
I'm going to do them all...

I've actually just spent the last 4 hours doing all of the sections down to ( but not including ) Basic3D... So, I should be able to do the rest over the next few hours

I changed my mind 'cos I want to be able to make sure all the syntax style is the same across the board, so that users dont get confused ( and, beleive it or not, the syntax for the actual DBP Help files is inconsistent with itself )...

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 25th Jun 2005 22:29 Edited at: 25th Jun 2005 22:30
Alrighty!

Just completed the last of inputting all the syntax!

PHEW!

And it only took me 8hours

Now, it's complete! The entire DarkBASIC Professional Help Files are online, in my own format!!
Yay!

I think this calls for a celebration!
It's beer time

Now's your chance, people... Start adding those examples to be the first one credited with having the official Examples!

And, that's all, folks!

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Baggers
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 31st May 2004
Location: Yonder over dem dere hills
Posted: 26th Jun 2005 06:52
Wow man, well done !

Thats awesome, well im bookmarking that now!

Etienne
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Jan 2004
Location: Paris
Posted: 26th Jun 2005 08:01
i'm so proud

Nice work Jess

A pixel is nothing , lots of can be all
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 26th Jun 2005 13:53
Thanks fella's

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
MikeS
Retired Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Dec 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 27th Jun 2005 11:11
Nice work Jess. Now whenever anyone complains about the docs, we can point them to your site and make them improve the docs themselves!



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
(Formerly Yellow)
mm0zct
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Nov 2003
Location: scotland-uk
Posted: 27th Jun 2005 11:26
*kneels down and bows at Jess' feet*

this is great Jess, especially with all the new commands that aren't in the help files

good work

http://www.larinar.tk
AMD athlon 64 3000+, 512mb ddr400, abit kv8, 160gb hdd, gigabit lan, ati radeon 9800se 128mb.
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 27th Jun 2005 16:40
Mike,
Yep, that's the one ( I've already started my rein... Now, if anyone asks "What's this do?", and there's a comment for it in the dbHelp, I'll post that link faster than you can say "JessRocks" ).

mm0zct,
Thanks... can you get me some grapes, and a few perty ladies for my herem? lol.

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 27th Jun 2005 23:30 Edited at: 27th Jun 2005 23:30
Hey folks,

Been experimenting with getting the files to download in a Zip file... Am getting there slowly, but still got a ways to go

Since I hit a wall, I took a break and decided to add a new section to the help files; Operators.
You can read about it in My News Or slightly more in detail in my Blog

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 7th Jul 2005 17:30
To the person who took the time to fill-out the Enhancements Expansion Pack section with complete commands and Examples, Thank you!

I've got a few queries, though (possible mistakes );

For Encode Ogg Vorbis, the help says the last paramater is optional... As I don't see any notes to the contrary, I'll fix it up so that the square braces are present to reflect this in the syntax

There were also alot of instances of;
open file block "./media/media.zip", 1, "mypassword"
Where forward slashes are used instead of Back Slashes... I'm sure DBP doesn't mind which you use, but for correctness, I switched them

Thanks again for the one who filled out the database

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Etienne
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Jan 2004
Location: Paris
Posted: 7th Jul 2005 17:49
Yea i think the manual is definitly ranked at close to done work . The first ever manual you can contribute to , cool huh ? now if you have remarks on functions you can post them .

A pixel is nothing , lots of can be all
Lost in Thought
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Feb 2004
Location: U.S.A. : Douglas, Georgia
Posted: 7th Jul 2005 17:57
I didn't get but 2 sections (ogg vorbis and file block) done though in the enhancements pack. I didn't notice the slashes as I copied the examples from the TGC examples giving only relevant code. The open file block line in question came from file blocks example 2

It would be nice to have some kind of sub-sections for the enhancement pack to keep the seperated like their help files do.

Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 7th Jul 2005 20:53
LiT - Ah, ok...

About the sub-sections... I was thinking of that too... Have done right from the start.
Every command in the help-file has a sub-section pretty much, and as such, should do in dbHelp...

I can easily put it in, however, It'd require me to go through every command and fix 'em all up, so that they're in the right sub-sections.

Considering that this is a pretty massive job ( we stand at over 1100 commands at the moment ), I want to wait until I get the other items which will require editing of the individual commands into the system, so that I can do it all over one weekend ( or week, the way the database is filling up! ).

LiT,
You are really contributing alot to the files, and I really wish I could show my appreciation ( on behalf of myself and the community ) by more than just a "Thanks"...
Anything I can help you with?

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Etienne
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Jan 2004
Location: Paris
Posted: 7th Jul 2005 23:14
We should Learn C++ and run a dbpro patch community
Once dbpro will be open source ... lol open source for a language ... silly me

A pixel is nothing , lots of can be all
Keaz
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2003
Location: Somewhere in south Texas
Posted: 8th Jul 2005 00:16
Jess, I was wondering what areas need the most work so I can help out and are the official, although not TGC, dll's going to be included? (Aka Newton, Blue, Nuclear etc...)

Breaking Stuff=Fun!,Bug Testing<>Fun!, Bug Testing=Breaking Stuff, so...
Bug Testing=Fun! Hmmmm....
DOES NOT COMPUTE! SYSTEM MALFUNTION!
Lost in Thought
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Feb 2004
Location: U.S.A. : Douglas, Georgia
Posted: 8th Jul 2005 05:46
Thanks, but I don't need help with anything ATM. I am waiting on the new physics pack and NGC v4 before moving forward wirth my projects as physics and collision will make a big impact on how I do most of my programming. I'll keep helping with the help files as I get time from helping other people.

Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 11th Jul 2005 18:19
LiT, and Hamish,

Thanks for your submissions.
Especially Hamish... If anyone ever wanted a good explanation of the Rnd() command, have a look at what Hamish Posted!

LiT, that's ok
Just didn't want your help to go unrewarded.

Keaz,
I decided that only the TGC released plug-in's will go into it.
If the creators of the Third-Party plug-ins want to have a system like this one, I can give them the source code for the website, and they can moderate it themselves, but as they're not actually made by TGC, I figured I'd leave them off.

Currently, this means that only the Advanced Terrain, Enhancement Expansion Pack, and the Cloth and Particles packs are included.

If you want to help out with filling stuff in, the database is in need of examples for at least 80% of the commands.
Just post the example as you normally would, and when I see it, I'll put it in as the official word ( given that it works, of course ).

Thanks for the support everyone... 'Tis always a dawnting task to set up a community based project not knowing if it will be well-received or not.
But, looks like things are getting near completion

Cheers,
Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 11th Jul 2005 21:50 Edited at: 11th Jul 2005 21:51
Jess - a suggestion... This should be pretty easy to implement.. a search facility

I'm 100% sure you know how to do this already, but here is my 2 cents anyway...

Now, I assume this is a standard Apache/MySQL setup you have.. I also assume you have made the command name field an index (if not, it can be easily added for efficiency here)..

Simply make a form with a textbox (maybe limited to 20 characters).. Then, when you make the query, you'd do:
SELECT * FROM Commands WHERE CommandName LIKE '%SYNC%'

the LIKE %...% one does a nifty comparision where it matches anything either side of it, so that'd also return SYNC RATE...
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/string-comparison-functions.html

Also, I am making a section on my new site - the Challenge Database. It outputs formatted code (eg: This) and I was wondering if it'd be possible to link each command highlighted to your database, so if someone clicked on "SET OBJECT TRANSPARENCY" it'd open a new window linked to your help file.. I'm wondering how to make this work...

My Website:
PowerSoft
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 00:27
Jess, is there any chance that we can refer to the command in the URL by the command name as well?


Say for example we want to refer to the info on "Sync" can we do:

http://............/index.php?p=sync



please? shouldnt be that hard to do.

Like:

$PAGE = $_GET['p']
SELECT [Page_ID] FROM [Commands] WHERE [Com_Name]=$PAGE



Please?

Always available to help
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 00:30
That would certainly make it easier for my site to link in... Problem though.. can you use spaces in the address commands? EG: index.php?p=SET OBJECT TRANSPARENCY

My Website:
PowerSoft
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 00:32
just do.

index.php?p=SET%40OBJECT%40TRANSPARENCY


i think...

Always available to help
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 00:33
thought %20 was space?

That might work...

My Website:
PowerSoft
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 00:35
Oops. My Bad

Always available to help
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 19:47
Damn it, Nick! You stole my idea!

I already have some code for Syntax-Hightlighting half written that I did AGES ago ( which little knowledge of PHP, so I could do it again 20x better now ).
Oh well, Great mind's think alike, eh

The search is on my To-Do list... As I want to do a really robust, proper one, and get it right the first time, so I want to dedicate a few days to it before attempting anything.

About the command name in the link, I can do that, sure

Gimme a few, and I'll see about setting it up.

Also, Powersoft,
When you're using PHP, you don't have to use $_GET['variable'] anymore... All you have to use is $variable

Anyway, I'm off to work on the command name in the url thing, will post back in a few minutes when it's all working nicely

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
PowerSoft
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 19:49
Oh, I find it easyier to do that as you remember it better

Always available to help
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 20:02
The problem with using $variablename instead of $_GET["variablename"] is that you dont know where its come from as it also works for POSTS (I think). This means someone could pass anything into a form when you might only want limited values...

Of course, it only becomes a problem when scum try to hack!

Jess - wanna swap highlighting code? We might learn stuff from each other.. Mine was made in cahoots with a friend of mine who did a Masters in some biology thing where he had to learn techniques for pattern finding...

My Website:
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 20:14
ok

And, the command-name-in-URL is done... 'twas simply a matter of checking for a number, or a string... simple

http://jessticular.dbspot.com/index.php?nav=dbhelp&command=[Number][CommandName]

As an example;
http://jessticular.dbspot.com/index.php?nav=dbhelp&command=578
Or,
http://jessticular.dbspot.com/index.php?nav=dbhelp&command=Bitmap%20Exist

Both point to the same thing.

I want to have a keywords.ini file generated, for which You can use as a look-up table for standard context-sensitive help for IDE's, and for web-apps, like yours Nick...

Just a matter of generating it, and all is well

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
PowerSoft
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 20:19
Thanks alot Jess, great stuff

Always available to help
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 21:15
here is a command list...

My Website:

Attachments

Login to view attachments
PowerSoft
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 12th Jul 2005 21:20
Mind if i use it Nick?

Always available to help
Scraggle
Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Jul 2003
Location: Yorkshire
Posted: 15th Jul 2005 16:29
Quote: "If anyone ever wanted a good explanation of the Rnd() command, have a look at what Hamish Posted!"


I did ... good explanation. However, he writes:
Quote: "Float = Rnd(Range)"


I thought rnd produced integers. Am I wrong or should this be changed?


Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 15th Jul 2005 16:43
@Scraggle: rnd does produce integers...
@Powersoft: Go for it mate, its only a list of commands amalgamated from the DBPro IDE

My Website:
Lost in Thought
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Feb 2004
Location: U.S.A. : Douglas, Georgia
Posted: 15th Jul 2005 19:17 Edited at: 15th Jul 2005 19:23
It won't let me add commands. I get an error:

Error, Couldn't Process Query: Table 'dbhelp' is read only

[edit] NM Powersoft told me DBSpot is down again. Have you asked if TGC would host the online help files Jess?

Hamish McHaggis
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 13th Dec 2002
Location: Modgnik Detinu
Posted: 15th Jul 2005 19:18 Edited at: 15th Jul 2005 19:34
Quote: "I did ... good explanation. However, he writes:

Quote: "Float = Rnd(Range)""


No, I didn't write that . Whoever added the RND entry wrote that. I just added a comment and an example.

Jess - Have you disabled the command addition function? I tried to add an entry for SAVE OBJECT (undocumented I know, but I figured an entry could be uploaded until TGC comes up with the official documentation), and it said the table was read only.

More tea Vicar?
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 15th Jul 2005 19:46
see post above?

Jess - how much traffic do you get per month?

My Website:
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 17th Jul 2005 15:39
The Help files actually say;
Return Float = Rnd(range)

I'll fix that up when I can access the database again.


dbSpot is doing, but Jimmy has kindly uploaded the database and old source for the website ( hopefully he still has the newer source there too, to make things easier ).
It's only a quick set-up job for the moment from what I can tell which is why we get the read-only errors.

Once phpMyAdmin is back in action, I'll back everything up, and get back to work on being able to download the help files.


About Traffic...
I don't know... I was never really interested about who or how many visited the site to be tottaly honest

I guess I can add a counter which I used on my other site... Should prove interesting


Over-and-Out.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 18th Jul 2005 02:17
I wasn't so interested in hits, more interested in Gb/month. I get 2Gb a month and normally use about 0.2Gb a month

I have also been looking into another hosting option which would give me more hosting for less money

If you wanna get hosted somewhere else, I am probably gonna take the offer soon and maybe could (co)host the help files?

My Website:
the_winch
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posted: 21st Jul 2005 07:33 Edited at: 21st Jul 2005 07:37
Any idea when the database will be sorted?

Also the alphabetical listing doesn't have anywhere for commands that don't start with a letter like #inculde.

Some bb code to link to another command in comments would be usefull. Then when reading the comment the user doesn't have to go searching to find out about the command.

Perhaps a wiki would be a better way of doing it.
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 21st Jul 2005 21:59
I'm pending an email from Jimmy to sort things out at the moment

The # listing, that's easy to add, and linking commands is also another easy one ( although, whenever something is said to be "easy" it takes hours in the end ).

And, I'm not changing to a wiki now... Not after I've done all this work.

Besides, a wiki means people can edit things, and then people's notes get mutilated, and etc etc etc... I want to keep it this way to keep the amount of dim-wits screwing everything up to a minimum

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 22nd Jul 2005 00:02
Wiki is a bad idea I think... One things I've learned about the public is the public are thick and stupid. It may sound narrow minded - but try working as tech support for 2-3 weeks and you'll soon turn into me Hehehe..

Jess - I'd be interested to know how much bandwidth your site uses and I'd be interested in maybe mirroring or hosting it. I'm looking into getting a new server package soon... Ideally I'd like a dedicated server - but I dont think I can justify the silly monthly costs Hehehe..

My Website:
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 22nd Jul 2005 19:45
I dunno, I'd have to ask Jimmy
And I don't even know if he keeps logs of that stuff...
And, on top of That He's still having troubles with the server

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Nicholas Thompson
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 22nd Jul 2005 21:18
Hehe.. Well if its an Apache HTTPD (which it probably is) it might keep logs of every hit to the server.

My Website:
Xolatron old
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 25th Jan 2004
Location: The Star Forge Language: DBpro
Posted: 27th Jul 2005 07:44
Nice work, Jess! . I think I'll put a link to this help in the IDE i'm working on.

[Going over to update user-help]

-Xol

Ion Extension: 46 DBp functions: http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=57481&b=1
IonRay IDE for DBPro in progress
Xolatron old
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 25th Jan 2004
Location: The Star Forge Language: DBpro
Posted: 27th Jul 2005 07:50
JessTicular,
When I added some help for one of the commands I recieved this error:

I had filled out name and Comments, but left the example blank.

Could you (or someone) please help?

-Xol

Ion Extension: 46 DBp functions: http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=57481&b=1
IonRay IDE for DBPro in progress
Jess T
Retired Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Sep 2003
Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 28th Jul 2005 00:40
Yeah, it's due to the host ( dbSpot ) having some technical difficulties ( basically, Jimmy screwed everything over, and hasn't fixed it yet ).

I don't know what's happening, or when stuff is going to be fixed. I'm still waiting to get at phpMyAdmin so I can make my database backup!

Sorry about that, I wish you could use it

When the site is finally back up and running properly, you can actually add the command, and/or any notes or examples

Sorry folks.

Jess.

Team EOD :: All-Round Nice Guy
Want Better dbHelp Files?
Xolatron old
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 25th Jan 2004
Location: The Star Forge Language: DBpro
Posted: 28th Jul 2005 04:45
That's fine, JessTicular. It's an awesome site - I've used it several times to find out about commands I can't figure out (or that I think might be bugged).

-Xol

dsuna
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 28th Jul 2005
Location:
Posted: 28th Jul 2005 18:42
I tried to add a code example but got the error
XML Parsing Error: no element found Location: http://jessticular.dbspot.com/index.php?nav=dbhelp&subnav=post&command=1019 Line Number 69, Column 63:Error, Couldn't Process Query: Table 'dbhelpuser' is read only

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-04-28 10:03:07
Your offset time is: 2024-04-28 10:03:07