[hseiken]

I'm just curious if there is a way to access extended characters when editing a board/VLayer? Or do I have to just juggle what I'm currently working on with importing characters into the first 255 and make sure I keep it written down somewhere what characters/bank those things end up on when putting the game together? Also, does it require a specific mode?

Thanks for any help.

[Lachesis]

Currently extended character sets can only be accessed by unbound sprites (via the spr#_offset counter) or by Robotic commands (e.g. COPY CHAR "(256)" "(32)").

[MicMotorhead]

It would be amazing if the character sets could be used for regular board editing, but also a very big change.

My only problem with using multiple .chr files is that I tend to lose track and screw something up!

I actually prefer just using one single set for an entire game and then try and be clever with how it's put together, which is working out well for me.
For example, the two characters that make up the trunk of my pine trees also makes up the top of my pine trees. The middle two characters of the pine trees also make up the sides of cave entrances.

[hseiken]

Lachesis, on 11 May 2020 - 10:49 PM, said:

Currently extended character sets can only be accessed by unbound sprites (via the spr#_offset counter) or by Robotic commands (e.g. COPY CHAR "(256)" "(32)").

So tonight I finally got around to messing with COPY CHAR and it seems to loop back to 0-255 again..i.e. copy char 257 32 puts a smiley face in the space slot. Am I missing something?

I was hoping try some fun stuff of using the extended character pages as sprite sheets to copy onto the one that actually displays. I figure that's how the cool kids do it.

EDIT: Okay something bugged me about what you said and what was happening on my end because you would be the person to definitively say something and how it should work..so that meant something else might be happening. Because of the bug where I can't edit board names on the newest MZX, I've been using the previous one (with the lamer help file, sadly! lol) but using char 257 looped there, but on the latest freshest one, it works as you described. So...I guess I'll use the older version to sort my boards and the newer one to get my experiments under way. />

This post has been edited by hseiken: 27 October 2024 - 06:38 AM

[Lachesis]

hseiken, on 27 October 2024 - 12:32 AM, said:

So tonight I finally got around to messing with COPY CHAR and it seems to loop back to 0-255 again..i.e. copy char 257 32 puts a smiley face in the space slot. Am I missing something?

Yes, you are missing something.

1) The syntax "(257)" was not a mistake. The robot editor will wrap char parameters to 0-255, so using an expression here is absolutely mandatory.
2) The world has to have been saved or created in a version from 2.90 or onward for extended character sets to be usable.

[hseiken]

When you say 'expression' does that mean in quotes?

So like, "(257)"?

[hseiken]

Just going to keep this going since it's character related but a different question.

So I'm going through 16Color's archive and I found a pack of character sets in XBIN format which one of those BBS/demoscene formats blah blah. The point is, I renamed them to CHR and they did import into MZX, but unfortunately, there's an offset problem I think? Or an order?

Here's a test file for someone to load. Just rename to .chr and import the whole thing into your current character set and notice it's shifted.


https://16colo.rs/pa...nt-ntby-bwoi.xb

Is there a way to fix this?

[Vacek]

hseiken, on 27 December 2024 - 06:02 AM, said:

Just going to keep this going since it's character related but a different question.

So I'm going through 16Color's archive and I found a pack of character sets in XBIN format which one of those BBS/demoscene formats blah blah. The point is, I renamed them to CHR and they did import into MZX, but unfortunately, there's an offset problem I think? Or an order?

Here's a test file for someone to load. Just rename to .chr and import the whole thing into your current character set and notice it's shifted.


https://16colo.rs/pa...nt-ntby-bwoi.xb

Is there a way to fix this?

The font you’ve attached has a 8×16 pixel character size, as opposed to MZX’s 8×14. It can’t be loaded into MZX without processing it further.

An easy way to solve this programmatically at the cost of loss of some detail would be to process the file in 16-byte blocks, dropping two bytes from each such block (then perhaps retouching by hand, if desired).

(Incidentally, it also has a non-ASCII-compatible character ordering, but that’s easier to fix, and depending on the desired use may not be at all necessary.)

Would you like me to do this conversion, manual steps included?


--Vacek

[hseiken]

That difference is what probably broke it, the 16 vs. 14. There's no need to convert it, it wouldn't be the actual intended characters at that point. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Lachesis]

Lachesis, on 11 May 2020 - 08:49 PM, said:

Currently extended character sets can only be accessed by unbound sprites (via the spr#_offset counter) or by Robotic commands (e.g. COPY CHAR "(256)" "(32)").

Update on this, the disassembler in 2.93c will preserve extended char numbers in the commands CHAR EDIT, SCROLL CHAR, FLIP CHAR, and COPY CHAR now. So you can enter e.g.

copy char 256 to 32

and it will disassemble back to

copy char 256 to ' '

without causing any issues.