The Dink Network

For those who are unaware, Dmod.diz files are included with D-mods for the sake of DFarc or another front end to provide a title and description to the player. They consist of simple plain text files in which the first line is your D-mod title, and the second line is generally reserved for the author's name, with subsequent lines used for copyright info and a general description. To understand this general layout requires you to open such a file and peruse it for a few seconds before replacing the lines with your own data.

Judging by the name of this, I was hoping to see some sort of slightly overweight balding man with a beard and glasses to show up when running this program who then berates me for various indiscretions that I have apparently committed on Reddit or Tumblr etc. Unfortunately that was not the case. Instead I got a command line window that asked me a few questions about what I want to put in dmod.diz on each line before quitting. At no point does it perform any input validation, so you can write just about anything in any of the fields and it won't warn you at all that "anus" is not actually a month, for instance. Afterwards, it spits out a dmod.diz file which not only includes your input across multiple lines with incredibly poor spacing and line termination but also a largely incomprehensible line from the author that ruins your new dmod.diz file completely. To add to the general irritation that underpins the gestalt of this program, the readme file is not in a standard plain text file format but instead is a WordPerfect file. Thankfully Microsoft Word can open it, assuming you'd ever want to read the absolute drivel that is exclaimed within.

It turns out that the readme is actually the real treat of "Problematic Dink Diz Pro" and somehow manages to be worse than the program itself. The author starts with a general disclaimer that he will not be responsible for any mishaps such as "Trijans"(sic) and the deletion of diz files. Apparently you're not allowed to copy it and claim it as your own either which was no doubt a terrible disappointment for millions of people around the globe. From here, it goes onto to make the absurd claim that dmod.diz files are copyrighted by RTSoft, and then goes on to provide instructions for programmers on how to run the program externally.

Throughout every aspect of exploring "Dink Diz Pro" I was in utter disbelief. Why on earth would anyone use a program like this when it provides a worse experience compared to that of a text editor? Why would a programmer want to run it from their own program when all it does is mangle the user's input by inserting the author's details in amongst what the user has typed in? Why would someone make a program like this in the first place, and why would they even consider releasing it? Why did the author name it "Problematic Dink Diz Pro" when the files are called Dmod.diz, and there's nothing professional about it? Of these, only the last question is easily answered, as it very clearly caused far more problems than it ever set out to solve.

Problematic Dink Diz Pro can be used to create Dmod.diz files easily. It asks these things and then it puts them in the file: name of D-Mod, version, the day, month and year of the D-Mod, name of author, author's email, author's website and a D-Mod description. When it creates the Dmod.diz file, it also adds things like 'Visit:' and 'Copyright'.

I opened the file in an editor and I saw this text on the second line:

Info on Problematic Dink Diz Pro send internet email to cneal@geocities.com or jeremiah.oneal@fanciful.org with the title -dmod editorclan: 4

You can't see this text because the frontend doesn't display a long line like that. When you create a dmod.diz file with Problematic Dink Diz Pro, it also creates a file named Dmod.dat. The program uses it to create the final dmod.diz file because it contains all the data you entered + EOF (End Of File) and the name of the author of this program. Jeremiah placed his name everywhere in this program.
Now the program works fine but nothing more than that. You have to press enter twice after entering data, once is good enough for me . This also results that you can enter data one line under the line it asks you but this isn't added to the dmod.diz file. The program also doesn't have any checking, you can enter whatever you like (like text when it asks for a day, month or year) so it expects you to enter the correct data when it asks you. I don't think that people who use this program are stupid but checking what the user entered could help him/her even more.

Overall: Creating a dmod.diz file can be easier with this program but a normal texteditor is also good enough. A texteditor has advantages because with Problematic Dink Diz Pro you can't use enter when entering the description. The creator of this program has named it Pro but I don't see why, all it does is creating a dmod.diz - I know, that's what it should do but hey, for a Pro program you need to do more!. And why he named it Problematic...I can't tell ya, I haven't found any bugs or problems, but oh well, creating a dmod.diz ain't problematic anymore, maybe that's what Jeremiah means . Final words here: after using this program, I saw a file named diz.html on my desktop: Thank you for using Problematic Dink Diz Pro. You may send a donation to me if you like the program. Then you can enter if you like to give a donation of 1, 2, 5, 10 or 20 dollars - ahem, well, guess I don't need to tell you what I did...

woohoho a dink.diz creator. and its like notepad, but u can only open .diz files. whet si the point with this thing if you can open the dink.diz file in the original notepad that is following with windows.

Are people really so bored that they bother to create this kind of files? And furthermore, to ACTUALLY RELEASE THEM??? I guess so.

This program allows dmod authors to easily create dmod.diz files, and does it by asking them some questions. yay. This program is named "Problematic Dink Diz Pro", yet there is nothing problematic involved in the creation of dink.diz files, and nothing pro in this file.

Overally, although this program works fine, it has no use at all.

Purpose: This programme lets you easily create dmod.diz files.

Installation: Just extract the zipfile and the programme is ready to run.

Use: Run the programme and you will see a DOS interface. You can enter the information that you want, such as the D-mod name, your name, the date you want in the dmod.diz file, a description of the D-mod and so on. After you have entered the last information, the dmod.diz file will automatically be created. A .dat file is also created at the same time, but you will not need that.

Good: It does what is says and it is easy to use.

Not so good: If you use Skeleton B to start a new D-mod with, then you have already a dmod.diz file in the folder. Adjusting that one is easier and quicker then downloading, unzipping and running this file.

Overall: A programme that does what is says it does.

Fit for: If you want to use a programme to make your dmod.diz file.

This utility is simple but not very appealing. Yes it can create a Dmod.diz file, but so do many others such as Cedit by someone, and they have a better interface.

It comes with a .wps file, not sure what format that is, and can't be bothered trying to find out. A readme.txt file would've been better.

Ultimately I just copy one from a previous DMOD and edit it in notepad.

Not much use for this I'm afraid.

4 out of 10