The Dink Network

First off, which version do you use? Standard v1.08? FreeDink? Aural+ (the best one)? DinkHD? If no one uses the latter two then I won't bother digging up licenses to provide better music, or make every little thing compatible with v1.09.

Second, is there a way to use get_version() or some other method to check if the player is running Aural+? If not, I may just add versions later on for the people who use Aural+ (the awesome people) so they can listen to awesome music instead of MIDIs I scrounge up on the interweb.

We really need a v1.09 that's separate from DinkHD.

I agree with you on almost all points. v1.08 Aural+ is the best version, and the one I use. And it would definitely be nice to have a a little more standardization.

On the other hand, personally I'm not that bothered about just using midis, but for anyone who want to use something other than that, it's kind of a mess.

You should endeavour to make your scripts compatible with 1.09 as it has the strictest DinkC parser and most new people these days are using either it, or freedink. If you're developing for an outdated and unmaintained engine release, all it means is that in the future nobody will be able to play your mod.

Using Aural+ myself, because my d-mod requires it

I really would like to use DinkHD as my main engine, but quite a few people seem to not want to use it so... Not going to develop for that just yet.

I'd use Aural if it showed up in my Dink directory.

@Paul: I'm not that worried about using MIDIs either. However, it's really disappointing finding a song that would go perfectly with a scene in your D-Mod and then realizing that the MIDI version either doesn't exist or isn't very good.

@YeOldeToast: I know that the majority of new Dink players are using DinkHD, and I'm going to do my best to make it as enjoyable as playing in other versions. However, I'm developing this D-Mod with everyone here in mind, not everyone who's on their mobile devices, which is why I want to know how many people here use DinkHD. Even it's just a small number, I'll work harder on making more features compatible.

@Kyle: Do you just have a message at the beginning, or did you find a way to check if they're using it?

@Kerrek: You should just be able to download it from the link given here to the same directory as your D-Mods and set DFarc to look for it (Edit -> Options -> Set Dink Application, or something like that).

EDIT: Toast, stop using Zeddex's avatar >_<

I have attempted to set it. It's in the right directory, it just can't find it I guess.

EDIT: Gawd why does it matter if its' x86 or not. I fixed it.

"endeavour to make your scripts compatible with 1.09 as it has the strictest DinkC parser"

This.

"in the future nobody will be able to play your mod"

But not so much this, because engine upgrades don't happen all that often and 1.08 doesn't need much maintenance.

I'd say make your D-Mod compatible with all versions if possible. If it works with DinkHD it should work with anything else I think.
The only thing to watch out for is the keycodes which differ a lot between each version as we found out recently.

As for music, release your D-Mod with MIDIs and make a separate MP3 (and .ogg for FreeDink) pack maybe. That way anyone can use it.

Edit:
" is there a way to use get_version() or some other method to check if the player is running Aural+?"
Unfortunately not Aural+ is 1.08

@Kyle: Do you just have a message at the beginning, or did you find a way to check if they're using it?

I only check whether 32bit is turned on. The aural+ requirement is in the description of the d-mod when launched through the frontend. I would also provide another warning when I finally release it

So in what ways is DinkHD stricter? I don't think I've ever heard about this. Anything major I should look out for?

Interested in this as well.

The only thing I can think of right now is a bug in if statements:

If you have a say() where the string ends with an exclamation mark after an if then it will be ignored.
eg:

//Dink says nothing!
if (&var == 123)
  say_stop("Banana!", 1);

You can avoid this by using braces, even though you normally wouldn't need to for one line.

//This works
if (&var == 123)
{
  say_stop("Banana!", 1);
}

//So does this
if (&var == 123)
  say_stop("Banana", 1);

Also I think visual things act funny sometimes - I had problems with Broken Windows in Dink HD but I don't remember what they were now. Try playing it and see what happens, I think part of the entering into Windows sequence doesn't work properly or something.

What the...

Exclamation marks? Seriously? Just... just... wow.

ah, toast. i See i have a fan... Its a bit creepy but ok...

When you said "stricter" I thought it was going to like require semicolons somewhere you could squeak by without them before. Not just more weird bugs.

But this is the second bug that braces fix, so I just suppose using them all the time could be regarded as "best practice".