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June 3rd 2020, 04:33 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Robj:
The 2.0 version of your version checking software is well written, nicely documented and easy to install and use. Nice work! Over the years, you have done much to augment the growth of the Dink Network and our list of dmods.

However, as far as I can tell...
#1 No one is officially maintaining the linux version of freedink right now.
#2 The official "Ubuntu Software" application (at least for releases/versions 16.04 and 18.04) right now installs dfarc 3.12 and Dink Smallwood 1.08[x] of the Dink Engine.
#3 Your version checking software reports that this is an outdated version of freedink and asks us to install a later version from dinknetwork.com.

The way I see it, despite the fact that the majority of the dmods on dinknetwork.com work well with the above mentioned linux setup, anyone who uses your "Version Checker" software in a dmod will be excluding all of those who use an older version of the dink engine, which is (I assume) almost all of the linux user community (at this time). So perhaps this means your "version checker" logic should not force users to abandon even trying to use the Dink Engine when greeted by the "You are running an outdated version of Free Dink/DinkHD. Please update and then try again! You can get the current version at The Dink Network (www.dinknetwork.com)" message. Perhaps a warning that a particular dmod MAY or MAY NOT be compatible would be better for encouraging growth of the Dink community?

Maybe someday, someone will (like Beuc) take on the task of maintaining the dink engine for the two major linux environments (ubuntu and fedora). But so far that has not happened.

Of course, the *source* for freedink 109.6 *is* available on dinknetwork.com; but as linux use has grown over the years, it has relied on a substantial part of the user base not being technical enough to download, compile, debug and install a debian or fedora version of this software. And even if they are skilled enough to do that, they are likely (IMHO) to wonder if it is worth the trouble when there are other linux freeware games that can be just installed and run.

I have a win32 WINE installation running on my linux platform. I can (sometimes) run Dink engine HD V1.91 on it. When I install your vcheck directory to where this version of the Dink engine is running from, it loads your Version Checker sceen, displays "Dink Smallwood HD 1.91" at the bottom of the graphics/title-01.bmp screen and allows me to start and sucessfully run your two screen small demo program. Looking at "**SECTION 3" of your "readme readme readme.txt" file, I'm not sure if this is a version of the dink engine that you consider outmoded or not.

if (&vcheck == 107)  //Dink Smallwood 1.07 is in use
if (&vcheck == 108) //Dink Smallwood 1.08 is in use
if (&vheck == 109) //An outdated versio of DinkHD is in use
if (&vcheck == 110) //Current version of DinkHD is in use
if (&vcheck == 1084) //An outdated version of FreeDink is in use
if (&vcheck == 1096) //Current Version of FreeDink is in use


I have a few questions for you.

1) Is the HD 1.91 version of the Dink engine considered "current"?

2) Does this version appear in the above list?

3) If this HD 1.91 is not current, am I to assume that https://www.dinknetwork.com/file/gnu_freedink/ should be used to install the 109.6 version? At present, that version does NOT run in my linux WINE environment.

4) What version of windoze would I need to try to emulate using WINE in order to run the "current" version of freedink and/or Dink HD?

5) Is there a list of compatibility problems across all versions of the dink engine?

It would be nice if the compatibility issues could be dealt with by installing a library of DinkC modules that could be called using extern() that would (for example) subtract 1 from the "soundbank number" for any command that uses a "soundbank number" as a parameter, whenever it was necessary to do so. Code from your version checker source could be used from this library of extern() called commands to determine what code changes would be needed to keep everything compatible.

Without such a compatibility library and/or list of incompatibilities, I'm afraid that otherwise, people like myself (*), could NOT continue to contribute dmods for us all to enjoy, without worrying about whether or not older DinkC code would work on newer platforms.

(*) (who [if I may humbly point out] have been producing a significant share of the new dmods that appear on this website for downloads, for a few years now)