The Dink Network

Oh Hai (Possible Update)

PlayThis

January 22nd 2012, 01:07 AM
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Paul
Peasant He/Him United States
 
So I was looking through some old files and noticed I had a half-finished version of PlayThis laying around. (Does anyone even remember PlayThis?) After checking that the Dink Network still exists (to my delight and mild surprise), I decided to finish it.

This version is redone from scratch in my favorite language, AutoHotkey.

Anyway, it's a bit smoother. You no longer have to manually set up the file association. But now I wonder if it'll even work with all these new fangled Windows 7s and Dink Hi-Ds and Windinker whatchamacallits people are using nowadays.

So I was wondering if a couple folks could give it a test run, and report back what, if anything it works with, and what it doens't work with.

PlayThis 4.0

I'll update the file officially if seems to work well enough that anybody would want it.
January 22nd 2012, 02:20 AM
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Hah, PlayThis! I remember.

It works fine for me on Windows 7. Tried editing with regular Dinkedit, Windinkedit Plus and Windinkedit Plus 2, those work fine too.

It doesn't really work with Dink HD, though. You can set PlayThis to use the Dink HD exe, but that just launches Dink HD, not the specific dmod you're trying to run with PlayThis.
January 22nd 2012, 03:56 AM
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Hello again!

Works on Win XP too, wasn't sure how to use it at first and just double-clicked which makes explorer hang and need restarting. Might just be my dying laptop though

Looks like a useful thing, I'd probably use it
January 22nd 2012, 05:02 AM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Always good to see old Dinkers still hanging around.
January 22nd 2012, 05:43 AM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
Hehe, another veteran posts on the forum.
January 22nd 2012, 10:26 AM
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Paul
Peasant He/Him United States
 
Well that's a little better than I expected. So am I right that Dink HD doesn't actually work with any front-ends? It basically has it's own front-end built in instead, right?

It definitely shouldn't hang Windows Explorer though, Sparrowhawk. But you say you did get it working? I'm not sure I understand, because "just double-clicking" is indeed how you're supposed to install it.

Edit: Just fixed a bug where it fails to close properly if you cancel the config window. I'm not sure if that could be what you meant. Also put in a warning if you try to run it from inside a zip file, and fixed the icon it gives .diz files (you'll have to do the "Set (or Repair) Association" button to update this.) Anyway, you can redownload from the same place.
January 22nd 2012, 12:17 PM
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"So am I right that Dink HD doesn't actually work with any front-ends? It basically has it's own front-end built in instead, right?"

Right.

To clarify on my problem:
I dropped the exe in the main Dink folder and double clicked it - Explorer stopped responding.
Dropped in a D-Mod folder and tried again - same result.
Dragged the .diz on top of it - hung for a little while then worked. Worked fine this way afterwards and works fine with opening the .diz directly with it.

It's probably my laptop, wouldn't worry about it unless it happens to someone else too. I'm not too bothered either as I have a new laptop, just haven't put Dink on it yet
January 22nd 2012, 02:44 PM
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Paul
Peasant He/Him United States
 
OK, I think I have an decent guess which part caused it to lock up. Can you help me with one more test? If so, download again, and try starting it (by itself, in a new folder) while holding down Shift. This should put it in kind of a debug/fallback mode and skip the part that I think it choked on before (reading from the registry).

If that makes it work... well I still won't know why it went wrong exactly, but at least if it happens again I'll be able to tell people how they can work around it.
January 22nd 2012, 03:07 PM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Just out of interest, Paul, are you simply on a quick visit, or perhaps planning to become more active again?
January 22nd 2012, 03:13 PM
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Tried it without shift first just to see what would happen: explorer stopped responding for a minute or so and then some annoying help thing popped up, "it looks like you're writing a letter"... no wait. It works
Works faster now too, was just the first time that took a while.

Guess I was just too impatient before and killed it before it had a chance to work. Looks like I was right to get a new PC
January 22nd 2012, 03:37 PM
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Paul
Peasant He/Him United States
 
Just out of interest, Paul, are you simply on a quick visit, or perhaps planning to become more active again?

Oh, you never know. I admit I've been tinkering with some old projects and such. But I'd be lying if I said I expect to actually finish anything major. Still, I might well update some old files or knock together a romp or some such.

Guess I was just too impatient before and killed it before it had a chance to work. Looks like I was right to get a new PC

Hehe. Alright then. As long as it wasn't my fault.
January 23rd 2012, 06:44 AM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
Hey, nice to see you again.
And I do seem to remember PlayThis... I think I used it for a while until I figured out that using shortcuts is even faster.

I gave the program a try and got a number of issues:

- I tried to set the file association from the options menu. While it did remove the association with notepad it didn't associate the program with .DIZ files. After setting PlayThis as the default program manually it couldn't re-associate .DIZ files with notepad again either.

- The sentence "All dmod.diz files should now open with PlayThis.Other .diz files will be forwarded to Notepad." has a space missing. (/me is nitpicking)

- Whenever I press 'edit' DinkEdit is opened, I tried setting WinDinkEdit as the editor, but that didn't change anything.

Note: I'm using windows 7

EDIT: Could my problems be related to me putting the PlayThis.exe in a rather obscure location?
January 23rd 2012, 11:18 AM
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Paul
Peasant He/Him United States
 
- I tried to set the file association from the options menu. While it did remove the association with notepad it didn't associate the program with .DIZ files. After setting PlayThis as the default program manually it couldn't re-associate .DIZ files with notepad again either.

Hmm, this is the kind of problem I was really hoping wouldn't happen. You sort of lost me on that last sentence though. Anyway, I have a hunch this might have something to do with permissions and such (which I understand are a bit stricter in Windows 7). Any chance you could try running it as admin or whatever (if you haven't already)?

- The sentence "All dmod.diz files should now open with PlayThis.Other .diz files will be forwarded to Notepad." has a space missing. (/me is nitpicking)

At least that one's easy to fix.

- Whenever I press 'edit' DinkEdit is opened, I tried setting WinDinkEdit as the editor, but that didn't change anything.

Huh, that was working, I think I must have broke it while trying to fix something else.

EDIT: Could my problems be related to me putting the PlayThis.exe in a rather obscure location?

It shouldn't, though I can't swear that it wouldn't matter on Windows 7 with all the kludgy stuff it does.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, I have a couple ideas to try out.
January 23rd 2012, 07:09 PM
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Paul
Peasant He/Him United States
 
Alright, I've got another experimental version. I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone who had trouble getting it to register before could give this a try (especially metatarasal).

Instructions:
Download Again, extract and launch PlayThis while holding Shift. This puts you in "debug mode", indicated by a ! on the title bar. Now click the "Set (or Repair) Association" button, and you'll get a prompt for which method to use. Enter 1, 2 or 3. Number 1 is the old method, so if it didn't work before it probably still won't.

So let me know which, if any works. (Please check after each you try, since once it starts working, it will presumably keep working.)

Obviously this is a goofy interface, but if I can find one way that works for everybody then I'll change it to use that all the time.

I also fixed the missing space and inability to save settings (such as editor path).
August 1st 2012, 01:22 AM
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Paul
Peasant He/Him United States
 
I'm working on a slightly improved version of this. I added support for any number editors/game exes. The most obvious use would be so you can open your d-mod in either DinkEdit or WinDinkedit. This feature is slightly hidden, to avoid overwhelming new users with too many options. You have to click one of the tiny blue pluses on the options screen.

Anyway, before I upload it officially, I'd apreciate it if someone could give it a quick test drive to make sure it doesn't totally go boom or anything... Same download location as before.