i want a mouse to operate it like any modern application. i'm really not very interested in learning esoteric keystrokes vs. operating an intuitive interface.
especially when there isn't a real manual.
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png)
Originally Posted by
james
What would you want a mouse to do in LaserBoy?
If your answer is to pick items out of drop down menus, well..... that's what the keyboard does.
LaserBoy is at its core a rather complex memory model.
It can contain frames each of arbitrary size in a set of frames of arbitrary size with relationships to a set of palettes of arbitrary size or 24-bit color.
LaserBoy knows how to render a (raster) bitmap of this memory object based on the current state of a set of variables and what it is currently doing, like the state of the camera (zoom, pan, rotation) and the settings for the visual attributes like vertices, blanking, indices, palettes, cursors, etc.
Every time you hit a key LB renders the current state and puts it in the application window.
Everything you see in the app window is rendered in the code, including that lovely 8 pixel square font.
LaserBoy started life as a Linux console application that used to render directly into the video card RAM. It actually took two computers to run it. A Linux machine with a high resolution video card and monitor and another computer to shell into that for a command prompt menu system.
My video card API (ezfb) only works in Linux and only with kernels built with frame buffer support.
So I converted the whole thing to build on top of SDL. SDL gives me a window. It gives me the address of the first pixel in that window and the bits per pixel. It also gives me keyboard events and some timers for showing animated frames on the screen.
James.
suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.