Recent Posts

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 10
31
Programming / Re: setup strings for window list widget of xcenter
« Last post by Alfredo Fernández Díaz on April 12, 2026, 03:57:47 pm »
Well, I tend to visit every other day at most, and due to the TZ difference I often do when no one's up to help with the server problems of the day, so do not be surprised if you only hear from me here once a week -- and that would be on a good week ; (

Anyway, thanks for being there. I'll give one last shot to reading the docs just a little bit and open a new thread with something more or less intelligent. If I can't find the time, something dumb it will be ; )
32
Programming / Re: setup strings for window list widget of xcenter
« Last post by Neil Waldhauer on April 12, 2026, 03:26:57 pm »
I don't mind answering questions about Suntan Special. Either here or in a separate thread is OK. I usually visit OS/2 World once per day, so be patient.
33
General Discussion / Re: Request for Help: New Hobbes Testing
« Last post by Alexco on April 12, 2026, 07:29:39 am »
Hello Alexco, welcome to the forum.

The text says that, but there is no plans to remove any thing from Hobbes just because it is from OS/2 1.x and 2.x. All the stuff that was on the NSMU Hobbes and HobbesArchive will remain there.

We discussed some time the policy to maintain only the latest version of a software on hobbes, with the exception of libraries, drivers and development tools. Some other exception may apply (like fixpacks) and we can discuss it.


Hi Martin,
thanks and thanks for the clarification. If I may add some points:
- I see a lot of files having a description, only some files where it is missing (you already mentioned that)
- You have a "version" field, but it is mostly unused. But the version is most of the time already part of the title of the description. Can't this be filled in automatically in this case?
- Maybe it would be worth to add a "release date" (and fill in if a date is available) and change "date" to "upload date"?

- and perhaps for a later phase. I'm also in retro computing and some of the file bases have that (in my opinion) nifty feature that they group software by title. So, e.g. if you search for "Canon" in printer drivers, you would get a list with only the latest "Canon_BJ" and "Canon_CaPSL" releases. If you then click on one of these, you can see the older versions as well, below the latest version as a list. Something which is done very nicely here https://files.mega65.org/html/main.php.
- and please leave the current design untouched, it always feels like home visiting Hobbes  ;)
34
Programming / Re: Rewrite Embellish?!
« Last post by Dave Yeo on April 12, 2026, 05:42:26 am »
I'm compiling this with VAC 3.08, using the supplied makefiles. Just used GCC to see if better error reporting.
My VAC 3.08 install, kindly donated by Arca Noae, doesn't have lnkods50.exe. I know very little about VAC 3.
35
Games / Re: PrBoom+
« Last post by Alfredo Fernández Díaz on April 12, 2026, 03:13:24 am »
No, what I meant both native programs use sound via SDL2. PrBoom+ begins to stutter, Dosbox-X doesn't.
So it will be next to impossible to compare exactly what SDL2 sound stuff PrBoom+ uses and how vs whatever running inside DosBox/X : (

Quote
Happy demon hunting.
I wish -- while I'm still trying to adjust mouse sensitivity and controls to get a decent gameplay I can't seem to bind the Pause key to pausing, or insert to open doors/use (PrBoom+ reports that as 'junk' and surprise, it doesn't work), which is kind of annoying...
36
Games / Re: SimCity
« Last post by Dave Yeo on April 12, 2026, 02:41:47 am »
The OS/2 version was always unstable but did run. Perhaps it is SMP unsafe. Try running it with only one CPU.
The DOS version used to run better, used all my PAS16 sound card capabilities by also using the SB part. It had to be installed so that the program object had the right parameter, which I now forget.
37
Games / SimCity
« Last post by Glenn on April 12, 2026, 01:57:53 am »
Hello all,

Does anyone have an idea about how to run SimCity (2000?) for OS/2 on ArcaOS in a VM?

It is part of the software programs that either hang when starting up or just do not start (ending up with another section in popuplog.os2 but nothing else), such as the DUX dictionaries (AHD, ..).
38
Applications / Re: WeirdX and Java
« Last post by Glenn on April 12, 2026, 01:53:22 am »
Thanks all for the tips. I have had eCS since the beta before v1 (unfortunately I do not have the beta CD anymore and never made an ISO out of it, also lost my v1.0 CDs). I should be able to install a v1.1 or 1.2 on a VM and extract the right files and registry information out of it.
39
Programming / Re: [Classic Rexx] Translation database
« Last post by Alfredo Fernández Díaz on April 11, 2026, 12:01:19 pm »
Thank you for correcting the English translation!
You're welcome, but that's just one first step, I expect this will have to be refined as I get familiar with the whole thing ^^
More on this all throughout the post.

Quote
Very good points.
The script knows nothing about specific locations of data, but lists and scans the whole cd-images for "known" file formats to extract (see example image).

So how can one do anything useful with such rcdata, while other rcdata contain something else?

Could you write 3 of functions for it?
1. Read a portion of data from the file (name) provided and sample the extracted data to determine if the file contain data that can be extracted in an orderly fashion
2. Read and if needed separate data from garbage to be entered to the translation database
3. If present in the target language, extract the equivalent translation to complete the from-to translation pair, otherwise it will translate online and indicate that in the database.

rcdata as file format allow for a vast variety of content.

I'd need structural info to know where to add it to the large script:
Would your code perhaps handle data as "osapplet"? (or suggest other, one per file-format-handler-function to call)
Some file formats contain translation pairs, others in separate files with the same base name, while yet other on the same location in each cd-image. I assume that these rcdata text is of the latter.

Mmmh, let start with the coding part. IBM's RCDATA blobs which are just heaps of strings are very easy to parse. Example: save the strings.cmd attached, extract the famous resource #5000 from PMWPMRI.DLL with "resmgr -x PMWPMRI.DLL 5000 mystrings.bin" and process with  "strings.cmd mystrings.bin" or "strings.cmd mystrings.bin > mystrings.txt".

As for the question of what string blobs to parse like this, or leave alone, I have no easy answer, there may be none. You could try some heuristics (f.e. if an rcdata blob contains only text data, i.e. charcodes >= 32 strings followed by short null terminator runs --ideally single nulls, mybe two at the end-- it very likely is a string "heap"), but not even that will tell you much about what to do with what you get. By this I mean that after processing you could still have anything: a string array where stuff will be picked by index (so check for equal array length on both sides of the translation), or some table. For example, take glocmri.dll. As all MRIs, this says 'translate me'. However, there you will find an rcdata string blob that will translate to a table of language codes and names; one column should be translated, the other not. How to tell programmatically? How to tell it is even a table?

Quote
trn_es.txt changed id 47 set to: Espa¤ol
OK, but you did it on an editor that changes OS/2 newlines (CR+LF) to unix-style ones, please see the attached pic and do it again ; )

Anyway, this brings me back and full circle again onto the most important question, as often overlooked in translation projects.

How would I know that message #47 should translate as "Español" and not "English"? There is no way even the best translator in the world would, except by familiarity with the project, knowing where translations will end exactly, and probably having a couple of goes at it.

The problem is, stuff like the above, which any translation database project will inevitably keep bumping into, is extremely difficult to handle, let alone get right, in some generic way -- it will take time and familiarity with project specifics, so please take this is as a very friendly warning to be patient and persevere. We'll get stuff out of the way, one step at a time. : )
40
Programming / Re: setup strings for window list widget of xcenter
« Last post by Alfredo Fernández Díaz on April 11, 2026, 11:49:11 am »
Doug,

multiple XCenters can have different real IDs too -- another little known XWP feature is that it lets you adjust the IDs of all objects, in the Details... sub-dialog of the Icon tab in their properties notebook. Simply alt+MB1 click on their set object ID (or "none set"), or use whatever key combination you have assigned to renaming files, and you're good to go.

So, if you really want to, and take care to adjust two XCenter IDs, you can operate cleanly on any of them with setup strings. On the subject of INI files, parsing, etc., for doing stuff programmatically on objects like the XCenter via setup strings, the most obvious way is REXX, so while you're writing your code you could add a few lines to encode / decode a simple, plain text config file and have setup strings nicely laid out there. However, you really only have a main setup string and level 1 sub-strings for all widgets, so all you need to do is encode all sub-string characters that would be interpreted as split points for key-value pairs in the main one (i.e. "=", ";").

Neil,

I have been specifically avoiding to contact you about using SunTan until I could sit to read the documentation (sorry, I couldn't wrap my head around the program at the first go). If you don't mind me asking stupid questions (i.e. pre-RTFM) I can open a new thread on that : )
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 10