menu batch file questions

Mezlo · 2014-05-13

I'm running TCC 12.11 and TCC/LE 13.06. I'm working on re-writing a game batch menu system I wrote several years ago and have 2 questions.

First, is it possible to change the text color in a section of the window without changing the text? For example, after the menu is onscreen, can I change the color of all text in the area from row 8, col 20 to row 12, col 50?

Second, is it possible to reference a variable name when expanding another variable? Say I have variables named "optA", "optB"and "key". If key=A, can I somehow reference "opt%key" and have it return the value of "optA"?

Lastly, I know that @ASCII will return the ascii value of a given character. How about the reverse? Given an ascii value, how do I return the character?

Any help with this would be appreciated. FWIW, I've been using 4DOS/4NT/TCC since 4DOS v3 or v4 and used to know a lot of little tips and tricks like this. However, I don't use it all that much anymore so have forgotten most of it. That's what happens when you get old. :)

vefatica · 2014-05-13

1. No
2. %[opt%key]
3. %@CHAR[N]

Mezlo · 2014-05-13

Thanks for the help vefatica. #3 should have been obvious, I was just overlooking it in the help pages.

samintz · 2014-05-14

Vince's #1 is semi-incorrect. The SCRPUT command allows you to write text at specific screen locations in a specific color.
So if you know the text you can re-write it in a different color. You can also use the SCREEN command and use ANSI escape sequences to set the color.
This writes "Hello World" in white fg on green bg at row 40 column 80

Code:

scrput 40 80 bri white on green Hello World
screen 40 80 ^e[37;42;1mHello World

JohnQSmith · 2014-05-14

samintz said:
So if you know the text you can re-write it in a different color.

The @READSCR function will let you get the existing text to be recolored; you'll have to loop to read several lines.

Steve Fabian · 2014-05-14

But beware of special characters you need to read, e.g., percent signs (%). SETDOS option /X is your friend,,,
BTW, I remembered there is a @READSCR function, but had overlooked it in Variable Functions Listed by Category - it's only in the System status category, which is only remotely related.

Mezlo · 2014-05-14

@samintz - I've been using screen/scrput to generate the menus but it makes them hard to read within the batch file itself. That's why I was hoping I could output the menu in one color then go back and colorize sections of it.

@JohnQSmith & @Steve Fabian - Thanks for the suggestion and warning. I'll take a look at @READSCR and see if that will accomplish what I want. It sounds promising.

In case anyone's interested I've attached a screenshot of one of the menus.

Charles Dye · 2014-05-14

Heh. That brings back memories. I once spent unconscionable hours at work "testing the network" with those. Wasn't entirely work-unrelated, either. Back in the days when cache memory was provided by discrete SRAM chips, I found that Doom did a better job at finding flaky chips than the expensive memory-test software we bought.

It wouldn't be hard to write functions to read, fill, save, and restore color attributes from the screen buffer. I'll let Vince have first crack at that project, as it looks like a natural fit for 4Console.

Mezlo · 2014-05-14

@Charles Dye - I figured somebody would get a chuckle out of that. :)

Steve Fabian · 2014-05-14

Mezlo said:
@samintz - I've been using screen/scrput to generate the menus but it makes them hard to read within the batch file itself. That's why I was hoping I could output the menu in one color then go back and colorize sections of it.
...I'll take a look at @READSCR and see if that will accomplish what I want. It sounds promising.

I looked at the menu. With each of several sections of the screen containing unrelated menu segments, I would write a batch file which has parameters: foreground (text) color, background color. top eow, left column, start selection code (1,6,A,etc), number of selectable texts, list of selection strings. Invoke this file for each section. Makes it much more readable!

Mezlo · 2014-05-14

@Steve Fabian - Here's how I'm doing it as of last night:

Code:

set FG1=^e[31;1m
set FG3=^e[33;1m
set FG7=^e[37;0m
set menu1=Ultimate Doom
set menu1game=ultimate-doom
set menu2=DOOM II
set menu2game=doom2
set menuA=Chex Quest 3
set menuB=Doom 64: Absolution+Outcast
...
screen  8  3 %FG7%1) %FG1%%menu1
screen  9  3 %FG7%2) %FG1%%menu2
screen  8 46 %FG7%A) %FG3%%menuA
screen  9 46 %FG7%B) %FG3%%menuB
...
inkey /C /K"123456789ABCDEFGHIJQ" /P /X /W20 %%choice
set game=%[menu%choice%game]
if "%game%"=="" goto start
set gamename=%[menu%choice]
set center=%@eval[(80-%@len[%gamename])/2]
scrput 20 %center bri gre on bla %gamename

Of course, there's a lot more to the file but that's the menu generation stuff. I used to generate it 1 line at a time similar to:
screen 8 3 %FG7%1) %FG1%Ultimate Doom %FG7%A) %FG3%Chex Quest 3
but that was a PITA getting everything aligned, not to mention re-arranging items.

I like your idea of a separate batch file to generate the menu. In fact, I was already thinking about the best way to do something like that.

Steve Fabian · 2014-05-14

I will respond in a little while.

Joe Caverly · 2014-05-14

Mezlo said:
First, is it possible to change the text color in a section of the window without changing the text? For example, after the menu is onscreen, can I change the color of all text in the area from row 8, col 20 to row 12, col 50?

This is a bar menu batch file that I made a while back.

http://jpsoft.com/forums/threads/plugin-status-load-unload-via-bar-menu.1852/

Not exactly what you are looking for, but it does show how I change the colours on the bar menu. It may give you a few ideas for your own batch file.

Joe

Mezlo · 2014-05-15

So last night I spent almost an hour troubleshooting not having any sound in Doomsday. Long story short, I saw Joe's reply before I left work and saw unset * in his script and thought that'd be a good idea. I remoted into my home PC, added it to the file and saved, then disconnected and promptly forgot about it. Later when I got home I started making more changes and suddenly I didn't have any sound in Doomsday! I eventually remembered adding the unset command, removed it, and sound started working again. :)

Charles Dye · 2014-05-15

Mezlo said:
So last night I spent almost an hour troubleshooting not having any sound in Doomsday. Long story short, I saw Joe's reply before I left work and saw unset * in his script and thought that'd be a good idea. I remoted into my home PC, added it to the file and saved, then disconnected and promptly forgot about it. Later when I got home I started making more changes and suddenly I didn't have any sound in Doomsday! I eventually remembered adding the unset command, removed it, and sound started working again. :)

BLASTER ?

Mezlo · 2014-05-15

No, there's not a BLASTER variable, just the standard Windows ones so I'm not sure which one caused the issue. I thought it was a Doomsday issue so I uninstalled and reinstalled, reset all settings, etc trying to fix it. At least it gave me something else to do besides mowing. :)

Anyway, tonight I think I might try moving all of my menu* variables into a menu array instead, although I'm not sure what advantage/disadvantage that might provide (other than letting me play with arrays). :)

Joe Caverly · 2014-05-15

Mezlo said:
So last night I spent almost an hour troubleshooting not having any sound in Doomsday. Long story short, I saw Joe's reply before I left work and saw unset * in his script and thought that'd be a good idea. I remoted into my home PC, added it to the file and saved, then disconnected and promptly forgot about it. Later when I got home I started making more changes and suddenly I didn't have any sound in Doomsday! I eventually remembered adding the unset command, removed it, and sound started working again. :)

Note also that I begin most of my batch files with SETLOCAL and end them with ENDLOCAL. That way, when the batch file is finished, unset * is undone.

From the help file;

Code:

UNSET can be used in a batch file, in conjunction with the SETLOCAL and ENDLOCAL commands, to clear the environment of variables that may cause problems for applications run from that batch file.

Just a habit that I have developed.

Joe

Mezlo · 2014-05-15

I always use SETLOCAL/ENDLOCAL as well.

Steve Fabian · 2014-05-15

I always use SETLOCAL, but as a lazy gun I trust that termination of a batch file automatically performs ENDLOCAL. In fact it is safe, because if it required the explicit ENDLOCAL but interrupted would screw up everything. But Rex made us safe from that.

Mezlo · 2014-05-15

OK, I'm going nuts. I've switched to array variables and have defined menu[49,1] through menu[55,1] like so:

Code:

unsetarray /q menu
setarray menu[100,10]
set menu[49,1]=Ultimate Doom
set menu[50,1]=DOOM II
set menu[51,1]=Final DOOM: Plutonia Experiment
set menu[52,1]=Final DOOM: TNT Evilution
set menu[53,1]=Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
set menu[54,1]=HeXen: Beyond Heretic
set menu[55,1]=HeXen: Kings of the Dark Citadel
set row=8
for /l %P in (49,1,57) (
  if defined menu[%P,1] screen %row 3 %FG7%%@char[%P]^) %FG1%%menu[%P,1]
  set row=%@inc[%row]
)

This should print something onscreen for values of %P from 49-55 and nothing when %P is 56 or 57. Instead it doesn't print anything onscreen. However, if I change it to not defined then it prints something onscreen for all values (see screen shot). It's like the logic is reversed. What am I missing to make this work as desired?

Steve Fabian · 2014-05-16

if defined reports the status of individual environment variables, not individual elements of arrays. Before arrays were invented, I had used things like menu_49 and menu_50, etc. You may want to use that approach.

Mezlo · 2014-05-16

I was tired last night when I was working on this. I woke up this morning and realized that what's happening is it isn't referencing menu[%P,1] correctly. I changed it to if not "%menu[%P,1]"=="" and it is working as expected. I always thought if defined was equivalent to that (it even says so in the help file) but apparently not in this case.

Steve Fabian · 2014-05-16

Sorry, read the 2nd paragraph of DEFINED:
Note: GOSUB variables, array variables, and internal variables do not exist in the environment, so they always fail the DEFINED test.

Mezlo · 2014-05-16

Steve Fabian said:
Sorry, read the 2nd paragraph of DEFINED:
Note: GOSUB variables, array variables, and internal variables do not exist in the environment, so they always fail the DEFINED test.

I"m running TCC 12.11. The 2nd paragraph of DEFINED states "Note: GOSUB variables and internal variables always fail the DEFINED test." There's no mention of array variables. :)
However, since I've been working on this I've been considering purchasing the upgrade but what I have works so I haven't been able to justify the cost.

Steve Fabian · 2014-05-16

Sorry, you are correct, I should check V12 and not V16, I even have an alias (driving a batch file) since V10 to do it. Apparently. even though arrays were available since the earliest TCC (build 9), nobody complained about that phrase missing before version 16. Of course, an old hat would say "not mentioned explicitly, not available".
Download the free trial, open the V16 tcmd.chm. the first chapter (after the Overview) What's new in Version 16 and subchapters for each version from 15 back to 10. If I remember correctly, each chapter is the increment to the next version. Most software uses this method so they need never be updated.
BTW, I always use the conditional expression (when DEFINED is inapplicable)

Code:

%@len[xxx] GT 0

to check instead of string matching, on the assumption that just counting characters in xxx is faster than a match, though I never validated my assumption.

MaartenG · 2016-08-11

Yesterday I found a diskette (!!) with on it a menu script I wrote a long time ago.
It's cursor driven with a built-in screensaver.

It had Goto's everywhere without any Gosub (in my defence: it was my second year of computing; still a lot to learn...)
So, the script was happily jumping around, but I was not. So I rewrote it a little.
There is still a lot of room for improvement (using Switch for example), but maybe it can give you some inspiration.

Personally, I like the

Code:

TEXT| GOSUB %ROUTINE

part: create a "database" once and use it many times for different purposes.

Down below are 2 other (short, I promise!) menu scripts I found on the same diskette.

Code:

@echo off
setlocal
pushd

REM Default menu entry
set rij=5
set kolom=45

:START
set ROUTINE=BUILDMENU
GOSUB ENTRIES


:WIJZER
scrput %rij %kolom WHI ON RED %@readscr[%rij,%kolom,23]
set screen=15
setdos /s0:0

:KLOK
   screen 1 1
   scrput 24 10  whi on bla Over %screen seconden wordt de screensaver actief ...
   SET TOETS=DUMMY
   SCRput 0 48 BRI YEL on BLU [ %_DATE   %_TIME ]
   INKEY /K" [Esc][Up][Down][Left][Right][Enter]" /W1 /P %%toets
   if "%@ASCII[%toets]"="27" GOTO STOP
   if %toets=@80 goto NEER
   if %toets=@72 goto OP
   if %toets=@75 goto LINKS
   if %toets=@77 goto RECHTS
   if %toets=@28 goto KEUZE
   set screen=%@DEC[%screen]

   REM Start Screensaver
   if %screen=0 goto scherm
GOTO KLOK


:NEER
   if %rij eq 17 goto wijzer
   scrput %rij %kolom bla on CYAN %@readscr[%rij,%kolom,23]
   set rij=%@eval[%rij+2]
goto WIJZER


:OP
   if %rij eq 3 goto wijzer
   scrput %rij %kolom bla on CYAN %@readscr[%rij,%kolom,23]
   set rij=%@eval[%rij-2]
goto WIJZER


:RECHTS
   if %rij eq 17 .and. %kolom eq 45 goto wijzer
   scrput %rij %kolom bla on cyAN %@readscr[%rij,%kolom,23]
   set rij=%@eval[%rij+2*(%kolom\40)]
   set kolom=%@eval[(30+%kolom)%%60]
goto WIJZER


:LINKS
   if %rij eq 3 .and. %kolom eq 15 goto wijzer
   scrput %rij %kolom bla on CYAN %@readscr[%rij,%kolom,23]
   set kolom=%@eval[(30+%kolom)%%60]
   set rij=%@eval[%rij-2*(%kolom\40)]
goto WIJZER


:KEUZE
   set ROUTINE=ACTIE
   GOSUB ENTRIES
GOTO START


:STOP
   SETDOS /S100:10
   UNSET TOETS
   UNSET RIJ
   UNSET KOLOM
   UNSET ROUTINE
   popd
   CLS cyan on blu
QUIT






::=============[ ROUTINES ]===========================

:ENTRIES
TEXT| GOSUB %ROUTINE
  3 15  @MAH-JONGG@ (IN SHANGHAI DE.EXE)
  5 15  @SNEAKY@ (IN SLANG1 SNEAKY.EXE)
  7 15  @FLIPPER@ (IN FLIPPER TRISTAN)
  9 15  @BLOCK OUT@ (in blockout bl)
  11 15 @KILOBLASTER@ (IN KILO CALL KILO.BAT)
  13 15 @BRIX@ (IN BRIX BRIX)
  15 15 @KLAVERJASSEN@ (IN KLAVER KLAVER)
  17 15 @MAANLANDING@ (IN MAANLAND LM)
  3 45  @MAH-JONGG 2@ (IN MAHJONG2 GO)
  5 45  @SNEAKY 2@ (IN SLANG2 SNEAKY.EXE)
  7 45  @FLIPPER 2@ (IN EPIC PINBALL)
  9 45  @TETRIS@ (IN TETRIS etetris.exe)
  11 45 @AUTORACE@ (IN AUTORACE 4D)
  13 45 @BRIX 2@ (IN BRIX2 BRIX1)
  15 45 @RAD VAN FORTUIN@ (IN RADFORT RVF.EXE)
  17 45 @ROLLERBALL@ (CLS^IN BALLGAME BALGAME2)
ENDTEXT
RETURN

REM ===================================================

:BUILDMENU
   cls bri cyan on blue
   drawbox 0 10 22 74 2 bri yel on blu
   SCRPUT 1 37 red on white SPELLEN MENU
   SCRPUT 20 15 blu ON WHI Û Verplaatsen:pijl Û Stoppen: Esc Û Uitvoeren: Enter Û

   for %x in (@CON) (
    scrput %@word["@",0,%x] black on cyan .  %@word["@",1,%x]%@REPEAT[ ,%@EVAL[19-%@LEN[%@word["@",1,%x]]]].
   )
RETURN

REM ===================================================

:ACTIE
   FFIND /KM /T"%RIJ %KOLOM"| %@WORD["@",2,%@LINE[CON:,0]]
RETURN

REM ===================================================

:SCHERM
   cls BLA on bla
   scrput %@RANDOM[1,24] %@RANDOM[1,45] %@WORD[%@RANDOM[0,6], MAG BLU CYA GRE YEL RED WHI] on bla Willekeurige toets voor spellenmenu
   scrput %@RANDOM[1,24] %@RANDOM[1,45] %@WORD[%@RANDOM[0,6], MAG BLU CYA GRE YEL RED WHI] on bla %_time
   INKEY /W2 %%SCH
   IF "%SCH"=="" GOTO SCHERM
   UNSET SCH
goto START

REM ===================================================

:SCHERM4
   scrput %@RANDOM[0,24] %@RANDOM[0,79] BLA on bla ÿ
   INKEY /W0 %%SCH
   IF "%SCH"=="" GOTO SCHERM4
   UNSET SCH
goto START

BTW: I also found 2 other menu-scripts:

First one: for evey line: show the left part; execute the right part

Code:

@TEXT|%@SUBSTR[%@SELECT[CON,1,54,15,76,[  FORMATTEER A: ]],23,80]
-  HD-FLOP          -     (format a:/u/autotest^beep 400 2 800 2)
-  DD-FLOP          -     (format a:/u/f:720/autotest^beep 400 2 800 2)
-  HD-FLOP snel     -     (sf a:/q/a^beep 400 2 800 2)
-  DD-FLOP snel     -     (sf a:/q/a/f:720^beep 400 2 800 2)
------ EINDE --------      QUIT
ENDTEXT

Second one: For every (game) directory: Show foldernames; goto folder and execute what's in Descript.ION of the folder

Code:

(dir/ad/b/i"*"|set D=%@FULL[%@SELECT[CON,1,54,15,76,[  %@descript[%_DNAME] ]]])>& nul
IN %D CALL %@DESCRIPT[%D]

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menu batch file questions

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