Tile effects on a mac?

[calebj]

Hello,

I played aquaria and was amazed at the detail and beauty involved in it.  After finishing the game I started playing around with modding.  I have used the forums alot and found them very helpful but still haven't found a way  to do tile effects on a mac. ( I am using a macbook).  The site http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=123007 gives most of the controls but they havn't found a way to do tile effects.

Any help with this and/or other advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!

[Yogoda]

There is no numpad on Mac ? (I don't know Macintosh well)

On PC, it is 0-7 on the numpad

[Wenzor]

macbook is a laptop, so I don't think there's a number pad on there, unless you buy a wireless keyboard to connect with it.

[calebj]

No there is no numpad.  The number keys above the letters just select their respective layers.  The F keys also don't work but I can just use the menu for those commands.

[Alec]

You can use numpad keys with a mac if you turn numlock on... at least that's how it works on my Macbook Pro. (it maps certain alphabet keys to numlock keys)

[calebj]

Hmm...I'm using a MacBook aluminum.  Apple decided the numeric key pad/numlock wasn't necessary so it doesn't have one.  I might just have to settle for no tile effects 

[ryos]

You could also get an external keyboard. There are several here for around $5.

[Edwards]

Yeah, they took out the fn-key numpad a couple of years ago- Alec probably has one of the last MacBook Pros to have the feature (in fact, I was unaware that anything past the Intel transition had numpads).  Your best bet is either to get an external keyboard, or copy the maps to another computer late in development to add all the tile effects in one fell swoop.

@Alec: I don't suppose you could add an option to re-map the tile effects to different keys (perhaps shift-number row)?  It would really help development on Mac laptops... :puppy eyes:

- Edwards

[Alec]

Yeah, they took out the fn-key numpad a couple of years ago- Alec probably has one of the last MacBook Pros to have the feature (in fact, I was unaware that anything past the Intel transition had numpads).  Your best bet is either to get an external keyboard, or copy the maps to another computer late in development to add all the tile effects in one fell swoop.

Hmm, weird! Yeah, my Macbook Pro is maybe 3 years old or more now I guess.

Still strange that there isn't some other way to do it...

[ryos]

ControllerMate would let you bind the key combos of your choice to send numpad keystrokes, and only when Aquaria is frontmost. Of course, at $15 it costs more than a cheapo external keyboard, but it's good for other things besides.

[calebj]

I think it would be easiest to get an external keyboard, but it doesn't matter that much to me because I'm the only one playing my levels.  Thanks for all the advice!

[calebj]

There are also two more things I have come across. 
1. I made my mod like the mod editor on here said but the description doesn't show up.  My .xml file looks like this:
<AquariaMod>
   <Fullname text="Caleb Test mod"/>
   <Description text="Test mod"/>
</AquariaMod>
When I go into mods and look at it the description text says "No Description"
I previously had the problem that when I clicked on my mod it would load an empty map but I realized I had copied the mod-init.lua from the energybattle mod.  I changed the loadMap to my map and now it works.  Does this have anything to do with why there also is not a description?

2. Flipping an entity: I couldn't find how to flip an entity until I found a node in other mods called "flip."  This is not such a problem but can all entities supposed to be flipped?  For example, I put the node around an "architect" and it works fine.  When I put it around the "strangecreature" nothing happens.  Can the strangecreature not be flipped?  Is there a way I could make a flipped version to add?

Thanks, Caleb
 

[Yogoda]

You can not manually flip an entity, but you can add this code in the script of any entity to flip it with a FLIP node. Only some entities have this code in Aquaria.

Code: [Select]

function postInit(me)

f = entity_getNearestNode(me, "FLIP")
if f ~= 0 and node_isEntityIn(f, me) then
entity_fh(me)
end
end
If the entity is moving, you can just use :

Code: [Select]

entity_flipToVel(ent)
in the update() function to flip it according to it's direction

You can also use this in the init() so the entity will be randomly flipped when it is created :

Code: [Select]

if math.random(2) == 2 then
  entity_fh(me)
end

Of course if you modify an entity's script, you have to copy it in your mod first.

[calebj]

Thanks Yogoda!  Still need help on the description though. 

[Guy]

One solution for the numpad issue is to temporarily borrow an external keyboard with a numpad from somewhere and use Spark to setup some other keys (eg, control+num) to function as numpad keys.