In-Game Pause + Menu

[Brovic]

oh, I didn't know. I never used it since actives have alpha channel support. But sadly although the Image Manipulator can read from the clipboard it can not export to it and I had to use it to blur and gray the picture. I guess if you just need transparency then you don't need anymore HD swapping.

[Kris]

Thanks Dines, that works really well!

I wonder if there's a way to make that tmp.bmp go away once the application is finished, of maybe I should set it to be stored in C:\Windows\Temp?

[Benicle]

The file object can delete files, but you should be careful with things like that... I don't know if Anti-Virus programs would get in a fuss about that (probably not since it's in the exe's directory).

[danjo]

kris, ive always created my pause features with groups in your code.
i have a group that contains all the non pause stuff - ie menus etc, and another group which has the gameplay stuff.
i just deactivate the gameplay group, when its paused.
the only thing you really have to watch, is animating and movmement - for which you just put in your non paused group,
if gameplay group is NOT activated, stop movement, stop animation
if gameplay group is activated, start, start animation ( on all the actives that move or animate )

its simple and you dont have to muck around with sub apps.
you can also add a cover underneath a menu, which is semi transparent - so the whole screen darkens etc, when the menu appears on top of it.

[Brovic]

I wonder if there's a way to make that tmp.bmp go away once the application is finished, of maybe I should set it to be stored in C:\Windows\Temp?

I saved my "temp.jpg" file to AppTempPath$+"\temp.jpg" and it ends in my "C:\Documents and Settings\Brovic\Local Settings\Temp". But I wonder if the "local settings" temp folder acts the same as "C:\windows\temp" because I have a huge heap of old junk that should have been removed by the time and even ccleaner didn't removed anything here?

@Danjo. I used too to manage my own pause features but I start thinking the modal window may be a better solution. I have however some problem between subapps and customized cursors.

I added a little transition FX in my example (sadly is seems that only a few object can go over the perspective object )
Transparent Pause&FX 2

[danjo]

when MMF2 came out with subgroups - there no excuse now to code smarter.
its the messy coders who get themselves into trouble.

coding in a more organized fashion will teach you a lot if you want to learn more traditional programming.

[Dynasoft]

I saved my "temp.jpg" file to AppTempPath$+"\temp.jpg" and it ends in my "C:\Documents and Settings\Brovic\Local Settings\Temp". But I wonder if the "local settings" temp folder acts the same as "C:\windows\temp" because I have a huge heap of old junk that should have been removed by the time and even ccleaner didn't removed anything here?

For Windows 2000 onwards, Windows\Temp is wrong. The reason is that a "user" on the pc won't have the security permissions to write to the Windows folder. Ditto for Program Files.

Always use MMF's AppTempPath$ for storing temporary files.

[Kris]

Thanks, that works great!

One last question regarding this sub-application menu:

How can I make it so that an action, such as an "exit" command works in the full program rather than only in the sub-app?

[LB]

Set a global value and when the value is correct in the main application, close the application. Also make sure that the sub-application can share value with the main app.