🚀 go-pugleaf

That's right, folks.  For all five of my YakIcons fans out there (got two
since my last post), version 1.4 is almost ready to go.  None of the
graphics handling areas have been enhanced, but I have added support for a
new class, yakLib.  A yakLib (extension .Yar, for Yak ARchive) is a
collection of all the drawing files or other "loadable" data used by your
program.  Using the included yar.exe program, just put all the loadable
files into , say, "foo.yar".  Then  data can be loaded into your program
with a simple

yakLib myYakLib("foo");

char * hunkOData = myYakLib.loadToMem("spam.foo");

..and the entire contents of the file "spam.foo" will be loaded into a new
allocated chunk of memory, returning a pointer to this chunk.  Routines
have been written to retrofit the icon classes to load from a yakLib, ie

myIcon.load("boodle.yak",&myYakLib);

The .yak extension denotes my own proprietary file format (grump!  I got
tired of DM256); an included program, DRW2YAK.exe, will convert your old
.drw files just fine.  .Yaks take up a little more room on disk than
.drws, as they are not RLE encoded, but they compress better under arj,
zip etc.

Finally, I am cannibalizing the xmouse demo program to make a sprite
editor which should be able to handle any size sprite up to ... oh, big. 
Unfortunately, the window onto the sprite will be only 32x32, so if you
have lots of really big sprites, using DM256 and DRW2YAK may be the way to
go. (you'll be able to see the whole sprite in yakedit, but only work on a
magnified window of 32x32).

For those of you still following this post with no idea what I am talking
about, YakIcons iws a Borland C++ collection of routines which provide for
reasonably flexible, powerful programming of graphical icons.  It is
specialized for tile-bassed adventure games (like the Ultimas), although
future improvements will make it just as powerful for eight-way scrolling
arcade games (potential is there now, but I forgo speed for the ability to
 walk behind tiles like mountains).

A new version of Flight of the Boodles using the yaklib class (from 97
program files to about 5) will be on wuarchive sometime today, including
source for the program itself.  YakIcons 1.4 should be up around Monday if
I'm productieve enough.

-->Vputz, yer friendly Yak.

PS: I will be out of the programming scene for a few moths starting
December and will probably lost the ability to get on News.  If you want
to be on the YakWare mailing list (announcement of new products, help,
etc, etc), PLEASE leave me your addresss (real-mail) in mail.  In the
meantime, let's see some games from Y'all!