ToonTalk enhancements and bug fixes

History of ToonTalk Enhancements and Bug Fixes - 1996

Here is the list of bugs and enhancements for 1996. Similar lists for 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 are available as well.

No records were kept prior to 3/25/96 (the first public beta release). Programming on ToonTalk began in October 1992.

3/25/96

Pasting an object from ToonTalk had some non-standard new line (carriage return) characters.

3/30

The font used when Marty is talking (and the opening screen) was under-specified so on some machines looked very bad. Now Arial is used unless overridden by -e <font name>

4/4

Fixed a minor bug when user enters a long name with spaces or other non-alphanumeric characters.
Fixed a bug that can lead to a crash when training a robot to use certain kinds of remote controls ("Which picture?" and the Lego sensors).
If something other than a box was placed on top of a robot without anything in his thought bubble and then a box was dropped on the robot or thought bubble such that a part of it overlapped with the object on top of the robot but it mostly was over the robot then confusion followed.
If a robot was trained to attach box to the side on another and then when working tried to add a box to the side of a blank box it crashed. Now robot stops and Martian explains problem.
Sometimes when Martian was explaining why a robot stopped it would repeat part of the sentence and skip another part.
Scales sometimes would not change to tilt but robots still matched as if they were showing the right tilt.

4/12

Fixed a bug introduced on 4/4 that may cause a memory violation on start up.
Sometimes a robot would get confused and say he didn't expect to keep track of so many things. Not anymore.
The maximum city size is 255 (or -255 if you want it half filled with randomly placed houses) but you used to be able to set it to 256 and get weird results.
Marty now explains city size maximums if you try to set size to bigger value.

4/13

If a notebook had many pages (more than some number between 100 and 1300) then system crashed while terminating.

4/15

Fixed a memory violation bug that generated no known symptoms.
Martian's advice about how to pause ToonTalk was only partially updated and he got confused.
ToonTalk debugging switches causes logs of events to be generated. Type names in these logs were wrong.
Changed the way robots keep track of items that are put inside something.
The 32bit version was using a small cache size.

4/16

"Swap if bigger" robot in example notebook was broken.
Robots now no longer flip notebooks to page 1 before starting but do behave as if the main notebook was on page 1 when starting but "flips" to it only first time the robot sends keyboard characters to notebook.
If a picture of a number or text with robots on the back was dropped on the clipboard remote control then only the text was saved now the entire thing.
Geometry of things on clipboard improved.
If multiple text pads were dropped on a text pad it sometimes crashed.

4/18

Fixed a bug introduced on 4/15 regarding how robots keep track of things.

4/22

Fixed a minor bug when displaying short bits of text that are off the side of the screen.
You can now push both the left and right mouse buttons to pause ToonTalk.

4/23

While running a replay any mouse button brings up the pause dialog.
While holding a notebook you can now use right-mouse to go to next page and middle-button to go back.
32bit debugger complained about code using SelectObject. Seemed to have re-written it so it no longer complains. No symptoms known.

4/24

Fixed a bug introduced on 4/16 that sometimes caused the system to crash when dealing with the ToonTalk clipboard.
Enumeration types (e.g. "your heads looks" which can be "hat", "long hair", or "bald") when held can now be cycled through using the mouse (middle is backwards and right is forwards).

4/25

Remote controls that are numbers can now be changed by the mouse when held (middle is backwards and right is forwards).
Remote controls that have a limited range (e.g. the "which picture" remote control now stay in range automatically.

4/26

If you put your hand under the Martian's talk balloon, you sometimes got an image of the balloon even after Marty moved away.

4/29

The pasting of a ToonTalk object includes a generated description of the object. It was sometimes truncated.
Aesthetic changes to pasting of a ToonTalk object.

5/4

Nests destruction is postponed until their last bird. If the house is being destroyed and contains a nest and the last bird then there was a problem depending upon the order they were destroyed. The problem had no serious consequences.

5/5

Sometimes when a robot is trained to use the keyboard while holding or pointing to a notebook it got confused.

5/7

Sometimes when robots in other houses are using the main notebook and the programmer is as well the response to typing digits to go to a particular page behaved oddly.
Fixed various problems with birds. E.g. when flying back to her nest and the nest if being transported by another bird, it led to unpredictable behavior.

5/8

If you hold down F11, then ToonTalk will make snapshots of frames called frm<number>.bmp where number is the frame number. Successive identical frames are not saved.

5/9

Fixed more bugs with birds flying outside.

5/10

Fixed more bugs with birds flying outside.
If a robot is trained to make sounds in another house then it used to get stuck.
If a robot is making sounds in a house and the programmer leaves the sounds stop.
Fixed a bug introduced on 4/26 where if you pointed to an object where something was on top, the thing on top couldn't be seen.
Pictures lost their size if changed by remote controls but not if changed by the Bike Pump. [Thanks to Tobias for pointing this out.]

5/11

Fixed more bugs with birds flying outside.
Added a new command line switch -bird 0 which makes it so birds take no time to return after delivering a message. Good for watching systolic algorithms. -bird 1 is the default which shows birds returning.
Sometimes a bird would put something on her nest in a way in which you couldn't pick it off (though the vacuum could).

5/12

The ToonTalk clipboard used to be confused by programs that copied using a different convention about how carriage return/line feed work. (E.g. Netscape didn't work but wordpad did.)
For a while now you can put robots in a fresh notebook that were trained to find other robots in the main notebook (by dropping the label on the notebook). Used to only work if you found something in the notebook and only got one copy.
Sometimes when pasting text into ToonTalk's clipboard boxes appeared which were unprintable characters from the carriage return/line feed problem.
For very large multiple line text sometimes ToonTalk froze.

5/20

Many small changes to what Marty the Martian says.
Re-structured internals of Marty so should be easier to translate to another language
Fixed bugs with ordinals like 23th.

5/21

More small changes to what Marty says.
Marty now describes what can be done with remote controls (and options) in much more detail, including new ability to use mouse buttons to change things.
Fixed a problem using mouse buttons while holding an address.

5/22

Used to be that if the command line set up some options but didn't specify the user name then it would ask for a user name and if it is an existing one then the options of that user would override the command line.
One a few machines the full-screen mode is very slow. It now checks and warns the user if it is.
If there are problems running in full-screen mode (-f 1, e.g. on Windows NT) it will now switch over to -f 2.

5/23

Fixed multiple bugs that occur when a bird's nest is copied and the copies are in different houses and the bird is given something.
When training a bird to receive something whose nest has been copied it used to copy the bird and message.

5/24

It is now easier to return things to the notebook. If neither page is empty and something is dropped on top that is on one of the pages then it is returned regardless of which side of the notebook it is dropped.
If only one page is empty and something is dropped on the notebook it will go to the blank page regardless of which side it was on.

5/26

Windows95 version of ToonTalk started.
Win95 version uses Direct Sound sounds now mix and more audio features are now feasible.
Sound effects notebook on page 8 was missing some newer sounds and still referring to obsolete sounds.
Win95 version does not use the file resind.dat.

5/28

If a robot was trained to drop a box on a number it lost track of things.
If a robot performed operations on a sensor, they were remembered but not seen while inside the thought bubble.
Fixed bug introduced on 5/20 where Marty sometimes when describing what a robot does says things like "the new numbera number".

5/30

Robots trained to break a box into pieces by dropping it on a number, got stuck when running.
Sometimes changing the appearance of your head (between hat, bald, and long hair) corrupted some internal data.
Sometimes when lots of birds and/or trucks are using a door then the programmer can't get through it even after the birds and trucks are done. Fixed now.
If a bird was taking something to her nest in the same room and the programmer was looking at the house from the outside, you could see the bird fly out (backwards!) and then fly back in. No longer.

5/31

Sometimes if a number A is dropped on number B and before mouse smashes them together another number is dropped on A then the system crashed. Fixed.
If a zero-hole box was dropped on another it triggered an error (divide by zero).
If a box was dropped next to a zero hole box, it would not click together.
When a small or large box was broken into pieces one of the pieces was default size.
If a robot was trained to flip through pages of a notebook then if the typing was fast it ended up on a different page when it was redoing the actions.

6/2

Fixed recently introduced spurious warning from Marty when dropping something on a box containing a zero-hole box.
Robots trained to drop a box on a blank number got confused when running.
Robots trained to drop a box on a number sometimes got confused too.
Changes to notebooks made on 5/24 had problem that if something was dropped on the right page and both left and right was empty it ended up on the left.
When holding something over the notebook, sometimes only one page wiggled as feedback now the entire notebook does.
Fixed a rare problem with robots running off screen that crashed the system.
If more than one bird returns to the same cubby (but different holes) things got confused.
If you dropped a robot on a notebook and quickly flipped pages sometimes it used to crash.
If you dropped a labeled box on a zero-hole box, it looked funny.
If you made a zero-hole box blank its size was wrong.
If you copied a partially visible picture of a number it used to become fully visible.

6/3

Sometimes if a robot was trained to drop things on a notebook to find the right page and if that robot is working in another house and the notebook is open to the page it is looking for it got mixed up about which page to get things from.
Programmed around Borland compiler bug that also occurred same time as above.
Sometimes when a bird is returning to a house before it blows up the memory and other resources taken by the things in the house weren't reclaimed when the house explodes.
If a robot working off screen picked up a random number or mouse sensor from a notebook it would take a cycle before it became non-zero and might be used before that.
32 bit version can now have a much deeper number of boxes insides of boxes.

6/4

Sometimes when a bird in another house whose nest has been copied was given something then a copy of the thing appeared on the floor (and went away if you stood up and sat down again).

6/5

Fixed a problem robot's sometimes stop working and stay floating above everything else. This also fixes a problem with running some of the demos with the 32 bit version.
Added a new remote control for producing sounds. This is meant to make it easier for a user to import their own sounds (Wave and Midi files).

6/6

The 32bit version on some systems (especially Windows NT) had the problem that text and the street were drawn out of order so the helicopter landed under the street and text floated above things.

6/9

If sound is turned off on start up (-s 0 for example) then the 32 bit version will no longer initialize and later release the Direct Sound device.
If asked for your name and you click on the close box you get asked again. If you click on it again then ToonTalk is terminated. Only need to do it once now.

6/11

Added a new remote control for bringing into ToonTalk user art. Just drop the file name on the remote control and then vacuum up the result. The file should be in Windows BMP format and should work for any format.
If you flip over a user picture and use the remote control for visibility to make it "see some" then the black bits become transparent.

6/12

Fixed a bug with remote control for sound that when vacuumed up sometimes crashed or hung.
Notebooks sometimes if copied and then the copies destroyed lead to inconsistent memory.

6/16

Marty would sometimes make spurious warnings about full screen mode being too slow.
Fixed a bug when vacuuming up a sound created by the "file to sound" remote control.
User defined pictures now can be saved in the notebook, copied, and used inside of a robot's thought bubble.
User defined sounds can now be stopped by vacuuming up the file name.
The file to sound remote control is now restored in the process.
Sometimes after taking off a house can be seen being built even though it was built long ago.

6/17

Sometimes door were shown for one frame far to the left of where they should be. Trucks driving into the house sometimes drove to this wrong location of the door.
Sometimes when landing near a house being built it looked as if two trucks drove in.
The Windows 95 version now uses DirectSound for the narration and for user audio. The sounds are all mixed as a result.

6/18

Used to be if you grabbed a truck or something out of it as it was driving away you could crash the system.
Trucks used to "sink" below everything else as they drove off. Looked bad and stuff inside only partly "dropped" too.
If a robot was about to put something in a truck but the programmer put something in first confusion resulted.
If a remote control for converting a file to a sound or picture was dropped in the notebook it got very small.
Remote control for file to sound now has a better size and shape when on the floor.
Better error messages when there is trouble loading a file as a picture or sound.
Can no longer add text to a remote control for file to sound that already has a file name.
When user defined pictures are dropped on the clipboard remote control then Marty now reminds the user which files need to accompany the "cutting".
User pictures in clipboard displayed wrong for all but one copy.
If you place a remote sensor for a picture or the clipboard with something on it into the notebook now the thing "on top" is saved.

6/19

The geometry of boxes inside of boxes inside of boxes when expanded is now improved.

7/2

Redid the entire low-level graphics. The Win95 version now uses DirectDraw through out. -v 25 -f 1 now works in the Win95 version so with a fast machine you get fast, clean, high resolution images.
Minor improvement in how the bike pump jumps into your hand when you press F3
F12 now puts a copy of the screen on the clipboard. You can then paste the result into a paint program or the like.

7/7

Fixed problems with localization of ToonTalk to countries where there is no comma or period separating every three digits in long numbers.

7/8

Fixed a problem in the Win 95 Direct Draw version that transparent surfaces weren't always initialized properly.

7/9

Fixed a serious memory leak introduced about a month ago.

7/16

Implemented a whole set of keyboard accelerators (see keyboard.txt).
Tools can now be turned on and off.
Tools "mode" can be changed via the keyboard.
Any keyboard button will pause a demo now.
One button mice work better now. Shift click to fly up.
Dropping numbers on text now changes the first or last character accordingly.
Dropping number or text on pictures now by default shows only the text itself and not the underlying pads.

7/18

You can now saved the state of a room by pressing F6 while in it. Good for generating puzzles.

7/19

Crude puzzle facility operational. -puzzle <file_name> is the interface.
Dropping pictures on the clipboard sometimes crashed.
Boxes can now be added to pictures.

7/21

You can now get up while holding something and bring it to another house.
When text pads are "see some" they no longer try to imitate the spacing of the invisible pads.
You can now paste numbers into ToonTalk. Previously they appeared as text pads with digits on them.
Fixed how Marty talked about boxes.

7/24

Puzzle engine complete. Supports hints, wall decorations and much more.
Fixed a geometry problem when certain items were created while the programmer was flying high over the city.
If you exited ToonTalk while holding the magic wand it used to crash.
The arm didn't quite fit the hand while using a magic wand.

7/26

You can now copy the magic wand by pressing 's' while holding it.
You can now give an untrained robot a wand and then train him. He'll always start off holding the wand.

7/30

New experimental input scheme implemented. Currently -new 1 switch need to turn it on. Mouse click now means pick up, then turn on, the turn off, then drop. Shift click means pick up, turn on, turn off, turn on, etc..

7/31

Lots more features added to support puzzles.
If a box is dropped on a number then you couldn't put anything in part of the box until you picked up and dropped the box. Fixed.

8/12

Fixed a recently introduced bug where Marty can crash system.
Fixed a bug in puzzle mode when training a robot and leaving stuff in the thought bubble when done training.
Introduced a puzzle between 10 and 11 and modified 11.

8/23

Simplified puzzle 14
Marty sometimes repeated himself when describing what a tool can do.

8/24

Modified StartTT.exe to give puzzles as an option.

8/25

Fixed many Swedish and a few English grammatical problems with what Marty says.
The comparison of text by scales now follows the alphabetic ordering conventions of the language that has been set as the Windows default.
If you dropped a picture on its notebook of remote controls and sensors the system crashed. Can't add anything to such notebooks anymore.

8/29

32bit version crashed or behaved badly if run with Windows set to more than 256 colors.
Fixed bugs causing the system to crash while abnormally terminating.
Puzzles now have an opening "story book" and Marty looks injured.

8/30

Puzzle now starts with user on the ground.
Initial greetings when doing puzzles improved.
If not starting with first puzzle then doesn't go through intro.
The user profile (the USR file) now tracks which was the last puzzle done. The command line -next_puzzle 1 runs the next puzzle (or first one if none done before).

8/31

Fixed bug where going in and out of houses caused some birds to forget to deliver their goods.
Fixed a bug where sometimes an object inside of a box disappeared for a few seconds.
Added puzzles 21 to 25 (most of the letter/word puzzles)

9/1

Fixed a bug when training a robot to drop something from the magic wand into the main notebook where it sometimes got confused.
Fixed a bug where a robot with an attached wand finishes training with something attached to his wand.
Used to be you could turn on bike pump, vacuum and wand just by pointing to them and pressing space. Must be held now.
Used to be you could flip a picture by pointing and typing 'f'. Must be held now.

9/9

Fixed a bug that caused the first demo (intro.dmo) to stop when helicopter is taking off. Also bug made it harder to take off using mouse buttons.
Fixed a bug where a bird is returning to a house that the programmer is in and its exploding. Used to crash.
Previously if you changed the number of holes in a box (by typing while holding it or by dropping it on a number) and the box already was that size nothing happened. Now a zero-hole box is created.
This way robots can be trained to take off first element of box and not get confused when box has just 1 hole.
Sometimes when a large box was split into pieces the pieces ended up off-screen. No longer and geometry improved.
Fixed puzzle 14 (add to make birth year) where it thought you were 96 years old.

9/10

Sound effect notebook had pages alternating between sound label (e.g. "helicopter sound") and sound names ("helicopter"). Sound labels have been eliminated but change won't take effect until Beta version 5.
Fixed various labels and buttons in the Swedish version.

9/11

The new remote controls for adding user sounds and pictures was missing from the "Sensors" notebook.
Improved the labels on some of the sensors.
Fixed a bug where when terminating a font object sometimes was deleted twice.
Revised the format of puzzles, updated all puzzles, and added a few intermediate puzzles.
Boxes no longer respond to the keyboard during puzzles.
Marty's response to bringing back an incomplete solution was improved.

9/12

A few puzzles require the state of the previous puzzle. If you now quit on such puzzles you'll start again on the previous one next time.
Puzzles that provide a robot trained in a previous puzzle would crash if not solved the first time.

9/13

Fixed problem where StartTT launched puzzle mode with the wrong switches so you couldn't leave a room holding something.

9/15

The 16bit version read numbers larger than 64K as text strings.
Audio was missing from pump and vacuum when turned on.

9/17

If there is something wrong with the DAT files, you got a warning and then it crashed.
Martian now only looks dizzy at the beginning of the puzzle mode.

9/18

Bike pump now acts better (new animation) while waiting to be used.
Fixed various problems with the clipboard and numbers.

9/20

If you use the bike pump on other tools, the notebook, or tool box the change is now persistent (for that user name). You can make them smaller if you prefer. Also if items taken from the notebook and toolbox are scaled proportionately.
If you call for a tool (F2, F3, F4, or F5) then when you drop it, it'll go back to where it was before (and that size as well).
Default sizes and positions of tools changed.
When the toolbox opens up in the thought bubble and the tools come out, the animation was very abrupt. Now is smooth.

9/22

Keyboard accelerators to tools (like "n" to make bike pump make things narrow, or "b" so vacuum makes things blank) now also turn on the tool as well.
Fixed various problems with sizes of things when robot is trained.

9/23

Fixed a problem with pause followed by "back to ToonTalk" where another pause was needed.
In puzzles sometimes when you dropped things on another it went underneath another.
Training robots to pick up and set down the toolbox used to confuse them.
DMO files now record the favorite positions and sizes of your tools to that the replay can depend upon them ending up at the same place.

9/24

More of the player's state while doing puzzles is saved so that when he or she resumes it'll remember enough to continue properly.
Fixed some problems with lost DirectDraw surfaces in the 32 bit version.
16 bit version had a problem that many rectangular items had a black line on the top.
16 bit version had the problem that if something was under something with text or numbers on it and you pointed to the lower thing then a moving thin horizontal line would break the text.
If you copy the result of pasting the contents of a room into Window's clipboard and take out the clipboard remote control then the objects are restored to the room. Great for revising puzzles.
Updated the first puzzle to have a reminder about how to get up.
Sometimes if something is dropped on something then the thing on top floated above other objects. Items dropped into such floaters dropped down through the object.
Remote controls which only are inside of a vacuum are no longer updated.
Messages on the walls in puzzles now look much nicer.
Puzzles themselves no longer contain congratulatory phrases but are generated by the puzzle engine instead.

9/25

Puzzle format now accepts #### for the message on the wall. It is replaced by the goal.
Geometry of the box a robot in training is working on was improved.
Puzzles updated.

9/27

Fixed a recent bug where tools used off screen or back of pictures caused the sound to be stopped.
Updated the textures used for streets, water, etc.

9/28

Added new animation of robot waiting.
Improved animation of trucks driving outside.

9/29

Fixed bugs in 32 bit version that occurred when resuming ToonTalk (after iconizing it).
Puzzle state is now saved after every puzzle so can restart even if system or machine crashes.
Improved the animation of waiting robots.
If you used keyboard accelerators to change the mode of a tool while it was on then you the first key turned off the tool and you needed to press it twice.
Fixed a bug in 32 bit version when running puzzles that floor flashed.

9/30

Fixed problem with darkening the screen while power is off (F8) where it looked bad in some situations.
32 bit version doesn't work well in non-256 color mode. Warns about it now.
Broken rocket added to puzzle mode.
Flipping pictures and numbers using keyboard commands ('f') weren't working right.

10/1

Blank numbers and text pads now display just the pad and not a blank plate on top.
Blank text pads that were more than one line displayed wrong.
Added inside of rocket to puzzle mode.

10/3

Added buttons to Dusty, Pumpy and Magic Wand.
Fixed a bug going from puzzle 9 to 10 (file name string too short).
Fixed a recently introduced bug where text pads were shifted upward a bit.

10/4

Made major changes to how Marty talks about tools.
Made some improvements to how Marty behaves.

10/5

Marty used to not talk about something if it first came up while he was talking about something else.
Marty now responds to PageDown (next talk balloon) and PageUp (repeat previous).
Marty's default reading speed is now twice as slow (since PageDown is the preferred way to get him to speed up). -r 200 on the command line will restore the old.
Sometimes the text in Marty's talk balloon would go off the edge of the screen.
The default size of Marty's letters is now 10% smaller than before.

10/6

Fixed various bugs with robots using buttons on tools.

10/7

Fixed problem reporting error message when puzzle file can't be loaded.
Used to be you could drop the toolbox on the clipboard and cause trouble.
Fixed a minor bug when dropping a number on text.
Fixed a problem with the display of text pads in the 16bit version.
Used to be if you pointed to some text and typed enter to add a new line that it moved up.

10/9

Fixed a bug that only manifested itself on Win NT when running in 16 color mode (or maybe true colour as well).
Updated the Welcome and Start applications.

10/11

Fixed a recent problem where using the keyboard accelerators when training a robot that had a training counter (e.g. in puzzles) it used two steps to do one thing.

10/12

Fixed a recent problem where trucks won't drive off after a robot loaded them up.
If you stand up holding a tool that is on it is now turned off.
If you vacuum up the toolbox it no longer follows you around outside.
Fixed a bug where you get up holding a tool and then later after the tool it still comes into your hand.
Fixed a bug where logs sometimes had the wrong favorite sizes and locations for tools.

10/13

When you have a solution in the puzzle game it now ends up in a slot inside the rocket.

10/14

Added new acting for Marty.
Added a door to broken rocket in puzzle game.
Added opening titles.

10/15

Saved puzzle state now includes filled slots inside the rocket.
Using magic wand repeated caused your arm to drip upward no longer.
Using your magic wand without moving the mouse caused the wand to select things below its tip.
The vacuum now waits a second when turned on before being used again.
Initial "camera" position for starting puzzle game improved.
A few puzzles like #7 rely upon the state of #6 so if you quit before doing #7 then you have to do #6 over again. Fixed problem where slots showed the old solution.

10/16

Added multiple floors.

10/17

Fixed bug where puzzles started using the second slot.
Fixed bug where goal on wall wasn't placed right.
Marty now very rarely breaks a sentence across talk balloons.
Marty's talk balloon is now smaller.
Marty didn't respond to PageDown if there wasn't anything else to say.
If you picked up some things, stood up and then sat again then the item was invisible until dropped (and your hand wasn't holding it right).
Trucks sometimes got bigger rather than smaller when driving into a house.
Fixed some help with tools and buttons.
Marty eventually kept suggesting you try PageDown and PageUp even after you have.
Fixed how Marty talks about text with more than one line.
Swedish version had tools starting off with wrong (English) labels.
Fixed various other things Marty says.
Marty can now break a hyphenated word.

10/18

Major re-write of installation program.

10/19

Improved color palette.
Buttons on tools now look like buttons.
Messages (like credits and story text) now can include \r to force carriage returns.

10/20

More work on improving installation program.
Fixed problem in puzzle mode when completely a level that the inside of the rocket wasn't updated properly.
Typing 'Esc' during the titles, credits or intro skips them all and starts the action.
Added animation of user persona putting things in and taking things out of his/her pocket.

10/21

Updated the graphics for the "welcome" (autoplay) program and the start ToonTalk program.
Dialog that asks name also now ask for appearance (hair, hat or bald).

10/22

Fixed recent bug that make -o on command line not work
Fixed other bugs in adding narration to ToonTalk demos

10/23

Fixed various installation bugs

10/25

Fixed various problems with the animation and sound effects of the bike pump.
-c <city size> option if negative made a random city - occasionally it got stuck in a loop.
Improved the animation of Marty.

10/26

Redid intro demo.

10/31

Redid all the other demos.

11/2

Fixed a bug in 16 bit version that crashed system after F11 copied

the screen to a file.

11/3

Fixed a bug with very large (larger than the screen) rectangle items. (The fix does sometimes clip the object a pixel or two too soon so that you can see through it on the right side.)
Fixed a bug where it would sometimes crash when leaving the helicopter if you pressed 'Esc' on opening screen to skip credits.
Fixed a few minor memory leaks.
Fixed a serious memory leak when a robot was taken from a notebook.

11/5

The 2 "alphabet" puzzles now work in Swedish with their extra letters.
Fixed a problem with end of the third part of the Ping Pong demo.

11/6

Added 2 more puzzles.
Fixed a problem inside of a thought bubble with the display of the steps remaining.

11/8

Marty now leaves ". . ." at the end of his talk balloon when he has more to say.
Puzzles now have bombs so that it is easy to reset the puzzle.
If you now bring Marty the wrong thing you don't lose what you brought and you don't get a hint. Hints only come if you come to Marty empty handed. -bomb 0 on the command line restores the old behavior.
About 10 new puzzles added.
Marty now gives you a hint if you walk up close to him even if you came in the rocket with the wrong thing.

11/11

Fixed problems with running 32bit version when display is set to more than 256 colors.

11/12

Implemented auto demo mode. -autodemo <0, 1 or 2> to the Start ToonTalk command line will run no autodemo, repeatedly run intro, or run through all demos respectively. If not running a demo and machine is idle more than AutoDemoMaxIdle (a switch in toontalk.ini) seconds (120 or 2 minutes is the default) then will quit ToonTalk and start or resume Start ToonTalk.
ToonTalk refuses to allow a screen saver to run if it is in full screen mode. (Used to refuse only if running a demo.)
Full screen mode when paused (either by user or by abnormal situation requiring a message box) it now minimizing the ToonTalk window so that message box or dialog box is always visible.

11/13

Fixed a problem where text pads when pumped didn't grow right.
Improved the appearance of labels of boxes.

11/14

Fixed problem where you got a hint from Marty if you walked up to him even though he was still introducing the problem. Have to leave and come back for a hint now.
Pressing F4 crashed the system if in a puzzle with function keys enabled.
If a puzzle starts with a previously trained robot and you blew up the house while the robot was running sometimes the system would crash.
Puzzle 34 was broken.
Puzzle 35 introduced (others moved later).
Giving a robot a box while he was already working on another sometimes crashed the system.
Marty sometimes had too small a talk balloon for short (1 or 2 word) messages and they were finished on the next balloon.
The 32 bit version when it terminated did not always properly re-activate the Start ToonTalk program (if there is one).
Improved English introductory demo.
Sometimes you can copy Bammer the Mouse with the wand but it was confusing no longer can.

11/16

Fixed a Window's resource leak in 16 bit version.
Fixed a problem with 16 bit version not exiting properly.
Fixed a display problem when running 640x480 (32 bit version only).
Fixed a memory leak in free play if player has done puzzles earlier.

11/17

Fixed another Window's resource leak in 16 bit version.
Reporting problems going to full-screen mode used to mess up demos.
Fixed a recent bug where rectangular objects had black dots on the right side.

11/18

Robots used to get mixed up when trained to put a number or text pad down and then drop something on top of it.
Added several more puzzles.
If house was destroyed the same time something was being destroyed (e.g. by Bammer the mouse) the system sometimes crashed.
Marty would give a puzzle hint if you approached him after giving him a correct solution.

11/22

Fixed a bug destroying a nest with hundreds of things on it.
Scales used to tilt back and forth if you make the items next to it blank (except in thought bubbles). The tilt is based on the original value for blank text or number pads.
A robot would sometimes wait (suspend) when remote sensors were involved even though they matched and others didn't. Now it gives up as it should.

11/23 to 11/27

Fixed several bugs, added many new puzzles, improved presentation of opening credits. (But neglect to update this file.)

12/2

In puzzle mode the wand cannot be set to "S" for self-copying.
Fixed typo in p4.pzl
When house is blown up and the wall shows a picture of the solution then sometimes a bunch of ###s were drawn on top of the picture.
Marty now gives a hint about using a bomb even if you keep coming back empty handed.
Sometimes if Marty is talking and then wants to add something it only showed up when he repeated himself. Works now.
Fixed a typo in p1.pzl and added a new hint to p5.pzl.
Fixed a bug when exploding a house with robots inside that are loading up trucks.
Fixed a bug when standing up while holding the magic wand while something was still attached to it.
Fixed pages 72 and 74 in pictures notebook.

12/3

Robots can now be trained to use Pumpy the bike pump.
Sometimes when dropping a robot back into a notebook the notebook disappeared.
Restructured the internal workings of the Marty's text generation to work better with multiple languages.
Introduced -language name command line option. American and Swedish are currently operational and more to come.

12/4

Region for clicking on a tool's button was doubled in size.

12/5

Fixed a minor memory leak when using a wand with a counter (many puzzles).
Puzzle game now starts you off very close to the rocket door.
Sometimes you got 2 hints during one visit to Marty. 1 per visit now.
If you leave the rocket while Marty is talking then he'll repeat himself when you come back.
Timing of demos was sometimes off by a few seconds.

12/6

Major re-write of the installation program.

12/9

Marty would sometimes repeat himself over and over again.
Improved the placement of Marty's text in the thought balloon.
Pausing ToonTalk no long iconizes the main window.
Fixed the hints for puzzle #15 (generate 1,2, etc.).

12/10

Fixed a problem with initializing colors on some boards for 16 bit version.
Fixed NT installation problems.
Marty described Dusty wrong sometimes.
Sometimes Marty would not say anything useful about a tool when
F1 is pressed while held.
Improved the placement of very short messages in thought balloons.

12/11

Redid "Append Lists" demo.
Marty now tries to give help when you do a significant action (pick up, drop, use, ...) or when you press PageDown (and he's not talking).

12/12

Marty no longer repeats explanation about what "..." means.
Marty no longer repeats what is wrong if you walk out with the wrong and thing and come back with it.
Marty would sometimes say he was waiting for a "blank" number or whatever when he wasn't.
Bomb used to get stuck to the floor on the first Dusty puzzle (#5).
In puzzles the message on the wall is now on a picture.
Marty now gives a good response to bringing back too small a number.

12/16

Fixed lots of little odds and ends about Marty's behavior.
If training a robot and using the keyboard sometimes it would mistakenly think that there was a training counter and it was used up.
'B' for blank for vacuum was replaced by 'E' for erase.

12/22

Reworked many internal parts of Marty so that he is easier to translate to other languages.
Fixed a bug when Marty tried to describe some kinds of remote controls while they were still in a notebook.

12/26

The sounds notebook now contains special sound objects. These will work across different language version of ToonTalk. The old way of typing a name still works but generates a warning.
Sensors that display text, (e.g. "yes" or "no" for whether the left mouse button is down) are now saved in the natural language of the system they came from. This way things saved can be brought into other language versions of ToonTalk and still work fine.
If you tried to return something to the notebook of remote controls (that lives on the back of pictures) you got a warning from Marty rather than just let the item fall back on the notebook.

12/30

Added subtitles to demos. Adding -subtitles 100 to the command line turns them on. (Larger numbers indicate a faster speed for the subtitles.)
Can also turn them on by adding "SubtitlesSuffix=ust" to the "Executables" section of ToonTalk.ini. Where UST is the American English subtitles suffix.

Continue with 1997.