NULL mag Issue 06 07 Tribute to Gutter II

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

null magazine

 · 26 Dec 2020

  

 

 
    in issue x005 i explained some new features i implemented in gutter 
    emag engine and how some stuff worked in the past. now its time for 
    me to share this code as the gutter crew did and explain how to use 
    it to make an emag of yours. its my way to say a thank you to filth, 
    jack phlash and natedogg for making gutter and releasing their code, 
    freely. so lets begin... 

    download the code here:  https://github.com/xqtr/null 
    extract it in a directory that you have access with dosbox. you will 
    need dosbox! turbo pascal 7! aciddraw/thedraw! remember... this is 
    DOS programming! :) 

    first of, you should know, that in some point you'll have to play 
    with the source code! you may try to avoid it, but... you wont. the 
    engine even in its original form, wasn't 100% "automatic". its not 
    just writing the articles, compile them and done. so keep this is 
    mind and that you have to know some basic pascal. its not so 
    difficult, specially if you have experience in other programming 
    languages. if you want to make an emag and you have questions, you 
    may also ask me for help. i will be happy to offer any help. 

    -- fade effects -- 
    if you want to use fade effects (fade in/out) you have to include the 
    fade.pas unit in your uses statement. you can use the following 
    procedures: BlackOut; ResetScreen; Fadein; Fadeout; which are self 
    explanatory. 

    -- mod music -- 
    the new engine supports music in .mod format only. it can play tracks 
    in about 150kb in size and protracker format. if you use something 
    else, it may crash, stop responding etc. so if you compiled the 
    executable and show such a behavior, probably its the .mod file. 

    the source code is ready to use and initializes the sound system, 
    ready to play some chip music ;) make sure to change the file names 
    and add them also to the music selection menu. in the do_music 
    procedure is a playfile procedure, which you can make global, if you 
    want to change music in other parts of the mag, except the music 
    selection menu. if you want to keep it simple. just change filenames, 
    don't forget to include the files and you are done. 

    -- menu screens / logo -- 
    the menu screens and logo are in the menu dir. they have to be in 
    pascal format! use thedraw or aciddraw to convert any ansi image to 
    pascal format. make sure to include ({$I .\menu\logo.pas}) these 
    files and also be aware of the names of the arrays, in case you use 
    different. you can change them but you'll have to mess with the code 
    after. 

    -- fonts -- 
    the engine comes with many fonts available. they all are inside the 
    ./bin dir and are compiled inside the .dat file (see below). to use 
    one, load it like: loadfont(1); you can use them all or remove the 
    ones you dont want. make sure that when you call the loadfont() 
    command you don't use a number bigger than the number of fonts 
    included in the .dat file 

    -- screen transition fxs -- 
    by using the textfx unit, you can use screen fx like page flips, as i 
    did in issue x005. its just three procedures and its an easy process 
    to do. as always you can leave the code as it is, but using specific 
    fxs in some ways, it brings nice results. in issue x005 i just used 
    random transitions, just as a show off for the engine. 

    -- articles -- 
    this is the important and hard part! so lets take it step by step. 

    1. you write the tutor/article. 
    2. as a first line you add a string in this format: 

       title;author;category;id 

       title,author : no need to explain 
       category     : its just a string, it doesn't have any specific use 
                      other than to show to the reader, what about is the 
                      article. so you can use it also in other ways... 
                      like add a date. 
       id           : this is the very IMPORTANT! part! if you wrote an 
                      article, so you want it to appear in the articles 
                      menu you have to add an id like ARTxx. the ART 
                      thing has to be unchanged. the xx can be anything 
                      you want. i prefer to add it as a number, but this 
                      doesn't represent the position in the menu. so in 
                      an article you can add an id like ART01, ARTFF, 
                      ART#4 etc. 

    there are other ids for ansi art, editorial, interview etc. but the 
    rest string format is the same: title;author;category;id and you 
    always add it as a first line! do not add empty lines before this 
    line. other ids: 

    TUTxx     : for tutorials. same format as ANSxx 
    ANSxx     : for ansi gallery/menu 
    ABOUT     : this id is for the about menu/page only. you can only use 
                it once. 
    EDIT      : this is for the editorial. same as about, use it once. 
    INTER     : for the interview text 

    you can put all text and ansi files into a directory if you want, but 
    for my convinience i use one dir. for ansis, one for articles and one 
    for tutors. now the tricky part... you have to convert these text 
    files into binary format, like TheDraw and AcidDraw does. lets see an 
    example. 

    you write an article, put the first line as we said above and you 
    open the file in AcidDraw. press alt-s to save it and select B-inary. 
    you enter the filename. the filename HAS to HAVE an extension of 
    .GUT! this is important! after saving the file (in binary format with 
    .GUT extension) move it to the ./bin directory. confusing? timeful? 
    well, no one said, that making emags is easy... :p 

    because of this, i made an utility, written in freepascal. in the 
    archive is included the source code and the linux x64 version, but 
    you can compile it in windows or linux 32b if you want. to use it, 
    inside the directory you have extracted the archive execute the 
    utility like this:  ./ans2bin .  <-- add the full stop 

    the utility will find all .txt, .ans files, convert them to binary 
    files, change their extension to .GUT and put them into the ./bin 
    directory! all in one move. but we are not finished yet... :( we are 
    close... be strong my young pandawan... 

    now from dos/box, go into the bin dir. inside you have the .GUT 
    files, some .FNT files for the font choosing menu and a file called 
    articles.exe. execute this file and it will compile all elements to a 
    file called null.dat, if you haven't changed the code. rename this 
    .dat file to your liking and move it where the mag. executable is. 

    compile the main executable null.pas with turbo pascal and you are 
    done... you made your first emag! don't get fustrated... if i did, so 
    you can! be patient, check the code, make tests and as a last resort, 
    ask me :) 

    there are also, other emag engines out there, that you can use. 
    perhaps in a prog.lang. you may know better. i used gutters engine, 
    because a) it was all ready written in pascal, which i know b) gutter 
    is a mag, that certainly left an impact to the scene. others also, 
    but i think gutter the most. so, i was very happy to hear that filth 
    and jp, read issue x005 and were also happy to see their "child" 
    reborn, through NULL. who knows... they may even think to join NULL 
    or bring back gutter?... hmmm... will see... :)