How to use the AGI Mouse

How to use the AGI Mouse 1.0 API

by Brian Provinciano

Introduction

AGI Mouse 1.0 gives AGI support for the mouse with extreme ease. This document shows you how to make use of the AGI Mouse 1.0 API.

When I hacked the interpreter to give it mouse support, I removed the existing unknown171 command, and replaced it with a routine I wrote to poll the mouse status (x position, y position, button status). I call this command from logic.000. Every interpreter loop executes logic.000, thus polling the status. This way, you will need not worry about calling the command every time you use the mouse status variables.

The unknown171 command returns the following variables...

v27	Button pressed (0=none, 1=left, 2=right, 3=middle)
v28	The X position of the mouse
v29	The Y position of the mouse

You won't need to remember those numbers, because I edited defines.txt to simplify things. The defines are as follows...

/***************************************************************************
* AGI Mouse 1.0 defines
****************************************************************************/ 
#define mouse_button v27 // The mouse button pressed
#define mouse_x      v28 // Pixels from the left of the screen
#define mouse_y      v29 // Pixels from the top of the screen

#define mb_up        0   // Mouse button is up (not pressed)
#define Mb_left      1   // Left mouse button
#define Mb_right     2   // Right mouse button
#define Mb_middle    3   // Middle mouse button

/***************************************************************************
* End of AGI Mouse 1.0 defines -- Brian Provinciano 
****************************************************************************/

Important Things to Note

The mouse coordinates are not limited to playing area, they are returned for the entire screen. As a result, if you are doing something such as moving ego the the position that the mouse has clicked, you should subtract 8 (the amount of pixels the playing area is from the top of the screen) from the mouse_y variable. I did this because it allows you to add a Lucas Arts style Point and Click text buttons at the bottom of the screen (like in The Secret of Money Island).

Ever since I added the code to hide/show the mouse cursor when text is drawn on the screen, it's caused a lot of flickering. This is because if you use a command such as display, and place it in your main execution area, it draws the text every interpreter cycle (hiding and showing the mouse cursor many times per second). Without this code, the mouse would cause problems if it is in the area when the text is drawn.

 

How to Control Ego With the Mouse

To control the ego with the mouse, where you click, and the ego walks to where you clicked, all you need to do is check to see if the mouse button is pressed and then use the move.to.v command.

Code:

if(mouse_button == Mb_left) {
  mouse_y -= 8; // remember, the play area is 8 pixels from the top of the screen
  move.obj.v(ego, mouse_x, mouse_y, 2, f255);
}

 

How to Add a Button Control

To add a button control to your game is very easy. The following code demonstrates a button with three states, mouse out, mouse over and mouse down. It draws the view associated with object 2 (o2) accordingly. If the button is pressed, it jumps to room 3.

Code:

// Is mouse in the area of the button?
if(mouse_y > 32 && mouse_y < 68 && mouse_x > 56 && mouse_x < 103) {
  // Is the mouse button pressed
  if(mouse_button == Mb_left) {
    // If it is, draw the mouse button down, then jump to room 3
    set.loop(o2,2);
    new.room(3);
  } else {
    // Otherwise, draw the button as a mouse over graphic
    set.loop(o2,1);
  }
} else {
  // Draw the mouse button in normal state
  set.loop(o2,0);
}
draw(o2);