So I've had this idea for an AutoHotKey script that could turn motions from any pointing device (mice, trackballs, trackpads, etc.) into custom actions.
I guess you might call them gestures?
Continue readingQMK/Vial: communicating state to PC
A tray icon showing default/navigation/numpad states
This is a little post about a trick for displaying a programmable keyboard's state (generally just the active layer) on a computer without fiddling with firmware code.
Continue readingGameMaker: filtering strings
Alternatively titled "string_letters but for any kind of character".
Using the Sofle keyboard for software development
The keyboard in question
But also Cyrillic text input, playing games, and more.
A layout-focused continuation of my recent newsletter post.
Continue readingWriting Steam guides in Markdown
Markdown / BB Code / displayed result
Do you write Steam guides and walkthroughs? Or, perhaps, you are a game developer and you have to write game announcements and changelogs now and then?
And if either, has it recently occurred to you that it is not 2008 anymore and writing formatted text in BB Code isn't so convenient, even if sometimes slightly less ambiguous?
In process of working on the recent few big guides, it sure did to me, and this is a post on how to spare yourself of misery.
Continue readingVariable references in GameMaker (2023 edition)
It's been 5 years since my "variable references in GameMaker" post and people are still interested in passing variables by reference, so this I'm giving the idea a little refresh with new tools that are now available.
Continue readingGameMaker: “Can you make a game in an old GM version?”
Does it belong in a museum... or my game?
This is a post about practicality of using variously old GameMaker versions and what it'll take to make your project run correctly for most users.
Continue readingFixing buffer_set_surface in GameMaker: Studio
If you are still using GameMaker: Studio instead of moving to a more current version
(perhaps you should - it's been almost five years since GMS1 support has ended)
and you are doing extension work or anything else that demands conversions
between raw pixel data and surfaces on Windows, you might have noticed that
buffer_set_surface doesn't work on some computers - no matter what you pass in,
no pixels appear on the surface.
Though the better way to put it would be "buffer_set_surface doesn't work anymore".
This is a post about the matter.
Continue readingGameMaker: Working with NaN and infinities
This is a kind of a blog post that you probably don't need unless you've already had an encounter with its subject.
Continue readingGameMaker file formats (and how to open them)
This is a blog post outlining the various formats that emerged over the two decades of GameMaker history (there being few dozen of them now) and instructions on how to open them in various GameMaker versions.
Continue reading