Wow what a year.

Has it really been a year since I threw in my old job and began my quest to establish my own company? Yep!

As a small celebration of our success over the past 12 months, and the pending release if igLoader I have decided to upload Indiepath.Asteroids for your playing pleasure. Why? This was the first game I every wrote and it was finished exactly 1 year ago to the day.

What's this got to do with igLoader? You got to use igLoader to play the game.

You can find it here : http://cloverleafgames.com/webbed.php

IE Users, the plugin will download automatically. Firefox Users - click the link as requested.

It doesn't work here. I downloaded the plug-in, and it's telling me i haven't. IE 6.0

Ross, be patient, it takes a little while to warm up.

I have IE 6. The loader didn't install itself so I clicked on the link. After installing, I get a 'security warning' asking me if I want to download the CAB. I click YES and then... nothing.

I havde Firefox 1.0.7 and the "Indiepath Game Loader Plugin for Mozilla" installed properly. However it crashes FireFox once the load bar gets filled up.

How crap is that :D

I've got to get my daughter from school, I'll fix it when I get back.

Works on mine. IE 6.

also works in Firefox 1.0.6

Yeah it works on both my XP boxes with Firefox, Opera and IE 6 and also on my 98 box with the same browsers.

hah, well it's been a year since I bought Blitz Plus and I've done lots of code in my spare time with some finished things (See sig) and some not finished things (uh... see sig), and nothing released commercially ... yet. But it's all been great fun and the forums have been a massive help (and hindrance i.e. time wastage!)

I think you're a brave man, and congratulate you on a job well done! *clap clap*

I've given it time to warm up. It's still telling me the plug-in needs to be installed :o)

yeah clap clap, keep up the good work, inspiration to us all etc. You ought to be on the BlitzMax bug testers payroll as well.

Lol ~ Ross C, I've run the stuff through the "Code DownLoad Log Viewer- CDLLOGVW.EXE" and it appears that the control is having problems getting registered on some machines. XP SP2 seems to be fine here, 98SE is problematic. Does it work if you do a manual install? Does it work in Firefox?

There's a payroll?!?

There should be. Then maybe some bugs would actually get found before release.

I don't have firefox :D ( man i wish misterx saw that). I tried clicking the link for the install, but it didn't happen. I'm not running a service pack either. ANyway, congratulations on a successful year :o)

btw, I didn't just click the asteroids game, I manually installed the loader first in IE by clicking ***click here*** and then Run, then I ran the game. Then in Firefox I clicked ***click here*** and it download the .exe to the desktop but I didn't run it as I figured it was already installed from IE, and clicking the game just worked in firefox. This could be due to previous things I had installed from previous tests for you. Not sure if this is what you wanted testing? How do you remove the loader, then I could try auto installing by just clicking the game in both browsers?

Remove old installations by removing npigl.dll from C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins

Remove the old control from C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Program Files

The manual install saves all the files for all the browsers.

Yep it's definately a register problem. XP SP2 seems to auto register the files and ignore my instructions. Win98 just does not register them at all.

OK I removed both and thought I'd try Mozilla first this time. I click asteroids, small pause, bar whizzed across (cached?) and then I got "Illegal Operation in Plugin Indiepath Game Loader Plugin for Mozilla. The plugin performed an illegal operation. You are strongly advised to restart Navigator" I clicked OK and nothing else happened. Same if I click on c'bubble.

In IE I clicked asteroids, a page appears saying "If you can see this text you have not installed the loader" but it disappears quite quickly and is replaced with a large white box with "click here to install the following ActiveX control: 'igloader.cab' from 'Indiepath.ltd'" and I also get the usual yellow bar at the top if IE. I clicked the message in the middle of the screen and got a grey popup dialog and clicked Install ActiveX control, then Install on the next dialog. Then nothing seemed to happen but the "If you can see this text ..." had returned. I clicked back and webbed again, but same procedure occurs. This time I tried via the yellow bar at the top but it's exactly the same. So I clicked back and folled the manuall procedure of clicked the ***click here*** to install ... and then run and immediately it showed another dialog with Run as the options (i.e. file must have been downloaded earlier or cahced) and then your install came up. After that webbed works fine. However, I went back into Firefox but the games still don't work, I am getting the illegal operation message again. It worked earlier but now it doesn't!

Hope this monolog helps in some way.

Extra Info: I manually deleted the .dll from the Firefox plugins folder, reinstalled the loader via IE and now the game works in Firefox, although it tells me to shut it down immediately due to being unlicensed.

Sorry, I dont like installing random plugins for each game site..

@nawi, if I get my way you won't have to. Read into that what you will.

Now it looks like I broke it. Ho hum, tomorrow is another day and the office is now closed.

After much hair pulling and frustration it turns out that some machines will not register a control that has been compressed with UPX!

SHould now work for all of you.

Spoken like the blind speak of the colors.

Can you try that again with, say, 25% more English?

I'm gonna need at least 50% more.

It made sense to me, woulda been better without "the" before colors, oh and with a u "colours" but I'm fussy.

Does it work now or shall I post a picture of my office and get this thread deleted?

Oh yeah - I almost forgot what this thread was about. :P

Indie: still not working for me. Got further this time, though. The CAB seemed to download OK - loading bar got all the way to the end - then... nothing. In fact, windows was completely trollied at this point and I had to do a hard reboot. I just did this on top of anything that got loaded/installed after yesterday's attemp, so maybe I needed to remove something from my machine first?

Big10p, follow the remove tips from above!

@big10p, have a butchers in your c:/windows/play online directory, is there a .exe in there?

Well, the 'unknown' loader from yesterday seems to have disappered on it's own. What else needs removing? I don't have FireFox.

Indie: I don't even have that dir, let alone any exe. :)

tim, I was gonna retest it for you but I can't find igloader anymore in Downloaded Program Files to delete it first. Everything still works (in both browsers) but it's instant due to caching I guess.

I don't have the igloader anymore, either. Has it's name changed? What's it called now?

Lol

What a mess.

igLoader consists of two files:-

1) pluginhostctrl.dll - Enables IE to run plugins developed for the mozilla platform (You must have the indiepath version or all hell breaks loose).
2) npigl.dll - The Actual Plugin.

igLoader is packaged in 3 ways:-

1) .xpi - For download into Mozilla based browsers.
2) .cab - For download into IE browsers (automatic).
3) .exe - Manual install for all browsers.

When pluginhostctrl.dll is registered it will appear as a control in WINDOWS/Downloaded Program Files and will be called MozillaPluginHostCtrl Class.

To kill it firstly remove the Class file (right click and select Remove). Then search for instances of each of the dll and delete them. Don't worry about registry stuff, removing the Class file with remove any registry entries.

OK, I cleared out all the old stuff and tried again but it still ended up with windows hanging.

I cleared out again and installed the loader manually before clicking the 'play' Asteroids link but the browser's just stuck on the '3 steps to success' screen. Windows hasn't locked up, though.

@Big10p, have you tried other plugins such as OSAKit? did they work?

No, I haven't tried OSAKit, or any other plugins I can think of.

I have the same problem as big10p (at least today it gets back to the 3 steps to success screen, then... nothing) - still. Yesterday I got the 'it isn't loaded' screen.

OSAKit totals my IE processes and didn't get any further than your plugin ever did either =]

I Guess if OSA does not work either then it's a machine specific issue and not a plugin issue.

Two machines specific issue. And I don't think I was the only one having problem with OSA either.

This is a FRESH XP SP2 install. Younger than a month old. It doesn't matter anyway, there's nothing in my background processes or IE plugins or what have you that could interfere with such a thing.

Works under IE and Firefox 1.07.
Yay! Pluginhostctrl works, then, I guess...

It crashes under Firefox in a very horrible way if the downloader is not installed... it kind of takes away from the wonderful user-friendly look of your web site when the web browser starts performing illegal operations and all that.
A bit of idiot-proofing would be good :)

Nice web site.

@Dylan,

What do you mean it crashes if the downloader is not installed? If the downloader is not installed nothing should happen at all - apart from some dialog to install the downloader.

Oh and pluginhostctrl does work but needs some major reworking otherwise it just hangs the applications and never finds the plugings. This is my version, I suppose I should change the name and the CLSID.

Actually, FireFox is crashing a lot for me lately.
I think it's my fault... probably some plugin of mine :S

lol. If it was IE that was crashing, you'd be slagging it and MS like a bastich. Because it's lovely, cuddly FireFox, it must be your fault? :P

Uploaded a new version that does not hang in IE.

I won't tell you that it still does the same thing on my machine =] <whistles innocently>

Dare I say it? The core code has been re-written and been extensively tested and it now works on machines it did not work on before - PHEW!

If you missed out last time then please try again, use the manual install package to overwrite any old files.

working a charm here on Fire Fox.

Very Nice indeed, a question tho if you dont mind, I gather the exe and media is downloaded to the client system then run on the client, and then trapped to the browser window.

But has it bee tested on 56k ? and or how is it for downloading to play bigger more media heavy games in a webpage ? or dont you see that as a problem ?

I would be interested in using this on my own site . its looking very good.

Hi Yavin,

Couple of answers.

1) You control the size of the file you serve. If it's a demo then it should be very lightweight as you would hardcode the limitations and remove code/media the was not required.

2) You can deliver your application/game in two ways 1) you can pack all files into a .igl archive (similar to zip) which contains your directory struture etc.OR 2) you can deliver the main application/game to the client without media and pull the media from the web/network as required.

3) This has not been tested on 56K, however the files I am currently serving are in the region of 1.5MB, that's small enough for dial up. Bear in Mind that the Full version of cBubble is 8.9MB and the lightweight version is 1.7MB.

4) Files are not downloaded each time a repeat visitor wants to play the game. The loader will 1) Look for the game locally 2) look for the game in the cache 3) pull from the web.

5) I will be launching soon, watch http://igloader.indiepath.com for more details.

Good luck with that, it has really improved as you've beaten it into shape!

I've had to employ some pretty tight security too. We don't want people to steal the plugin and use it to delivery thier own malicious code now do we.

Yay, it works! I've been wanting to play this for ages. Really good game of Asteroids there, Tim. Well done.

Yay, glad it works for you big10p, you're my new benchmark - if it works for you then it must be okay :D

Pfft. I give up. The world is a conspiracy.

Toby, purge all the old files, hunt and kill npigl.dll then try again :D

Congratulations Tim! You have a better plugin than OSA does now! I really commend you on your efforts.

Actually all I did was go into Manage Addons and Updated your (Indiepath) control. You see, I was too lazy to clean. =]

Anyways C'Bubble has really nice music and... the other two games MAV (the asteriods game plays a sound in the background until I click OK). But don't take this to heart - I've realised for some reason my setup has only ever played one Blitz3D exe since I reinstalled. All the others MAV. I think it's some weird version of the old GeForce 6600 bug, but of course, I'm too lazy to install B3D and test it ;]

I take it C'Bubble is written in B+? (EDIT: No, wait, that was Max, wasn't it...)

Also expect to see Xmas Bonus (made in Blitz Plus Toby!) as a webbed game soon!

If your gona sell it I only hope its not gona cost to much cos id really ... really like to use it. but as iv not been developing for a while iv not really got the funds there to pay out..

Anyway I will be keeping an eye on it. cos it is prity cool.

Yavin, yes I will be selling it very soon. Details are on the website.

I've taken the website down as we've just moved hosts, website will be available tomorrow under domain http://www.igloader.com

Grey, OK, that will be very interesting to see if B+ exes work on my machine then ;]