A droplet for the community

I am allmost ready to share with the community my droplet program i made for personal purposes. The final result is pretty good so its worth to share with all of you. But there is a problem i can't handle it:
When the application lost the windows focus by another OpenGL or D3D application then the screen update is freezing (not the program). The droplet is a Blitz3D application with native windows menus and dialogs (through a DLLs i made).
Currently the program saves the maps in its own format but in a few days it will export to Blitz3D code. There is also an incomplete help file
Because i have no web site, i can sent the application by e-mail to anyone who interested for testing and usage so i can have your feedback.
Thanks in advance

OOoh, this sounds interesting.

Very kind of you to share.
Any screenies?

I don't know how to post a screenshot...!

mail them to me, i'll upload them to my webspace and post them here..

Maybe you can solve the problem with an Api call of SetWindowPos (I guess that was it). It allows to position and scale a window, as well as to set its Z-Position. Unfortunately this still won't give your hwnd the user focus in every situation.

I have to confess when I had a similar problem some time ago, I used a simulated mouseclick right onto my window, this worked, no matter what.

Pretty "quick'n'dirty", I know. :o)

jfk EO-11110,
thanks for your advise and I will try it. But if you are a C experienced programmer I can e-mail to you a small piece of C code to tell you exactly my tricks with windows API calls and Blitz3D...

First Screenshot:



Download here:

http://www.t3k-entertainment.com/DropIt.zip

Ok, at first look: nice - but the interface (especially the keys) is not very intuitive. i find it difficult to place objects when i have rotated the camera. the movement axes of your cursor don't rotate with the camera - making it very clumsy. maybe you could fix that. i'll go have a second look.

What's a droplet?

John Pickford, A droplet is a entity placement program to assist in world creation.
Moraldi, Why are the controls inverted?

Fuller, what you mean inverted? if you press 6 from numkeys the cursor moving right on positive X-axis and so on. I suppose you mean what allready t3K|Mac said: There is a confusion if you rotate the camera lets say 180 degrees around Y-axis: in this case because cursor has not been rotated with the camera if you press 6 again then it still moving on positive X-axis but you see e left movement...

I'm not keen on the controls either - however, I have only had a quick go on it. Probably takes getting used to.

Hi guys,
Thinking of your suggestions about the user interface I have changed some things in DropIt including the following additions:

1. Support surface creation with animated textures
2. Store all preferences in configuration file
3. Blitz3D code generation (the most important)

If I see that there is an interest I'll continue with more futures. Otherwise I'll stop. Because I don't have a web site yet, please feel free to send me your request and I'll send you the installation program...

Well, here is a link for download:
http://files.filefront.com/DropItexe/;5240089;;/fileinfo.html

After several months I am back with a new droplet program. This time it is much more user friendly and has the ability to export data in an ASCII format
You can grab it from here:
http://www.moraldigames.com/downloads.htm
Please let me know for your feedback and most importantly bugs you will find because I intend to post it to the Blitz Toolbox

Thanks

I can't get it to run - ie double clicking the exe doesn't launch it.

Did you download the installation program? Normally it will create s shortcut in the Start->Programs->Unlimited Drop
It runs on 1024x768x32 windowed screen mode. I didn't implement a graphics mode selection yet. Does your card support this mode? I hope in a few days I will finish the graphics mode selection
Here is the main screenshot: