Molebox...

It worth getting? Anyone had any problems with it?

BlitzMax's IncBin allows for basic data-including functionality, but I like MoleBox since you don't have to change your source at all and it has additional features. I've used it with Blitz3D and BlitzMax/MaxGUI. It has Zip compression, though I've gotten better results with UPXing my executables before MoleBoxing them (I also use UPX Anti-Decompress together with MoleBox's encryption for security).

I haven't yet had a chance to really use its full power, just used it on some freebie mini-games. I went for the full, Pro version since it allows for separate data packages. That way, you can send an updated "data2" package to your users, and any files in it will be loaded instead of what's in the earlier "data1" file (you can set things up with alphabetic wildcards when you first MoleBox your executable so that it knows to look for any later updates). This should be handy for distributing small-sized updates when I get around to selling proper games. But if you don't plan on using that Pro feature and are using BMax, you might just stick with IncBin (since it's free <g>) rather than paying for MoleBox Standard.

A while back I had a problem with font names in Blitz3D (upper case filename issue): I contacted MoleBox's author and it was fixed within a few days. So he seems like a responsive guy, ready to fix problems that might crop up.

Great! Thanks Wendell. I might look into it then. I just like the idea of having one simple exe for the entire thing.

You're welcome. For making an .exe with your data/media included (it looks like you're using Blitz3D/Plus, so IncBin doesn't apply), you can do fine with the cheaper MoleBox Standard. I hope that it works out for you. If you ever have the need to upgrade to Pro, you can get the amount that you paid for Standard as a credit toward it (at least I did), so it's not a bad idea to go with it.

I understand why you'd want to distribute a single .exe for simplicity - that's what I did with my mini-games rather than using an installer, and it worked fine. An esthetically pleasing, neat and tidy, single file.

So basically you could distribute a l;imited version of a game for try before purposes and then a full version as an upgrade using molebox?

I did something like that using one of the blitz packers... it had the ability to compress new PAK (ahhh PKPAK???) from your own program so I could make a config file with a number in it... decompress it at program runtime... read the number as a variable then if it was not 0 decrease it by 1 and repak it... if it was 0 or less the program showed where to BUY itself...

Worked good... But it sounds like MOLEBOX could do that for you in a way... Am I correct?

As far as I see an app that is packed by molebox cannot pack data by its own. Therefor you couldn't do what you described. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Molebox is pretty good and works on about 99% of all machines. Checking for the existence of packed folders (if filetype(f$)=2) won't work with molebox, btw. It's great to protect data from unauthorized access. It allows strong encryption of the whole exe, including checksum integrity check etc. It also allows to include DLLs in the exe.
Well you may read about the features at www.molebox.com

Well I was speaking of how I did it with PAK...

I was thinking this:
Was a way to upgrade from 1 version to another... perhaps, as usual, my profound denseness has interfered with comprehension again???

I wasn't aware of the wildcard thingie. Sounds good tho.

"Pro" patching explained:

http://www.molebox.com/manual-patches.shtml

One downside of molebox that I've seen, is that you can't seem to open -> run a game directly from the internet if it's moleboxed. You need to save it to your harddrive first and then run it, or it will error out that it can't open any of the external files.

ahhh

But there's plenty of these free packers in the toolbox section..