Dan's Save State Editor Creator v2.1.44

Date: 17/03/2002
Time: 14:13 

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Contents
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1.       About
2.       Do's and Don'ts
3.       What's New
4.       Runtime Files
5.       Usage
6.       FAQ
7.       Features waiting to be implemented
8.       Contact

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1.       About
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This program was created to take the majority of the
monotony out of creating save state editors.

It basically creates the files required to make a basic
save state editors in Delphi (and as of 2.0 VB support).

It creates workable editors, but they still require some editing.

Slight warning: If this doesn't work, tell me.

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2.       Do's and Don'ts
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I have provided the source to this program. I don't really want
to see people compiling my program and saying that they wrote
it because that's not nice. If you have made any (useful) changes
to the source then it would be nice if you let me have a look.
It would be nice, but probably ain't gonna happen.

Oh yeah and don't enter stupid things in some of the fields. The
program is likely to crash if you do. You've been warned!!!

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3.       What's New
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v2.1

- Now IDE style, which brings in a lot of new features.
- No more need for the Delphi functions file as it is now
  outputted into the main unit file.
- Homepage and creator are automatically outputted.
- Proper system information, not *.* as default.
- Saving and loading of a project file (*.sse).
- SaveName and GetName parameters fixed
- Loads of niggly bugs fixed
- Added file association of files ending with sse
- Commandline support for files
- Added the long data type

v2.0

- Last version in wizard format.
- Big jump in version numbers due to massive amount of new 
  features supported!
- Fixed a stupid bug in the property table support.
- Added a new help system.
- Added preliminary VB support.
- On the offsets screen, the Add button now returns focus to the
  Name field.
- Spin Edit is now the first type of control in the list.
- The text files that it creates are now in the Windows format. 
  It used to be in DOS format which was such a pain to debug
  without opening Delphi itself.
- Added validation to certain controls. (Project Options)
- Did behind the scenes code 
- Redid the user interface for the project options screen.
- Changed the new help system to a statusbar.
- Removed the old Win3.1 controls from the project options screen
  and added a browse folders button.
- Fixed the checkboxes and they no longer create labels with them
- Fixed the combobox and textbox so that they are no longer 
  enabled.

v1.2

- Added checkbox support.
- Changed the preview screen.
- Removed the ampersand character from the caption of all buttons
- Fixed formatting of certain code snippets.

v1.1

- Adds labels to the form.
- Fixed wrong declaration of the form in the project file.
- Removed the addition of 'Text1' in the textboxes
- Fixed the wrong usage of the text property in the spin edit
  control. Now uses 'value'
- Tabs (hopefully) implemented!

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4.       Runtime Files
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This program requires DLLs and ActiveX controls to run. These
are:

- MSVBVM60.DLL - The Visual Basic Runtime Files for VB 6.0.
- COMDLG32.OCX - Used in common dialog control (dependency will
                 be removed in a later version)
- MSCOMCTL.OCX - Used all over the project. Cannot be removed.

Delphi Projects should require virtually no additional files,
if you are running a more recent operating system, however,
you may get some errors if you are running a basic Windows 95
machine. Major file needed is a recent version of comctl32.dll.
I have v5.81 and it works fine.

In Visual Basic Projects, certain runtime files may be required
to be on the user's computer for running the program.

- MSVBVM60.DLL - If compiled in VB 6 this file is required
- MSVBVM50.DLL - If compiled in VB 5 this file is required.
- COMDLG32.OCX - See as above.
- MSCOMCT2.OCX - If you use the spinedit field in your project,
                 you need to distribute this file also (Used for
                 the UpDown Control).

All these files are available for download at my site.

Any questions not answered by this small guide of runtime files,
please email me. Oh yeah! As I only have VB 6 at home I have no
way of knowing whether projects will run or compile in VB 5.
Use at your own risk. (runtime files may be different)

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5.       Usage
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Well this program is really easy to use! Trust me it is! It does
not allow you to find offsets for the editors, there are already
other programs that do that and probably better than I could make
one, but it makes the editor's the way I like 'em.

Guides

1.   Creating a new project
     
To create a new project, first you must open the File menu, and
select New Project. Once you have selected new project, a dialog
box should appear with the options of which language you want
to create your save state editor in. Select either Delphi or VB,
and make sure you are careful here, as once you select a choice,
you can't go back! (Well thats not strictly true)

Once you hit Ok, in the new project dialog box, a screen should
appear detailing project options. You can enter the name, 
emulator, output directory, creator of the save state editor
(that's you), homepage of the save state editor (your site), and
the number of tabsheets in the project.  If you don't want any
tabsheets in the project then leave this at 0.

Once you have the project options configured to your needs, hit
Ok.  The offsets screen should appear.  This screen is pretty
self explanatory, select your choices from the four boxes at the 
bottom of the screen and hit Add to add it to the list. If you
made a mistake select the item from the list, and hit the delete
button. 

You can now create a save state editor! More advanced guides
will be posted to my site.

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5.       FAQ
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1.       What is a spinedit field?
         
         A spinedit field is a like a textbox, but with two
         buttons on the right of the textbox which have up and 
         down arrows on them. (These buttons are known as the
         UpDown control in Windows). A spinedit field only allows
         numbers, and it is probably better to use these for
         fields that will contain numbers than normal textboxes.
         However, if you don't want to ship certain OCXs in VB,
         then you may want to consider using textboxes instead.
         Its your choice!

2.       Hey! All the controls in the form are in strange 
         positions! Whats that all about?

         This program is only designed to create the necessary
         code and information for the programs to compile
         correctly. You should redesign the interface to what
         you want it to be. 

3.       I found a bug! What should I do?

         If you find any errors or things that should not be 
         there, follow the below steps:

         1. If it is possible, save the project file and send 
            me it.
         2. If you can create a project then send me that too.
         3. Take a snapshot of the screen (with any error 
            messages)
         4. Take a note of the steps you took to get the 
            error/bug

         My email address is at the bottom of this document.

4.       When I download the runtime files from your site, the
         program still refuses to work. What do I need to do
         with these files?

         Once you have downloaded all the files, put them in
         your system directory, (ie C:\Windows\System). This 
         may cure your problem.

         However, if it does not cure your problem, then follow
         the below steps:

         1. In the windows/system directory locate the program
            called regsvr32.exe.
         2. Open up a DOS prompt window, (if you are running
            a windows 9x operating system, this can be found
            be going into the windows directory, and running 
            the file command.com
         3. Using the dos prompt, cd to the system directory,
            (basic cd commands, cd.. to go to the above directory
            cd <directory> where <directory> is the name of the
            directory in the folder you are in.)
         4. Once you are in the system directory, enter 
            
            regsvr32.exe <controlname>
            
            where control name is the name of the runtime file
            you want to register. For example if you want to
            register mscomctl.ocx enter:
            
            regsvr32.exe mscomctl.ocx

            A dialog box should appear telling you if the 
            registration has succeeded or not. If it hasn't
            your screwed (not really, just make sure the name
            is correct).

            Complete this registration process for each
            runtime file and the program should run.

5.          This <insert name of feature> is wrong! Fix it!

            Unless you give me a description of the problem, and
            a possible solution then there is not much I can
            really do. Sorry.

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7.       Features waiting to be implemented
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- GZIP Code for both
- About Box Usage Code for both
- Add the ability to edit multiple versions of savestates
- Actual file icon (not EXE icon)
- More data types - unsigned ints, etc.
- An option to display a text file if offsets are located in a
  text file.
- Option to output in both VB and Delphi
- Create fully commented code!
- Readme file creator
- Might add a new form for about instead of the about box
  component, still deciding which is bigger (older EXEs seem to
  be smaller than their AboutBox component counterparts.
- Table Support
- Option Buttons support
- Lists in comboboxes
- About box requires manual insertion of the picture. Might be
  able to fix this.

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8.       Contact
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Website: http://danseditors.retrobase.com

Contact me at: dan_scott14@hotmail.com 

Email me for
- Bugs you've found
- Features you'd like to see implemented
- Change in user interfaces you'd like to see.
- Criticism of my program. (Just don't expect a nice response 
  back)
- If you want to help me to develop my program in any way. (It's 
  open-source anyways)