Keen 1 loading text color

Request patches for Keens 1-3.
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szemigi
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Keen 1 loading text color

Post by szemigi »

Hey, is it possible to manage the colour of the "Loading Commander Keen part 1..." texts? If so, how can this be handled by a patch, Lass?
levellass
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Re: Keen 1 loading text color

Post by levellass »

This is the text before the game even starts? I do not know of a way, it seems quite tricky.
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szemigi
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Re: Keen 1 loading text color

Post by szemigi »

Just saying, because in Keen 1 v1.34 'Loading Commander Keen part 1...' loading text has a cyan background.

Can this be done in Keen 1 v1.31 with a patch?
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szemigi
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Re: Keen 1 loading text color

Post by szemigi »

So can the colour of the "Loading Commander Keen part 1... version 1.31" text be patched or changed or what?
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Fleexy
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Re: Keen 1 loading text color

Post by Fleexy »

Please be patient; it can take some time to develop patches, especially when there are many pending requests.

I don't know how to do it by patching, but I do have an alternative method. You can remove the game's loading text by making it a blank string:

Code: Select all

%patch $14F1D $00
Then you can have your batch file change the color and echo the desired text before running the game. Store a text file in your mod folder with this content:

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X[1;34;40m
That first "X" character should be ASCII 27 (0x1B) - you will have to correct it with a hex editor. The batch file can change the text color by issuing a "type" command on that text file. My example turns the foreground text blue; for information on the format, see this page.
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szemigi
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Re: Keen 1 loading text color

Post by szemigi »

Could you help me in it? I have never done it before.

Tell me in segments approximately.
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Fleexy
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Re: Keen 1 loading text color

Post by Fleexy »

Paste "X[1;34;40m" into a Notepad window and save it as e.g. "color.txt" in your mod folder. Close Notepad. My hex editor of choice is XVI32 - download and unzip it, then run "XVI32.exe". Open your "color.txt" file. You'll see some hexadecimal in the wide pane to the left; the represented text appears on the right. Click the first hex byte (58) in the left pane to select it. Make sure "Overwrite" appears in the status bar, and if it doesn't press Insert on your keyboard to switch modes. Type "1B" on your keyboard to replace the first character with the control code. Save the file and close XVI32. Now you can put this at the top of your batch file:

Code: Select all

@echo off
type color.txt
echo Loading Commander Keen part 1...
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szemigi
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Re: Keen 1 loading text color

Post by szemigi »

It kinda works, but after quitting, in the left low corner of my new B800 screen the path of the game mod (C:/folder/folder) appears. How can I avoid it? So how can I solve to make the game mod quit normally with using the echo command? (So I don't have to press any key to quit to DOS.)

Also, how can I change the background of a character? Because your solution changed the letter color only and not its background.

EDIT: I changed the colour and the whole DOSBox texts became the same colour (I tried 1B, which is blue). How can I fix it to have coloured text for the game mod and the traditional grey (original) color for the DOSBox?
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