Thief Fan Mission Manager Now a Mission Loader

R Soul on 6/5/2016 at 22:26

I haven't been able to get that to work for me. I even tried using your vb code but the game exe crashes when I try to run it.

The old way, making the loader as a program that runs T2 with command line arguments, seems perfectly fine though. Except for exluding a mod path for a specific FM, unless there's an undocumented arg that can do that.

tolsen64 on 6/5/2016 at 22:30

Quote Posted by R Soul

Try (http://boycot.no-ip.com/Thief/Files/fmsel.zip) this and see if it works.

R Soul on 7/5/2016 at 00:16

Thanks, that works, as does the code. I converted it to c# and stuck it in a basic project and managed to get it to work from there too.

I was hoping that in SelectFM I could set data.sName (using a preinstalled FM's name) but it didn't work. The game started but in normal T2 mode. :erg:

tolsen64 on 7/5/2016 at 04:49

Yeah, big show-stopper there. I thought I found the problem because it was returning kSelFMRet_Cancel when clicking yes, which would mean it would just start thief without a FM. So I changed it to kSelFMRet_OK with high hopes but it still doesn't work. It seems the change to the sName is not being seen by the caller even though it's ByRef. Still trying to figure out if there's anything that can be done to fix it.

snobel on 7/5/2016 at 07:23

I don't know much about managed code but if it turns out you need that intermediate DLL after all, I can have a go at it.

R Soul on 8/5/2016 at 00:52

I don't think we should be marshalling the FM name as a LPStr because the FMSel doc says it is "char *sName". I think that means a pointer to the first item in a char array. Unfortunately my attempts to export what appears to be the right thing causes my dll to simply crash. I don't know if I'm getting a parameter wrong or if it's just not possible. The only unmanaged types I can see that have anything to do with arrays are LPArray and SafeArray.

It feels like I'm just guessing. I don't like admitting defeat but because DLL Export isn't a built in feature, there are very few examples to learn from. If you want to keep digging tolsen, I wish you well, but I'm going back to my comfort zone!

snobel: I don't mean to appear to be talking over you. Your idea sounds interesting, but whether it's worth it depends on how hard it is.

snobel on 8/5/2016 at 10:43

From some (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/s9ts558h%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) light googling, UnmanagedType.LPStr should be the correct type.

The intermediate DLL would be a work-around. Much better if you can make it work without it.

tolsen64 on 8/5/2016 at 16:55

Quote Posted by snobel

I agree. And the <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)> isn't even required. It can receive the string without it. But it's not looking like I can get it to work passing back. I tried changing my structure from variable type String to IntPtr and then using Marshal.StringToHGlobalAnsi but it still didn't work. I sent an email to the developer of UnmanagedExports via the NuGet web site. I asked about if the [DLLExport] decoration was a 2-way deal or if it was only one way from native to CLR.

I have a stripped-down version of the C++ fmsel that looks just like my CLR version. It also does not work if I just set data->sName = "My_Mission_Folder"; I have to do a strcpy_s(data->sName, data->nMaxNameLen, "My_Mission_Folder"); Then it works. That's why I tried changing the types from String to IntPtr in CLR. But still no joy.

I don't know what the variables are in this case. Whether [DLLExport] has limitations, or some other issue exists.

@snobel, i'd be willing to work with you on creating a shim for this. Perhaps passing the structure to me as-is, but receive back a structure or array of values (including the int which tells newdark what to do) via the function result. I guess experimenting is the only thing we can do. Or perhaps I could do it if I knew how to load and call a DLL from C++.

snobel on 8/5/2016 at 18:25

This could go on a while... Let's move to PMs to avoid derailing the thread.

tolsen64 on 15/5/2016 at 07:19

I got issues fixed to where I can (and R Soul can) create a working mission selector as an alternative to the fmsel.dll currently in use. These issues were:

1. Could not pass mission name back to the game so it would just run default missions. The fix for this was changing the data types for strings that need to be modified to IntPtr and then using Marshal.Copy to write the mission name to sName.

2. launching a common dialog (such as openfiledialog, folderbrowserdialog) or trying to enable Drag & Drop functionality would cause the process to lock and I had to use task manager to stop THIEF.EXE. After much researching and experimenting, I found this was due to the code running in a multi-threaded apartment state. The fix for this was to create a new STA thread and launch the UI in that. Now common dialogs work and Drag & Drop works.

So here's the new, working code for your coding pleasure (whoever wants to take a stab at creating an alternative fmsel.dll. I'll get it up on GitHub in the next day or so and post the link.

Code:

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports RGiesecke.DllExport
Imports System.Text.Encoding
Imports System.IO

Public Module fmsel

Private FMSelData As sFMSelectorData

Public Enum eFMSelReturn
kSelFMRet_OK = 0 ' run selected FM 'data->sName' (0-len string to run without an FM)
kSelFMRet_Cancel = -1 ' cancel FM selection And start game As-Is (no FM Or If defined In cam_mod.ini use that)
kSelFMRet_ExitGame = 1 ' abort And quit game
End Enum

<StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack:=4, CharSet:=CharSet.Ansi)>
Public Structure sFMSelectorData
Public nStructSize As Integer

Public sGameVersion As String

' supplied initial FM root path (the FM Selector may change this)
Public sRootPath As IntPtr
Public nMaxRootLen As Integer

' buffer to copy the selected FM name
Public sName As IntPtr
Public nMaxNameLen As Integer

' set to non-zero when selector Is invoked after game exit (if requested during game start)
Public bExitedGame As Integer
' FM selector should set this to non-zero if it wants to be invoked after game exits (only done for FMs)
Public bRunAfterGame As Integer

' optional list of paths to exclude from mod_path/uber_mod_path in + separated format And Like the config
' vars, Or if "*" all Mod paths are excluded (leave buffer empty for no excludes)
' the specified exclude paths work as if they had a "*\" wildcard prefix
Public sModExcludePaths As IntPtr
Public nMaxModExcludeLen As Integer

Public sLanguage As IntPtr
Public nLanguageLen As Integer
Public bForceLanguage As Integer
End Structure

<DllExport(CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.Cdecl, ExportName:="SelectFM")>
Public Function SelectFM(ByRef data As sFMSelectorData) As Int32
FMSelData = data

' Our form must be opened in a separate thread set to Single-Threaded Apartment state.
' this is necessary for common dialogs and DragDrop operations to function.
Dim thd As New Threading.Thread(Sub()
With New frmMain
.ShowDialog()
End With
End Sub)
thd.SetApartmentState(Threading.ApartmentState.STA)
thd.Start()
thd.Join() 'blocks the calling thread until thd exits.

'assume user chose "AThiefsHoliday" from the UI
Dim sName As Byte() = ASCII.GetBytes("AThiefsHoliday") 'folder name of mission to play
Marshal.Copy(sName, 0, FMSelData.sName, sName.Length)

Return FMSelReturnValue
End Function