PDF (manual) viewer doesn't render PDFs correctly

[Geronimo]

I was looking for a way to integrate text manuals, docs and guides/walkthoughs into GameEx. As GameEx doesn't support text files the only solution was to convert the text to PDF. I finally found a tool called "Free Text To PDF Converter v1.5" which is freeware and can be used from the shell. The conversion works very well and the resulting PDFs look great in FoxIt Reader and Acrobat Reader. The PDFs are not rendered correctly at all in GameEx though. The rendering looks horrible and makes certain parts plain unreadable.

Tom, could you please look into this? I'm attaching an example PDF, please let me know if you need more info.

3D Pool.pdf

[Tom Speirs]

GameEx does support text files. So try that first.

[Geronimo]

It does?! I was assuming text files aren't supported because the help texts in the config app mention images and PDFs explicitly. Anyway, i've just tried with a simple ASCII TXT file in the artwork path (by exchanging one of the former PDF files with a text file) and GameEx doesn't display it. The path is configured as a "custom art path". I can see a navigational entry for the doc, but when i select it all i get is the "selected" sound effect but nothing else happens. Do i have to configure anything for this to work?

Btw, thanks for the speedy reply Tom (; .

[Tom Speirs]

You might need to update the manual viewer download.

[Geronimo]

I've downloaded the most recent GameEx and let it download all the components during setup, including the manual viewer. GameEx still won't show the text file though.

[Ninja Rygar]

I've noticed this as well... GameEx DOES open up text files................ but only certain ones. It may have something to do with the WIDTH of the text file.

[Geronimo]

Weird. The text file i've been testing with is < 79 chars in width because it's designed to be viewed in a terminal window. Nothing special there. I've tried a few different encodings (UTF-8, ANSII/ASCII) but GameEx just won't display the file. Ninja Rygar, would you happen to have an example of one file that shows in GameEx and one that doesn't? I'm a lazy person and maybe you can provide examples without too much trouble (; .

Anyway, this text thing is one matter. What about the other one, the PDF rendering problems? Is this something that can be/will be fixed in a future GameEx version?

[Tom Speirs]

Weird. The text file i've been testing with is < 79 chars in width because it's designed to be viewed in a terminal window. Nothing special there. I've tried a few different encodings (UTF-8, ANSII/ASCII) but GameEx just won't display the file. Ninja Rygar, would you happen to have an example of one file that shows in GameEx and one that doesn't? I'm a lazy person and maybe you can provide examples without too much trouble (; .

Anyway, this text thing is one matter. What about the other one, the PDF rendering problems? Is this something that can be/will be fixed in a future GameEx version?

Can you both please post files that dont work for you.

Cheers.

Tom.

[Geronimo]

Here's an exmaple, the same file used to create the PDF in the first post. The file had Unix linebreaks originally but has been converted to DOS linebreaks by UltraEdit. GameEx doesn't display the file in either format.

3D Pool.txt

[Tom Speirs]

Works fine here. Perhaps post your log?

[Geronimo]

OK, here's two logs. What i did: copied the offending .txt (3D Pool.txt) to the "normal" manuals directory, because i thought the problem might be connected to the file being in an extra artwork path. Then tried to view the file in GameEx. The log for this session is "log01.txt". As you can see i get a "Error: eBook/Game Manual viewer not installed." message. Then tried to view a scanned PDF manual, which worked perfectly well. The log for this sessions is "log02.txt". Weird isn't it? (;

Oh, and i've installed the latest GameEx prior to testing, of course.

LOG.RAR

[Tom Speirs]

It sounds like you have not got the new version of the manual viewer installed, but obviously thats not the case.

[Geronimo]

Yeah, i've let setup download everything when installing the new version this morning. Is there a way to check which version of the viewer i have installed? Maybe it's an overwrite problem or something like that. If you have a CRC or MD5 i could checksum my file.

[Tom Speirs]

The file was not zipped correctly. Should be good now.

Cheers.