Belle - Visual novel maker

[Taleweaver]

This topic now has a new home at our Other VN Engines forum!

[Rinima]

*is playing around on it* Ohh, now this -is- fun

[freemind]

Hi,

After a really long delay i'm here to announce the 0.4 alpha release.
It's been a long journey and i was able to improve and add many new features, although not as much as i would've wanted, but nonetheless, this release improves many things and adds support for pause screen, extending the game with Javascript and better offline distribution. I hope you enjoy, much effort has been put into it.

Just as a sidenote, this is still an alpha release so it's possible you might encounter some issues. That's why testing and giving feedback would be much appreciated.

You can download Belle in the usual place:
http://www.nongnu.org/belle/download.html

[fleet]

I was wondering when you'd have an update. I'm working on a project now, but will look in version 0.4 perhaps next week and give you some feedback.

[fleet]

Is the background image supposed to show in the "Scene View" of the editor? I can't get mine to appear there. It does seem to show when I click Novel on the command line and click on Run in the drop down menu.

I successfully ran the demo (with the gnu) on-line, so I decided to download it and play it off line.
It would not work in Internet Explorer 11 or Google Chrome 35.0. It would only work in Firefox 30, but had no sound. I am using Windows 7.

Did you redo the demo using Belle 0.4 or is it the one from version 0.3? I seem to recall the demo didn't work well off-line in version 0.3.

[freemind]

Is the background image supposed to show in the "Scene View" of the editor? I can't get mine to appear there. It does seem to show when I click Novel on the command line and click on Run in the drop down menu.

I successfully ran the demo (with the gnu) on-line, so I decided to download it and play it off line.
It would not work in Internet Explorer 11 or Google Chrome 35.0. It would only work in Firefox 30, but had no sound. I am using Windows 7.

Did you redo the demo using Belle 0.4 or is it the one from version 0.3? I seem to recall the demo didn't work well off-line in version 0.3.

Thanks for the quick feedback. Yes the background image is supposed to show, it isn't? Probably it's the type of the image. I just tried a couple of different image formats and saw that SVG images are not being displayed on Windows. Is it SVG?

About the demo, you're right, i haven't redone it. It's still the old demo that works with 0.3 and will most probably break with 0.4. But i need definitely to redo it or do something new. I'm going to work on that on the next days.

Thanks again, fleet.

[fleet]

Thanks for the quick feedback. Yes the background image is supposed to show, it isn't? Probably it's the type of the image. I just tried a couple of different image formats and saw that SVG images are not being displayed on Windows. Is it SVG?

About the demo, you're right, i haven't redone it. It's still the old demo that works with 0.3 and will most probably break with 0.4. But i need definitely to redo it or do something new. I'm going to work on that on the next days.

Thanks again, fleet.

It's a jpg image, most of the images I use are jpg files, except when I need an iamge that requires transparency.
When I exported the one page VN, the jpg image appeared. Is there a way to 'refresh' the "Novel Run" command sequence? When I make changes they don't appear when I run the VN using that method. Changes do appear when I export the VN.

[freemind]

Thanks for the quick feedback. Yes the background image is supposed to show, it isn't? Probably it's the type of the image. I just tried a couple of different image formats and saw that SVG images are not being displayed on Windows. Is it SVG?

About the demo, you're right, i haven't redone it. It's still the old demo that works with 0.3 and will most probably break with 0.4. But i need definitely to redo it or do something new. I'm going to work on that on the next days.

Thanks again, fleet.

It's a jpg image, most of the images I use are jpg files, except when I need an iamge that requires transparency.
When I exported the one page VN, the jpg image appeared. Is there a way to 'refresh' the "Novel Run" command sequence? When I make changes they don't appear when I run the VN using that method. Changes do appear when I export the VN.

Strange, the jpg should be well supported. Do you have other jpg images you can test with, to see if just happens with that one or all?
About your other question, i'm not sure i understand what you mean. So you want that everytime you hit refresh on the browser, it will get the VN as you last edited it, without you clicking 'Run Novel' button?

[fleet]

It's a jpg image, most of the images I use are jpg files, except when I need an iamge that requires transparency.
When I exported the one page VN, the jpg image appeared. Is there a way to 'refresh' the "Novel Run" command sequence? When I make changes they don't appear when I run the VN using that method. Changes do appear when I export the VN.

Strange, the jpg should be well supported. Do you have other jpg images you can test with, to see if just happens with that one or all?
About your other question, i'm not sure i understand what you mean. So you want that everytime you hit refresh on the browser, it will get the VN as you last edited it, without you clicking 'Run Novel' button?

It happens with a different jpg image, too.

What I'm saying is that I made a couple of slide, then I hit Novel Run to see how the project looks. I then moved a text box on an existing slide. Next I hit Novel Run to see the changes, but the changes don't appear. Since I can't see the background images in the "Scene View", I need to be able to see the pictures without the need to export the project.

Did you have anybody besides yourself test version 0.4 before releasing it?

[freemind]

It happens with a different jpg image, too.

What I'm saying is that I made a couple of slide, then I hit Novel Run to see how the project looks. I then moved a text box on an existing slide. Next I hit Novel Run to see the changes, but the changes don't appear. Since I can't see the background images in the "Scene View", I need to be able to see the pictures without the need to export the project.

Did you have anybody besides yourself test version 0.4 before releasing it?

I understand what you mean. I tested on a new machine with Windows 7 and indeed i couldn't see any image jpg or otherwise in the editor. It's a problem with the libraries (files) responsible for handling the images, for some reason they were not working on any other Windows beside my testing Windows machine. Anyway, to fix this is easy, it's just a matter of zipping again the folder with the 'proper' libraries. I'll do that tonight and let you know when it's done.

About the testing, unfortunately there's only me doing the testing and i don't have time to do a thorough test in every system possible.

I'm sorry fleet, i didn't mean to waste your time like this.

[fleet]

Actually I don't consider it a waste of my time, since you also encountered the problem, and are working on fixing it.

I'll try it out when you post the update. This time I'll test it using a simple variable, one menu, two branches, background music, and possibly an animated GIF file, since you said Belle doesn't currently support video.

Very respectfully,
fleet

[freemind]

Actually I don't consider it a waste of my time, since you also encountered the problem, and are working on fixing it.

I'll try it out when you post the update. This time I'll test it using a simple variable, one menu, two branches, background music, and possibly an animated GIF file, since you said Belle doesn't currently support video.

Very respectfully,
fleet

It's updated. I made sure all common image formats are working. Let me know of anything else, thanks.

[fleet]

It's updated. I made sure all common image formats are working. Let me know of anything else, thanks.

Thanks. I'll download and take a look.

[fleet]

I'm using Windows 7, 64 bit.

Background images still do not appear in the "Scene View' of the Editor.
I can view what I've made using the 'Novel - Run' command.
I noticed that the sound file I added did not loop, as I failed to check the 'loop' box.
I corrected my error, the replayed the story using the 'Novel - Run' command. The sound did not loop.

I exported my project to see if my changes were there. The game would not open in Google Chrome 35, Firefox 20, or Internet Explorer 11. In each of the browsers all I got was a rolling 'loading' type bar.

The documentation said I could play my exported using the Editor. Which of the 'js' files am I supposed to open?


Is there a recommended drive and directory that YOU use to get the program to work? I've got the program installed on my E drive, and I tried to save my project to a folder I created on the E drive, but Belle locked up and I lost an hour of work (other than the exported project, which I can't open).

Very respectfully,
fleet

[freemind]

Hey again,

I'm using Windows 7, 64 bit.

Background images still do not appear in the "Scene View' of the Editor.

Are you sure you downloaded the updated version? The updated version has two new files, QtSvg4.dll and QtXml4.dll, in the same directory where belle.exe is. Can you check?

I noticed that the sound file I added did not loop, as I failed to check the 'loop' box.
I corrected my error, the replayed the story using the 'Novel - Run' command. The sound did not loop.

I just tested the sound and it was looping okay. I'm not sure what happened in your case, can you tell more or less what you did?

I exported my project to see if my changes were there. The game would not open in Google Chrome 35, Firefox 20, or Internet Explorer 11. In each of the browsers all I got was a rolling 'loading' type bar.

That usually means something went wrong. If you want you can send me the project folder, so i can try to check what's wrong.

The documentation said I could play my exported using the Editor. Which of the 'js' files am I supposed to open?

The file which you should open is the game_data.js. I've already put a note here to fix this.

Is there a recommended drive and directory that YOU use to get the program to work? I've got the program installed on my E drive, and I tried to save my project to a folder I created on the E drive, but Belle locked up and I lost an hour of work (other than the exported project, which I can't open).

I'm so sorry to hear about your work . Can you send me the project exported? Maybe i can fix it. And what kind of lock up happened? Did the window freeze or it crashed?
I use Linux, by the way, so telling the directory i use is of no help. Even if i used Windows, i wouldn't be really helping anyone if i avoided the problem. Anyway any directory should be okay, i see no reason for it to break. I just tried to export a very simple game to many directories on Windows and it worked fine, so maybe the problem was with something you did in that project, not really the directory you exported to.

fleet, i'm very grateful for your feedback and i don't want you to waste more time, so feel free to not continue testing anymore. I'm going to do some intensive testing on Windows, to see if i can filter most of these small (annoying) issues and release a 0.4.1 soon (really soon).

Have a nice day.