PawnProgrammingNotes

This "sub wiki" is being written (initially, at least) by me, ratcliffe. I have been doing software development for 30+ years in VB.NET, C#, C++ and Objective C. This is my first experience with Pawn and of course with programming the WOWCube. Feel free to drop me a DM in the WOWCube Discord if I've gotten anything wrong, or you can suggest a better way to do something, or want me to try to cover a specific topic. I'm going to be making notes here as I build a basic RPG for the WOWCube.

This is just a scaffolding for the moment, I will be fleshing out the listed items over the next few days.

I also need to work to keep some terminology straight so I may change these terms a bit soon

cubelet or module

one of the eight physical small cubes, each with three screens, in the WOWCube

screen

one of the three screens on a cubelet

messaging

the technique supported in the API to send a small packet of information to one or more other cubelets

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Here are the current topics in place or coming soon!

• A few Pawn Language "gotchas"/reminders
  • Statements do NOT have to be terminated with ";" (but I usually do it anyway out of habit)
  • Declare variables with "new" (not "var", etc.)
  • You can use the built in words "true" and "false" to represent a boolean value and test for it with "if (x) { }" which will execute the code in braces if x is true
  • Arrays can be up to three dimensions and indexes start at 0
  • Use "==" (not "=") to check for equivalence in an "if" statement
  • Use "!=" instead of "<>" for "not equal to"
  • You can enter numbers in hex by prefixing with 0x e.g. "0xFFFF0000" is used as an ARGB value for the color red
  • "if" statements with more than one condition require an extra set of () around the whole expression e.g. "if ((x==1)||(x==2)) {}"
  • function definitions are not prefixed with "f" or "func" or "function" e.g. "abs(x) {if (x>=0) {return x} else {return -1*x}}" is a valid function definition
  • you can begin a comment on a line by itself or at the end of a line with "//". Use "/* .... */" for block comments ... block comments CANNOT be nested
• A few Visual Studio Code "gotchas"/reminders
• Remembering that the WOWCUBE is "eight processors all running the same code"
• ON_Tick() vs ON_Render()
• You have to render everything on a screen at once!
• Physical cubelets and "virtual" mapping to them
• Dealing with differing orientation of the screens
• Putting text on a screen
• Basics of developing a simple map with tunnels
• The magic of TOPOLOGY_getAdjacentFacelet()
• How to handle moving from one screen to another (on the same or a different cubelet)

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• Tricks when using the Emulator