> Question for you, Sam. I'm trying a little bit of AGL coding using NotePad under Windows 98, and after indenting several times for various conditionals and extended blocks of text, I'm having to begin lines of code mighty close to the left side of the screen. I've looked at some of NotePad's options for reducing font size, but that's only available when using a font other than the standard "Fixedsys".

Notepad for Windows 98 lets you change the font? Huh. The one on Windows 95 doesn't let you. At any rate, Notepad is an editor for raw text files only. I suspect that whatever font you choose will only be used for the display, and that this font information will not be stored in the file itself. You can try this as an experiment -- create a file using a different font. Save it. Change to a different font (we'll call this font #2). Exit. Start up Notepad again. Load your file. Does it show up in font #1 or font #2? My guess is #2, because the font information wouldn't be stored in the file.

If it's #2, then your worries are over. Compose in any font you wish; it won't make a bit of difference. If it's #1, bring the file up in MSDOS' "edit" and see if it stored extraneous information in the file.

> What, if any, are the standards for AGL text files?

They're all listed in the Tutorial. The biggest snag is that tabs must actually be tab characters, not bunches of spaces, and the spacing has to be exactly as prescribed. The biggest spacing snag is that you put spaces around variable setting commands, like (using periods for spaces): s.=.1 and v.5.+.2 but you do NOT use spaces around comparison operations in conditionals, like: c.s=1 and c.v5!2

Also make sure you don't have any trailing spaces or tabs on the end of lines, and no supposedly blank lines that actually contain spaces or tabs. If you don't catch these, I will, but keep all that in mind. The spacing rules for AGL stink for the programmer, but it makes the operation of the engine so much faster for those playing the game if it can assume exactly where it's going to find the information it needs without having to skip over arbitrary amounts of spaces.