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Introduction A project is underway, led by Geep, to eventually provide English language subtitles (or if you prefer, "closed captions") for all the non-story phrases (e.g., barks) of the stock AI characters. The non-story phrases are identified by the "verbosity speech" subtitle tag. The hope is that these subtitles would be distributed as part of the future TDM 2.12 core and so available to all FMs, both old and new. Since there are 5-10K such phrases in total, this project will take a while. Let me know if you'd like to help. This forum thread can be used for project coordination, and to provide info about - What subtitle sets (e.g., for particular AI) are underway and completed Emerging tools or methods for bulk testing Style guidance for TDM subtitle authors. To support this project, a style guide will be developed as experience accumulates. While motivated by providing some consistency to English speech-tagged subtitles, it may be of some interest to FMers creating story-tagged subtitles, and those subtitling in other TDM-supported languages. Potential improvements to TDM's subtitling system - particularly those that would involve engine/GUI changes - can be discussed in this companion thread: Subtitles - Possibilities Beyond 2.11 Current Status - Subtitles for Barks All TDM vocal sets planned for TDM 2.12 have been delivered. New: Fixup Needed to Run These Under 2.12 Beta 3 The Thug - Update May 6, 2023 released as testSubtitlesThug2 FM. This takes advantage of new 2.12dev features and changes to style guidelines. The Lord - Update May 4, 2023 released as testSubtitlesLord2 FM The Wench - Two postponed April versions - Nov 25, 2023 released as testSubtitlesWenchOriginal and testSubtitlesWenchPatched FMs. Two versions because of Bugtracker 6284. IMPORTANT: See final version at end of this list, released Jan. 14, 2024. The Young Builder (Builder 4) - Update May 30, 2023 released (again) as testSubtitlesYoungBuilder FM. (Corrects error in briefing syntax of original May 17 release.) Average Jack - June 8, 2023 released as testSubtitlesJack FM. The Pro - June 23, 2023 released as testSubtitlesPro FM. The Maiden - July 8, 2023 released as testSubtitlesMaiden FM The Grumbler - July 24, 2023 released as testSubtitlesGrumbler FM The Mature Builder (Builder 3) - August 15, 2023, released as testSubtitlesMatureBuilder FM The Lady (aka Noblewoman) - Sept 9, 2023, released as testSubtitlesLady FM The Moor - Sept 14, 2023, released as testSubtitlesMoor FM The Commander - Sept 30, 2023, released as testSubtitlesCommander FM The Simpleton - Oct. 21, 2023, released as testSubtitlesSimpleton FM Builder 1 & 2 (shared vocal set) - Nov. 8, 2023, released as testSubtitlesBuilder1and2 FM The Critic - Nov. 25, 2023, released as testSubtitlesCritic_FM Manbeast - Dec. 10, 2023, released as testSubtitlesManbeast FM NEW! Lady02 - Dec 21, 2023, released as testSubtitlesLady02 FM. Assisted by datiswous. NEW! The Drunk - Jan 6, 2024, released as testSubtitlesDrunk FM. Assisted by MirceaKitsune. NEW! The Cynic - Jan. 13, 2024, released as testSubtitlesCynic FM. Incorporates early demo subtitles by Dragofer. NEW! The Wench, Final Revision - Jan. 14, 2024, released as testSubtitlesWenchFinal FM . Assisted by Dragofer. See also original May version (released in November) in the list above. All TDM vocal sets planned for TDM 2.12 have been delivered. Thanks, @nbohr1more, for integrating these into the release. All AI vocal sets, including additional ones for future consideration - perhaps as "verbosity effects" - are listed here. Current Status - Utilities buildSubtitleShader.exe - Latest release of April 10, 2023. This program fabricates a TDM sound shader file specifically for the testSubtitles... series of FMs used here. It does so by wrapping each sound file name in a directory into a sound shader with uniform incremental naming. While limited to a single directory, the latest release simplifies merging runs from multiple directories. @datiswous reports that this Windows console program also works under Linux/wine, where it is used with similar "testSubtitle..."-derived FMs for verbosity "story" subtitling. checkDurationsInSRT - May 6, 2023 Update (bug fix) This Win/console program scans a directory for .srt files, examines the subtitles, and warns about those phrases/messages that are potentially too short or too long in time, or that seem to require too high a reading rate, expressed in characters per second. It also looks for within-file subtitle messages that overlap in time. soundDurationsCSV.exe - March 7, 2023 Release This Windows console program scans a directory of sound files, reporting their names and (using pre-installed ffprobe) durations with millisecond resolution. The resulting .csv file can then be imported into a custom Excel spreadsheet for subtitle editing. For more, see also Feb 20th comments . findTooLongSubtitles.exe - Minor update, June 23, 2023 Release This Win/console program scans a directory for .subs and .srt files, checks the length in characters of each subtitle line, and reports those that exceed a specified maximum. analyzeFieldWidth of April 27, 2023 (release not scheduled; too idiosyncratic). Used to determine, for 12pt Carleton font, and a representative sampling of bark subtitles, how many characters might reasonably fit within a given gui field width. Later, parts of this code were used to build calcStringWidth.exe discussed next. calcStringWidth.exe - Oct. 11, 2023 Release. Calculates the display width of an input string, for 4 candidate subtitle fonts Carleton and Stone, uncompressed or 16:9 compressed. statsForSubtitles - June 25, 2023 Release. Starting with The Pro vocal set, this Windows console program automates the gathering and reporting of the basic statistics included with the announcement of every vocal set release in this forum thread. Current Status - Spreadsheets and Related Explanatory Documents, including Workflow and Templates Work by Geep on each vocal set starts with instantiation of a pre-configured Excel spreadsheet. This is used for subtitle editing and to do automatic calculations to help manage constraints and decision making. The announcement of each AI subtitle release here includes a link to the corresponding spreadsheet. At first, the spreadsheet's columns, formats, calculations, and highlighting (and its distillation into template form) would change quite a bit between each AI. As of June, 2023 and AverageJack, it has largely stabilized, and is now documented: June 10 Documents Explaining Workflow and Excel Spreadsheet/Template (for AverageJack) The v5 template was used for vocal sets from June's Average Jack to November's The Critic. Further clarifications are now available: Dec 7 Update of the "Explained" Doc for Spreadsheet Template v5 Subsequent vocal sets, through to 2024's The Cynic, use template v6: NEW! Jan. 10, 2024 "Explained" Doc for Spreadsheet Template v6 Current Status - Style Guide for Barks As of Sept 2, Subtitle Style Guide - Part 1 is now available. NEW! As of Jan 16, 2024: Subtitle Style Guide - Part 2 with more discussion and references. Current Status - Third-Party Tools For editing of "story" SRT files, datsiwous found "kdenlive" particularly helpful [to do: link to how-to below]. Geep has been working with the simpler, audio-only "Cadet" for barks.

For peeps coming from Windows with no desire to invest a lot of time in learning Linux and the command line (you have to anyway to a certain extend) I would advise Linux mint if you want a fixed release or Manjaro if you want it rolling. Although @revelatorhad good experience with Solus. You can already start using it now in a multi-boot setting. So you are willing to invest time into figuring out some obscure way to get it working instead of invest time in a proper solution for the future. Why do you need to compile a Windows version, instead of a Linux version? I guess you could ask someone with Windows 10 to compile it for you?

Yes, I've been working with a mapper who ardently adheres to the principle that only moonfacing windows should cast moonrays indoors (so about 1/4 to 1/2 of all windows), even though this is a powerful tool for creating an atmosphere and for maintaining some gameplay challenge. I found that this approach often ended in scenes that had only dim and uniform ambient_world lighting, which meant players couldn't really appreciate many of the details. Something I've seen in things like Dishonored is the use of sourceless lights to add highlights to scenes that otherwise contain no lit lights. That could be an especially viable approach in a mission like this which has a haunted theme.

Hi, I've tried to install the latest version of TDM four times now (no previous installation), each time I get the same error: ERROR: Unexpected CURL error 56 on URL The urls seem to change (examples are http://darkmod.taaki.za.net/release/zipsync/release/release200/tdm_textures_metal01.pk4, /tdm_models02.pk4, /tdm_textures_carpet01.pk4) but the installation always fails around 20% of the way through. Am I doing something wrong? I tried the default mirror and the German mirror (also version 211 just in case). I'm using Windows 10 (64 bit) and don't seem to be having any internet issues that would cause the error. Any help would be appreciated!

Inn Business It's business, at an inn, over three nights. Development screenshots: Download: https://drive.google...dit?usp=sharing Update 1.48 uploaded March 8th, 2014, one change: patches key rarely not being frobable in one of its possible spots Big thanks to my beta testers: Airship Ballet, Kyyrma and AluminumHaste! Development supporters of note: Sotha, Springheel and Obsttorte. Also thanks Sotha, for urinating in my mission. ;-) And thanks Kyyrma for the title screen! My appreciation to all forum/wiki contributors, without whom, this wouldn't exist. Thanks to positive commenters on my previous mission too, extra motivation helps! :-) Note this uses campaign features, what you use the first night, impacts subsequent nights. And to quote a tester, "...the level is maybe best experienced in more than one sitting". If you do pause between nights, please be sure to save, you can't begin partway through effectively. (If you accidentally start a night you already completed, just fail the kill objective to switch to another night.) If your frame rates are too low facing the cemetery, please reduce your "Object Details LOD" setting. It was designed with "AI Vision" set to "Forgiving", to be able to sneak through with minimal reactions, if you want more/less, adjust your settings accordingly. There are several random, conditional aspects, and ways of going about things, so others might have slightly different experiences. Post here if you discover hidden objectives for extra points! My condolences to loot completionists, I made a bit on the third night hard, you've got your challenge cut out for you! Speaking of which, there's a TDM bug that mission complete totals too high, here are the real amounts per night: 2026/970/202. Oh, there is something that in the U.S. would be rated PG, in case you play with kids in earshot. I hope you enjoy playing it, feel free to let me know you did, and I'm glad to respond to inquiries (like how stuff was done, nothing was scripted). (Note which night you are referring to if it's something specific.) (Please remember spoiler tags to not expose things meant to be discovered by playing.) Like so: [spoiler]secrets[/spoiler] Developed for TDM 2.01. PS: Thiefette, good news, no spiders! Springheel, if you find an optional objective you can skip...you might find it immersion breaking. Others, no undead! There are a couple other interactive critters though. :-) Edit note: Some posts below were from users of an unreleased version of TDM 2.02 which broke several things, they do not reflect regular game-play.

Is not quite that, but more likely because wx uses native Windows controls there and gtk only on Linux. It does a pretty good job of abstracting away the differences but there are always corner cases where a subtle difference turns out to be important.

Why does it not crash on Windows though? Or is that code different there?

I've seen fun workarounds like that in other game modding as well. Years ago, maybe even a decade, some fella who was making a mod for Mount & Blade over at the Taleworlds forums revealed that he put invisible human NPCs on the backs of regular horse NPCs, then put the horse NPCs inside a horse corral he built for one of his mod's locations/scenes and then did some minor scripting, so the horses with invisible riders would wander around the corral. The end result was that it looked they're doing this of their own will, rather than an NPC rider being scripted to ride around the corral slowly. Necessity is the mother of invention. I don't know about the newest Mount & Blade game, but the first generation ones (2008-2022) apparently had some sort of hardcoded issue back in the earlier years, where if you left a horse NPC without a rider in its saddle, the horses would just stand around and wait and you couldn't get them to move around. Placing an invisible rider in their saddles suddenly made it viable again, at least for background scenes, of riderless horses wandering around, for added atmosphere. First generation M&B presumed you'd mostly be seeing horses in movement with riders, and the only horses-wandering-loosely animations and scripting were done for situations when the rider was knocked off their horse or dismounted in the middle of a battle. Hence the really odd workarounds. So, an invisible NPC trick might not be out of the question in TDM, even though you could probably still bump into it, despite its invisibility.

Here's my first FM. A small and easy mission, inspired by Thief's Den and The Bakery Job, where you must find and steal a cook's recipe book in order to save a friend from going out of business. Download: Mediafire (sk_cooks.pk4) TDM Website's Mission Page The in-game mission downloader Thanks to: The people who helped me get this far, both in the forums and on Discord. The beta testers: MirceaKitsune, Mat99, Baal, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, jaxa, grodenglaive, Acolytesix ( Per the author in the beta testing thread. ) Skaruts has given permission to the TDM Team to add Subtitles or Localization Strings to this mission. (No EFX Reverb.) If anyone from the Community or TDM team wishes to create these we will gladly test them and update the mission database.

What is your r_aspectRatio set to? What is your FOV set to? What is your resolution? Are you fullscreen or windowed? Windows or Linux? What version of TDM are you using? Intel, AMD or Nvidia GPU? Are you on the latest drivers? Can you post the contents of your darkmod.cfg file here please. You need to go through tech support first before opening a bug report.

Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

I like how this has essentially become a Linux thread despite it not being the intended focus. I play around with Ubuntu MATE because I like Ubuntu and the MATE variant has an environment I prefer with a bunch of changes I like, a good compromise between old and new. That said, TDM behaves a bit oddly in Linux. For some reason in TDM it misses the occasional mouse click - if I happen to click fast enough there's a chance the event won't register. It seems to be something inherent to the Doom 3 engine in Linux - even in dhewm3, if I make a really fast click on the mouse it can sometimes ignore that mouse event and not fire the weapon. Generally you have to be really quick on the down/up event for it to happen, but it happens, it's reproducible and I can't just accept having to consciously be aware of my mouse behaviour and remembering to click long enough to guarantee the event is registered. I'm sure many won't notice this issue, but I'm pretty fussy about such things so it annoys me. This doesn't happen on anything else in Linux, just Doom3/TDM. Not surprisingly Windows doesn't have this issue, and it's a good example of the reasons why I don't bother moving entirely to Linux. I can't stand odd quirks like this and there's odd quirks EVERYWHERE in Linux. There's quirks aplenty in Windows too of course, but I'm used to them.

I spend 90% of my time on Linux Mint. I occasionally pop over to Windows 10 to check a few things or run some updates but Linux Mint is my home. TDM runs better under Mint than Windows for me but your mileage may vary. When running TDM in Linux, you must set FPS to "Uncapped Mode" in the Advanced settings, the old capped mode has terrible stuttering and performance under Linux ( even native Doom 3 has this issue ). You can set Max FPS to 60 if you are worried about any inconsistencies with game timing ( the only known issues are rare problems with audio behavior at really high FPS). Just don't use the native 60FPS capped mode, use Uncapped mode with a Max FPS value.

When talking about a possible libre version of TDM (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/) it seems we believe all media/gamedata included in TDM is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. I am not familiar with how the process of adding new media/gamedata works today; I have seen files uploaded to the bugtracker which developers then commit to SVN, but I don't know if there are other ways. It may be a good idea to implement a process that when new components (media/gamedata included in TDM) are added, the contributor is asked to be explicit about the license (a choice which may defaults to their previous preference, for usability). It won't fix the past, but it may help in the future. This will make it easy for contributors to add future data under a more permissive license if they choose. Libre media can be added and its license can be tracked, rather than assumed to be CC-BY-NC-SA. I suggest looking at how Wikimedia Commons has implemented this: the contributor state the source and license at the time the data is uploaded. This can be done either by providing urls or by saying "It's my work and I choose this licsense". The first step could be to add a way to keep track of each filepath in SVN, author, license, sources. Start by setting the value for each file's license to "(default/legacy CC-BY-NC-SA)". Possible implementations for a user interface for new additions are: * Use our own wiki, which runs Mediawiki (same as Wikimedia Commons). I see several benefits of this, but we also need a way to accept uploads of batches, not just single files. * Look at how other open source projects have solved this. There may be more appropriate solutions available. ... but I'll leave the implementation open. Suggestions are very welcome! If the author of each file already in SVN can be tracked, then it may be possible that the author is willing to give a blanket permission for all their past files in one statement, and all their files in SVN can be updated in one commit. A productive contributor willing to release some of their work under a more permissive license could make a big change. If Dark Radiant would support letting mappers search media/gamedata by license (does it already?), it would make it easier for mappers to create a completely libre mission, which would help facilitate a TDM-libre release. If I understand things correctly. This post does not address all details and it may contain misunderstandings or assumptions, but it's a start. Also relevant: * Is there a compiled and maintained list of recommended or deprecated resources for mappers to use? * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20311-external-art-assets-licensing/

Ah, pity I wasn't reading the forums back in February. I'm fond of that game, along with Bugbear's other early title, Rally Trophy. I was never too good at FlatOut, but it was always a hoot to play.

I don't think this counts as a bug but maybe it's something to look at... Nvidia GPU, Intel CPU Linux: Scroll of Remembrance - Shadowmaps ( size 1440 ) 70+ FPS / Stencil 58+ FPS Windows: Shadowmaps ( size 1440 ) 52+ FPS / Stencil 30+ FPS I am guessing we can mostly attribute this to Windows CPU usage bloat. Can any other dual-booters confirm? Edit: I went back to check my Windows security "Exploit Protections" area for "TheDarkModx64.exe" to see if it still existed and still had most of the protections disabled and found some new protections were added. I disabled "Heap Protection" and: Shadowmaps 58+ ( mostly 60+ ) / Stencil 38+ ( mostly 40+ ) ( All the FPS are at the start of the mission facing the manor, eg worst case scenario ).

Given updates from Windows 7/8 to 10 and from 10 to 11 have been free, it seems like a low-impact financial decision on the part of the end user. I mean I'm tired of MS's BS and complications too and don't like a lot of the changes in newer versions of Windows, but I found workarounds and solutions to all the common issues and felt it was a better outcome than relying on EOL software that's going to be harder and harder to maintain especially when software/hardware vendors no longer support it. Still, if you find Linux is an option then it's better than a system that no longer runs anything without major issues. /sidetrack

I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free. Does that not work anymore? If your objective is to keep running the same OS version for 15 years, I'm afraid you won't find Linux any better — as far as I know even Long Term Support releases don't go beyond 5 years unless you're a business who pays for extended support, and even that probably wouldn't give you more than 10 years. On the other hand, Linux upgrades are always free (assuming you're not using RHEL or another commercial distro), whereas Microsoft might require you to purchase an upgrade license.

What???? You're on Windows 7, from 2009, with updates that ended 4 years ago. Windows 10 Pro key is like 20$. Why do you feel it's fair to expect Microsoft to continue to support an OS that's 4 versions out of date? I really don't like defending M$, but in this case, this is a little much. I hope your Linux experiences are better than mine were, as even on bog standard hardware it was nothing but crash city and bugs on 3 different distros.

You could try installing the Windows Subsystem for Linux and see if you can get a Linux build working on Windows. However I have no idea if WSL is comprehensive enough to allow you to build and run GUI apps using wxWidgets and OpenGL. I suspect it would be a fair amount of work to get the CMake build working, since it's never been tested on anything other than a regular Linux installation (AFAIK).

At work I use Windows and there I'm irritated of not having tabs in an explorer window (like most standard Linux file browsers). For the rest I'm fine with the Windows Explorer, I don't want to learn to like another program.. But recently I found QTTabbar. It is a program that adds a tabbar (and some other extra's that I haven't looked into yet) to the existing Windows explorer. If you install it and it doesn't automatically activates, you might have to enable it in Options: Middle mouse click on folder opens it in new tab by default. I know Windows 11 adds it. Windows is always late with useful features..

Thanks for the info, although I didn't read anything exciting over using Manjaro xfce. But nice to hear about another distro that is good. I moved to Manjaro when Windows 7 got out of support. I find Windows 11 not that different from Windows 10 and worse in some (minor) places.

Sounds like a good idea to me. I'm all for breaking glass, also windows (the "penalty" is that it should be very loud to A.I. So, a thing you surely will only do very rarely.). I think this will take a lot of consideration on the mapper side, though. Amount of arrows in the starting gear and in the mission itself, consideration where to put destructable lamps, and where to avoid them. Not to mention that I don't know how much effort has to be put in the technical side (making the lamp destructable and killing the light it sheds). Thinking about it, I think it kinda defeats the "stealth" element, doesn't it? Why would you make loads of noise and possible alert half the A.I. in a mission, for pretty little benefit? A thief surely will do everything to avoid that kind of noise and attention.