Hal Windows Help and Support...
This Help and Support page will more or less be in the form of a Quick Start type of instruction. This page will constantly be updated with new information and eventually converted into a standard help manual from which an offline compiled CHM version will be avilable for download in the near future.
So now we're going to start by taking things from where we left off with the Hal Windows OS Interface download insturctions. You should already have Hal Windows downloaded and installed on your computer at this point in time in order for you to undersatnd most of the following.
The free demo version of Hal Windows is very dynamic which means that the My Halinator GUI that you already have is fully capable of accepting more plug-in files. It's recommended that you run the My Halinator GUI and have it displayed on your desktop while reading these instructions so that you can reference things that we mention along the way, but you don't need to restart it until we say so. And after you do this next step your Hal Windows installation will be even more complete.
You first need to already have the following Haptek character files:
body_female.htr
body_male.htr
fullbodygirl.htr
If you don't have the above files you can get them from most anyone else or the Haptek website and the Haptek SDK Guide which can be downloaded directly from Haptek.
Copy each of those character files and paste all of them into the following location:
C:\Program Files\HalWindows\MyHalinator\MyHalChar
The free demo of Hal Windows only fully supports using the body_female character for most everything with partial support for most any other character, but the body_male is the next most compatible. And eventually we will discuss more about the built-in support for the fullbod but for now it's best to assume that fullbod doesn't even work. We'll tell you why later.
After you finish copying and pasting the three character plug-in files you will need to restart the My Halinator GUI. After it's restarted you can do a right click on the LC button located towards the lower right corner of the window and then you will see the three character files as menu selections so that you can load anyone of them into a Haptek Player without needing to display any of the file names within the My Halinator file list windows. If you don't know how to load in and display files yet you'll soon learn as you keep on reading. But since we are looking in the area of the LC button we will now quickly discuss the other buttons within the same row.
My Halinator Main Control Buttons:
ES - loads Haptek empty scene command (left click ES to load empty scene command)
Context menu sub-options: (right click ES button to display context menu)
Delete standard, Delete body_female, Delete body_male, Delete fullbod
Other functions: If no Haptek character is currently running then clicking the ES button will open up a new empty HapPlayer AX window which is convenient for development purposes.
CBoff/CBon - Turns the Haptek based clipboard reader on and off.
Load - Loads any file previously selected inside of the Primary or Secondary file list windows, or loads any command from either brain command list windows. Yes, there's two brain command lists and not just one, but both brain commands lists have the same commands listed. We'll explain why there's two duplicate brain command lists at some other time. And the file type that could be loaded is virtually any kind of file, although we usually load Haptek related files while a character is running.
Context menu sub-options: (sets control focus on selected character)
Control standard, Control body_female, Control body_male, Control fullbod
Used to switch control from one character to another or to switch control from an accessory figure back to a character. So you can do things like remove the girl's hair with the mouse and then set focus back to the girl's body again. But first you would have to make you own hap file that sets focus to an accessory like the hair. Look for the bunny ears example in the HalWindowsAL/dance folder.
Other functions: If you load a folder like your Desktop into the Primary or Secondary file list window or into the Auxiliary or Expansion menu then you can click and load any kind of file on your computer. So you can do things like run programs by clicking on their desktop shortcut lnk file listed within the Halinator window and that means you can still control your entire desktop even if it's main Program Manager is being blocked by other windows or it's not even running. But we don't recommend that you try shutting down the Program Manager unless you know what you're doing and how to actually do it. Just loading your Desktop folder into the Halinator serves as a secondary desktop window which is sometimes convenient to have especially if you're running a lot windows all at the same time. And that's one of the reasons why the Halinator runs as an always on top window by default, however you can toggle the always on top setting of the Halinator by clicking the green led "T" for topmost located towards the upper right corner of the window, and then it will turn yellow when the always on top setting is off. And then click it again to turn it back on. We'll discuss the "T" context menu some other time, but you can right click it right now to view the menu items. And the "O" led control right above the "T" is to toggle the Power Station sub-function called Oggtrak. Oggtrak determines how ogg files get handled when whenever an ogg file is loaded into the Haptek player from the Halinator. If Oggtrak is on then ogg files are treated as songs that will interrupt any other kind of audio file type that is currently playing. If Oggtrak is off then ogg files will be treated as sound effects that will not interrupt any other audio file type that is currently playing except for another ogg file. We can't overlap ogg sound effects yet but we might be able to soon, since we can play two or more ogg sounds at the same time. But that ability hasn't been programmed into the Halinator yet. You can view the Star Trek Transporter Demo file or the Bad Girls file to see how two or more ogg sounds can played at the same time.
PSoff/Pson - Power Station audio management, we'll talk about that later too
Context menu sub-options: AutoBack/VirtualBack and On Demand functions, we really gotta talk
Stop - loads Haptek stop command
Context menu sub-options:
Pause Current Script, Restart Current Script, Gesture Master Sleep, Gesture Master Awake
CCoff/CCon - Turns the Haptek based clipboard control function on and off. When clipboard control is turned on and a valid Haptek command/commands is copied into the clipboard then the command/comands will automatically load into the Haptek player which is convenient for development purposes especially when working from inside of a text editor window.
LS - loads Haptek standard head character, load standard command
Context menu sub-options:
Load standard, Load body_female, Load body_male, Load fullbod
Other functions: If no Haptek character is currently running then clicking the LS button will open up a new HapPlayer AX window with a standard head character which is convenient for development purposes. Loading an empty scene and then loading standard and then empty again clears and resets most everything within a Haptek player so that you don't have to close and re-open the Haptek player window as often if you are doing a lot of Haptek things for a long period of time.
(And that's it for now...more to come later...)