Entry 209

The desktop on typed per-volume tables; each disc opens its own story

2026-09-26volumes

Filestools/static.pytools/static_manifest.pycrates/piney-data/src/tablescrates/piney-desktop/srccrates/piney-demo/src/dialog.rscrates/piney-fieldui/src/chat_msg.rscrates/piney-game/src/desktop.rscrates/piney-event/src/vm/mod.rscrates/piney-event/src/host.rsplans/volumes.md

The second system rebuilt after 0207. The desktop now reads only generated tables. Mutation's New Game, which showed an empty window over a black setup, now opens Mutation's own story.

The desktop's tables

Five new groups join the title's (0208):

These readers moved onto the tables:

• the Data screen, the mailer, the Audio screen;
• the staff roll (staffroll::Tables is the generated struct);
• name entry: NameEntry::of(volume, ..), no program image;
• the colour table everywhere it was used.

The desktop's own tables.rs and tools/desktop_tables.py are deleted. The grids are rows of text (char[][14]). A row past a table reads as NULs. The game reads the tables' neighbours there, but the cursor never reaches one with anything but NULs to show.

The Data screen draws the title's words: savedata.cpp's own STR_ pointers hold the same text on all four discs (checked in the generator's output). The generator gives no write to a row of only pointers.

Text width moved to the renderer

str_width needs the volume's glyph trims, so it takes the Fonts. The message window no longer measures:

• an information line is drawn with centred, and the renderer places it at 256 - width / 2 (message::text_dx);
• the probes print the same position, so the harness sees what it saw before;
• chat balloons measure with the field UI's fonts;
• the load screen measures with the volume's glyphs.

The volume, not 1

volumeNum was the constant 1 in five places. It is now the disc's:

• ccSaveSys takes the volume, which picks the "no data" and "clear data" messages and decides which clear data counts;
• the Audio screen's lock line and the news page's animation follow the volume;
• the save menu's clear colour follows it too.

Each disc's New Game

Event numbers are one tree across the four discs:

• the main stories: M1 0-49, M2 100-149, M3 200-249, M4 300-349;
• the side stories: S1 50-99, S2 150-199, S3 250-299, S4 350-399;
• the mail: ML 400-499.

The port ran Infection's boot on every disc, which went wrong in three ways:

• The boot. ccThMother calls ccStartEvent(volumeNum, 0): 1, 2, 3 or 4 (read at each disc's call site). The port always passed 1, so on Mutation event 0 counted as done and Infection's leftover opening (event
  1. ran. Mutation's copy of that event has no messages; its evMsgTbl group 0 is all zeros and nothing writes it. That was the empty window. boot now passes the disc's volume, which marks event 100 done on Mutation.
• The pass order. Each disc's ccThEvent walks its own main story just before the side story of the same number: Infection M1 then S1-S4, Mutation S1 M2 S2-S4, Outbreak S1 S2 M3 S3 S4, Quarantine S1-S3 M4 S4, then ML. The port walked Infection's order and never reached 100-149. The later volumes also stop the story stages once the phase goes negative; the ML stage does not check. story_stages holds the order, with a test of all four.
• volumeNum in the scripts. The event host's volume() defaulted to 1 and no host answered it. The volume is a property of the disc's scripts, so Library carries it and the VM reads it from there. Host::volume is gone.

On Mutation the setup's first pass now opens M201: name entry, then streams 23 and 24, the first town and the first mails (mutation_s_setup_opens_its_own_story).

Checks

The Infection suites that compare with the game (the event VM, the desktop, menu, save menu, Data, name entry, demo and chat harnesses) all pass. Against the previous commit, piney-game's failures went from 106 to 99, with none new. Seven desktop paths pass again:

• power-on to the desktop;
• load from the card;
• the title's option;
• the ending's save;
• Black Rose's mail;
• the new-game events;
• the title reset.

The 99 left are the field UI, top page, streams and story announcements, which still read the executable's data until they are rebuilt.