Rocks'n'Diamonds

I was trying to use Confedit from the Tools & Utilities section of the website. And got it working in Windows 10 64 bit with help of Winevdm (a compatibility layer to run 16 bit apps in 64 bit windows). It asks us set the Rocks'n'diamonds exe path. But when I point it to the exe, I get error that "The EXE you selected doesn't appear to be Rocks'n'diamonds!". Is this tool still supported? any alternatives?

https://imgur.com/a/AaHsTS5

Vikits wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2025 11:59 am I was trying to use Confedit from the Tools & Utilities section of the website. And got it working in Windows 10 64 bit with help of Winevdm (a compatibility layer to run 16 bit apps in 64 bit windows).

First of all, it is very cool that you were able to get this old tool running in modern Windows!

Is this tool still supported?

Unfortunately, this great tool is not only very old, but its author, Alan Bond, seems to have vanished from the web (or at least the R'n'D community) long ago, which is really sad, as he was one of the most creative and productive contributors of R'n'D.

So, no, this tool is not supported anymore, unfortunately. And I should make this much more clear on the R'n'D "Tools" page.

It asks us set the Rocks'n'diamonds exe path. But when I point it to the exe, I get error that "The EXE you selected doesn't appear to be Rocks'n'diamonds!".

Unfortunately, I have no idea what Alan did to decide if a selected EXE file counts as a valid R'n'D binary!

Else I could maybe write a little wrapper EXE which itself calls the R'n'D binary...

any alternatives?

Unfortunately not. And I even don't know anymore how important it is that the tool can start R'n'D, or if it is still partially useful even if not being able to start R'n'D from it.

Maybe I should keep this tool on the "Tools" page, but I should add a large warning that it is in fact outdated and not supported anymore.

Thanks for your quick and clear response. So sad that this tool is not supported anymore. I see some impressive stuff from the author in the "Levels and artwork" page.

Why was this tool used for? Was this tool an external editor for R'n'D? Now Rocks'n'diamonds comes with its own editor.

From my limited time using it, confedit seems like a glorified Configuration file/text editor with some macro support. From the program menus, I can see it helps create/edit some R'n'D config files namely:
GraphicInfo.conf
SoundsInfo.conf
MusicInfo.conf
HelpText.conf
HelpAnim.conf
EditorSetup.con

Sorry for so many questions. I want to try to recreate a few tile-based games in Rocks'n'Diamonds:
Robbo - It is a lesser-known boulderdash clone without the gravity aspect from Poland.
Rings of the Magi - tile matching game with a twist
Cyberbox - like sokoban but with special box types and different objective.