To start with, I am making an RPG (rogue like more or less) and it is all made using the the console. I am wanting to work on remaking it using allegro. I know how to use a tile map for integers and am thinking i know how to do simple collision within the array. but i do not like having to make my maps using integers. it is difficult for me to keep track of. So two ways i came up with to solve this are as follow:
1: make the tile map read the characters and create the map that way
2: Convert character array into integer array and then from there i know how to make tile map already

maps look something like this

@ player, # wall, M mountain(mine), T tree, W water, + next map, - previous map

~ just for the sake of this forum wont let me put in a bunch of ' ' it still doesnt quite come out right. but what ever.

map[][] =
{
"##########",
"#@~~~~~MM#",
"#~~~TT~~M#",
"#~~~~~~~~#",
"#~~~WW~~~#",
"#-~~~W~~+#",
"##########"
}
so any help with this is greatly appreciated.

next, I have a very poor inventory system and it is pretty much a pain in the ass to get anything done using it... and yet i have a bunch of items already in game using all integers.

Can someone point me in the right direction to learning structs for an inventory and banking system? see the attached files for how i have it already. it works how i have it but i know there has to be a better way to do this. see lines 801 for inventory and 3844 for bank also see 2190 for cutting down wood, fishing mining and cooking are similar in structure.

Finally i want to know if there is a way to make a native message box where the buttons are custom. for example.

ALLEGRO_MESSAGEBOX_YES_NO now what if i wanted to ask the player if they want to go to the left or the right for example

ALLEGRO_MESSAGEBOX_LEFT_RIGHT I know that this doesnt work. but i want to know if there is a way of doing something along these lines

You can use <pre></pre> tags for that :

       ###

To make a tilemap of integer tiles from a map of char you can simply map your chars to integers :

You have a serious need to learn how to use arrays and maps and textfiles. Your code would be hundreds of times shorter.

Even a simple std::map<std::string , int> would be useful for keeping track of inventory. You can simply use things like map["Item"]++ or map["Axes"]--.

Edgar, I don't think you can set the bitmaps this way because it would call al_load_bitmap() too early.
A workaround is to add the file names in the struct array, and keep the pointer to bitmap at NULL initially. After allegro initialization (and graphic mode selection, I think) you can loop on the array:

for(i = 0; i < sizeof(tileinfo)/sizeof(tileinfo[0]); i++)
   tileinfo[i].tile = al_load_bitmap(tileinfo[i].filename};

In C, an enum is just a way to define several integer constants. Look it up, it's
worth learning!

Once you use arrays of structs as I suggested, you can start making loops an lookups to do things, in stead of hard-coding everything. It's hard to explain in short, I suggest you learn more about the C language to better understand how this would work.

It's certainly possible to use a single bitmap for the tiles (this is called a "tile atlas"). You need to use either sub-bitmaps or Alegro's more complex bitmap drawing functions that select the part of the single bitmap you want to display.

As for seeing which item a player has, withc what I suggested, you would look up the item's id in the item array, and then you know which name to display, which effects it has, etc. What an item is and which items the player has are two different things and should be stored in different variables.

Audric has a good point. I'm just used to C++ where you can declare anything you want anywhere. That would be a better method.

That's the thing, they are a 2D array. map[row][column] gives you the char at column,row (x,y). You just index it by row first. You can make a 2D array of char like this :

char map1[][] = {
   {'#','#','#'},
   {'#','W','#'},
   {'#','+','#'},
   {'#','#','#'}
};

But notice doing it this way you have to enclose everything in single quotes ''. Because they are char literals. A literal is a predefined string or data.

You can just change your TILEINFO struct to accept x,y,w,h members to store the location of the tile on your atlas.