3D editor bug?

[Jerakeen]

The docs say this:

 

Click to reveal..

Edit Town Entrance - Press this button and click on a town entrance rectangle to change what town it leads into. If you press the Cancel button, it will delete the town entry.

 

Bold mine. This works in the old editor, but in the 3-D version pressing cancel has no effect. I've got version 1.0.8--I don't know if that's the latest one.

[Niemand]

The original, Spiderweb supplied documentation is no longer entirely accurate. Around v1.0.8 I overhauled the editor's object selection system and extended it to include things like special encounter rectangles and town entrances. So, you can now select them much like creatures or items, edit their properties and delete them using the delete key. Please note, however, that v1.0.8 was still a bit buggy, and I would recommend updating to v1.0.9, which is the current version.

 

The reason I changed the behavior of that particular cancel button is that, while documented, its behavior was not at all what users tended to expect (or at least what I, as a user, expected; I frequently deleted my town entrances by mistake under the old system) and I think that the new method for deleting entrances is more uniform and consistent with the means for deleting other things. Unfortunately, there is very little documentation of the changes to new versions; essential there are only the notes I post when I people know about a new version. I fully realize that complete documentation is a key part of a usable program, but since I don't have the base file(s) for the original documentation, I would need to rewrite all, or at least a lot of it, from scratch, which is a rather daunting task.

[Jerakeen]

The delete function works for special encounters, but the "select/edit placed object" button does not let me select town entrances. I'll try downloading the newer version.

 

The documentation comes in a Word format as well as the PDF. It shouldn't be too hard to edit that, if Jeff didn't mind. I'm not trying to make more work for you--I'd be happy to help.

[Ishad Nha]

I edited my copy of the Word file to add notes about bugs and inaccuracies.

This should have been included:

"Edit Menu Options

Cut

Copy

Paste

Clear

The above tasks are performed on creatures, items and terrain scripts."

(The source file Bl A Editor.c, line 886, indicates that the above tasks are performed on creatures, items and terrain scripts.)

[Jerakeen]

Updating the version solved my problem, thanks.

 

But the offer stands re the docs. Searching the forums for "version" led me to a bunch of useful information that I didn't know about: Sticky placement mode? Moving placed objects? Awesome features I wish I'd known about before.

[Niemand]

I had somehow not noticed the Word version of the Docs. I would indeed be good to edit that and keep it up to date, and I would be most grateful if you wanted to take on the task. In the long run it would probably be best to convert the document to LaTeX or similar (and a few minute with Google indicate that there are numerous methods that could be tried for performing such a conversion automatically) so that it could be kept efficiently in version control along with the program source code, but it's far more important to have something correct available for users first.

[Jerakeen]

OK. The fact that I'm learning as I go may actually be an advantage here. I remember what was most confusing for me at first.

 

I'll start working on it in my spare time, and I'll PM you when I have questions.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Updating documentation was something I was considering working on, actually, though my intended domain was more the appendix than the manual. I never really got anywhere with it, though, so if you feel like updating the appendices as well that would be wonderful.

[Jerakeen]

Ah, well that's where experience would come in useful, I think. I wouldn't begin to know where the appendices are inaccurate or out of date.

 

Since it's only the editor that's open-source, not the game itself, I had assumed that all that stuff would be unchanged. No?

[Kelandon]

The appendices are in some places poorly and misleading written. The full scope of what a call does — and what works and what doesn't as far as input, and what generates game-killing errors, etc. — is not really documented. But the calls themselves haven't changed, no.

[Jerakeen]

In that case a rewrite would be a worthy project at some point. I just don't know that I'm the one to do it--at least, not without major input from experienced designers.

 

Can all of the errors be found on the "known bugs" list, or would I have to hunt through the forums?

 

Edit: Well, OK, I guess I could start looking at the top of this forum, where it says BoA bugs...but that would be too easy.