Mac Editor v1.0.6

[Niemand]

I've just put up version 1.0.6 on my utilities page today. It now supports scrolling the terrain, creature, and item palettes with a mouse scroll wheel, and adds the ability to delete any town in the scenario; whether or not it is the final one.

 

EDIT: By the way; while I've tested the town deletion tool; it may not be bullet proof. I'd recommend that early adopters try it with caution, keeping backups of their work.

[Thralni]

Hail Niemand! Finally there's an option to delete towns other than the last!

 

Thanks!

[aka Ravenwing]

Downloaded. You, sir, are a saint.

[Ephesos]

EDIT: Niemand wins at life.

[Niemand]

As prompted by Ephesos' former above comment (former comment above? abovely comment former?), I've just put up a version with a tiny fix so that the editor will shut up and run on 'millions of colors' displays. (It seems that whoever wrote the depth switching function never envisioned a display which only supports depths greater than 16 bits.) If it was running for you already then there's no reason to rush out and update, but if you were getting a dialog complaining about the screen depth with only two options, both of which caused the program to exit, this should help.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Scroll wheel? Wow, that's wonderful!

[Dahak]

Currently I am unable to expand the archive of the compiled program. I have re-downloaded multiple times and tried various expansion tools for Mac 10.5.

[Niemand]

There doesn't seem to be much I can do to help you, Dahak, it's just a zip archive, which the system Archive Utility should open in 10.5, and practically any other tool should be able to as well. I've uploaded a temporary duplicate as a tgz file here, so you can try that and see if you can get it open. I may be out of touch fir the next couple of days, so I may or may not be able to help further.

[Dahak]

That worked. Thanks!

 

Edit: The .tgz file

[Dahak]

BUG: Cannot import towns. I select from the menu and it crashes with the following message:

 

 

Also, I just tried it with the Import Outdoors and the same message appeared.

 

Running Mac 10.5.3, 3D editor 1.0.6.

[Niemand]

Ok, I tested and the same thing happened for me. I can't do anything about this for at least two weeks when I move into my apartment and get my computer monitor again.

[Dahak]

No problem. I'll post other problems as I find them.

[Ishad Nha]

In the meantime hex editing would enable you to import whatever you want. I once posted a decryption of the Bas file.

[Dahak]

Nah. I reverted to an earlier version for importing. Also the 2D editor works for anything except large towns.

[Ishad Nha]

The 2D Editor does not import large towns?

 

Edit: It seems that the only thing that the Mac Editor can't do is change the size of an existing town. Hex editing would still be needed for that, though it might be rarely needed or wanted.

[Niemand]

I added the ability to change the size of a town to the Mac 3D editor some time ago. Furthermore, the job would not be easy using hex editing as you must not only change the field which stores the size of the town but also add or remove sufficient data to make the floor, terrain, and height arrays be the correct sizes. It would be very easy to mess this up doing it manually and corrupt all later towns in the scenario.

[Ishad Nha]

I didn't know that the Mac editor was that advanced, I am on Windows myself. If I was doing it manually I would run it through an Excel spreadsheet, little room for error.

[Wilkins]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

an Excel spreadsheet, little room for error.

 

You are joking, right? Anything up to 80-90% of spreadsheets contain errors... Errors in SpreadSheets Research

[Ishad Nha]

I personally know how Excel works, I did an office administration course. I am also fairly good at algebra and I use simple formulas.

 

The article makes for disturbing reading, I am left wondering why all companies don't go bust.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I found one problem. It's not really a bug, since it's how it was originally intended to work, but when you are editing in Creature or Item mode, placing something causes the hand tool to be selected, which means you can't go on to place another. This isn't necessarily a bad thing – sometimes it will be what you want. But it would be nice if clicking with, say, the Shift key would prevent this tool change from happening.

 

And Wilkins, that "Errors in Spreadsheets" document was too boring for me to get through it. I gave up soon after the first section.

[Ishad Nha]

It was written by academics, there are no two ways about that. I didn't finish reading it either but it made valid points about how not to do anything.

[Wilkins]

Fair comment, academic literature reviews do tend to be heavy going. I just didn't want to quote the 80-90% without evidence.

 

Here's the short summary: Errors in spreadsheets are inevitable. The most common errors include invalid or missing input data, cell references to the wrong range, etc. Anyone who uses Excel regularly has seen those. I work in a major international bank, Excel spreadsheets are my bread-and-butter and it scares the life out of me.

 

Creating a `robust' spreadsheet would require going through a full software development cycle including up-front specs/design and full documentation. No one, ever, anywhere, creates spreadsheets that way. But they rely on the results in the exact same way as if they had done.

[Niemand]

Quote:

in Creature or Item mode, placing something causes the hand tool to be selected, which means you can't go on to place another. . . . But it would be nice if clicking with, say, the Shift key would prevent this tool change from happening.

This is an awesome idea, which I will explore this evening when I'm at my other computer. It reminds me of the behavior of Appleworks' Draw tools, which was quite useful.

I'll also be looking into switching to using the arrow keys to scroll the view as in the game and using a modifier key with them to move objects. This will be more intuitive, I think, as it drove me crazy when first learning the editor, and will work better for laptops with no key pads.

[Celtic Minstrel]

So long as the keypad still works, that would be fine.

 

And yes, that is rather like the Drawing tools in ClarisWorks/AppleWorks.

[Niemand]

Just to let everyone know: In the new version I'm working on I've fixed the import failure for towns and outdoor sections (turns out I'd removed the code where it would ask the user to select a file to import from. Oops.), added a sticky mode for placing items and creatures, and added a magenta highlight around the currently selected creature or item so you know which one you're working on.

 

EDIT: I've now added support for for scrolling the 2D and 3D views using the mouse scroll wheel, and experimental support for scrolling using multitouch gestures/the mighty mouse scroll ball. The former I like a lot, but the latter isn't as good as i'd like; the OS keeps giving me garbage in the scroll event information.

[Niemand]

(Sorry about the double post, but I thought I would want to get some feedback on this before going forward with it.)

 

I've just finished re-writing the way that the editor handles arrow keys. This is my summary of the new system:

• without modifiers, the arrow keys move the viewport in the specified directions
• -with just the shift key the viewport is moved in large steps (7 units)
• -with just the control key the viewport is moved to the edge of the current zone
• with the option key the keystroke applies to the selected object, if any
• -with the option key only the selected object is shifted in the specified direction
• -with the option key and shift key the selected object is rotated

This means that it is now somewhat harder to move creatures, items, and scripts around once they are placed, but navigation is now allowed using the keyboard which is both more convenient than using the number pad and will work on keyboards without number pads. What say you users of the editor? Does this look useful, like bothersome, or somewhere in between? Please note that i have added a preference setting which allows you to select whether the arrow keys are interpreted in this new way or whether the old behavior is used.

[Lazarus.]

It would take some getting used to, but it would probably be useful once you did. Can I suggest that you make the viewport follow the object you're moving, if it goes off the screen? That way you wouldn't have to keep switching between holding option to move the creature and not holding it to move the view.

[Niemand]

Ooh, good thought. I think it can be done fairly easily.

 

EDIT: And it is done. The 3D case actually turned out to take a little bit of thinking to do right.

[Celtic Minstrel]

It seems okay to me, though I generally use the keypad.