How should my town/outdoor script editor work?

[Arenax]

(Posted on both Spidweb and The Lyceum)

 

Well, now that AvDialogue is done, I'm onto my second little project: AvScript. This one will be more ambitious and will definitely take more time than the last one.

 

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I see two ways I can do this.

 

1) An editor "helper" tool. This sort of thing would be a fairly standard text editor with a sort of pseudocoding button. You push a button and it opens a menu that asks "What would you like to do?" You select what you want to do, it asks you in plain English for the values you want to use for various things, and then it writes it in Avernumscript. This is doable, and in a short timeframe--but I've never done it before and I don't aim to put in some features right away that text editors usually have: namely, I don't plan to code find-and-replace features and stuff right off the bat.

 

The advantage of a helper tool is that it teaches people to write Avernumscript themselves while at the same time doing much of the work for them. Newbies could use it fairly easily, graduating to regular code for harder projects as they wished.

 

I'd also probably make it so end-users could make their own libraries of commands.

 

2) A fully node-based scripting wizard. This would be much easier on the end-user, but that comes at a price: code bloat. Without some very large-scale coding on my part (which I'd be willing to do, but it would take a fairly long time) I don't see this as being remotely efficient. You remember how BoE took 50 nodes to do some fairly simple things? This wouldn't be quite that bad, but it wouldn't be very good, either.

 

This would be a piece of cake for a newbie to use--and could be used to assemble scenarios pretty quickly--but people would soon be frustrated at its limitations. Also, it doesn't teach how to write Avernumscript.

 

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I am personally in favor of the helper tool. It's something newbies and people like TM alike could probably use effectively--and it's something I'd use, too.

 

However, if there's a better turnout on the node-based idea, I'll consider that.

[teh banana]

I'm in favour of the option 1, too. The moment a tool like that pops out, I'll begin designing a serious BoA scenario. Seriously. ^^

[Kelandon]

I think it might be useful to start with a scripter that makes custom objects scripts. Several have been released, but none are comprehensive or good at all. Ideally, you could make one that can work with existing scripts, too. That would take slightly less time than a full-on scripting helper, and it would be equally useful.

[Dastal]

I think #1 is way better! I'd also suggest a feature I really like in my HTML editor of choice: color coding. For instance, dialogue commands might show up in green, cinematic commands in blue, etc. Additionally, open statements (no "end;", ")", or "}") might be yellow, red, and orange, respectively.

[Arenax]

I tried the color coding thing before. It doesn't work correctly unless you code your own text box to do it--and I'm certainly not awesome enough for that.

[Dahak]

See sure to add () and {} highlighting. Please?

[Arenax]

Uuuuh...highlighting could be a fairly difficult thing to do. I'll give you a "maybe" on all colored-highlighting tricks.

[Dahak]

No worries.

[mistica]

I like 2) plan.

[Sticky]

plan 1 sounds really nice, and plan 2 would be decent.

And color coding on scripts is really nice ;0;

[Arenax]

It's been decided: #1 it is.

 

Your votes counted. Well, no, they didn't. It's just that I'd never use a node-based thing and I would use a script editor like the one I've outlined.

 

And the more I look at it, the less likely color highlighting is. Sorry, but it'd take more work than the output would be worth.

 

On another note, AvDialogue with a prototype of CallWizard (what I'm calling the plug-in command scripting thingy) grafted into the dialogue node CODE command will be done soon (like, by tomorrow morning).

 

http://arenaxcreations.tripod.com

[Pachat]

AvScript seems to have great potential, but there are some obvious things that I'd like to see fixed:

First, the text editor crashes with

Code:

Run-time error '380':Invalid property value

every time I write a line with more than 29 or so letters.

 

Also, the undo quick-key (ctrl+z) doesn't seem to be working for some peculiar reason. The one from the right-click menu works.

 

In addition to those stretch-to-fit editing area would be nice. And perhaps the tools could be accessible side-by-side with the actual code. I think it's easier to think of statements and structures if you see where they are to be appended to while making them.

 

I hope you can pull through polishing these programs of yours. Especially the pc-side of things needs a boost from people like you to get the scenarios start rolling out.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah! I'm sitting on 1.0ghz 512mb winxp if that helps a bit with the crash thing.

[Arenax]

Yeah...I was trying to get the computer to STOP being pathetic and let me do tabs, but I made it so whenever you pressed ANY key, it incremented the number of tabs the computer was keeping track of.

 

Thowwy. That's fixed, but I'm going to do a few more things before I upload a new one.

 

EDIT: As for stretch-to-fit editing, I *suppose* I can do that. I think I even know how. The side-by-side bit could be tricky, because to do that would sacrifice a lot of space on the editing screen. I'll think about that.