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Ilive Reader : Requests

Started by ilive, March 07, 2010, 11:10:49 AM

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cogeo

Just two more things that could possibly be improved:
- LTEXT editor: display multi-line text properly (currently the control is single-line, and the CR-LF at the end of line is displayed as two "block" characters).
- When you are focused on the main list, you can move up and down using the arrow keys. If you move to a different filetype, eg from an exemplar to an S3D file, then you cannot move with the arrow keys anymore, you have to click (using the mouse) on the list again. Can this be changed? It's minor, but quite frustrating sometimes.

Jonathan

Quote from: cogeo on March 10, 2010, 11:42:57 AM
- When you are focused on the main list, you can move up and down using the arrow keys. If you move to a different filetype, eg from an exemplar to an S3D file, then you cannot move with the arrow keys anymore, you have to click (using the mouse) on the list again. Can this be changed? It's minor, but quite frustrating sometimes.

No that's just S3Ds, and it is quite frustrating when trying to find a model and having to use a mouse :)

Also the effect dirs could you make them editable?

Jonathan

Korot

I should really look down a little more at the forums some more. Then I might have known of your return yesterday.

Ergo: Welcome back!

Regards,
Korot

Tropod

wow, long time no see  ;).
Guess I can scratch my project then  :'(


:D
I'm working on something else now anyways.

I had been using the source code as part of (trying to) learning C++ (could never get it to compile though).

Anyways, look forward to seeing any changes/improvements etc, and congrats on your return ;).

callagrafx

Quote from: ilive on March 08, 2010, 01:28:13 PM
I don't forget other requests  ;)

What's french for "floodgates"  :D :D :D
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it

jeronij

Hello Ilive, the legendary member names that I have seen while reading this thread speak for themselves about the level of excitation that your return has created ¡¡¡ . The Reader is "the mother of the modding tools" and all and every modder started using it, and uses it currently. There are other tools which do many many new things, but none as versatile as yours.
Perhaps in a next phase, after implementing half of the requests in this thread you'll probably be tired of us ....  ::) , some sort of integration with other existing tools could be studied. Lets say, I select a lot in the reader and right clicking I can open it with XPIM, modify it, and when done and back to the reader, the changes are done there as well, or if I check a model fsh file and I want to change its transparency values, right clicking would open cogeo's tool, or if I wanted to change an icon fsh file, right clicking allows me to open SC4Tool and create a set of fsh and update it in the current dat... not to speak about all the small transit network related tools... change a path file right clicking on it and opening a path editor and save the chages directly... well, the possibilities are endless....  ::)

Anyway, it a real pleasure to see you back and active. I am sure that the new Reader will be the best thing for the modding community in quite a long time ¡¡¡  :thumbsup:
I am currently not active - Please, contact Tarkus for any site related matter. Thanks for enjoying SC4D :D


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JoeST

Oh wow! Thankyou so very very much for coming back.

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms


Shadow Assassin

Quote from: jeronij on March 10, 2010, 03:27:16 PM
Perhaps in a next phase, after implementing half of the requests in this thread you'll probably be tired of us ....  ::) , some sort of integration with other existing tools could be studied. Lets say, I select a lot in the reader and right clicking I can open it with XPIM, modify it, and when done and back to the reader, the changes are done there as well, or if I check a model fsh file and I want to change its transparency values, right clicking would open cogeo's tool, or if I wanted to change an icon fsh file, right clicking allows me to open SC4Tool and create a set of fsh and update it in the current dat... not to speak about all the small transit network related tools... change a path file right clicking on it and opening a path editor and save the chages directly... well, the possibilities are endless....  ::)

I'd say that'd be done by extending the Ribbon interface that's being used for the Reader... that interface actually allows 'plugins' (such as PIM-X integration) to be written without having to re-compile the entire program each time - it just needs to have room in the code for the plugin to erm, plug in...

For examples, see Microsoft Office's implementation of the Ribbon.
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See my uploads on the LEX!

Nardo69

What I would love to see is a kind of Batch routine, e.g. to automatically change or delete textures in some dozen lots or so.

ilive

whaaaa... so many requests :)

about batch routine, I'm integrating "lua" engine in the Reader. The goal is not to play sc4 lua scripts :D but to allow the user to write scripts to manipulate data (entries, exemplar...)
At the moment, I'm on the first steps (the engine is implemented and seems functionnal but I have to expose all functions that will be available).

Nardo69

What did you expect?

Having you back working on a new version of one of the most important modding tool is liking waiting for christmas and a request thread is like an invitation to write a wishing list ...  :D

Shadow Assassin

Quote from: ilive on March 18, 2010, 08:04:09 AM
whaaaa... so many requests :)

about batch routine, I'm integrating "lua" engine in the Reader. The goal is not to play sc4 lua scripts :D but to allow the user to write scripts to manipulate data (entries, exemplar...)
At the moment, I'm on the first steps (the engine is implemented and seems functionnal but I have to expose all functions that will be available).



Would this allow something like this: change an IID of a FSH, it updates across any exemplars/S3D files/etc with the new IID automatically?

That would save so much work with having to manually change S3D and FSH IIDs in the Reader, the current configuration doesn't really allow something like that to happen.
New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dedgren ♦ dmscopio ♦ Ennedi
emilin ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley ♦ moganite ♦ M4346 ♦ papab2000
Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
See my uploads on the LEX!

ilive

Quote from: Shadow Assassin on March 18, 2010, 05:00:52 PM

Would this allow something like this: change an IID of a FSH, it updates across any exemplars/S3D files/etc with the new IID automatically?

That would save so much work with having to manually change S3D and FSH IIDs in the Reader, the current configuration doesn't really allow something like that to happen.

yes, you should do this. Reader uses the or_dat.dll to access and manipulate data. So I have to link all or_dat.dll functions to the "lua" engine... easy to say, a bit more complicated to code :)

cogeo

Another solution would be to make the reader able to accept plugins (a programmer would have to write plugin(s) in DLL format). The reader should scan a "Plugins" folder for DLLs and load them; then it should add commands in the context menu (right-click) and enable/disable them according to the items (type and number of) being selected. This would make the reader "extensible" and allow editing and maybe previewing items in-place. For example, one could make a "SC4Path Editor" plugin, or implement custom batch functions like the ones requested above. It's nearly impossible to satisfy all requests submitted by all members here, as they could be asking new things again and again; in addition, some features may be useful to some modders, but irrelevant to or unwanted by many others ("niches"). A collection of optional plugins (made by other community members too, rather than you) would be a good solution, I think.

I could help writing the specs and/or a sample plugin, if you agree, and other members find this feature interesing.

JoeST

Quote from: cogeo on March 20, 2010, 07:44:35 AM
Another solution would be to make the reader able to accept plugins (a programmer would have to write plugin(s) in DLL format). The reader should scan a "Plugins" folder for DLLs and load them; then it should add commands in the context menu (right-click) and enable/disable them according to the items (type and number of) being selected. This would make the reader "extensible" and allow editing and maybe previewing items in-place. For example, one could make a "SC4Path Editor" plugin, or implement custom batch functions like the ones requested above. It's nearly impossible to satisfy all requests submitted by all members here, as they could be asking new things again and again; in addition, some features may be useful to some modders, but irrelevant to or unwanted by many others ("niches"). A collection of optional plugins (made by other community members too, rather than you) would be a good solution, I think.
I would suggest that scriptable extensibility would be more user friendly than DLL's... especially since many powerusers already know how to use lua

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

tamorr

I personally like the idea of both the LUA and Plugin advantage.... But having a plugin advantage would satisfied qutie a bit and make things somewhat easier to update portions, not to mention versitility in doing so... Both ideas are likable...:)
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cogeo

I'm afraid we (incl me) are asking Alain to implement features far beyond what he originally intended to (LUA interpreter, plugins etc). These are nice exotic capabilities, that are quite doubtful if they will ever be used (they should be used A LOT, to justify the development work). Pls also take into account that SC4 is already 7 y/o!

Instead, I think we should just ask improvements and fixes to existing features, and maybe small extra new features that could improve its functionality. Here are some:
- A small but very handy possible new feature: if you right-click on an item in the main list, there is a command named "Copy Entry ID". I think it wouldn't be very hard to implement a "Copy Entry ID as Text" one (maybe choose a better name) that will create a comma-separated string (like 0x5AD0E817,0xBADB57F1,0x10940000) and copy it to the clipboard (to be used in properties, eg in a Resource Key Type X property referencing a model). Btw the "Copy Entry ID"/"Paste Entry ID" commands should preferably work across multiple instances of the reader (currently they work only in the same instance).
- The Find in Files command appears not to work very well (or it's just me?). Actually I have not been able to find anything in the files, except for LTEXT items. Could you please take a look here?
- The Exemplar and Cohort Analyzers, meaybe need some minor UI improvements. First of all this "Search" command is a little confusing, as its meaning is rather "Fill the List". And why not fill the list automatically, when the dialog is first opened? The user will have to Fill the List anyway, otherwise he/she can't do anything. Maybe add a "Refresh" command instead, to update the list in the case that some items have been added, removed or modified in the main list. Also the "Find" command should have a shortcut of Ctrl+F instead of F3, and "Find Next" F3 instead of Ctrl+F3.
- LTEXT editor: the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+A shortcuts don't work, and this is quite frustrating sometimes (you have to leave the keyboard and use the mouse). Btw these work for the generic text editor.
- This is a new that does require some work, but I think it would be very handy to people modifying S3D models (NAM and automata makers). Is it possible to copy/paste items like vertices, triangles etc en-masse? For copying it should create a multi-line, fixed-column-width text and copy it to the clipboard (this can easily be edited in notepad or Excel). Then the paste operation should replace the items in the list with the ones in the clipboard. And it's absolutely OK to refuse replacing if the data and format do not match EXACTLY, eg the number of rows or columns differ (some S3D files have different number of columns too). So this would be a quite safe operation. It should rather work at group level (one group at a time). But let's see what other members think.

Please note that I haven't actually tested the new version, so all my comments above concern the 0.93 version. Please disregard them if they are already done.

Jonathan

Quote- This is a new that does require some work, but I think it would be very handy to people modifying S3D models (NAM and automata makers). Is it possible to copy/paste items like vertices, triangles etc en-masse? For copying it should create a multi-line, fixed-column-width text and copy it to the clipboard (this can easily be edited in notepad or Excel). Then the paste operation should replace the items in the list with the ones in the clipboard. And it's absolutely OK to refuse replacing if the data and format do not match EXACTLY, eg the number of rows or columns differ (some S3D files have different number of columns too). So this would be a quite safe operation. It should rather work at group level (one group at a time). But let's see what other members think.

That is already possible, just select the cells by clicking and dragging, exactly as you do in Excel. You can then hit Ctrl+C and paste into Excel use formulas to move the S3D, and when you copy it back to reader it will paste the values that the formula returned.
This is how we manipulate models before your S3D tool, and for people like me who are on windows 7.

I have one suggestion, letting us use lowercase letters in the TGI editor? Small but a little annoying.


Jonathan

cogeo

Quote from: Jonathan on March 21, 2010, 06:44:35 AM
That is already possible, just select the cells by clicking and dragging, exactly as you do in Excel. You can then hit Ctrl+C and paste into Excel use formulas to move the S3D, and when you copy it back to reader it will paste the values that the formula returned.

Only there appears to be no special implementation for this, it's just what the grid control does by itself. I'm talking about a group copy/paste thing, and data checking/validation as well - currently you can paste anything, and be extremely careful with what you are doing. But if you're OK with this...

Btw a minor change here, the tooltips are displayed immediately, maybe adding a 1-2 secs delay would be better.