AGS 2.8 alpha 8 preview

[Pumaman]

Thanks for the positive comments guys, I'm glad that you think the new editor is an improvement on the old one

When I try to type one of our special letters (äöüàŸ) and autocompletion should be triggered, I get this error:
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: startIndex darf nicht länger als die Länge der Zeichenfolge sein

Well spotted thanks, I'll look into it.

I don't use global messages, but at times room messages can be handy, especially for those templates (such as my IF template which never saw the light of day but which I still use for myself) that... well, that use them. It's great to be able to have in each room a property which links to a message number to display in *whatever situation* - in my IF template, it was great for easily doing room descriptions. Even allowed for some really complex formations.

Fair point, I'll see about adding these back in.

Perhaps the text dumping function could be changed to be more similar to "make translation source" except with the option to re-import text?

Yes, I was wondering whether the text dump and translation features could somehow be combined with some sort of option to read changes back in.
If the output was dumped as an XML file rather than a plain text file, would that cause any problems for anyone?

The UI as a whole should be more customizable. This is, users should be able to move the panel and toolbar around to wherever they please. This should take care of people annoyed by the fact that things aren't in the same place as in AGS 2.7, and shouldn't be much effort if you're using the .NET UI elements. As an example, see Visual Studio

Interesting point -- I have looked into this, but as far as I can see the whole dockable windows/toolbars thing is not part of the .NET Framework; it's something that they've specifically coded into Visual Studio. So obviously I could do the same, but I'm not sure whether it's worth the effort...

Tabs are a good change, but there's always those times when you want more than one open at once, like regular windows. Users should be able to place tabs in windows so they can easily move and place them around as necessary. Again, as an example of this, there's Visual Studio's Windows menu

A Windows menu is certainly a reasonable idea; I'll have to look into how hard it would be to allow multiple tabs to be visible at once.

- The new dialog panel with both script and options in one window is lovely. A Delete button for the options wouldn't go amiss though.

My reluctance here is that dialog options are still referenced by number, so allowing one to be deleted from the middle could allow people to unintentionally mess up their dialog scripts. Perhaps allowing only the last one to be deleted is a fair plan though.

- Any chance you could replace the Script Editor's Find panel with a .NET Find & Replace? Yes, yes, I'm too lazy to use an external editor.

Again, as far as I'm aware there is no ".NET Find and Replace" dialog, but I can certainly look into adding Replace features to the existing dialog.

Users of the interaction editor will have a lot of fixing to do since any interactions that used old-style-scripting (eg. RunDialog()) will now bring up compiler errors. Though I suppose they could just disable "Enforce object-based-scripting".

That's a good point, I need to make sure that the generated code uses new-style scripting.

After importing my old game, fixing errors and getting it to build an EXE successfully, I try to run it. And get this error:

Error: invalid interaction variable specified

Ah, the new editor does not maintain any Global Interaction Variables that you've created, therefore if you try to load in a room that uses one, it will give this error. If you load and re-save that first room in the editor, it should remove the reference.

Regarding the old outdated Interaction Editor, I understand not many people use it and it's pretty unfriendly right now. However, there's always people who just can't get into scripting. So I'd suggest something like Flash's "Script Assist" for scripting.

Something like that is a good idea; it's probably not something I'll do right away, and potentially could be the sort of functionality for a plugin to provide at a later date.

Thanks for all your other comments, I'll bear them in mind.

BTW, I just wanted to clarify why I need to use a Text DUmp for trabslation (in a new reply because if I edit the old one it'll probably not be seen now) - I had to make a custom function that gets the inputted string, puts it on a GUI label, and if necessary splits it into 2+ lines. This splitting involves counting characters on the string, and a couple of other things. When I tried to do an automatic translation, it was a no-go. So I need to text-dump it ALL, add a gazillion "if trabslations is X then Write("X"); else Write("Y")" functions and re-import. Better to text dump it all than to do it manually.

Hmm, I still don't fully understand. The translation source file should automatically include all script strings, and then can't your custom function just use GetTranslation to get the translated version?

Loading a scrolling room (in this specific case a room of 570 x 240 for a 320x240 game, but it happens in all scrolling rooms) gives me a vertical scroll bar but not a horizontal one- I can only access the left side of this room!

I just tried with a 470x200 room and it was fine, but I'll try to make one that size and see what happens...

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

If the output was dumped as an XML file rather than a plain text file, would that cause any problems for anyone?

If you provide a tutorial for working with XML files, sure. I know nothing about XML.

Hmm, I still don't fully understand. The translation source file should automatically include all script strings, and then can't your custom function just use GetTranslation to get the translated version?

Hmmm, never thought of using GetTranslation. I'll look into it sometime, thanks for the tip. Since it's so unpredictable *when* the lines get broken, I thought it just couldn't be done.

[GarageGothic]

Hmm, I still don't fully understand. The translation source file should automatically include all script strings, and then can't your custom function just use GetTranslation to get the translated version?

Hmm, this is something I considered briefly at one point, but didn't pursue since I didn't know whether GetTranslation was compatible with new Strings. Would it be possible to substitute a String with it's translation at the beginning of a custom function without messing anything up? Like this:

Code: ags

function lbSay(Character *charname, String dialogline, int voicefile) {
   dialogline = GetTranslation (dialogline);
   etc. etc.
   }

Is GetTranslation a slow function so it would be safer to check for IsTranslationAvailable() first? In some situations I need to run through a couple of hundred Strings every loop.

Edit: Woohoo! Yes, it worked! Thanks CJ, this solved all my translation problems!

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Well, if it worked for him I'm sure it'll do the trick for me. I still haven't understood how extraordinary AGS truly is, it seems. Well, that means I have no real need for Text Dump anymore.

[SupSuper]

Interesting point -- I have looked into this, but as far as I can see the whole dockable windows/toolbars thing is not part of the .NET Framework; it's something that they've specifically coded into Visual Studio. So obviously I could do the same, but I'm not sure whether it's worth the effort...

Hmm you're right. .NET does have a component to make draggable toolbars (ToolStripContainer), but not windows, sorry, my mistake.

Though there seem to have been a lot of people that wanted a Visual-Studio-like UI too: http://www.windowsforms.net/ControlGallery/default.aspx?Category=7abindex=10 (DockStudio seems to be the only one that's free)

Of course I'm not considering this a priority, just showing that you don't have to code it yourself and steal away precious AGS-working time.

A Windows menu is certainly a reasonable idea; I'll have to look into how hard it would be to allow multiple tabs to be visible at once.

The tags don't have to go anywhere, just displaying them in a window would be nice. Again, some of the libraries above seem to have that feature too.

My reluctance here is that dialog options are still referenced by number, so allowing one to be deleted from the middle could allow people to unintentionally mess up their dialog scripts. Perhaps allowing only the last one to be deleted is a fair plan though.

Good point. It's just easy to mess up dialog options when reordering, correcting, moving them to separate dialogs, and I find it a bit sloppy to end up with blank dialog options.

Being able to delete the last option would be fine, thanks.

Again, as far as I'm aware there is no ".NET Find and Replace" dialog, but I can certainly look into adding Replace features to the existing dialog.

Whoops, more assuming on my part, what with all the .NET Dialogs, I checked myself and you're right.

Replace would be great, thanks. Other things like "Match word" are also handy for script editing, but definitely not a priority.

Ah, the new editor does not maintain any Global Interaction Variables that you've created, therefore if you try to load in a room that uses one, it will give this error. If you load and re-save that first room in the editor, it should remove the reference.

It doesn't remove them, but rather puts in an ugly "*** TODO: VARIABLE CHECK ***" in their place, but since it comes up as a compiler error and thus forces me to fix it, I suppose it's fair game. And the game works fine now.

Thanks for all your other comments, I'll bear them in mind.

Cheers.

As for more notes:
- In AGS 2.72, a message box would pop up when there were compiler errors. In this new version, this no longer happens, so sometimes it's easy to miss when errors do come up when you're saving, specially when you're not even on the script editor anymore. I'd appreciate a return of the 2.72 message box in some fashion, some kind of "There was an error while saving".
- Saving the game doesn't save any open rooms.
- The Output window only gets updated (or cleared) when Building a game and not while Saving the game. Is this intended?

And bug reports:
- Deleting events in the Properties Editor doesn't delete the corresponding functions in the script.
- One of the side-effects of having multiple windows open is that if you save an old AGS 2.72 room while the script editor is open, you don't see any changes until you close and reopen it.
- If you do any visual changes (objects, hotspots, etc.) to a room, close it, ask for the changes to not be saved, and then re-open it, the changes are still there. They only go away if you load another room.
- If you open and close a room without saving any changes (even if you don't make any), the script is still upgraded.
- I haven't pinpointed the exact cause or how to reproduce this bug, so I apologize in advance, but I'll report it anyways until I figure it out: In some cases, the script upgrade process writes out the "redirect functions" twice. Like, say:

function hotspot1_Look()
{
hotspot1_a();
}

function hotspot1_Look()
{
hotspot1_a();
}

Also, ine of the odd advantages of the new editor is it made me spot any events I left created but deleted the respective function manually, since during the script upgrade, it tries to assign functions that don't exist and thus doesn't compile.

[Ghost]

Loading a scrolling room (in this specific case a room of 570 x 240 for a 320x240 game, but it happens in all scrolling rooms) gives me a vertical scroll bar but not a horizontal one- I can only access the left side of this room!

I just found out that this quirk doesn't appear when I set my screen resolution to 1024 x 768; the bars are only missing in 800 x 600 resolution. I know that few people run such a "low" res, but it appears that the panel (?) you're using for room display somehow "swallows" the slide bar?

Another fun thing: I have a room with no "room description"; opening it in Alpha5 brings me directly to the scripts pane, while all other rooms start with their image displayed. Intention, or did I spot a bug? 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

On the subject of dialogs, I still think a folder list for them would be a good idea, that way you could categorize multiple dialogs for one person in a folder much like you do for multiple views for one person.  Small improvements like these make a great difference when actually building a game and go a long way to keeping things ordered.  I like the new start up screen!

[monkey0506]

I'm getting protected struct members autocompleting...and nothing appears to be autocompleting after 'this'. 'this' is also *apparently* autocompleting outside of member functions...where it can't be used....so is my computer just screwing with me again or what?

[SupSuper]

The following features are NOT yet implemented:
* Autocomplete doesn't yet work with local variables or the "this" variable

[monkey0506]

Red and blue appear to be backwards in the color finder. (31R,0G,0B) shows up for me as blue and (0R,0G,31B) shows up as red. Green appears to be fine though.

Oh thanks SupSuper. Looks like I still can't read properly (although protected struct members don't fall into either of those categories (on my own behalf)).

[joelphilippage]

Ive got a suggestion. I think that the walking and talking animation preview for the character should either be a bit taller or scale down the animation to fit it's size. most of my characters get cut off at the top.

[edmundito]

Chris, I was wondering if you lost that icon I sent you for the newest versions of AGS... the one that was meant to work on XP and such...?

The new build looks pretty nice. I'll try it with some games of mine. I still feel that putting the sidebar on the right feels awkward. I guess I'm still too used to the left side from the other ags (and now I'm using eclipse and they put their stuff on the left as well, lol.) Maybe there should be an option for docking the sidebars left or right?

And also, the normal behavior for opening a new document in tabs is that it appears on the right side of the screen. Yours they keep pushing the other windows to the right....

Oh, and also... just a minor minor detail: LucasArts is with a capital A On the speech style it says Lucasarts...

[RickJ]

Regarding running on Linux/Mono ...

From: http://www.mono-project.com/Guidelines:Application_Portability

Important Visual Studio can produce "incremental" executables, these are executables that do not have some of their tables compressed, and they are used by Visual Studio during development.

These assemblies do not work with Mono, as Mono does not support them, you must turn off "incremental" builds.

The incremental option can be set from the Project's Configuration/Advanced properties.

When I tried running alpha 5 with mono on Open Suse 10.2 it crashed complaining about unknown WinForm methods.  No susrpise since this is what others have already reported. 

But I noticed that the error message also had something vague to say about assemblies as well.   So I was wondering if the the above mentioned "incremental builds" are turned off for alpha 5 and if not could they be turned off for the next alpha?  If so I would gladly give it another try and report the results.

Keep up the good work.

[subspark]

Dear AGSers,

I have imported my game into AGS 2.8 Alpha 5 with no problems.
However when I attemtpt to compile the script it spits out the following error:
undefined symbal 'ACTION'

Code: ags

// Main global script file


//SOME TEMPLATE DEFINITIONS:

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define MAX_MODES 			11//	put here how many cursor modes you have (= last
//                          number in mode '#defines' in the Script Header+1).
//                          Putting a lower number will cause strange errors.
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define MAX_SAVEGAMES 			99//    Max number of savegames.
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define EXTENSION_IDENTIFIER 		">"//	Character(s) extensions start with. 
#define VARIABLE_DEF_ACTION_EXTENSION	'v'//	Extension for variable default action things.
#define NO_DEF_ACTION_EXTENSION		'n'//	Extension for no default action things.
#define EXITS_EXTENSION			'e'//	Extension for exit type things.
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define ALWAYS_GO_TO_HOTSPOTS 		1//	Read the template documentation for this.
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define DEFAULT_FONT_HEIGHT 		8//	Used in SaveGame GUI script
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define GUI_MAPS_WIDTH 			100//	Used for setting up the GUI label in map rooms .
#define GUI_MAPS_LABEL_FONT 		1//
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define INV_UP_ARROW_ON_SPRITE 		39//	Used for setting the correct arrows so that the 
#define INV_UP_ARROW_OFF_SPRITE 	45//	player can see if the inventory is scrollable.
#define INV_DOWN_ARROW_ON_SPRITE 	40//
#define INV_DOWN_ARROW_OFF_SPRITE 	46//
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define ACTION_LABEL_COLOR_NORMAL	 3//	Used in highlighting the action bar.
#define ACTION_LABEL_COLOR_HIGHLIGHTED 	11//
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define BLANK_CURSOR_SPRITE_NUMBER 	1//	Used for changing the cursor back to 'wait' 
//                          cursor after 'semi-blocking' functions finish. 
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define FIRST_INV_SLOT_COORDS 	    161,159//	Any point inside the top left inventory slot.
//                          coordinates used for inventory box.
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define CONFIRM_GUIS_CHARACTER_YES	'Y'//	Keys for 'Yes' and 'No' in 'exit game' and 
#define CONFIRM_GUIS_CHARACTER_NO	'N'//	'restart game' GUI requests. (Always uppercase)
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#define SPECIAL_INV_MODE		1//	1 = LOOK mode (as defined in script header).
//                          It is the mode that will trigger a left click
//                          in the inventory if mode is WALK or PICKUP.
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you may have guessed I'm using a monkey island template.

I corrected this error by adding #define ACTION into the global script. While this fix doesn't make sense I attempt to fix the next problem.

The compiler spat out the following error:
missing argument in function call (line 249)

Code: ags

function HighlightActionBar(){
  //highlights the action bar with the color defined at the top of the global script
(line 249) SetLabelColor(ACTION,0,ACTION_LABEL_COLOR_HIGHLIGHTED);
  SetTimer(20,5);
}

Any ideas on how to get this not too lengthy script to compile for 2.8 alpha 5?
Any help here would be hot.

Cheers.

[Scorpiorus]

I just looked into Monkey Island 2 template and noticed that ACTION is a name of the very first GUI (#0) in the list.
I thought it's worth mentioning in case it's somehow related.

[khnum]

I just tried tu run my game with the alpha5, and i get this errors:

Code: ags

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
An unexpected error occurred. Please note down the following information and contact CJ.



System.ArgumentException: Width must be greater than zero.

   at AGS.Editor.BusyDialog.Show(String message, ProcessingHandler handler, Object parameter)

   at AGS.Editor.Components.FileCommandsComponent.LoadGameFromDisk(String gameToLoad)

   at AGS.Editor.Components.FileCommandsComponent.CommandClick(String controlID)

   at AGS.Editor.GUIController._mainForm_OnMenuClick(String menuItemID)

   at AGS.Editor.MainMenuManager.MenuEventHandler(Object sender, EventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem.OnClick(EventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.WndProc(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

any other game i tried to load worked, and there aren't modules or plugins

P.S.: CJ, are you going to implement something new or it will be only a graphic update?

[Pumaman]

Ok, well it's been a month since the last update so I thought it was about time I uploaded the latest build. This has the following changes:

* Added welcome dialog when editor starts up, including ability to create new games
* Added Make Template option
* Added room messages editor
* Added automated backup of game files before importing game from 2.72
* Autocomplete now works with "this" variable
* Added option to create non-state-saving room
* Generated code for interactions should now all compile correctly with "enforce object-based scripting" enabled
* Better handling of room scripts to make sure they get updated properly when loading in an old room
* Added ability to delete last dialog option
* Script names should now be verified as unique
* Fixed extended ASCII characters 128-255 crashing the script editor

Your comments are welcome, as usual.

The following things are still missing/broken; I am aware of them and will be doing them soon, so please don't report them as problems:

* Autocomplete doesn't yet work with local variables
* autocomplete enums
* autocomplete is showing protected struct members to public
* remember width/height of editor when exit
* Text Dump / Translation Source into XML file
* red and blue are backwards at 16-bit colour
* auto-number speech lines feature
* custom icon on generated EXE
* generate setup.exe as well as game exe
* Better way of importing interaction variables (currently crash game when attempt to use GetGraphicslVariable)
* Various import and export options
* help file, general help system
* automatically adjust GUI width/height to at least 1 when importing old game

Is GetTranslation a slow function so it would be safer to check for IsTranslationAvailable() first? In some situations I need to run through a couple of hundred Strings every loop.

GetTranslation internally calls IsTranslationAvailable anyway, so if you called it as well you'd actually be making it slower

It doesn't remove them, but rather puts in an ugly "*** TODO: VARIABLE CHECK ***" in their place, but since it comes up as a compiler error and thus forces me to fix it, I suppose it's fair game.

This is something I want to improve by the final version of 2.8; ideally I want the upgaded game to work straight off, without needing manual script fixing.

- In AGS 2.72, a message box would pop up when there were compiler errors. In this new version, this no longer happens, so sometimes it's easy to miss when errors do come up when you're saving, specially when you're not even on the script editor anymore. I'd appreciate a return of the 2.72 message box in some fashion, some kind of "There was an error while saving".

The latest alpha now does this.

- Saving the game doesn't save any open rooms.

This should now happen.

- The Output window only gets updated (or cleared) when Building a game and not while Saving the game. Is this intended?

Yes this is intentional; if you save the game it doesn't try to compile or anything, so any previous error messages are still valid.

Deleting events in the Properties Editor doesn't delete the corresponding functions in the script.

This is deliberate, I don't want to risk people losing their script code when they didn't want to.

- One of the side-effects of having multiple windows open is that if you save an old AGS 2.72 room while the script editor is open, you don't see any changes until you close and reopen it.
- If you open and close a room without saving any changes (even if you don't make any), the script is still upgraded.
- I haven't pinpointed the exact cause or how to reproduce this bug, so I apologize in advance, but I'll report it anyways until I figure it out: In some cases, the script upgrade process writes out the "redirect functions" twice.

Thanks for pointing these out, the latest alpha should fix these.

I just found out that this quirk doesn't appear when I set my screen resolution to 1024 x 768; the bars are only missing in 800 x 600 resolution. I know that few people run such a "low" res, but it appears that the panel (?) you're using for room display somehow "swallows" the slide bar?

Well spotted, you're right ... at 800x600, the editor window isn't big enough to see the scroll bars. Does anyone else still use 800x600? I'm not sure if this is worth fixing?

On the subject of dialogs, I still think a folder list for them would be a good idea, that way you could categorize multiple dialogs for one person in a folder much like you do for multiple views for one person.

Sounds reasonable, I'll leave new features like this until I've got all the existing stuff implemented.

Red and blue appear to be backwards in the color finder. (31R,0G,0B) shows up for me as blue and (0R,0G,31B) shows up as red. Green appears to be fine though.

Hmm yes, this seems to only happen to me if the game colour depth is 16-bit. I need to look into it.

Ive got a suggestion. I think that the walking and talking animation preview for the character should either be a bit taller or scale down the animation to fit it's size. most of my characters get cut off at the top.

It's difficult to size the window so that it will cater for everyone; I'll have a think about it.

Chris, I was wondering if you lost that icon I sent you for the newest versions of AGS... the one that was meant to work on XP and such...?

Probably, if it's not the one that I'm using at the moment?

But I noticed that the error message also had something vague to say about assemblies as well.   So I was wondering if the the above mentioned "incremental builds" are turned off for alpha 5 and if not could they be turned off for the next alpha?  If so I would gladly give it another try and report the results.

I haven't noticed an option anywhere for this, but I assume it's turned off by default.

I just looked into Monkey Island 2 template and noticed that ACTION is a name of the very first GUI (#0) in the list.
I thought it's worth mentioning in case it's somehow related.

Hmm yes, in 2.72 the GUI names have #defines created for them, but 2.8 doesn't do tihs any more. Would this be useful for people?

I just tried tu run my game with the alpha5, and i get this errors:
System.ArgumentException: Width must be greater than zero.

Hmm, sounds like you have a GUI or a GUI Control that has a width of 0; this should probably be handled better.

[pcj]

Good to see an update, I was just checking this to see if I missed it yesterday.

[GarageGothic]

Great work, CJ. I came across a problem though. Probably related to the extended ASCII characters previously crashing the editor, they now seem to just get corrupted when importing an old game. In my script, the name "René Descartes" becomes "RenàÆ'© Descartes" when importing from 2.72 Final 2 to 2.8 Alpha 6.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

It's difficult to size the window so that it will cater for everyone; I'll have a think about it.

A right-click zoom option that magnifies/shrinks the images by 2x from their default size would fix this.  If the sprite being in the editor is the problem you could always have it display in a separate window like 2.72?

It's looking pretty slick, CJ.  Are you going to add drag and drop support for pulling sprites/views/etc into folders?

One thing I noticed is that if you click outside of a pulldown menu (like backgrounds) it doesn't deselect it, so if you use the mouse wheel it still cycles through whatever is in that menu.

Also, if you'd consider shipping the new ags with the updated roger template/gui I made that would be cool.  I've verified it to work perfectly with 2.8 alpha 6.

A couple of things would be nice:

1.  A display of the fonts current size and the ability to change it in the editor with up/down arrows and manual keying rather than reimporting the font.

2.  An animate tick bar next to cursors as well so you can see them animate.

3.  On the character list the properties read 'Speech View' and 'Normal view' but the editor displays them as Walking view and talking view.  This could confuse some people I guess.  Also the ability to set a loop for each direction in a view would be nice (see 6 for more info).

4.  Don't know if you just haven't gotten to this yet but similar customization screens for idle/blinking/thinking would be good.

5.  A change to dynamic limits on the # of views, chars, etc, though I realize this will require an engine edit as well.

6.  Consider changing the way AGS decides what the walk/talk etc loops are to a set of variables the author can select and edit in the properties pane.  This would certainly obviate much of the current difficulty with creating new views each time you want to change the walk movements.  By default these variables could be the current setup, naturally.