AGS 3.01 wishlist

[Joseph DiPerla]

Oops!!! The ultimate wish list... Err I mean tracker, is actually here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/tracker.php

[Pumaman]

I should just say, I'm not a great fan of "wishlist" threads. They tend to grow and grow with increasingly wild suggestions that people think up, and end up being pretty much useless (which is what happened to the old AGS Suggestions thread a couple of years ago).
But if we keep it sensible I guess it can't do any harm.

Being able to have two tabs side-by side in the editor, in case you are referring back and forth between them

I'm not sure how this could really work ... if you had two script editors open side by side for example, which one would the Edit menu apply to? Or the property grid?

- multiple speech.vox (or music.vox)
i.e. speech.en, speech.de, speech.es (or german.spf english.spf, ...)

I do like this idea, because at the moment you can have multiple translations in the game directory but not a language pack for each one.

- sprite-en.pack ( contains some sprites, shown in-game that was translated )
i.e. in-game a sign shows "Le Bakery" and in the translated version "Bäckerei"

I like this idea as well, but I haven't come up with a good way of implementing it yet.

[Joseph DiPerla]

I should just say, I'm not a great fan of "wishlist" threads. They tend to grow and grow with increasingly wild suggestions that people think up, and end up being pretty much useless (which is what happened to the old AGS Suggestions thread a couple of years ago).
But if we keep it sensible I guess it can't do any harm.

I am just glad I did not start the thread this time....

- sprite-en.pack ( contains some sprites, shown in-game that was translated )
i.e. in-game a sign shows "Le Bakery" and in the translated version "Bäckerei"

I like this idea as well, but I haven't come up with a good way of implementing it yet.

What if after you load the translation files of each language, you can then edit in the properties pane which image to use for that particular language. Actually Chris, if there  was some way of detecting which language is running within AGS, you would then just be able to script this somehow right??? EG: If Curr.Language == Italian, then object9.sprite = 30.
Forgive me, I havent touched the editor in a while so the scripting I just put there comes up like crap. Right now I have been trying to improve my Simpsons games graphics. They really need some work.


Oh and just for organizational reasons, I just added the two liked suggestions that Chris mentioned above to the feature/bug tracker. Dont know if you still use it Chris, but just in case...

[GarageGothic]

Actually Chris, if there  was some way of detecting which language is running within AGS, you would then just be able to script this somehow right???

You mean such as checking Game.TranslationFilename ?

I definitely support the localized speech files idea, since it seems to be quite a simple fix (just changing the filename that AGS reads voices from). I guess the only major programming task would be to implement winsetup support for it.

[Khris]

That's indeed possible (at least since 2.6, afaik):

Code: ags

  if (IsTranslationAvailable ()) {
    if (Game.TranslationFilename == "French") ...
    ...

Edit: Why would winsetup be involved? AGS would open "name.vox", according to the "name.tra" it's using.
The funny thing is, is there actually a game featuring more than one speech.vox file? Or rather: will there ever be one?

[GarageGothic]

Ah, very true. I hadn't thought of the .vox file sharing the name of the text translation 

Edit: Actually, now that I think of it, it could be argued that some users might want to play the game with English audio but localized subtitles. But of course then they could just delete the localized .vox file.

[Joseph DiPerla]

Actually Chris, if there  was some way of detecting which language is running within AGS, you would then just be able to script this somehow right???

You mean such as checking Game.TranslationFilename ?

I definitely support the localized speech files idea, since it seems to be quite a simple fix (just changing the filename that AGS reads voices from). I guess the only major programming task would be to implement winsetup support for it.

HEHE. Told you I havent touched the scripting in a while...

But yeah, if you have that, couldn't you just script the sprite thing?

And KhrisMUC brings out a very good point..

[Khris]

But yeah, if you have that, couldn't you just script the sprite thing?

Sure, that's exactly what I did in two Maniac Mansion Mania episodes so far.
Actually, the starter pack we're using (which is based on Maniac Mansion Deluxe) uses this method to translate the 9 verb GUI. The images and positions of the buttons are mapped using strings, allowing the translator to use their own images by using lines like "A_GIVE 7 804 805" in the translation source. Very handy.

Implementing this technique is as easy as putting this in before_fadein:

Code: ags

  String s=GetTranslation("48");
  oSign.Graphic=s.AsInt;

"48" will now end up in the translation source.

[deltamatrix]

Was 2D arrays ever added? Thats on my wish list.

Would be cool if you could store struct references within structs if you can't yet in AGS 3.0

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I think there were a couple of modules that dealt with that, Delta.

[monkey0506]

Was 2D arrays ever added? Thats on my wish list.

AGS 3.0 now supports dynamic arrays which makes building multidimensional arrays somewhat easier (as you can use "non-constant" values such as "eEnum1 * eEnum2"). The MultiArray module that I wrote specifically for AGS 3.0 allows for arrays of any number of dimensions of any size provided that the total product of all dimension sizes is less than 1000000 (one million). You may find it of some interest.

Would be cool if you could store struct references within structs if you can't yet in AGS 3.0

That's not yet possible unfortunately.

[SupSuper]

I'd like to see an option to clear the Recent Games list, since it can easily add up over-time.

[Dualnames]

I just 'd like to see a File.Delete() function added..

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Moving sprites into/out of folders, moving views into/out of folders.  I realize you said deleting the views could cause problems, so how about a right click 'clear' option that safely resets a view?  The new Dialog concept you suggested with just activating  it in the main script through Dialog.Start() with the topics and other stuff handled between it and something like Dialog.End() would work great as well, and would make it function similarly to StartCutscene/EndCutscene, which is always a plus design wise.

[subspark]

This has been discussed once before, but I think the AGS directory should now be cleaner with sub directories for plugins, templates and modules.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Yes, it should. In fact, that's exactly how mine is arranged, and everyone can arrange it howsoever they like.

[voh]

I'm not sure how this could really work ... if you had two script editors open side by side for example, which one would the Edit menu apply to? Or the property grid?

It would have to be possible to select one, to which the edit menu and property grid would apply to. Opera does this, you can 'tile horizontally', and whichever specific window (within the main window) is selected gets to be controlled by the menu items.

It is indeed a very good option to have, though fairly hard. It'd require a true MDI (or a very well-hacked SDI) to work well.

[subspark]

Yes, it should. In fact, that's exactly how mine is arranged, and everyone can arrange it howsoever they like.

Thats not quite what I was getting at. Let me rephrase:
I think AGS should read plugins, templates and modules from directories rather than the root folder exlusively. If one is using several templates, several plugins and several modules things can become rather confusing and untidy. I think it is time to reinforce tidyness or at the least, support those of us who keep tidy.

Paul.

[voh]

Like allowing the user to set a series of default directories per type?

Quickbasic 4.5 allowed that, you just set the directories to where you wanted them to be and that's what it'd look in. Worked like a charm.

[subspark]

Precisley. I'm leaning more towards letting the user specify a set of directories rather than having a predefined search path. 

Cheers,
Paul.