shtloads of suggestions

[InCreator]

1) Darken processor style GUI textbox.
I can do something like that making 2x2 pixel
grid with black color (works well only hi res), but It'll be awesome to have a textbox which just darkens a rectangle of background. I think I asked for that some time ago.

Things like this are used in many games. First one that
comes into my mind would be KGB a.k.a Konspiracy by Cryo/Virgin... making this can't be that hard (we cand darken sprites, right? why not background?), plus I thought AGS could use some improvement on way games could look. This far, most improvements based on MORE complex scripting.

2) Colored font. I mean, multicolor font. Again, this is not an utopia, VERY old games use that (gradient ones are especially cool).

3) Font w/shadows? why not list it here. Actually I don't believe any of my suggestions would be implemented soon/ever, but digitally, my thread doesn't take much server space, so what the heck. ;)

4) Font editor? If SCI studio did that, why not to have even better one in AGS? It's Adventure Game STUDIO, after all. And some of SCI-code is existing already, in importing possibility.

5) Views in folders or Views w/names. Just like sprites.

6) Help with possibility to search from pages. (this far, we can only find pages that include searched keyword, not the keywords, though they're highlighted, which is really nice)

7) Colored text scripting. Speaks for itsself. And is handy to avoid errors.

8) Forced mistake check (like button or menu option that finds errors in scripts, just like saving a room does - good for making script right before trying to save a room)

Actually, I just hope a lot of feedback on my ideas.

[scotch]

Here's some ideas or opinions about the suggestions I had:

1:  Can't you do something similar by making the gui black, then making it semi transparent with SetGUITransparency?  It would make the text transparent too though, so might not be quite the effect you want.. (in whoch case you could fake it with either two guis or a gui with a transparent object underneath)

2: Sounds like a good idea Not quite sure of the best way to do it though.  (You wouldn't just be able to set a colour for text for different characters if they had colour info in the font)

3: That one doesn't sound too hard to do, probably alread on the list of things to do.

4: Well there already are font editors, I think think it's a good idea personally, most people don't make custom fonts themselves.

5: Being able to label views would be useful imo.

6: You mean in the help file?  You already can actually, just press ctrl+f

7: Coloured text scripting?  Isn't this already in ags?

8: I'd like that.

[Joseph DiPerla]

For #8 I thought AGS wont let you save the script if there is an error in it. But I could be wrong. I know it wont compile if there is an error.

JD

[InCreator]

About colored scripting: Well, comments will be green. But any other? Didn't notice. Could be useful to set scripting colors, so Character names had one color and commands another etc.

And font editors... SCI-Studio crashes all the time, plus erases randomly some letters in font editor... a pain, and no gain

[Kennedy]

For the font with shadows you could probably just use a font with an outline and then slightly redraw the outline so it looks like a shadow.

[InCreator]

(You wouldn't just be able to set a colour for text for different characters if they had colour info in the font)

Why? Is that a problem no paint program can't handle yet? I imagine that basic gradient could be black-to-white and AGS just makes right color by multiplying process - just as PhotoShop or any other pro paint program does.

[auhsor]

The font outline/shadow thing is dicussed in this thread, as i'm sure you're aware now:

http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=7465;start=20

[Pumaman]

I can't justify implementing a font editor into AGS, since as scotch says most people don't make their own fonts (they just pinch an existing SCI font or TTF), and the fact that implementing a font editor would take a significant amount of time, which I could better use for other purposes.

Syntax highlighting is already present, in that keywords are different to normal identifiers are different to numbers, etc.
Adding too many different colours for different things would make it confusing, IMO.

Naming views is definately a possibility and is on my to-do list, as it auto-outlining of fonts.

[InCreator]

Auto-outlining is great. Wish you luck, CJ. I feel a bit sorry that I'm not very good at programming in any other environments than Basic, otherwise I'd put a great effort in implementing my and other people's ideas so your todo list could be shorter.