AGS 2.8 alpha 8 preview

Started by Pumaman, Mon 15/01/2007 23:24:45

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Ghost

#20
Sweet, though I agree with those saying the new layout might take some getting used to. I instantly liked it; since I always found the floating windows (GUI section) a bit awkward. The way it looks now is slick, consistent and easy on the eye, and it looks more, well, accessible. Modern. Don't know why that should matter (the engine is powerful enough, why make the IDE look goodÃ,  ;D ), but somehow it is quite pleasing...
I'm also quite sure few people will complain the required .Net software- especially since it's not needed to run games. I had no trouble to download the framework and then run the beta, and I could also load 2.72 games.

Good work, really. Not commenting on bugs; I just had a look at the layout yet. Keep it up, and godspeedÃ,  ;)

Ghost out.

joelphilippage

When do you thing Ags 2.8 will be done? It looks like you've gotten very far.



Domino

Looking great so far CJ. Thanks for doing such a great job with AGS.

lowesalex

Hope you feel better with this RSI problem.
And wow,somtimes resting brings up new ideas.

Well I don't have alo of time for reporting so I only found one bug:
-In the GUI editor you can't click a box and press the dell button for deleting in,only right click works.

Anyway:Far out.

keep up the wonderfull work and don't strain yourself.
Your health is more important than AGS and computers in general(I am a PC tech and right now suffering from RSI).

edmundito

Very interesting stuff. I'm gone for a few months and the editor is totally changed.

All I would say is... be careful. AGS was easy enough for anyone to use and switching it to a Visual Studio IDE style might be a bit overwhelming. The VS studio style is not too bad, but it does have a lot of random unnecessary options. I would say if you keep it as simple as possible you'll be fine.

My only suggestion is to switch the properties/"solution explorer" to the left side of the screen and put the toolbox on the right side. This would be most familiar with the previous AGS editor, and also Visual Studio Express 2005 has it set up that way and it's nice. (I'm actually writing this reply because I was just doing something on Visual C++ express. Strangely enough, Visual C# express is the other way around...).

I haven't looked at this in detail, but are files going to be separated or is it still going to be one huge file with all the data including the scripts?
The Tween Module now supports AGS 3.6.0!

InCreator

#25
I noticed 2 issues I have to point out:

1) The mouse wheel (to scroll around) doesn't work while script is open (atleast Dialog script). Also, it doesn't work for Main menu. Don't forget to add this, if possible. Especially due much longer main menu.
But this probably needs making either script or menu active to make wheel "understand" what to scroll...
Anyway, this worked in "old" AGS. For everything.

2) Closing a tab should make last tab in row active, not the very first. Atleast to me, it's quite confusing.

ah, and

3) In general settings, "yes" and "no" feels much more reasonable options than "true" and "false".
I can't explain why. But programmers like true/false more, I guess.

Besides this, I like new design very much! Especially the lovely character editor with full overview on sprites.

pcj

You've got plugins on the list to re-implement.  How will the switch to .NET affect plugins?
Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back is now available to download!

monkey0506

Quote from: joelphilippage on Wed 17/01/2007 22:10:00When do you thing Ags 2.8 will be done? It looks like you've gotten very far.

Quote from: 'Mama' Boucher[/url]That question is the devil!

Chris will only put it off further now...:P

In regards to what InCreator said about tab-closing...I think perhaps it should activate the previous tab. That seems less arbitrary than activating the first or last tab.

Also on the subject of tabs...it would be wonderful to see some better handling of multiple tab rows soon. ;)

Thanks a million Chris.

jkohen

Quote from: strazer on Tue 16/01/2007 03:16:13
Quote from: scotch on Tue 16/01/2007 01:44:13
Can't you run it at all in Mono (on linux)? I don't know how good the forms support is currently, that was very much in progress when I last looked at it.

I haven't looked at it that way. For now, it's a Windows application and doesn't run on Linux like that (no .Net-support in Wine), it would need to be ported and I can only hope someone will do that someday.

No, you are wrong. Mono is not a Windows application. Not only was it actually started by "UNIXers," but it even runs on Windows. Try it for yourself: http://www.mono-project.com/ (already packaged by Debian and other distributions). It might mean that we don't need to use Wine anymore to run the editor.

strazer

I meant the AGS editor, not Mono.

Pumaman

QuoteThe way it looks now is slick, consistent and easy on the eye, and it looks more, well, accessible. Modern. Don't know why that should matter (the engine is powerful enough, why make the IDE look good   ), but somehow it is quite pleasing

Whilst it shouldn't matter, in reality if the editor looks retro and quaint it will put people off. But more importantly than that, it has some really annoying features such as the way you can only open one script at a time, which wouldn't be possible to fix easily with the current editor's design.

QuoteWhen do you thing Ags 2.8 will be done? It looks like you've gotten very far.

You should know better than to ask that question! ;)

Yes, a lot of work has been done. But bear in mind, it has been done over the last 6 months, not overnight. There is still a lot to do, so I expect it will take a good few months to get to Beta stage.

Quote-In the GUI editor you can't click a box and press the dell button for deleting in,only right click works.

Thanks for that, I added the "Del" text to the menu but forgot to actually link in the key  ::)

QuoteAll I would say is... be careful. AGS was easy enough for anyone to use and switching it to a Visual Studio IDE style might be a bit overwhelming. The VS studio style is not too bad, but it does have a lot of random unnecessary options. I would say if you keep it as simple as possible you'll be fine.

I agree that it needs to be kept simple; the way I see it, the new design is more intuitive than the old one, since you don't have to try and find things like where the "New GUI" button is hidden, and all the different components work the same way so it's more consistent with itself.

QuoteI haven't looked at this in detail, but are files going to be separated or is it still going to be one huge file with all the data including the scripts?

My current plan is that all the data except the scripts will be stored in one file; each script will be stored in a separate file on disk since this is something people have asked for. Additionally, when source control integration is added, having scripts in separate files makes them much easier to compare with previous versions and see changes.

Quote1) The mouse wheel (to scroll around) doesn't work while script is open (atleast Dialog script). Also, it doesn't work for Main menu. Don't forget to add this, if possible. Especially due much longer main menu.
But this probably needs making either script or menu active to make wheel "understand" what to scroll...
Anyway, this worked in "old" AGS. For everything.

The mouse wheel does work, you just need to click in the window that you want to scroll to activate it first. This is standard Windows behaviour.

QuoteYou've got plugins on the list to re-implement.  How will the switch to .NET affect plugins?

Normal plugins will still be supported and work identically to how they do now.
However, support for COM plugins will be removed. I don't know of any COM plugins having actually been released, and to be honest it was a bit of a failed experiment. It required a lot of work from my end to implement and in order to provide useful functionality to the plugins, would have required a lot more work.
Once the new editor is finished, I'm planning to add a new .NET plugin system, which would be similar to the idea behind the old COM plugins but more powerful and easier to use.

QuoteIf anything, the shift to .net should make the thing more portable once the open source .net implementations are up to scratch. Might suck for non windows for now, though.

Yeah, it should be easier to run the new editor through something like Mono. However, the editor still relies on a native code DLL that does the GUI and Font rendering (it uses the same C++ code as the engine, in order to assure WYSIWYG), so I'm not sure whether this has implications for running it on other platforms.

Dusk

Quote from: Pumaman on Mon 15/01/2007 23:24:45
I'd particularly welcome feedback on how the interaction editor should work. I'm not sure whether to re-implement it in its current form, get rid of it completely, or try to turn it into some sort of script-editing GUI that interprets and generates script code.

Epic CJ, I'm in a sad no-AGS-many-exams time, and haven't tried yet this revolutionary alpha, but I decided to write you my opinion about the interaction editor.
- re-implement it in its current form: no
- get rid of it completely: would be ok for me, but I can see it might be losing an attractive feature for new users
- turn it into some sort of script interpreter/generator: this would be the best thing, as long as ALL is code-doable. Maybe I already wrote this once, but the only thing I really don't like in AGS scripting is the necessity to have an empty strange-name-run_script-function generated for a specific interaction and not being able to directly write in the script editor something such as
myObject.onLookAt() { //code here}

If I can directly write (and why not generate from custom tools and then paste?) my function in the editor, and the code just works, it would be great.
If an interaction editor is able to parse the code and generate a visual resume of the interactions, well, it would be a cool add-on, but I can live without it.

Just my 2 cents! And as I always say, thankyou for your constant work on improving AGS from me and the others SOTE-guys  ;)

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires

I lived very comfortably with the interaction editor. It had a HUGE advantage from my POV - if I made entries in the script manually (not that it was allowed, but if I did) I'd certainly skip over something. With the IE, I can take a quick look and check which interaction I left un-interacted-with. I know it's not much, but it's a big deal to me. Similarly, this quick visual-checkup has helped me many times before - for instance, when something wrong is happening at the beginning of the room script. One quick look at the IE and I find whether there IS or there ISN't an interaction that may be causing a problem (are all "Before room" events blank? Then it's probably not the problem). In a regular script, browsing would be a bit more of a hassle.

These are my 2 cents, and this is my request - expand on the editor if you will, but please don't remove it alltogether. I only use it for scripting, too, but this visual layout is very handy.
Reach for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

Kneel. Now.

Never throw chicken at a Leprechaun.

voh

I love the Interaction Editor, because it provides an easy way of doing things while I'm scriptically challenged. I see it as an introduction course to how scripts work, and I think it is one of the most userfriendly and attractive features of AGS as it is now.

Forcing all users to use code will put off some new users, I can guarantee you that. AGS is great because it's so easy to get something done. You want more? Go script! But at least you have the opportunity to create a game with little effort outside of graphics, which happens to be my only strong point.

Re-implement it as it is now? No, I wouldn't. How to imporove on it? *thinks* *opens AGS*

Actually, the way it works now isn't very userfriendly, but it's easy and clear enough to figure out quite quickly. What would probably be best, is to allow users to set specific commands to specific actions. With a good script editor and a context help system (like, when you have your cursor on playvideo, and you press F1, it gives you the help entry for playvideo, so you can easily check the syntax for it) would probably be enough. While this would call for coding it all rather than pointing and clicking, the added support and clear instructions would cancel that out.

Can't think of a better way. What I loved most about QB4.5, was that you could go into the help index, look up commands, but if you wanted to use, say, view, you could just type it, press F1 and you'd immediately see how view has to be used, with syntax and examples.

Best route, if you ask me :)
Still here.

Pumaman

Just to keep you up to date, Alpha 2 is now up.

It implements the room editor, plugins and custom properties.
It also now allows Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab and Ctrl+F4 to navigate tabs, and better tab management.
A couple of other minor changes: DEL now works as shortcut key in GUI and View editors, and double-click in view editor to change sprite


The major features that still need to be done are saving rooms and compiling game EXE files, the script editor autocomplete and the interaction editor.

Thanks for your feedback on the interaction editor so far, if anyone else has any comments before I decide a way forward and start doing it, please do post your tuppence-worth here.

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires

#35
Er, naturally, you do plan to re-add the visible mouse coordinates when editing a room AND still right-click for getting the coordinates, especially now that it can be done when, say, objects are being displayed...

...right?

EDIT - Accourse you will, I know you will. Anyway, teensy bug report you may or may not be aware of -

I played around, in the view editor, with clicking on "new loop" and "delete last loop" many times. Visually, it all got rather weird, like... heck, give it a go yourself - make a new view, add as many loops as you can, and see how weird the distances get. Then start deleting loops, and see what happens as you do.

EDIT 2 - *coughcough* Naturally, not seeing a placeholder for "preview animation" in the view manager doesn't mean there won't be such a feature, ayuh?
Reach for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

Kneel. Now.

Never throw chicken at a Leprechaun.

Lt. Smash

#36
a feature that should be implemented in v2.8 is that you can make overlapping hotspots, regions, walkable areas and walkbehinds.
for example:
              Hotspot1 is marked                                            Hotspot2 is marked


That's very important if you have for example a room like this:



where you can walk under the bridge and on the bridge

Gregjazz

I guess the difficult thing about overlapping hotspots/walkable areas is that when you use the GetHotspotAt function (or the newer scripting equivalent) and it can only return a single value. Unless there was some sort of Z order like there is with the GUIs...

What's really useful about overlapping hotspots/walkable areas is when one is disabled, it won't inhibit the capable area of another hotspot or walkable area.

All in all, this new alpha is looking great!!

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires

#38
I once had a problem with two "layers" of hotspots overlapping. I simply created a third hotspot where they connected, and made appropriate checks.

Seeing as it's workaroundable and a very specific and not so common use of the areas, I shouldn't think it's a priority...

EDIT - Another lil' issue, I opened up a (copied and backuped) copy of a project of mine, with a 800x600 GUI (it's one of those fullscreen panels, you know). I'm running WinXP at 1024x768, and it's a bit of a pain to edit that GUI. Previously, we saw the whole thing (if we didn't we could scroll) and we could move the "properties" window around. Now we can't scroll (which is unfortunate - but is it something you were going to look into anyway?) and the window isn't detacheable. Is it going to be the way it is now? Are you still going to change something?

Also - the game is 800x600, and there's text on the GUI I just mentioned. JUST AFTER opening the game on the new alpha, I took a look at the GUI and saw the letters quite small, as though I had told the game that I didn't want them to scale up at 640x480. Which I didn't, because right now I DO want them to scale up. Then I checked the fonts, then I checked general settings - in neither of them did I do much of anything - and then I got back to the GUI editing tab, double-clicking on the GUI in the panel on the right (rather than on the tab). And now I see the font displays properly. I don't know what caused this, exactly, and it's not exactly major, but I thought you might like to know about it.
Reach for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

Kneel. Now.

Never throw chicken at a Leprechaun.

deltamatrix

Just curious here.

I noticed the AGS Editor takes longer to load than before.
Is this just a side effect of the .NET framework?
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