Suggestion for the Editor

[guillotus]

Hum i want to know if in the next editor possible to change the sprites in battle and out of battle i want to use Agatio sprite in battle and out of battle like the main character Pavel if you could do that i will be very happy because in the Version 0.5 of the Editor hum i can't change a party member sprite to some monsters or agatio,karstine,salamander,phoenixia so please add this option to the next version of the editor i really love Golden Sun <3

[Rolina]

Seriously needing that better keyboard support.  The less I have to move my hands, the faster I can work.  Ideally, I don't want to touch that darned mouse at all.  Tab to move between fields, enter to select field, when at the search bar for item/ability/whatever, automatically have it be ready to type, press down to go select the item once you're done, etc...

I'd be able to get my templates done in less than a third of the time it takes now if I didn't have to do all that unnecessary movement with the mouse.  Right now, it's just tedious as hell to do stuff, and after an hour I've barely got any progress.

While we're at it, for classes, why not have the ability to copy a whole class?  That'll save a TON of time, since most classes are just tier'd up versions of other ones.  Just, have it so that you can copy the class into the next field.  I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to program that into the editor, right?

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Seriously needing that better keyboard support.  The less I have to move my hands, the faster I can work.  Ideally, I don't want to touch that darned mouse at all.  Tab to move between fields, enter to select field, when at the search bar for item/ability/whatever, automatically have it be ready to type, press down to go select the item once you're done, etc...

I'd be able to get my templates done in less than a third of the time it takes now if I didn't have to do all that unnecessary movement with the mouse.  Right now, it's just tedious as hell to do stuff, and after an hour I've barely got any progress.

I think this is a feature we definitely should have. Especially for those without a working mouse/trackpad. (There are ways to move the mouse using mouse keys which is extremely time consuming to use, but I do not have that problem. IF I ever have such a problem, though, not saying I never had problems with trackpads before (because I have).. I would still have a backup USB mouse to use.

While we're at it, for classes, why not have the ability to copy a whole class?  That'll save a TON of time, since most classes are just tier'd up versions of other ones.  Just, have it so that you can copy the class into the next field.  I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to program that into the editor, right?

I would imagine that to be easy to program as well. Maybe if the listbox on the left is active, then Ctrl+C can be used to copy the Class information, then you can click on another item to do Ctrl+V to paste. It'd be nice to be able to swap classes between different hacks, wouldn't it? Hopefully that is possible. Hm. (Not sure if using the clipboard will make "easy" turn into "moderate"?) The idea I had was to be able to paste the information directly from copying text in say... A notepad or something. (And vice versa.)

Edit: When I said "as well" I was referring that I thought the same way as you with the second feature, not that keyboard support would be easy, I am not sure yet.

[Rolina]

I figure it's just a button that says "copy data to slot below" or something like that.  No need for ctrl+c/v, a simple button click should do what you need.

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Ah. That's not going to be user-friendly for clearing a slot.

Anyway, I take it you want a button that looks similar to this:


From what I gather, these are the techniques you'd use:


End Step:

Script 1 modification: (Create the button.)

b_copy2ns=create_button(dx+228,dy+252+18,96,14+18,"copy data to#slot below"); b_copy2ns.tooltip="copy data to slot below";

^^ Actually the coordinates are not perfect, but they are under the assumption that the panel was enlarged.)

Script 2 modification: (Check when button is pressed.)

if b_copy2ns.sel
{
window_set_cursor(cr_appstart)
event_user(15) //Should be modified to take b_copy2ns.sel.
window_set_cursor(cr_default)
b_copy2ns.sel=0
}

And ofcourse, the notable modification to User Defined 15:

file_bin_seek(global.file,(global.classes_pos+(sel+b_copy2ns.sel)*84)&$1FFFFFF)

I know this doesn't copy the class name text over, but I haven't quite looked much at that stuff. As for everything else, I hope I didn't miss anything.

[Rolina]

Well it's not like yer gonna want to copy the class itself anyways.

The button itself would be smaller, and probably just say "Copy data".  Upon mouseover, it'd explain "copies data from class to the slot below" or something like that.  But yeah, that's mostly it.  80% of the time spent working on my templates is basically repeating info I've already entered once before, as well as that mouse travel time.  If we can tackle those two things, then the editor's gonna get a ton more user friendly.

Right now, there's a ton of stuff I can do, but haven't done simply due to the frustration of the slow progress.  If I had access to better keyboard controls, as well as other shortcuts like that button, then it's solve almost all my problems.

The only other problem is that I really want an animation viewer.  The ability to see what each animation does is invaluable, and would save soooooo much testing time.

[Atrius (He/Him)]

Better keyboard controls would require a bit of tweaking to make it more obvious what field you have selected, and managing tab ordering (What field you go to next when you press the tab button)  I'm not really sure why you'd want to make user have to press enter to edit text/number fields, that would just take more work to code and use.


Having a button just for copying a classes data to the next slot would be kind of awkward way to go about it.  I would think making it so you could right click on the selection list, and copy/paste would be a better way (Yes Ctrl-C/V shortcuts would be possible as well).  There could even be an option for clearing the data in that slot.


As for animation viewer, I assume you mean ability animations.  It's probably not going to happen, they're coded in ASM, it would require the editor to act as an emulator to display them.

[Rolina]

Not text fields, those would be automatically ready.  I mean for things like selecting abilities in class.  You can't actually just tab in and type for those.  Same with class stat percent modifiers.

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

@Keyboard support:  I'm thinking about setting it up the tab_index way. There will be global.tabsel (Which holds the number of the selected "tab" field.), and global.tabmax, which is used to help one go back to the first control. (Ofcourse, tabsel and tabmax would likely go in obj_editor_sys.) ; Then I'd go to all the controls and add a variable which is used for assigning numbers to their tab_index, which is based off the tabmax value. (Which should be used to compare with tabsel.) (Not to mention that tabmax would be incremented here so that all controls have unique numbers.)

The tab_index idea came from something I saw in Visual Basic, actually. How built-in controls have a property for it.

Tell me I'm doing it the long way.


Tab-ordering would be done based off the ordering of the control creates in the code. (Ofcourse, this tab-ordering can still be modified after the controls are created, if anyone wanted to.)

And I probably should say that I haven't quite thought about how tab would work when actual lists are open on top. (For the coding procedure.) Edit: I might have to make those two globals into arrays. Probably.


@Atrius's second paragraph: I thought the same.

[Atrius (He/Him)]

Well, controls are assigned to views based on how the interface is layered.  Any controls belonging to a panel opened in front will also have a higher view value than those below it.

I was thinking the same thing on how to handle tab ordering at first, but on second thought list data structures are probably the way to go.  It'll be more efficient if you have the IDs of every instance that can be tabbed to stored somewhere, and if it's sorted based on tab order you can just increment through it.  It's easy to tell when you've reached the end, and a separate list can be kept for each view layer.

[Misery]

Being able to tab between the fields would make working with the editor both a lot faster and easier on the hands, so I hope you'll be able to add that function.

[Rolina]

Aye, the editor's functions are important, sure, but user-friendlessness is just as important.  Not just that, the motion of constantly going back and forth between mouse and keyboard for hours really, really hurts.  Between the lack of productivity and the strain on my wrists, that's causing me to progress at a crawl with my hacks.  After all, I'm the type who tries to do the larger changes, rather than just tweaking stats here and there.

[NightXsenator]

The dialogue window "Save changes first" appears while exiting even if changes were already applied using "save" function. I strongly recommend to fix this little defect, it annoys much.

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

@No Save Dialogue: I had an idea about using a Boolean variable to make that check... Hmm... I haven't thought much on this.


Now, for what I wanted to suggest.

Data Viewer. #2 says unknown, but it is the data for the Build Date. (Which is always a date before the release date.)

GS1: 010918151347
GS2: 030205144838

The format is YYMMDDHHMMSS, I think.
Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second.

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

The Battle Animation Index in the Ability Editor is used for selecting a function. So if you had wanted to make attack animations, you would be required to understand some advanced stuff. Basically, the Thumb code itself.

The Battle Animation Arguments, I believe, are used in the function somehow.

Besides my knowing that the animations are done in assembly, I haven't studied it well enough to understand how they work, yet.

[zman9000]

Is it possible to port the editor over to android.

Possible yes, practicable no. not only would it be hard to make it would be hard to use.
And the thought of editing the game from a mobile phone just sounds kinda... crazy...

Also note we have to wait a long time for each update which is fine but... Don't get me started on the reasons why putting it on another platform would be a bad idea for everyone involved.

[Rolina]

It'd be impractical to do until the final version of the editor, though.

[Goldensunfan10]

what about adding in the feature in the next version of the editor to be able to change your Golden Sun 1 Overworld Charater sprites from:

     

to

     

and the same for Golden Sun 2 TLA from:

     

to

     

this being for the overworld, as for battle i can change the charters fine.

this feature will go for the version of Atrius editor? or Teawater's version of the editor?

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Sounds like you just want to swap sprites 0-3 and 4-7 in the Sprites Editor for both games. Therefore listing Party 2's sprites before Party 1's.

Just so you know, I believe Atrius has quit the editor. Also, I was planning on making another Golden Sun editor made in a different language other than GML, but even then, I still take long hiatuses on working with Golden Sun. (I am actually quite pleased that I didn't make an official announcement about my possible "take-over," yet. )

[Goldensunfan10]

Sounds like you just want to swap sprites 0-3 and 4-7 in the Sprites Editor for both games. Therefore listing Party 2's sprites before Party 1's.

Just so you know, I believe Atrius has quit the editor. Also, I was planning on making another Golden Sun editor made in a different language other than GML, but even then, I still take long hiatuses on working with Golden Sun. (I am actually quite pleased that I didn't make an official announcement about my possible "take-over," yet. )

Thanx for update, tea water.
I didn't know that Atrius quit working on the gs editor, shame cause I really enjoyed using version 0.4. (:
Also how stable is version 0.5? I read that it is open source, but are there any bugs or such?
If it has an issues then I'll stick with 0.4 version.

Also what does it do better than version 0.4?
That's wroth using it for example?

I'm looking forward to your next update of GS Editor Teawater version :) .
Can you add a sprite chaging feature for party 1-2 sprites 0-3, 4-7 like in my example above in your next version? If possible and it's doable?

Thanx tea water!