[REQ] eXscriptor users: feature requests and criticisms

[Nicoman35]

Nicoman:

I could add a function to comment/un-comment all the currently selected lines, like the newer versions of visual studio - is that what you mean?

Yes, that's what I thaught of.

[mr.bear]

paulwheeler

yikes, that mod is a very large download (and im only a very small bear) but i will find a solution to your problem.

Scrat_GER and Nicoman35

commenting delimiters would be harder for me to implement, so i'll go with commenting selected lines.



thanks for the responses everybody! its very much appreciated.

mr bear

[Firewrath]

First, an idea, cause the rest of this is pretty much me whining >.>
but most scripts are linked with T files, so how about a mouse-over box the links with the T file text?
so that when you hover the mouse over the id in the script, it checks the related T file page and id, then puts the text from the T file in the hoverbox,



Alsooo, i dont want to sound pushy, but me and exscriptor just had a falling out,
either it didnt want to work or im just not smart enough to know that 'ship' has to put in as 'ship 2004' (or whatever, maybe its the brackets,...=/ )

Eitherway, i just put in:
global script map: set: key=COMMAND_HIRE_PILOT_TEST, class=Ship, race=Player, script='test.hire.message', prio=1
and it gave me an error that it was wrong and wouldnt save it, so i went into the game, put in the Exact same thing, then saved and shut the game down.
(Yeah. That never gets old. -_-)

only to find when i loaded the resaved script in exscriptor, it loaded as this:
global script map: set: key={COMMAND_HIRE_PILOT_TEST}, class={Ship 2004}, race={Player}, script='test.hire.message', prio=1
Which is basically the Same fricken line, minus the brackets and 'ship 2004' thing,... >.<
Anyways, it annoyed me because i spent like 15min trying to retype the line into exscriptor without any clue what was wrong because it looked fine to me, ...and it was since the ingame script editor used it just fine. =/

So, Point.
When is this going to be done? >.>
cause right now exscriptor is seriously slowing me down learning and creating my script, =/
(and the no 'free typing' in the ingame scrip editor doesnt really help either, -_-)

...
and yes, yes, i know,
ive worked with programers before so i know its not that easy to say when/if itll be done, just curious if you had any time frame in mind,...

[X2-Illuminatus]

Anyways, it annoyed me because i spent like 15min trying to retype the line into exscriptor without any clue what was wrong because it looked fine to me, ...and it was since the ingame script editor used it just fine. =/

You know, that's normally the time to have a look at the manual. The Exscriptor comes with a 47 pages long manual, which explains (next to other things) its syntax and the differences to the Script Editor built into the game.

[mr.bear]

Firewrath:

TFiles: Are you talking about language files, rather than TFiles? ie. If you hover over a command that references a string in a language file, it displays a pop-up showing the string. eg. "sprintf page=7 id=42"

brackets: my program has even more brackets than exscriptor! im more concerned about colouring the code so you can tell a ware from an object-class, and a variable from an argument just by looking at it. this means i needed more brackets!

Release info: here's a screenshot of the latest build, probably wont be ready for 2/3 months though, it seems pointless releasing something i wouldnt be happy to use myself.

http://s1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... review.png (looks quite similar to beta 1 cos most of the differences at this point are internal)


thanks for the feedback!

mr bear

[Firewrath]

You know, that's normally the time to have a look at the manual.

Read the who and what now? >.>
...
*ahem* i uhh, well you see, i did, ...like ...6-8months ago when i was tweaking some other scripts i had downloaded >.<;;

so, yeah, ok, my fault, ^-^;

But it said the whole line was bad, so i figured it was my code itself and not the syntax, if it would have said like my command reference was wrong i cou__...yeah, no, i probably still would have screwed up,


Anyways. mr.bear. There you go. Different syntax = Bad. 'General' errors = Bad.

Firewrath:
TFiles: Are you talking about language files, rather than TFiles? ie. If you hover over a command that references a string in a language file, it displays a pop-up showing the string. eg. "sprintf page=7 id=42"

Actually, i completely forgot about like the Tships and other such files. So yes, the language files,
but what i ment is like so:

Code: Select all

$message = read text: page=1234 id=1

and

Code: Select all

<page id="1234" title="Message Text">
<t id="1">This is a message!</t>
</page>

(and i'll partly steal some of what you said here, ^-^)
Now, in your program when i hover my mouse over '$message', a hoverbox should pop up saying "page=1234 id=1: "This is a message!" ".
That way you can check the linked text without ever leaving the program to seach through a language file. So you can make sure youre linking the correct text, ...or like me who's trying to learn scripting, knowing what all the '$text' and $message' links are without searching through a language file with a hundred different text lines to see what the script is 'saying' every other line >.>

<Color Coding and other information about the program.>

All of which is nifty ...for people that know what theyre doing.
but for me, really, all i want is basically Notepad thatll save script files, ^-^;

I dont want to learn another syntax while im still trying to get the basics of scripting down in the first place, hence my last issue with exscriptor,
though i will say from what i can see of your screenshot, it looks more like the ingame script editor then exscriptor does.

and dont get the wrong idea that im saying i dont like what youre doing or anything, from what i seen it looks good and some of the ideas here that you want to work in will be great. Im just saying where im coming from in this whole thing. I mean people like Litcube and Paul that are commenting here, a long with 3-4 others, already know what theyre doing where as i ...havnt a clue yet. ^-^;;

[mr.bear]

Firewrath:

language file strings: yup ive already included that feature, but the box pops up when you hover over the line containing the 'read text' command, not the $message variable. it doesnt work if you find $message a few lines beneath and hover over it (too advanced)

learning scripting: if you hover over any command in a script or in the 'list of commands' window, a detailed box pops up explaining what that command does and how to use it. surely that would be helpful to you?

thanks for all the ideas and feedback, it's appreciated!

mr bear

[ScRaT_GER]

Release info: here's a screenshot of the latest build, probably wont be ready for 2/3 months though, it seems pointless releasing something i wouldnt be happy to use myself.

http://s1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... review.png (looks quite similar to beta 1 cos most of the differences at this point are internal)

Nice!
What is the comment "PARAM : int [iCount]" for? Is it checked by the compiler (i.e. when calling "gosub")?

Greetings,
ScRaT

EDIT:
Another question: Are you planning on open-sourcing your code (e.g. on github, bitbucket, etc.)?

[mr.bear]

Nice!
What is the comment "PARAM : int [iCount]" for? Is it checked by the compiler (i.e. when calling "gosub")?

thanks! im glad you like the look of the program, but alas no, there's no checking its just for my benefit so i dont forget. i love the idea though, what sort of checks were you thinking of?

i've never actually used a version control system, they kinda frighten me. (were you asking if i was going to release the source code or that i should those sites so people can check on its progress?)

thanks for the feedback, as always it's appreciated!

mr bear

[ScRaT_GER]

i love the idea though, what sort of checks were you thinking of?

It goes a bit into the direction of what s9ilent suggested - some kind of type safety.
I.e., when you use gosub or goto, you could check if the stuff after PARAM is in scope (and possibly of the correct type) and if not, emit warnings.
But I guess this is quite hard to accomplish.

i've never actually used a version control system, they kinda frighten me.

Oh, you definteley should start then.
No, really, it's the opposite of frightening, since you can always be sure that you can revert any changes you've made so you can really modify your code fearlessly.

And using them is really easy, too. I.e. using Mercurial, the process goes like this (command line):

Code: Select all

cd Path/To/Project/Root
hg init 
hg add [files you want under revision control]
hg commit -m "Initial commit"

And like that you've set up your repository. Now, whenever you change files, you can simply call "hg commit" again, to get the changes into your repository.
I think that's valuable, even when working alone.

Here's a good tutorial on Mercurial if you want to give it a try: http://hginit.com/
Or try git, which is very similar to Mercurial.

(were you asking if i was going to release the source code or that i should those sites so people can check on its progress?)

The main advantage when hosting on those sites is, that people can view your code, check your code if they encounter bugs and patch the project themselves (and ofc push these changes back to you to include them).
Also, I guess, you have built up some infrastructure (i.e. reading game files), which other projects might benefit from aswell (i.e. Changeling).

Greetings,
ScRaT

[Firewrath]

learning scripting: if you hover over any command in a script or in the 'list of commands' window, a detailed box pops up explaining what that command does and how to use it. surely that would be helpful to you?

Oooh, kind of like a built-in MSCI?
Yeah, that would be nice, would save me from have 2-3 windows open trying to find script commands and what they do, ^-^

thanks for all the ideas and feedback, it's appreciated!

Yeah, no problem, i just hope im not annoying about it. I've worked with people on programs before and if i get an idea i like, that tends to happen. >.>

and if you get to a point where you want testers before release, and im around, im totally up for doing so. ^-^
(Even though im sure you can find willing people with more scripting experience here, )

[mr.bear]

Scrat_GER:

the 'anything goes' rules of the scripting language make checking pretty difficult, so i can't make any promises, but i'll check that version control stuff out, it could be really helpful. thanks!

Firewrath:

help system: i think everyone would benefit from '1-click' help on commands, i know i would. it's good for learning and just for saving time.


on a different subject: i've had to change the syntax of one or two commands recently, a few of them caused problems i couldnt avoid.

inc and dec: you don't need to put '=' before or after them anymore, just "inc $a" is fine.

random value from 0 to xxx -1, random value from xxx to yyy -1: these have been changed to: random value between zero and xxx, random value between xxx and yyy

both numbers are inclusive, so "random value between 1 and 100" results in a random number between 1 and 100. if you load the script in eXscriptor or MSCI it will still appear as "random value from 1 to 101 - 1". Personally i found this annoying anyway, but ive had to change it to fit the algorithm i use.

what do you think?


and lastly: no, feedback is never annoying, it's very much appreciated!

mr. bear

[(----____JEFF____----)]

This has probably been said already, but all I really want is some auto completion of commands.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the release/beta/whatever you are going to do ^^ I like exscriptor better than the MSCI, but there are still some disadvantages (like T file recognition that has been mentioned before).

[mr.bear]

JEFF:

hi jeff. id really like an auto-complete feature too, so that'll definitely be in there. and i had absolutely no idea about this TFile thing, so im glad people have mentioned it!


anyone else got any other fancy new ideas?


mr bear

[Litcube]

anyone else got any other fancy new ideas?
mr bear

One of the specific requests I made to Whimsy that he implemented was the recursive search and search function.

It finds all scripts that use the currently opened script. Awesome for putting together packages.

[mr.bear]

LitCube: I wondered why he added that, i thought somebody obviously used it though, so ive already added a tab in the properties box of scripts that shows all the scripts it calls. It won't recursively search those scripts though - is that what you're after? (wont that go on forever?)


mr bear

[Litcube]

Say you had 1000 script files, and you wanted a pack a script package for the community. Open the root file (usually the setup, or hotkey script), and run a recursive, and you'd see all the files and libs required to make the thing work.

Ideally, you'd be able to copy all files to a separate folder with a quick command. If I had this function, I might have published another 50 of my scripts.

[mr.bear]

Litcube yeah that sounds feasible with the code ive got. ive got quite a few features on the todo list though, i dont think it'll make the next release!

mr bear

[Nicoman35]

Mr. Bear.
Oh, I remembered another thing, the editor should be able not only to read .pck files, but also compress them to that format.
Cheers

[s9ilent]

Hey mr.bear, how are you going with the new script editor?