[SUGGESTION] Editor should have outdated levels cleansed

Started by Dullstar, April 15, 2021, 08:15:41 PM

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Dullstar

Having cleanse levels available from the player makes sense when you're updating a pack's worth of levels in bulk, but if you load an outdated level in the editor, presumably you want it updated to the latest format, and I've definitely seen a few instances of editor bugs where the problem was "user failed to cleanse level prior to attempting to load it." While this is easy to workaround, it's not really readily apparent that failure to cleanse the level is causing the issues (essentially, "Did you try cleansing the level first" has become the NL editor equivalent to "Did you try rebooting?"), and it's kind of annoying. Why would the user want to load the level without cleansing it first, when this can cause problems? Of course, there's one major technical problem: the level doesn't appear to store any information that would indicate that it needs cleansed. But that's fixable: we could add a field tracking this, and if this field doesn't exist, we know the level predates it and therefore should probably be cleansed just in case, so go ahead and cleanse it.

Simon

It's two things, yeah:

1. Track level format version in level.
2. On level load in editor, cleanse if level format is too old.

Or cleanse every time. Cleansing should do nothing when the level is already in newest format. Even if you cleanse every time, format tracking may be worthwhile.

-- Simon

namida

Something like this is already on my mental to-do list, but doesn't appear there was already a topic.
My projects
2D Lemmings: NeoLemmix (engine) | Lemmings Plus Series (level packs) | Doomsday Lemmings (level pack)
3D Lemmings: Loap (engine) | L3DEdit (level / graphics editor) | L3DUtils (replay / etc utility) | Lemmings Plus 3D (level pack)
Non-Lemmings: Commander Keen: Galaxy Reimagined (a Commander Keen fangame)