Flexi Toolkit - First impressions

[Nepster]

I just used the Flexi Toolkit for the first time and following the tutorials it worked really well ! Not a single error message!
But there are still a few places, where I feel that the Flexi Toolkit could be improved. None of the following is a serious issue, so if anything needs more than changing a few lines in the code, it is probably not worth the effort.

1) File - Save...
Currently it is not clear, what is saved if one just clicks "Save...". As I first thought it would already save everything as a .exe, it might be good to replace it with "Save System.Dat" or something like that. (Yes, I know: there is a "Build exe" as well, but a stupid user like me reads "Save" and thinks this is, what he wants it to be...)

2) Settings - Options Default
Please force the user to confirm that the options should really be reset. The buttons are rather huge (at least compared to all the checkboxes), so it is easy to hit them accidently. On the other hand, I don't think they these options are needed often, so hitting "OK" one more time should not be too annoying.

3) Settings - System.Dat
At the moment, you must hit "Export System.Dat" in the Flexi Toolkit, then go to the NeoLemmix Editor to actually edit the System.Dat and finally go back to the Flexi Toolkit to import the changed file again. This is quite much work for changing a few more options by checkboxes. So why is it necessary to change all that in the NeoLemmix Editor? Why not letting users make these changes already in the Flexi Toolkit?

4) Levels - Adding Ranks
When I first got there, I hit "Add" (rank), and the Toolkit did... nothing ! Well, at least nothing visible. That was very confusing, as I intuitively thought, that I had to enter a rank name first, then click "Add" to create a rank with that name. So:
Important change: On adding a rank, give it a generic name (e.g. "Rank 0") and do not leave it blank.
Optional additional change: If the user has already entered something in "Rank Name", give the newly created rank this name automatically.

5) Levels - Buttom naming
You have two buttons "Add", "Delete", ...; one for ranks and one for single levels. I would prefer to change this to "Add Rank" and "Add Level" on the buttons. This might mean making the interface slightly bigger, but that should not be a big problem.

6) Musics - Special Level Settings
I have several levels with the music setting 253 (arbitrary music track even though gimmick "Deadly Sides"). However in the .exe level 1 always plays track 1, level 2 always plays track 2, ... In other words: The music setting in the .lvl file is not respected! I haven't yet tested what happens when specifying a usual track number, but at least "253" gives problems.

7) Musics - Restart Standard Rotation
Why is it preset to "1"? When creating the first .exe, I missed this option and thus all levels played track 1. My suggestion: Leave this empty by default and identify "empty = total number of tracks loaded".


And I have a few wishes for additional setting options. They are mainly meant for the V2 incarnation of this Toolkit, as they likely require bigger changes in the source code for the toolkit or even the player itself:

8) Optional Talisman display
If a level pack does not have Talismans and one does not plan to include them ever, the display of the Talisman review in the main page of the player only confuses users. So there should be an option to remove the ability to see the talisman count. Alternatively one may implement it in the player itself to display the Talisman option only if there actually are talismans available.

9) Cheat mode automatically enabled
Currently I haven't found an option in the Flexi Toolkit to create a player, where the cheat mode is enabled by default. This is important to me, because I want to encourage players to skip levels they do not like.

10) Customizable option menu
Many current options are irrelevant in a full player. Some like the "Steel Debug" or "Look for lvl-Files" option are even actively harmful in a finished player. Why not having an advanced menu, where one can remove certain options for the final player?
On a related (and off-topic) note: Why is the Music and Sound option in the player combined? Wouldn't it be clearer for the user to have "Music On/Off" and "Sound On/Off" as two separate options?

[namida]

Most of those suggestions should be rather simple, and make sense. I'll see what I can do.

In regard to #6 - what are you expecting it to do? What you're describing sounds like 253 is doing exactly what it should...

[Nepster]

Re #6: From the description of 253, I expected the player to choose tracks randomly out of the possible non-gimmick ones. This at least was the behaviour in CustLemmixNeo. Instead the player made with the Flexi Toolkit always chooses the track corresponding to the level number.

[namida]

Ah. The behaviour of it is "use the normal behaviour (ie: same as 0), but ignore gimmicks". Normal behaviour for CustLemmixNeo is a random track; while for a Flexi-built pack it's sequential.

[Nepster]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Nepster]

Today I played around with custom musics and LemMain. Again everything worked and again I have a few suggestions:

1) Levels - Additional Level info mask
When opening this additional mask, it appears so that its top is about the same height as the corresponding level in the main mask. On my screen this means, that almost always the bottom of the additional mask reaches beyond the screen. So whenever wanting to specify a music track or just clicking "Cancel" I had to move this new mask around.
So (if it is possible to specify this in the source code) perhaps you could change it, so that this additional mask appears at the same height as the main mask?

And three issues concerning the final player rather than the Toolkit itself:

2) Music loading interrupts playing
Wenn loading a slightly bigger .ogg from a separate music pack, the game freezes for half a second when the first lemming appears. Perhaps one could avoid this (or rather make it less noticable) by loading the music at the very beginning (i.e. right after loading the level itself) and only starting to play when the first lemming appears?

3) Player crashes when music file not provided
At least the player crashes, when one does have a gimmick level (without specifying music 253), but does not provide a gimmick music track. My player uses V1.35n-C.

4) "Thank You"-banner
After displaying all my custom banner messages, the player starts displaying all the other messages from CustLemmixNeo. I have the following problems with that:
- You (namida) force other users the thank people you are grateful to. That is a bit condescending.
- Some thanks are displayed twice, e.g. I already thank you for providing NeoLemmix and later on you thank yourself again for the same reason.
- Does anyone still want to thank the LemmingsForums at lemmingsforums.com ?
PS: Currently my last custom message is: "And now namida would like to say Thanks:"

[namida]

1) Levels - Additional Level info mask
When opening this additional mask, it appears so that its top is about the same height as the corresponding level in the main mask. On my screen this means, that almost always the bottom of the additional mask reaches beyond the screen. So whenever wanting to specify a music track or just clicking "Cancel" I had to move this new mask around.
So (if it is possible to specify this in the source code) perhaps you could change it, so that this additional mask appears at the same height as the main mask?

I'm not sure what you mean here?

2) Music loading interrupts playing
Wenn loading a slightly bigger .ogg from a separate music pack, the game freezes for half a second when the first lemming appears. Perhaps one could avoid this (or rather make it less noticable) by loading the music at the very beginning (i.e. right after loading the level itself) and only starting to play when the first lemming appears?

I'll take a look at that.

3) Player crashes when music file not provided
At least the player crashes, when one does have a gimmick level (without specifying music 253), but does not provide a gimmick music track. My player uses V1.35n-C.

Already changed the behaviour here for the next update. It will still give a popup warning message, but will allow the level to be played (albeit with no music) once the popup is dismissed.

4) "Thank You"-banner
After displaying all my custom banner messages, the player starts displaying all the other messages from CustLemmixNeo. I have the following problems with that:
- You (namida) force other users the thank people you are grateful to. That is a bit condescending.

Most, if not all of these, relate to authors of open-source snippets used in NeoLemmix's code (most of which were there since original Lemmix). Removing them is not going to happen. If you're still planning to wait for V2.00 to release your pack anyway, this shouldn't matter to you, as by that point those kind of credits can go on the main menu or an About screen or something, and your game itself can have only the credits specific to it.

- Does anyone still want to thank the LemmingsForums at lemmingsforums.com ?

Now, that one should definitely be fixed.

[Nepster]

1) Levels - Additional Level info mask
When opening this additional mask, it appears so that its top is about the same height as the corresponding level in the main mask. On my screen this means, that almost always the bottom of the additional mask reaches beyond the screen. So whenever wanting to specify a music track or just clicking "Cancel" I had to move this new mask around.
So (if it is possible to specify this in the source code) perhaps you could change it, so that this additional mask appears at the same height as the main mask?

I'm not sure what you mean here?

See attached screenshot. I moved the main mask to the top of my screen and then opened the additional mask for my first level. Not the ideal position for this new mask to appear, correct?
As I said, I am not sure whether the problem is with the code or with some settings on my computer. I just wanted to mention this to notify you about it, and in case you can do something about it.

Most, if not all of these, relate to authors of open-source snippets used in NeoLemmix's code (most of which were there since original Lemmix). Removing them is not going to happen. If you're still planning to wait for V2.00 to release your pack anyway, this shouldn't matter to you, as by that point those kind of credits can go on the main menu or an About screen or something, and your game itself can have only the credits specific to it.

Waiting for V2.00 is fine.
But my point is not, that these people do not deserve the thanks, but to change how one does thank them. Generally speaking, I gladly take responsibility for everything that I am able to change, but I do not want to be held responsible for something that I cannot modify. The banner messages seem (for a simple user) to fall wholly into the first category, while this is only partially correct.
So it should be made clear, that the second half of the Thanks is for general help creating NeoLemmix, that this is not a pack-specific text and implying that the pack designer has no influence over its content, i.e. is not responsible if someone feels to slighted for not being mentioned or whatever (I am not saying that you actually missed someone).
This still does not solve the problem of thanking people twice for essentially the same thing, but anyway...

[namida]

Ah, I get what you mean now. I'll see what I can do about that.

In regards to the credits, that makes a bit more sense. If you have any suggestions on a minor change that might be suitable (such as some modifications to the texts themself), I can consider that for the minor update. But I think any major modification to how that section works is not worthwhile at this point.

[Nepster]

In regards to the credits, that makes a bit more sense. If you have any suggestions on a minor change that might be suitable (such as some modifications to the texts themself), I can consider that for the minor update. But I think any major modification to how that section works is not worthwhile at this point.

Probably the easiest way to fix all this, is to preset the n last lines of "scroller text" in the Flexi Toolkit with the usual banner messages of CustLemmixNeo (hopefully leaving at least a few free for the user). Then the default is to include all these thanks messages in any player, but if level pack designers want to change something, they can. And now it is the full responsibility of the pack designer to properly thank everyone.
Alternatively you can just change the current "Thanks to..." to "For help in the creation of NeoLemmix, thanks to..." or something similar (a native English speaker surely can find a more polished version of that).

But I think any major modification to how that section works is not worthwhile at this point.

I agree.

[namida]

Made the following changes for the next uodate (to be released along with NeoLemmix V1.36n):

- Newly added ranks will have a generic name like "Rank 1" etc, not a blank name
- Reset to default buttons have a confirmation dialog
- Added a "Show all options" button on the settings tab which shows all additional system.dat options that are relevant to NeoLemmix
- The credits you mentioned are now default custom texts, not forced hardcoded ones. The only text that remains hardcoded is the pack name as the first text, and "Running on NeoLemmix Version (number)".
- The popuo dialogs ("masks" as you called them) are now centered on the Flexi Toolkit's main window