NLEditor - a new file-type NeoLemmix editor - Test version

[Proxima]

Just started using this editor today. Mostly it's a huge improvement over the old editor, but there are a few quality-of-life features lacking:

* If I maximise the window, it would be nice if the editor remembered this next time I open it.
* "Open" dialogue could go straight into the "levels" folder.
* The scrollbar under the level should have a button that resizes according to how much of the level is currently on-screen.
* "All to Front", "One to Front" labels are misleading. These features are usually called "To Front" and "Forward", and similarly for the "back" buttons.
* It would be awesome if I could drag the level window / terrain selection window boundary upwards, so as to get more terrain pieces in view at once.
* As with "delete", it would be nice to have a "duplicate" hotkey that copies and pastes a piece with a single keypress. Also, ctrl-C should just copy a piece without duplicating, as users will end up with lots of duplicated pieces in their levels through thinking they have to ctrl-C and then ctrl-V.
* When the grid is active, the arrow keys should move a piece by 8, rather than snapping to a multiple of 8. This allows quick tiling of pieces starting from a position that isn't aligned to the grid (which is sometimes necessary if you want to place tiled pieces next to irregular pieces).

[Nepster]

* If I maximise the window, it would be nice if the editor remembered this next time I open it.
* "Open" dialogue could go straight into the "levels" folder.
* The scrollbar under the level should have a button that resizes according to how much of the level is currently on-screen.
* "All to Front", "One to Front" labels are misleading. These features are usually called "To Front" and "Forward", and similarly for the "back" buttons.

Thanks, will do this.

* It would be awesome if I could drag the level window / terrain selection window boundary upwards, so as to get more terrain pieces in view at once.

This will be rather hard to implement, so don't expect this any time soon. But I will keep it in mind.

* As with "delete", it would be nice to have a "duplicate" hotkey that copies and pastes a piece with a single keypress. Also, ctrl-C should just copy a piece without duplicating, as users will end up with lots of duplicated pieces in their levels through thinking they have to ctrl-C and then ctrl-V.

No problem. What hotkey do you suggest for duplicating? Ctrl-D, perhaps?

* When the grid is active, the arrow keys should move a piece by 8, rather than snapping to a multiple of 8. This allows quick tiling of pieces starting from a position that isn't aligned to the grid (which is sometimes necessary if you want to place tiled pieces next to irregular pieces).

I think the current behavior was explicitely requested. The idea behind this was (if I remember correctly) that this allows dragging new pieces onto the level area which then align properly along the grid where all the other aligned pieces were already.
I am not against changing this behavior - in fact it would simplify the code - but I want be sure that everyone would be happy with your proposed change.

[Proxima]

No problem. What hotkey do you suggest for duplicating? Ctrl-D, perhaps?

No, a single keypress as opposed to ctrl-anything. Saving a very small amount of time, on a very frequently repeated action, adds up to a large saving. Of course, the ideal would be "A" as I'm used to it from Lix, but a different key would be fine too.

I think the current behavior was explicitly requested. The idea behind this was (if I remember correctly) that this allows dragging new pieces onto the level area which then align properly along the grid where all the other aligned pieces were already.
I am not against changing this behavior - in fact it would simplify the code - but I want be sure that everyone would be happy with your proposed change.

I'm not sure how changing the behaviour of the arrow keys would affect dragging? Anyway, if nothing else, ctrl-arrow (which is explicitly listed as "move by 8 pixels" in the hotkey help) should always move a piece by 8 pixels regardless of whether the grid is active.

[Nepster]

* The scrollbar under the level should have a button that resizes according to how much of the level is currently on-screen.

I checked this and the button does resize for me. Could you please recheck this issue?

No problem. What hotkey do you suggest for duplicating? Ctrl-D, perhaps?

No, a single keypress as opposed to ctrl-anything. Saving a very small amount of time, on a very frequently repeated action, adds up to a large saving. Of course, the ideal would be "A" as I'm used to it from Lix, but a different key would be fine too.

"A" is already taken for "Set piece to erasing". How about a single click on "C" without having "Ctrl" pressed"?

I think the current behavior was explicitly requested. The idea behind this was (if I remember correctly) that this allows dragging new pieces onto the level area which then align properly along the grid where all the other aligned pieces were already.
I am not against changing this behavior - in fact it would simplify the code - but I want be sure that everyone would be happy with your proposed change.

I'm not sure how changing the behaviour of the arrow keys would affect dragging? Anyway, if nothing else, ctrl-arrow (which is explicitly listed as "move by 8 pixels" in the hotkey help) should always move a piece by 8 pixels regardless of whether the grid is active.

So you suggest the following behavior: When adding a new piece (by dragging or clicking on the piece selection picture at the bottom), then let the piece automatically snag to the grid. But don't do this if copying an existing piece or moving an existing piece around. Correct?

[Nepster]

Version 1.2 is here! I will release a global NeoLemmix update later today, so if you plan to get it there will be no need to download the editor now.

New features and bug fixes:
- Music name selection gets now updated according to tracks in the folder "music".
- Fixed the bugs found by Proxima, in particular the non-working hotkeys to add/remove from the selection.
- Size of the editor is remembered for the next session.
- When moving pieces wth the keys, they no longer snap to the grid.
- "C" duplicates pieces now, "Ctrl+C" just copies them to memory.
- When inserting pieces from memory, they appear now centered around the cursor.

[Nepster]

The last version update broke hold-to-scroll, because I accidentally deleted the four letters "else" at a certain place in the code. This will be fixed in the next update. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[mobius]

I downloaded from this topic; I get the error "can't find "...styles/default/objects". It still works but it's correct that I don't have this folder.
I don't remember where to get this. Shouldn't this be included when downloading the editor or player automatically?

Also I think there are too many places to download the same thing here. There are several places on the forum and on the NeoLemmix website too. It's confusing and I assume more work for the person in charge of the uploads. Why not have one place to download and links to it from other places?

[mobius]

a minor glitch(?) After clicking once in the editor my cursor changed to a cross hairs and remains that way over the whole interface.

[Nepster]

The main download location is either the hompage or the NeoLemmix download thread. As you place the editor in the same folder as the NeoLemmix game and the game requires "styles/default/objects" anyways, there is no need to add this to the editor download, too.

a minor glitch(?) After clicking once in the editor my cursor changed to a cross hairs and remains that way over the whole interface.

Yes, that's exactly the bug I mentioned three posts ago.

[mobius]

*this is the same glitch I PM'd you about Nepster*

upon TABBING to another window or pressing control O to open a level; after this I am no longer able to move pieces with my mouse. I can select pieces but they cannot move. I can still move them with the arrow keys.

--------

SUGGESTION:

-when going through skills and entering how many of each if you tab to the next one the cursor goes in front of the 0. I think it'd be better if instead the entire form would be highlighted. Making it easy for example to enter exactly what you want instead of having to backspace etc.*

-when you click once, it selects a piece, you must let go and click again to move it. In the old editor you could move it immediatly. You had to hold control to select multiple pieces. I think I prefer this method; it's seems faster right now.

*now you're thinking 'mobius, how lazy can you be', well as my computer teacher in high school taught; when entering numbers in all day long little things like this can go a long way.

[Nepster]

upon TABBING to another window or pressing control O to open a level; after this I am no longer able to move pieces with my mouse. I can select pieces but they cannot move. I can still move them with the arrow keys.

Thanks. I can reproduce this bug now and will fix it. The problem occurs when the Ctrl key was pressed while the editor had the focus, but was release while some other application got the focus.

-when going through skills and entering how many of each if you tab to the next one the cursor goes in front of the 0. I think it'd be better if instead the entire form would be highlighted. Making it easy for example to enter exactly what you want instead of having to backspace etc.

Well, the current behavior is the standard Windows behavior. But I can see your point and will override it.

-when you click once, it selects a piece, you must let go and click again to move it. In the old editor you could move it immediatly. You had to hold control to select multiple pieces. I think I prefer this method; it's seems faster right now.

Here we have the problem that there are only so many keys and mouse buttons. At the moment Ctrl is used to add pieces to the current selection (whether by clicking on a single piece or drawing a rectangle with the mouse), which was something I found was missing in the old editor. At the moment I don't know what to do and how to change the key bindings to suit everyone.

[mobius]

-when you click once, it selects a piece, you must let go and click again to move it. In the old editor you could move it immediatly. You had to hold control to select multiple pieces. I think I prefer this method; it's seems faster right now.

Here we have the problem that there are only so many keys and mouse buttons. At the moment Ctrl is used to add pieces to the current selection (whether by clicking on a single piece or drawing a rectangle with the mouse), which was something I found was missing in the old editor. At the moment I don't know what to do and how to change the key bindings to suit everyone.

I think I can live with it as if; if no change is made. That is a good point you make about adding pieces to the selection. I thought there was a way to do with in the old editor but now I don't remember exactly

[Dullstar]

Thoughts on the current version:

- The grid is something I would like to use, but it needs the ability to make fine adjustments to piece positions. Currently holding control + arrow keys while the grid is enabled moves the piece by a large amount (I assume 8*the size of the grid since it moves 8 pixels without a grid). I would suggest including a key (if there's not already one that I can't find) to move pieces 1 pixel at a time regardless of the grid setting. Maybe control should instead move pieces one pixel at a time when the grid is enabled (and keep its current behavior when it's not?).
- I would like an option to show the grid.
- In the hotkeys list, "C" is listed as "Delete selected pieces" and "Delete" is listed as "Duplicate selected pieces." I assume they were meant to be switched, because the keys behave opposite in the editor, and the way they're coded certainly makes a lot more sense than the way they're listed in the hotkeys list.
- I have no idea how complicated something like this is, but the ability to rebind hotkeys would be nice, though it is certainly not necessary.

[Nepster]

Thoughts on the current version:

- The grid is something I would like to use, but it needs the ability to make fine adjustments to piece positions. Currently holding control + arrow keys while the grid is enabled moves the piece by a large amount (I assume 8*the size of the grid since it moves 8 pixels without a grid). I would suggest including a key (if there's not already one that I can't find) to move pieces 1 pixel at a time regardless of the grid setting. Maybe control should instead move pieces one pixel at a time when the grid is enabled (and keep its current behavior when it's not?).

Please describe your preferred grid behavior in this specific topic I just made, because I really don't know what everyone just complains whenever I make some change, but noone decribes in detail what they actually want.

- I would like an option to show the grid.

If there is a lot of support for this feature, I can implement it. But personally I find this more distracting than anything else.

- In the hotkeys list, "C" is listed as "Delete selected pieces" and "Delete" is listed as "Duplicate selected pieces." I assume they were meant to be switched, because the keys behave opposite in the editor, and the way they're coded certainly makes a lot more sense than the way they're listed in the hotkeys list.

Oops. Silly mistake. Thanks for noticing.

- I have no idea how complicated something like this is, but the ability to rebind hotkeys would be nice, though it is certainly not necessary.

This is on my to-do list, but getting the new-formats version ready is more important for now, so don't expect this anytime soon.

[mobius]

-when you click once, it selects a piece, you must let go and click again to move it. In the old editor you could move it immediatly. You had to hold control to select multiple pieces. I think I prefer this method; it's seems faster right now.

Here we have the problem that there are only so many keys and mouse buttons. At the moment Ctrl is used to add pieces to the current selection (whether by clicking on a single piece or drawing a rectangle with the mouse), which was something I found was missing in the old editor. At the moment I don't know what to do and how to change the key bindings to suit everyone.

I think I can live with it as if; if no change is made. That is a good point you make about adding pieces to the selection. I thought there was a way to do with in the old editor but now I don't remember exactly

I'm now realizing there is another benefit to this (current behavior), something which wasn't possible in old Lemmix (at least not easily): selecting specific pieces and avoiding others nearby. This was something very frustrating in old Lemmix. Here I believe it wont be as much of an issue. So for now I withdraw my request.