Editor, Giga's rant

[Simon]

In today's release 0.9.17, I've flattened the terrain dir structure: In the terrain browser's base directory, I list all depth-2 directories. Within such a depth-2 directory, all tiles of that depth-2 directory are listed regardless of further subdirectories.

The flattened list of tiles in a depth-2 directory can now get long, e.g., in images/geoo/construction/, there about 160 tiles. Ideally, after you insert a tile, then open the terrain browser again, the browser should remember the scrolling position within images/geoo/construction/. I haven't implemented that yet.

I still have to reply to 2/3 of Giga's rant.

-- Simon

[Forestidia86]

Only two issues that are connected to points mentioned here:

To copying pieces:

That copied pieces spawn a bit below the original can lead to the problem that they spawn outside of the reachable map if the original is too low on the screen edge. You can still reach them by increasing the lower map size though.

Apart from that it makes them easier to select that they spawn a bit below and not directly on the original.

To background colors:

The brazier for example has a black rectangle around the fire, which can be seen on non-black background. I attached a picture to demonstrate.

Apart from that I actually like the possiblity to choose different background colors because certain tiles(ets) seem to work better with brighter colors.

[Simon]

Shifting duplicated pieces: With or without a copy buffer, there is this problem of pieces shifted off the map, right. Here are ideas.

• If the piece would be shifted off the map during insertion, instead shift the inserted piece to the opposite direction.
• Don't shift pieces (i.e., as long as I lack a copy buffer, duplicate pieces at exact same position) and have a graphical effect as feedback for the insertion: The extra pieces fly quickly from the edge of the screen to the target position.
• When you duplicate a piece A to get piece B, then move B, then duplicate B to get C: Shift C such that the relative position of B and C is the same as A and B have now. Again, if this would shift off the map, insert somehow on the map.

Brazier has black background: There is an old, forgotten bug #126 on github: Some gadgets lack alpha channel.

Yeah, some tiles go well with lighter backgrounds. Hmm.

-- Simon

[Forestidia86]

Concerning recognizability of buttons:

The flip/mirror horizontally button has a symbol that looks rather like flip/mirror vertically.
But the latter function doesn't have a button at all (, although you can achieve this effect by mirroring horizontally and rotating twice.)

[Forestidia86]

Proposal for better organisation of tiles:

1. At the moment you have to click through various folders to find steel. Quite a few of them don't even contain steel.
I think there are few enough steel pieces to just merge them for selection. Alternatively at least the folders that don't include steel shouldn't be visible for steel selection.
2. There are some folders in the terrain/earth tile selection that don't contain terrain tiles (esp. the "steel" folders). These shouldn't be displayed there as well for better handling.

[Forestidia86]

To copying pieces:

That copied pieces spawn a bit below the original can lead to the problem that they spawn outside of the reachable map if the original is too low on the screen edge. You can still reach them by increasing the lower map size though.

One idea against that problem would be that tiles are spawned above the original tile iff they would end up below the map border.

[Forestidia86]

To copying pieces:

That copied pieces spawn a bit below the original can lead to the problem that they spawn outside of the reachable map if the original is too low on the screen edge. You can still reach them by increasing the lower map size though.

One idea against that problem would be that tiles are spawned above the original tile iff they would end up below the map border.

I think this issue is still not in github but it came up again in IRC:

16:20:12]    <Ramond__> maybe an editor suggestion
[16:20:30]    <Ramond__> cloning tiles that are aligned to the bottom of the map should not clone downwards, only sidewards
[16:21:15]    <SimonN> right
[16:21:39]    <Ramond__> perhaps something analogous for right-bound tiles
[16:22:08]    <SimonN> if things would clone to outside of the map, they should clone in the opposite direction.
[16:22:18]    <Ramond__> yeah something like that
[16:23:20]    <SimonN> Also game should remember where you moved after cloning, and clone the next stuff again in that direciton.
[16:24:55]    <SimonN> To aid building long walls/floors from a sequence of the same tiles
[16:25:16]    <Ramond__> makes sense
[16:25:57]    <SimonN> Do you have a github account? You can file issues directly there. Otherwise I'll file it once I remember it. It's also dug in a thread on LF.

[Simon]

Made a github issue: #379 Editor: Don't clone tiles to outside of map. Thanks!

-- Simon

[Simon]

Undo is in the works.

The disorienting UI is another large-scale problem. The editor must scroll past the boundary, so you can see the boundary. The editor must give you a feeling where you are on a largely-empty map, and give you a feeling for sizes. Related is that the editor should offer a splat ruler.

-- Simon