eytanz
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(note: it seems that the "bugs" forum includes all beta posts, so I'm posting this there and not the more general requests forum)

This post is meant as a list of changes I think will improve the editor. Unlike the posts I labelled as bugs, I don't feel that there's an actual problem the way things are now, but I feel that my proposals will make the editor better.

1 - I agree with everyone who wants to use the right mouse button as a "delete" button, and find some other way to program programmable stuff (double-click? shift-click?). That would be a more intuitive method, more in line with the conventions of this sort of editor (insomuch as there are any), and will also allow for the next improvement I'm suggesting:

2 - Eliminate safety mode. Currently, with safety on the editor is TOO restrictive, and with safety off it is TOO easy to make mistakes. If the right mouse-button were "delete", you wouldn't have to allow overwriting - but people could delete and replace stuff without having to go back and forth from the toolbar.

3 - (This one is almost a bug) No matter what is done about the first two suggestions - it's very easy, with safety off, to overwrite an orb with another orb. I keep pressing the left mouse button instead of the right one to try to program an orb, and end up deleting all its associations. That caused me a major problem in my last room, which has a maze of doors and each orb was tied to about 5 of them.

4 - I'm sure Mike thought of this, but still: An undo feature (for editing, not playing) would be marvelous.

5 - When linking orbs and doors, you can right-click an orb to see which doors it is associated with, but you can't right-click a door to see which orbs it's linked to. This is really annoying - in the door maze I mentioned, I kept associating orbs to the wrong doors because I was confusing myself. Even if there is some programming reason to disallow editing links from the doors, you should still allow viewing them.

6 - The lightning rays from the orbs to the door, while looking nice in-game, make for a terrible display in the editor - in the following situation:

#######
+ + + O
#######
(where +'s are doors, and O is an orb)

If you try to link the orb to all three doors, you won't be able to see what's going on with the closer doors once the further one is linked.

Thanks,
Eytan

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Schik
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eytanz wrote:
4 - I'm sure Mike thought of this, but still: An undo feature (for editing, not playing) would be marvelous.

While editing a room, Ctrl-Z will undo. If you've exited the room editor, I think you're probably stuck.

And let me add one thing to the list:

- A way to rotate objects once they're already placed. I was playing with some arrows and it was a pain to place more than a couple of them. I think it might have been easier were I able to rotate them after placing a large block of them.


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krammer
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I think these are all great suggestions. The only other thing I would like is a clear room facility.

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eytanz
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Oh, rotating objects - that's one I forgot; and, at the very least, there should be an indicator that shows which way the current object faces without having to actually place one.

There's an undo feature? That really should be A - documented, and B - part of the GUI, not just keyboard based.

Also, a note on the "lightning rays" - an even worse situation than the one I demonstrated above is the following:

+ #
# + O
+ #

Here, the orb will shoot out diagonal rays at the two doors on the left, which move around and don't stay as straight lines, almost completely obscuring the middle door.

A clear room facility would be nice, but I don't think it should be a high priority - you can just delete the room and start over.

[Edited by eytanz on 06-16-2003 at 01:30 PM]

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Oneiromancer
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Jeez, you go away for a weekend and look what happens! Hey, if I go on vacation, will everything just magically become completed?

Anyway, just one suggestion for now...since it's not a bug, I didn't want to start a whole new topic.

Would it be possible to map the scroll button/middle button on a mouse to rotation in the editing mode? You know, because I'm just too lazy to use Q and W...and since in editing mode we are pretty dependent on the mouse, whereas when playing we only use the keyboard.

Game on,

[Edited by Oneiromancer on 06-16-2003 at 08:52 PM GMT: Forgot my tagline]

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mrimer
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Jeez, you go away for a weekend and look what happens!

Well, welcome back! Hope you enjoyed yourself.

Hey, if I go on vacation, will everything just magically become completed?

Yeah, just not your stuff.

Would it be possible to map the scroll button/middle button on a mouse to rotation in the editing mode?

Good thinking. I put it in and it'll be in the next build.

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mrimer
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I've appreciated everyone's comments and all the thought that has been contributed to improving the editor GUI. I've been working away on it all day and I think everyone'll be happy with the improvements that have been added. These changes should all be in the next build (20).

So here's a list of responses to everything I haven't addressed yet, with some questions -- not meant to be defensive, but understanding some issues better will help me make DROD as easy and fun to play as possible! So your input is very important!

1. Added documentation for undo/redo. (Don't know how that slipped by.)

1b. Having undo/redo buttons on the screen would be nice, but as you know screen real estate is at a premium. (The item menu could possibly be shrunk for now, but it will expand later as new items are added in. Which will be soon!) Anyone have an idea of where to put undo/redo buttons, or any of the other buttons/features that have been discussed?

2. Lightning bolts emanating from orbs have been made transparent-flashing so that what's underneath can be seen while placing.

2b. Right-clicking yellow doors to see what orbs are affecting it is a neat idea. I'll try to get around to adding that later.

3. Tar has been made half transparent so that what's underneath can be seen.

3b. Safety mode no longer highlights walls, etc., under tar. (Although the colors of walls and doors looks kinda odd when seen through tar!)

4. Question: why show the angle of placement orientation if nothing's being placed? What does it buy you? (While placing something, if the orientation is wrong you can rotate it before dropping it.)

5. Right-clicking to delete sounds like a good idea, but I haven't determined how much it would interfere with item customizations. But right-clicking to delete things on top, and then things underneath them next, sounds like a good idea. Let's keep working on this, because the erasing issue is important.

Happy building!

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eytanz
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Thank you for all the changes! As for screen real-estate - I think the best thing to do is to reduce the size of the palette a bit; and add scrolling to it if necessary (the only page which is near full is the wall one; and if new wall/floor types are added, it will probably require scrolling anyway).

Eytan

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mrimer
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Okay, I've thought about this a lot and this is the best I've come up with.

To summarize, here are what the main requests to change the current editor UI (not add to it, which can be done independently of these) have been:
- Right mouse button deletes (more convenient UI)
- Remove safety toggle (simpler UI)
- Handling layers in isolation from the others (more intuitive/predictable)

To accomplish this, we need to execute the item customization some other way than the right mouse button. But I don't want to make it a keyboard-mouse combination. So here's a solution that should kill two/three birds with one stone (well, three):

- items are placed with left click, as before, except Left-mouse-dragging over a region will only place items where no items in that layer currently exist (no overwriting)

- right-click/drag deletes: (1) if any monsters exist in the selected region, only they will be deleted; (2) otherwise any objects in the middle layer will be deleted; (3) otherwise the bottom layer will all be turned into plain floor. Confirmation for deleting special items will still be provided.

- left-clicking an existing item (instead of right-clicking) will customize it, if possible.

So, in short, (1) the safety should no longer be needed since overwriting will be disallowed, (2) customizing items is just as easy as before (left-clicking instead of right-clicking), (3) deleting items will be easier than before, and can be done either by right-clicking or by choosing the empty tile from the menu and laying that as before.

Does this sound all right?

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eytanz
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Sounds great, except that personally I would prefer right-clicking to be restricted to the "current" layer - i.e., if you are currently on the object page, it will delete objects, same for monsters and terrain. That's the most consistent - you just can't affect monsters when you're on the object page, etc. It also means that there's an easy way to delete arrows under monsters (your suggestion requires removing the monster, then the arrow, then returning the monster).

But either way, the new system is better than the current one.

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mrimer
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Yeah, being restricted to the current layer sounds like a good idea.

This'll all be included in build 20. If any strange behavior has appeared, let me know.

[Edited by mrimer on 06-17-2003 at 11:31 PM]

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Mister
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Another suggestions:

Add keyboard shortcuts for most (if not all) editing options. Kind of F2/F3/F4 for terrain/object/monster tabs. Individual letters for objects/monsters ("R"=roach, "B"=brain). mmm, "Q" for queen would clash with rotation...

About rotations, it would be better if arrows and monsters in the tabs are shown facing the direction they will be placed.

This may be too difficult: allow mouseless placement of objects. I'm thinking about layouts as in (18,2N,2E), it would be a pain to do with the mouse, much easier with the keyboard (Space, Right, Right, Space, Right, Right, Space, ...) Copy/Paste areas would help, too.

mrimer
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Mister wrote:
This may be too difficult: allow mouseless placement of objects. I'm thinking about layouts as in (18,2N,2E), it would be a pain to do with the mouse, much easier with the keyboard (Space, Right, Right, Space, Right, Right, Space, ...) Copy/Paste areas would help, too.

You asked for it, you got it! I think copy and paste will get us the most bang for the buck, so it'll be in build 21.

You do region selection by dragging your mouse over a region of the room and pressing <Ctrl-C> while the area is highlighted to select it (it doesn't matter what your active item is). Then click anywhere else in the room and it will copy the selected area there (where you clicked being the top-left corner of where the region gets copied to). The pasted region will overwrite whatever happens to be in that area of the room, without any warnings (although you can always undo the paste command if something went wrong). It won't copy serpents, as it's too easy to grab only a partial piece of one and mess it up. Also, it won't perform a "deep copy" of all the customizable items, i.e., text on scrolls and staircase destinations won't be copied to their clones. Orb effects will be copied over, however, since this will provide an easier way to duplicate orb behavior than having to manually define each of several orbs to do the same thing, if that's ever desired. (Ahem...Clayton?)

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StuartK
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mrimer wrote:
You do region selection by dragging your mouse over a region of the room and pressing <Ctrl-C> while the area is highlighted to select it (it doesn't matter what your active item is). Then click anywhere else in the room and it will copy the selected area there (where you clicked being the top-left corner of where the region gets copied to). The pasted region will overwrite whatever happens to be in that area of the room, without any warnings (although you can always undo the paste command if something went wrong). It won't copy serpents, as it's too easy to grab only a partial piece of one and mess it up. Also, it won't perform a "deep copy" of all the customizable items, i.e., text on scrolls and staircase destinations won't be copied to their clones. Orb effects will be copied over, however, since this will provide an easier way to duplicate orb behavior than having to manually define each of several orbs to do the same thing, if that's ever desired. (Ahem...Clayton?)

Would it be possible to copy between rooms? Copy/move entire rooms? Copy between holds? If copying an entire room, I'd prefer all room features (scroll text, serpents, stairs) remain intact. Maybe a different feature would be better suited for something like this than a normal copy+paste.

agaricus5
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StuartK wrote:
Would it be possible to copy between rooms?

I don't know, but...

Copy/move entire rooms?

This is possible. On the hold/level/room select in the editor, click on the room to copy. It should turn blue when highlighted. Press <Ctrl+C> and you will hear a noise. Now click on the destination room (It can also be on another floor) and paste with <Ctrl+V>

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StuartK
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