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Author Topic: Need feedback on new DF utility <The Encyclopedia>  (Read 2083 times)

Roses

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Need feedback on new DF utility <The Encyclopedia>
« on: March 01, 2019, 03:49:26 pm »

Hello all, I am looking for some feedback (suggestions, concerns, critiques, etc...) on a new GUI tool I have been working on. Think of it as a Journal/Compendium/Encyclopedia. Basically it's designed to give you human readable information about everything in the game by using DFHack and reading through the raws and other information. Below are several screenshots from the current version. I have already gotten some good feedback from Meph (some of which has already been included, some that still needs to be), but I am hoping to get a lot of eyes looking at it so that I can make it useful for the community.

This is the view that shows up at the start. It shows the various sub-pages and counts of how many creatures/materials/buildings/etc... there are in each sub-page.
Spoiler: Main (click to show/hide)

Buildings are split into All, Workshops, and Furnaces. Pushing 'B' on the main screen takes you to the buildings sub-page where you can select a building and see information regarding that building.
Spoiler: Buildings (click to show/hide)

Creatures are split into groups by flags, currently you can sort them by GOOD, EVIL, SAVAGE, and MEGABEAST (adding new sort categories is super easy, those are just the ones I chose for the default). You then select the creature and the caste and you get a whole bunch of information about them
Spoiler: Creatures (click to show/hide)

Entities are a little different than the other sub-pages because they read both from the raws and from the in-game entities. They are grouped by the ENTITY object from the raws (e.g. MOUNTAIN for dwarves in vanilla DF) and then show all of the in game entities that use that entity raw. Note that this is the least worked on sub-page so far as there is just so much information that could be put there.
Spoiler: Entities (click to show/hide)

The inorganics page is grouped by gems, metals, and stones, and can also be sorted based on their environmental location (e.g. metamorphic). The page shows both the inorganic information and the material information.
Spoiler: Inorganics (click to show/hide)

Items are a little tough because each item type has such different information associated with them, but it should  handle any item in the game. There are no sorting flags for the items currently.
Spoiler: Items (click to show/hide)

Organics sub-page has the plant and creature materials that can be used for item creation and food. This and the Products sub-page could probably be combined, but for now they are seperate.
Spoiler: Organics (click to show/hide)

The plants sub-page is broken into bushes, grasses, and trees and can also be sorted by various flags (currently EVIL and GOOD are in there, but just like the creatures it is easy to add more sorting flags). This page shows the materials, growths, and plant information of the plant. If you hit 'M' you will get taken to the Organics sub-page with only the current plants materials (in case you wanted to see how strong a trees wood is for example)
Spoiler: Plants (click to show/hide)

The products sub-page is very similar to the organics sub-page, except it shows the extracts/secretions/milk stuff. Basically liquids, powders, cheese, and alcohol. Again, this could be just combined with the Organics sub-page, but for now they are seperate
Spoiler: Products (click to show/hide)

The reactions sub-page is broken into the reaction categories, and can be sorted based on if it needs fuel or is automatic or adventure mode enabled. This page is the second least worked on, so a lot more can be done, especially for reactions that are more complicated (like improvements).
Spoiler: Reactions (click to show/hide)

For now these are the only sup-pages. I am thinking about adding a "Religion" sub-page that lists forces/powers and different worship information, an "Arts" sub-page that lists the different generated art forms, and a "Syndromes/Interactions" sub-page for more detailed information about those.

If I could get any feedback about any of the sub-pages or anything else that would be great.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2019, 10:36:51 am by Roses »
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somebears

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2019, 05:43:28 pm »

That looks super useful to me! The one thing I'd be missing would be a search function.
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Meph

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2019, 08:13:09 pm »

As I told you before, I think that ingame encyclopedia is a fantastic idea. :)
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Roses

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2019, 02:05:29 pm »

That looks super useful to me! The one thing I'd be missing would be a search function.

How would you like the search function to work? There are a couple ways I could implement it, I think the easiest would just be to use filtered lists (similar to how gui/gm-editor works if you are familiar with that). I could also make it a more high level search function. All depends on what you are envisioning

As I told you before, I think that ingame encyclopedia is a fantastic idea. :)

That's the plan, right now it relies on a few other scripts and functions from my scripting collection, but if there is enough interest I will pull it out as a standalone script
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Roses

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2019, 10:14:05 am »

Small update, I have added a help section to each page ('?'), hitting enter on an entry will take you to the raws as viewed in gm-editor so you can see directly where the information comes from, and I have changed the List to FilteredList which works as a rudimentary search function where you start typing and it prunes the list down to only items that match.

The updates should be available from my repo later today
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TomiTapio

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2019, 06:36:44 am »

"Basically it's designed to give you human readable information about everything in the game by using DFHack"
->
"Basically it's designed to give you human readable information about everything in the fortress mode"
or is it a raws analyser for modders?

One thing could be _quickly_ seeing how many weapon-grade bars + coal bars, cloth, bones, plants, ore stones you have, without scrolling in the Stocks menu.

"you have 55 millable seeds and 88 millable plants."
"you have 22 brewable fruits and 1 brewable plants."
"you have zero logs and zero fuel."
« Last Edit: March 14, 2019, 06:40:30 am by TomiTapio »
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==OldGenesis mod== by Deon & TomiTapio. Five wood classes, four leather classes. Nine enemy civs. So much fine-tuning.
47.05e release: http://dffd.bay12games.com/who.php?id=1538
OldGenesis screenshots: https://twitter.com/hashtag/OldGenesis?src=hashtag_click&f=image
My Finnish language file: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14884

Roses

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #6 on: March 14, 2019, 08:51:42 am »

"Basically it's designed to give you human readable information about everything in the game by using DFHack"
->
"Basically it's designed to give you human readable information about everything in the fortress mode"
or is it a raws analyser for modders?
Definitely not a raws analyser. It's intended target is players of both fortress and adventure mode. If they are playing and have a question like, "which material is stronger?" or "can this plant be eaten?", etc... It is especially useful for total conversion mods where a player might have no idea what a creature/item/material/etc... actually is.

One thing could be _quickly_ seeing how many weapon-grade bars + coal bars, cloth, bones, plants, ore stones you have, without scrolling in the Stocks menu.

"you have 55 millable seeds and 88 millable plants."
"you have 22 brewable fruits and 1 brewable plants."
"you have zero logs and zero fuel."
I like this idea. I was thinking yesterday that I should really split the Journal part off from the Compendium/Encyclopedia part, and this would be a perfect addition for the Journal component. I am imagining that the Compendium/Encyclopedia portion works the same in both fortress and adventure mode and displays information from the raws, while the Journal portion would be different for the two modes and instead displays stats and information about the current session (improved stocks screen, details about trades/sieges, kill counts, announcement/report tracker, etc...). This way there isn't information overload and I can separate out the unchanging (Compendium/Encyclopedia) from the changing (Journal) information.

EDIT: I am also just going to start calling it Encyclopedia as I like that better than Compendium
« Last Edit: March 14, 2019, 09:01:51 am by Roses »
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TomiTapio

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2019, 04:29:33 pm »

Definitely not a raws analyser. It's intended target is players of both fortress and adventure mode. If they are playing and have a question like, "which material is stronger?" or "can this plant be eaten?", etc... It is especially useful for total conversion mods where a player might have no idea what a creature/item/material/etc... actually is.
Ah! It auto-generates an ordered list of the best armor materials(vs edge, vs blunt, penalty for heaviness), and edged-weapon materials (excluding divine materials) (OldGenesis has wood and stone weapons, and the vanilla elven-wood-weapons),
and blunt-weapon materials. No "user selects material A and material B to compare" I reckon.

Auto-generate "edible plant parts" list for adventure mode.  Not "scroll list of 250 plants, enter plant's detail_view to see millable/edible".

Auto-generate a spoiler-filled list of the current mod's creatures, ordered by estimated danger level (size, skills, walking speed, NOEXERT, is made of something better than flesh). This would be good for modders to see if some monster is estimated to be too puny or too strong. (oops the owl is 15 tons)


Siege info view... hmm... List A: dwarf kill counts, top killer at top of list
List B: dwarf wound counts (see Urist climb the wounded list, will she survive?), "ability to stand lost" and "currently prone" told to user somehow. and "on fire" and "martial trance".
List C: sieger kill counts, ordered by kill count, maybe indicate wound counts in this list. "Demon X has killed 6 dwarves and 9 animals, has 7 wounds"


More ideas: Top 5 happiest dorfs, Top 5 most stressed dorfs(push button X to remove all hauling labors from the most stressed ones).
« Last Edit: March 15, 2019, 04:41:38 pm by TomiTapio »
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==OldGenesis mod== by Deon & TomiTapio. Five wood classes, four leather classes. Nine enemy civs. So much fine-tuning.
47.05e release: http://dffd.bay12games.com/who.php?id=1538
OldGenesis screenshots: https://twitter.com/hashtag/OldGenesis?src=hashtag_click&f=image
My Finnish language file: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14884

LordBalkan

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2019, 08:17:17 pm »

PTW! What an amzing idea!
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Roses

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility
« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2019, 10:35:57 am »

Snipped

So far all it does is generates an alphabetical list of materials and items and such, but yes, the plan is to add custom search and sort options for exactly those features. I wanted to make sure I set up the basic backbone first, not it's super easy to sort by whatever I want.

As for the siege and other stuff, I only have a very bare bones journal set up since I just decoupled it from the encyclopedia, but it uses the same framework and functions as the encyclopedia and the detailed unit viewer, so it will be fairly easy to add stuff. What takes the most time is translating dfhack information to easily readable information.
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TomiTapio

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility <The Encyclopedia>
« Reply #10 on: March 17, 2019, 09:27:35 am »


Anyone else have ideas on what info views would be Quite Helpful?
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==OldGenesis mod== by Deon & TomiTapio. Five wood classes, four leather classes. Nine enemy civs. So much fine-tuning.
47.05e release: http://dffd.bay12games.com/who.php?id=1538
OldGenesis screenshots: https://twitter.com/hashtag/OldGenesis?src=hashtag_click&f=image
My Finnish language file: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14884

Roses

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility <The Encyclopedia>
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2019, 05:31:29 pm »

So I've got sorting in by different parameters now (e.g. sort inorganic by their shear value, sort shields by their block value, etc...), pretty much any number associated with a particular raw can now be sorted by. I still need to implement complex sortings (e.g. sort by best material for edge weapon) that are based on more than one value, but that should be a fairly easy extension. I've also implemented a couple more options for hiding information, such as only viewing things that your civ knows about, as well as making any raw entry with a special character (!,$,#,*,=) in either the name or the token (e.g. [CREATURE:==THIS_CREATURE_SHOULD_BE_HIDDEN==]) be automatically hidden. This doesn't impact the vanilla raws, but several modders use such entries to make in game menus prettier. This allows those to remain, while not cluttering up the encyclopedia
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SalmonGod

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Re: Need feedback on new DF utility <The Encyclopedia>
« Reply #13 on: April 16, 2019, 03:53:26 am »

PTW
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