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[Eagleon]

Working on a material editor in VB as a quickie project.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It can currently only load colors from a file, with no saving capability, and buggily load material templates from a file (what I'm working on now). I'm trying to get it done for the new release, but I'm making no promises, especially since I don't know how much the raws have changed from the last look we've gotten at them. So this is mostly just here for discussion.

Really, with how complicated the new raws are looking, a full-blown suite with tag parameter completion using raws loaded into a central database wouldn't be too overkill, and it's something I'd like to take a stab at. Actually, it's an idea I've had since long before this version was started - I knew there would come a day when editing raw files by hand would become unmanageable. Unfortunately with DF coming out very shortly my attention span will go back to la-la land and then I have school to contend with, so this is likely it from me.

Is anyone else planning on making editors for DF? I know there was one that looks a lot better/more like what I wanted to do before I just decided to make a material editor (DF RAW EDITOR by Ragnarok700), but I have no clue if he has plans on updating for the new version, or if he's still active. Is there interest for perhaps an extension to Eclipse or another IDE to allow for code completion of raw entries and such?

[MiamiBryce]

Not having seen the new raws (i found this post while searching for a link to the new raws) I'm considering working on a raw editor that is all datagridviews and configured from config files such that if the raw files changed and i was no longer around to maintain the program knowledgeable users could edit the config files and redistribute them.

My only motivation for doing such a thing, however is based on the (to my knowledge) lack of a tool I can use myself.

[Lofn]

Examples of the new raws can be found here.

[Eagleon]

Not having seen the new raws (i found this post while searching for a link to the new raws) I'm considering working on a raw editor that is all datagridviews and configured from config files such that if the raw files changed and i was no longer around to maintain the program knowledgeable users could edit the config files and redistribute them.

My only motivation for doing such a thing, however is based on the (to my knowledge) lack of a tool I can use myself.

I've been thinking about almost exactly this - how tag definitions in a text file can be written to allow for more dynamic editing. Some tags accept only a few values for a parameter, some accept other object names along with a few non-object names. Some tags have parameters that might not appear at all in a file, but which are still important for that tag to retain functionality. I've been hardcoding everything in MatEdit, which is easier right now but writing parsers for new raw files would increase the workload, not to mention that materials are by comparison very simple (no references to other objects besides colors).

It'd be tough to make a universal definition format that's also human readable, which can be read in and used any time down the line with the same program, but I think it'd be worth the work, just to have such a cool editor backing up modders

Spoiler: My attempt at the thing using OOP metaphor, which looks like a mess and would need more thought put into it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Something like this, where quoted items are read as strings and unquoted as objects. I'm using the body object files as an example.

Code: [Select]

OBJECT:"BODY"
Create the body class
BODY:<"*"!>
Accepting any string, creates a body object. The ! after the "*" means the new object must be uniquely named from all other BODY objects.
BODY->BP:<"*"!>
Makes a BP class in BODY.  The -> after BODY means if it is read from a file it'll be sorted into the last BODY object definition.
There needs to be a way for objects to require unique names but only within certain categories, while still allowing for possession.
For example, BPs will not and should not throw an error if they exist within multiple BODY definitions, but I can see this not being the case for some others.
BP->"BREATHE"
Adds BREATHE as a tag. It's not referenced as an object in any other parts of the file (there's no BREATHE->"BREATHES":<"AIR">||<"WATER">),
but it could be put in down the line.
BP->"CON":BP
Adds CON tag, with a BP object as its parameter.
BP->"CONTYPE":<"APERTURE"||"BREATHE"||"CIRCULATION"||"DIGIT"||...||"UPPERBODY">
Makes the CONTYPE tag, with a list of strings denoting acceptable parameters separated by OR operators.

Optional parameters
CLASS->"TAGNAME":<"PARAMETER">:<CLASSPARAMETER>:["OPTIONAL"]

Ideally there should also be a way for tags to require other tags within an object, or to make other tags invalid if they're found to account for that possibility.
The editor would give you a warning if you put it in without adding that too.
And on and on.

[shadowsofwhite]

Looking at those raws... I am awed. A program to manage tags and values would be so nice, because manual modding will become a chore! I'm probably going to have to print off pages of tags and add notes, just so I know what's going on...

This will be fun! ^_^