WYSIWYG in ESB

[Sophia]

It seems like one of the biggest (or at least most vocal) requests for DSB/ESB has been to incorporate more "visual" or WYSIWYG aspects into the editor. Most specifically, using in-game graphics in order to let designers choose from them, instead of having to type in the names of graphics.

I agree this could be a very useful addition. The biggest problem is that ESB doesn't load any graphics. It wouldn't be very easy to make ESB load graphics, either: DSB's flexibility kind of works against it, here, because there are so many possible ways to get graphics into the program, and I don't want to put any huge limitations on what users can do. Things like being able to store all your icons as a big sheet are only possible because of DSB's more flexible approach to graphics, so I don't want to put any huge restrictions on designers, for fear of locking out interesting methods like that. In the case of portraits, it's a little more difficult, even, because ESB has no real way of detecting what a "portrait" is. I could always make a list, but that'd just be something that someone would have to type in somewhere else, and may not be optimal.

That's not to say I am completely ruling it out. I've been idly thinking about graphics loading in ESB, but there are some obstacles. I'd have to manage them in ESB, and I'd also have to make sure the graphics were deleted and reloaded properly when changing dungeon. None of this is impossible, naturally, but, of course, I do not have infinite time to work on all of this. Having ESB load graphics would increase memory usage and startup time, too, so I'd have to make sure this didn't get out of control, which would further increase development time.

So, consider your suggestions noted, but please realize that it may be a while (if ever) before I can do anything about them.

[zoom]

1:

Why couldn't it be 'portrait_zed' or (more natural) portrait['zed'] ?

It could.
you can probably could have something of both worlds : not hard to know what it is and being able to read it and still keep the coding portion *
I think it is good to re-use DSB lua programming expressions in the editor. (ESB and DSB work with the LUA-language!)
changeing a "port_zed" in the editor to something longer, will be counter-productive in the long run.
coding gets you the edge in dungeons, and having ESB have lua readily available is a good way to learn it on the fly.
however, Linflas is right:
people won´t know what it means, it makes getting along harder because it is not exaclty intuitive to truncate names this way.


* a system like : *

NAME EVERYONE CAN READ // exact PROGRAMMING NAME USED IN LUA

eg. for the protrait 2 descriptions:

Champion Portrait [DM zed_original] || port_zed

ideally you could switch the lua string on and off.
that is to show normal descriptions and leave the however important port_zed in the background.
It can be retrieved however, if you wanna look something up. Or the dungeon builder can switch to an all lua mode


2:
It is interesting to see how esb works.
I was asking myself why do you display health str dex etc ten times their value? For the actual designer, stat displays /10 would be much more readable!
But then I noticed what the editor does right now is giving buttons to click with actual LUA code for dsb .

I would probably vote for a hard - coded x10 value, possibly greyed out next to the actual health value:
Health Stamina Mana
_1500___1000_1000

3:
on a design note:
IF figher, priest etc can only have 16? levels of experience, then why make a box that easily fits 5 digits?
Same for Luck. The limit there is 255, no? looks like it is 650000? -->Waste of space.

4:
This is probably a very silly suggestion because you did not code ESB with lua !:
Take the inventory management system of DSB(the in game stuff where you put items into the backpack etc) and incorporate that part of DSB
drag and drop into the Editor.
Have a list of items to pick from with the mouse cursor below(like there, even have different versions next to each other/ scrolling bars: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/259 )

if this is too complicated , too bad!!!!
I would still go away from using descriptive texts for right hand etc. It feels maybe still a little awkward.
Probably a list of numbers with corresponding body parts/legit placements would be better, maybe you could arrange it similar to normal persons with placement fields(head below that torso below that legs below that feet aso.).Sure uses up more space but you also get a better overview

[Gambit37]

Hmm, Zoom, I'm not sure your questions 1-3 are relevant for this thread which is about loading images/better visual editing in ESB... probably you should ask your queries in one of the other DSB question threads.