SCICompanion Prelease Testing!

[Cloudee1]

I for instance haven't used north south east and west variables ever since I learned I could control the memory better by doing it manually. There's a certain level when the software is doing too much for you.

An editor that does everything for you takes out the code creativity factor. For instance this is my competition games roomScript

Code: [Select]

//***************************************************************
(instance RoomScript of Script
(properties)

  (method (doit)
  (super:doit())
  )// end method
 
  (method (handleEvent pEvent)
  (super:handleEvent(pEvent))
  )// end method
 
)// end instance
//*************************************************************** Now granted, the other instances that make up the room take up 320 lines of code. A rigid editor that tries to do things for me wouldn't give me the flexibility that being creative allows.

[troflip]

I guess we're getting off topic now, but filling in the north/east/south/west properties can't hurt (if indeed it makes sense for a room to be in one of those directions)... and in fact, you can refer to the rooms by (Rm004:north) for example, instead of using the number.  Like "(send gRoom:newRoom(Rm004:north))".  More importantly, filling in the direction properties also means that SCICompanion will give you one click access to the adajcent screen's scripts.

If you want to do memory cleanup when changing rooms, you could always just override the newRoom function and put it in there I think (haven't tried it).  Then you only need to type it in once, so its easier to maintain, *and* your script will take up less heap space.

[Cloudee1]

Mirror of in the view editor acts a little screwy.

Is it intentional that it always switch back to none after being set to mirror a loop. I could see where that might be handy, so I'm just making sure here, but I expected it to persist.

Also the toolbox list of cels does not update when mirror loop creates them, the filmstrip does, but the cel is unselectable until one is manually made. Also the option to delete cels and loops does not readily present itself, right clicking in the filmstrip area that listed delete options would be nice. Also with the save icon, if a right click on that could also offer the save as feature. Making them both accessible from the same button, it makes sense that it just automatically saves to the same resource number, thats just not what I was used to expecting.

* Del key works for deleting cels

[troflip]

Is it intentional that it always switch back to none after being set to mirror a loop. I could see where that might be handy, so I'm just making sure here, but I expected it to persist.

Sounds like a bug... it should persist.  Thanks for finding that!

Also the toolbox list of cels does not update when mirror loop creates them, the filmstrip does, but the cel is unselectable until one is manually made. Also the option to delete cels and loops does not readily present itself, right clicking in the filmstrip area that listed delete options would be nice. Also with the save icon, if a right click on that could also offer the save as feature. Making them both accessible from the same button, it makes sense that it just automatically saves to the same resource number, thats just not what I was used to expecting.

Wow, you're a good tester!  I'll take a look at all these things and fix them.  I was thinking of getting rid of the "toolbox list of cels" anyway.  But I think the take home point here is, when you mirror a loop, things don't get updated properly. 

For loop/cel navigation, I was thinking of just showing the complete bitmap of all the cels, and you could click on one to starting editing that cel.  And it would be highlighted of course, so you knew which one you were editing.

But then that kind of provides some of the same functionality as the filmstrip view.  And I've invested some time putting features into that, such as drag and drop (try it out - you can rearrange cels by dragging them around).

I should probably also have "Delete cel" and "Delete loop" buttons.

For Save/Save As ... right clicking on a toolbar button would be unorthodox UI.  I think having a separate Save As button would work though.

Did you know there is undo/redo too in the view/font/cursor editors? :-)  (Ctrl-Z, Ctrl-Y).   And holding Shift/Ctrl/Alt down while resizing a view cel gives different results.  Just pointing out some less discoverable features (they are mentioned in the help though).

[Cloudee1]

Right click is always the first thing I try. 

I was just suggesting it to try and keep the icon count down but the options close together.

As far as the whole bmp, I put alot into my views out of organization. for instance usually view311 would contain all of the views of room 11. That's why I always got lost trying to edit views. But I think the whole bmp would be too much.

[Cloudee1]

Oh, copy and pasting from a bmp didn't quite go as expected. I've attatched a screenie of the resultant image. Besides the wierd split, the color band at the bottom isn't supposed to be there either.



The pink and what not is part of the cel I dropped it into

[troflip]

Where did you copy the bitmap from?  Another view?

[Cloudee1]

Some random bmp from the web. Had it open and copied it from  paint.

I have just spent some time copy and pasting bits from bmp's that I have made without issue. I am going to assume there is some sort of corruption with the picture, everytime I try to atatch it to the post, ie crashes.

* I also just had the picture editor hang. The right pane populated (control, visual, priority) from the first click, but the workspace never made it, and the right pane never went away.  I don't think I had opened any views prior, but I did rebuild and run the game before I tried to open the pic.

windows error report:

Error Signature
szAppName:SCIComp.exe szAppVer: 2.1.0 szModName:hungapp
szModVer: 0.0.0.0 offset: 00000000

Error Report Contents
C:\DOCUME~1\Cloud\LOCALS~1\WERb6de.dir00\SCIComp.exe.mdmp
C:\DOCUME~1\Cloud\LOCALS~1\WERb6de.dir00\appcompat.txt

I don't know if either of those bits of info can help.

[troflip]

How big is the mdmp file?  Any chance you could email it to me, or put it somewhere so I can download?
Unfortunately I lost the symbol file for the version I posted up there that is crashing for you (I saved the symbol file for the new version I just uploaded, which has fixes for the view mirroring issues).  That would help me debug it more easily.  But I still might be able to figure out what happened.

[Cloudee1]

I'm not sure, I wasn't able to actually locate it at the time (I tried), I'm doing a search for it now and I haven't been able to track it down. 

I'm gonna snag the newer one, now. But earlier, straight from opening sci companion to the pic I wanted to edit, hung it twice in a row. I didn't do, look, or click on anything else, I opened it up soley for the purpose of editing that pic. So it seems to be repeatable.

If you want, Troflip, I can rename this thread to sci companion prerelease testing or something like that.

* Is there a new one up, the page says Version 2.1.0.0, I think that's the one I've got, or have you just not edited that?

** There is a new one up, but a slight bug with the version number T, the exe file itself thinks its 2.1.0.1, while the about sci in help thinks it's 2.5.0.1 But whichever is right, Opening pic right away doesn't hang now.

*** Once I close the preview pane, how can I reopen it?

       Replace color, only replaces one way.

[troflip]

If you want, Troflip, I can rename this thread to sci companion prerelease testing or something like that.

sure...

*** Once I close the preview pane, how can I reopen it?

It appears you can't!  I should either make the preview pane unclosable, or find a way to open it up again.

       Replace color, only replaces one way.

I didn't know you could right click and reverse the colours in SCIStudio...  Do you ever use that feature?  It seems kind of random.
On the other hand, double-clicking to replace all pixels of the colour seems useful :-)

[Cloudee1]

Switching color oppositely with right click is actually pretty handy. When changing colors, if you get a pixel you don't want changed then you can just use the other mouse button to switch it back, it also requires 0 thought when selecting the colors, I don't have to remember which one goes on top, the color being replaced or the color replacing it.

As for the preview pane, maybe a view > toolbar option in the file menu area kind of like our browsers, then it could be either checked or unchecked.

I was doing some scripting today, and after a couple of hours the display became unresponsive. I could move the cursor, but any typing I did didn't echo on screen. Changes were registered though, because it asked me to save my changes. I said no, and have been afraid to go back in since, I can't remember if I had any compile errors the time I compiled before I closed it down.

[troflip]

Switching color oppositely with right click is actually pretty handy. When changing colors, if you get a pixel you don't want changed then you can just use the other mouse button to switch it back, it also requires 0 thought when selecting the colors, I don't have to remember which one goes on top, the color being replaced or the color replacing it.

Well, if you make a mistake, the easiest thing is to just undo (ctrl-z).  But I can see the "0 thought" argument...

I was doing some scripting today, and after a couple of hours the display became unresponsive. I could move the cursor, but any typing I did didn't echo on screen. Changes were registered though, because it asked me to save my changes. I said no, and have been afraid to go back in since, I can't remember if I had any compile errors the time I compiled before I closed it down.

Ouch, that's a terrible bug!

[troflip]

I just uploaded a new version here!

I used this to write my competition entry, and that helped weed out a bunch of bugs and some usability issues.

Here is the list of changes:


Changes in version 2.1.0.2
-----------------------

Bug fixes:
--------
- for resources w/o a previewer, we now hide the previously shown previewer
- script preview now shows the .sc file if available, and has a horizontal scrollbar
- fixed a short pause when switching to a script editor
- deleting all things in a mirror (view) caused an assert (fixed)
- you can now re-open the preview pane by using the Window menu
- fixed off-by-one error in "goto definition"
- duplicate pics of the same number were all black in the pic explorer (fixed)
- no more flicker in the view editor's animate dialog when resizing
- no longer leaking a DC for each new script editor that is opened
- fixed wrong colors in "convert bitmap to pic" dialog
- fixed issue (or rather worked around issue) where we lost our font in the tabs and output pane when there was a system settings change
- ctrl-s now works to save a resource when focus is in the toolbox pane
- fixed a crash that sometimes happened when typing in "(procedure" in a script
- fixed some issues with resources not getting marked as "unused"
- fixed memory leak in "add word as synonym" dialog, accessed from script editor
- fixed "add word as synonym" dialog (it was totally broken)
- fixed bug in "add word" functionality accessed from script editor
- adding a new word in the vocab editor now "dirties" the document (prompting a save)
- fixed multiple issues with the "font from windows font" dialog... it should behave much better now
- font preview in font editor now updates properly when you get a new font
- fixed visual issues in toolbox panes for cursor and fonts
- fixed button states not properly updating in toolbox panes in view and pic editors
- we now generate an error message when you can't saved a compiled script resource due to the game currently running.




Other changes:
-------
- "observe control lines" is now a right-click option when using the fake ego in the pic editor
- view editor "cel chooser" is now on the right instead of at the bottom
- changed UI theme from blue to grey
- right clicking will invert the source/replace colours for the replace colour tool
- we now use the last view magnification when you open a new view.
- added "delete cel" and "delete loop" buttons, so this functionality is more obvious
- views, pics, cursors and fonts now show a tooltip indicating the resource number when you hover over them.

[troflip]

btw, as a SPECIAL BONUS, this version (2.1.0.3) contains some hidden features that might make an appearance in future versions:
- ctrl-F11 brings up a room map, like jtyler was suggesting in a recent thread.  It attempts to arrange pics of the rooms together based on their east/west/north/south properties.  It doesn't let you change anything though.
- pressing ctrl-F12 from the script editor brings up a "visual script editor", which actually doesn't let you edit anything.  It shows the room with instances of views/props/acts placed on it.  You can move them around, adjust their properties, and animate them.  Of course this is just a piece of UI for now, it doesn't actually change the script.

Both these were things that I started a while back but never finished, so they're full of bugs and obviously incomplete, but they show some ideas I was thinking of.