Equipmant Files Released!
August 5th, 2007 Pekk
Okay this post actually pertains to what I did yesterday, but in any case…
I got some courage and decided to upload some of the Equipmant project files to the sourceforge site. After uploading all the versions I had previously made and posted on the arcib mirror, I decided to add a much needed feature… The Extra Data feature. (Note: I have not posted anything to the CVS Repositories yet, this part scares me a bit… So once I upload my files to the blondie project page through CVS I’ll post the files on the repositories as well).
The Extra Data feature of Equipmant is implemented to insure that any extra information in the script file (i.e., any non-Equipmant generated data) is not thrown away when the file is opened and saved again. Originally, if the users made any changes to the file (i.e., adding job ability or spell scripts anywhere in the file) that information would get lost when the file is opened again by Equipmant and saved, since Equipmant does not recognize this information. But the good news is that I’ve made modifications and tested the file, and it’s been working so far without any bugs.
How it works:
Equipmant scans a text file, line by line. It then checks to see if the current line is a comment or not. If the current line is a comment, it will check if it’s an output comment generated by Equipmant. If the comment is not an Equipmant-generated comment, the comment is tossed into the “extra data bin.”
The extra data bin is a collection of all of the non-Equipmant generated information (i.e., non-equipment related. It will not toss your hand-written equipment script lines into the bin). If it is not a comment, Equipmant will check if the line contains any text information about equipment changes; if the line doesn’t meet this criteria, it is thrown into the bin.
When the output is being generated, it scans each text box on the window for the equipment macro information. So the output is thrown together in the form of a template. First two lines are typically our generator comments (info like “file generated by equipmant” and where to get a copy of it) followed by the equipment macros (in a set order). The extra data bin feature now adds some more lines: a comment stating that the data below that line is the extra data found in the file, and then a line for every piece of information found in the file that was flagged as extra data.
Why?
I thought this feature was necessary because I use Equipmant to generate equipment changing scripts for my weapon skill macros, but every time I wanted to experiment and change my ws macro equip I couldn’t use Equipmant because this extra information got thrown away. But not anymore!
Additional Features To Come…
In the next revision of Equipmant I’m going to be altering the GUI slightly. I will add a text field where users can view/edit the extra data bin and I’m considering switching the text boxes for the equipment slots to editable drop down boxes. These boxes will store multiple pieces of equipment (that you enter) for one equip slot. This makes it easier to switch between different pieces of equipment (i.e., testing a Brown Belt vs a Life Belt) when you are trying new combinations.
These drop-down boxes are not boxes which contain all items of the game, I decided that even if I could get an easily obtainable list with data for all equipment pieces for all locations, it would be too much information. This method, instead of showing all possible equipment, shows only the pieces of equipment which you’ve tried to use in the past (i.e., your “history”). I like this idea much better because it means having fewer items in the list and it’s easier to select things.
Perhaps later on I will add an auto-complete to make up for this lack of a huge list containing every piece of equipment available. This way people who don’t want to spell out the item names are satisfied also. In other words the user would begin to type: Senjuin, and then a selected text will pop up (or maybe a drop down list will pop up under the cursor) that says, “Senjuinrikio” and the user hits the tab key to complete the word. This also makes editing faster in general, but this will involve a bit of work and investigation on how I can accomplish this.
Edit: Also I forgot about this so I thought I’d write it down here: There will be easy-to-use drop-down boxes to add data into the extra data bin. I.e., one box will give a command “input,” “wait,” and another box will give another command “/ja,” “/ma,” “/song” or if the wait command is specified just a box labeled “time” where you may enter the number of seconds, and a third box that will appear if the input command is selected to allow you to pick a spell or a song or a job ability.
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