Why not create a proofreader/tester for mods?

[Darth Saber]

In today's high tech society, we use proofreaders to ensure that our written words are correct. In programs, particularly QBasic, we had "run" and a "test" features to ensure that our programs were correct, and would work.

Why not do the same with Transcendence mods? Develope a program with a Windows User Interface (WUI) that would test and run each mod, then show the modder what changes needed to be made to be acceptable. Have a drop down field that would display every version of Transcendence, so that the modder could select the one to work with. Even include a runtime version of each (version) to test the mod in.

Darth Saber

[Periculi]

When you get that put together, I will be happy to test it.

[schilcote]

Transendence already has a good debugger built in. It might not make sense all the time, but neither do I.

[Mutos]

Hi all,


What would be cool is a GUI mod editor for getting together graphically, for instance stellar systems.

Here is for instance some screenshots of the one I've made for my Stars of Call project :
http://spacesims.hoshikaze.net/phpBB2/v ... .php?t=189

Maybe one day if I find the time I'll take it and write an exoorter to translate the planets to Transcendence format. That would be cool. Of course it would miss much features, but it could be a start.

Or if someone is willing, the code is in the ZIP. There's alreeady an exporter for Celestia format, so you'll have a base to start from. But I deleted the 1.1.0 ZIP so you should takee the 1.1.1 ZIP, which is the latest version, found at :
http://spacesims.hoshikaze.net/phpBB2/v ... .php?t=198

[Darth Saber]

Periculi, I only made a suggestion; I do not have the knowledge of programming that such a project requires. Although I have created math programs, and chatty programs, to build what I suggested on my own would require more knowledge than I currently posess. Not that I would not be glad to help out anyone willing to help develope it.

[quote][/quote]

[schilcote]

Well, I could build a self building template maker. I think I talked aout this on the UTF. Now that I can interface with the Blitz+ complier, I can create a simple system to create templates. Eventually, it could fill in the blanks for you.

[Periculi]

Writing the mods brings you the best experience and improves your ability over time. There is a lot involved with modding transcendence- so much so that just making a reference library is a challenge! But the learning process is rewarding in and of itself, and the difficulty decreases swiftly.

Any program created that produces 'template mods' only really gives you the ability to alter the basic element data. You won't be able to write custom scripts to do new things. You won't be able to produce well thought out mods any better either- you will only be taking a short cut that cuts off learning. It would be better to get used to reading the XML and writing it so that you know what you are doing.

[Mutos]

Hi Periculi,


When I read this post, I just thought about having a kind of "drafting" editor, that can spit out a skeleton, and then once would fill it by hand. Of course, writing an editor with everything would be very difficult, if not impossible at all !

[Periculi]

I used to do that with text files- I have a complete set of blanks for 098d that I can fill in the details for based on the object I need but after creating so many elements now, I know the format and can just produce what I need from memory and write it without using my blanks- faster than finding the one I need in the text files.

I wrote a node producing program for making large topologies when I was working on the System26 mod. It turned out to be quicker than writing 500+ nodes by hand. In that instance, a program made sense.

Still- from that experience, I can assure you that modding transcendence is best done by a person- the program I wrote can't handle a hundredth of what I can create by myself just for the topology network.

And I still feel that it is good practice to learn to mod transcendence- without a draft or error checking program to interfere with the learning process. You gain skills that can be applied to other uses.

And did I forget to mention the deeper level of understanding what is going on in there- you will never get that from a template writer.

[schilcote]

What I meant was what Mutos said. It's just a skeleton producing program. You still must write in the numbers and the Invokes, but it handles the boring stuff. I had the same type of themplate library (manually indexed) that Percuili had, and I still use it.