I probably should start a map editor task on the Wiki instead of posting to the ML, but since everything is still pretty vague, I'd rather throw it out for discussion first. Actually, most of what follows were originally Alex' ideas, with some deviations. (See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/adonthell-devel/2003-01/msg00067.html for the original posting). He later switched from wxPython to pyQT but had trouble to use any of those with our own Python modules (http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/adonthell-devel/2004-04/msg00014.html).
However, we should at least be able to use C/C++ based toolkits for our editors. I'd suggest using GTK, to stay consistent with our other editors (that is, dlgedit and the beginnings of questedit). In order to use our images, animations and the whole map renderer within GTK, all that needs to be done is writing a GTK-based backend for the gfx and (possibly) main module. If we'd implement the surface class on top of, say, GdkImage, it should be fairly easy to get to this underlying implementation and display it with the GtkImage widget. That way, Adonthell engine code like loading/saving or rendering becomes directly reusable in the map editor. In fact, the engine code should provide all the hooks required for an editor, such as adding frames to an animation or animations to a sprite or adding and moving objects on the map, etc. ... The editor itself would consist of a mapview (probably not restricted to the 640x480 size of the actual game) and an object browser from which existing map objects can be added to the map with drag & drop. The object browser could use the gfx directory structure as tags to categorize map objects. So a path like "map/ground/outside/grass/" would yield the tags "map", "ground", "outside" and "grass" for all objects inside that directory. By filtering for certain tags, it should become convenient to access e.g. all ground tiles or all outside objects, given our directory structure is thought out well (see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/adonthell-artwork/2006-04/msg00000.html for a suggestion). We'd further need integrated animation, sprite and model editors to import new graphics. Those three, the browser and basic map editing abilities would make a usable first version of the editor. Then, as items and scripting (think teleportation, traps, etc ...) get integrated into the game, the editor would have to be enhanced accordingly. After all, it seems that there is nearly enough material to create a set of map editor tasks and a little road-map on the Wiki. But first of all, please let me know what you think. Kai _______________________________________________ Adonthell-devel mailing list Adonthell-devel@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/adonthell-devel