On Feb 20, 2008 5:24 AM, S'orlok Reaves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > The driving force behind the everything-is-a-menu > > design was my desire > > to be keyboard-friendly. I have no objection to gui > > interfaces and > > mouse-friendly interfaces, but usually > > point-and-click convenience comes > > at the expense of keyboard accassability. > > I agree that the advanced user will probably prefer > quick keyboard commands. I memorized "close and don't > save" pretty quick. > > But new users get annoyed trying to draw spritesets > with the keyboard, and the mouse doesn't feel > responsive (to me, at least). > > I think that if we use enough sensible mnemonics, tab > orders, and the like, we should be able to mix fast > keyboard shortcuts into a GUI environment. > > For the record, I've never used wxWidgets, but it > seems pretty good based on a quick look. And there's > Python/C++/C# bindings. > > -->Seth >
I think the important thing for a new project is to be clear about what it's trying to do. It's all very well offering 128x128 32-bit colour tiles at 1280x1024, but too much freedom is quite intimidating for a novice, and too much flexibility can put the quality bar too high. And what will distinguish it from other tools and environments? I have, in the past, written what was supposed to be an explorer-type interface for an RPG Editor (the page is here: http://www.pocketfuel.co.uk/kq2tool/ but I seem to have neglected to add screenshots). This was written in Borland C++ Builder, and was intended to grow towards a full editor, but as it stands it was just a text report of each item, with the ability to move, rename and delete things, which was broken in the official editor. An update to the official editor fixed many of those things and changed the file format, making my utility obsolete (and broke the game, and destroyed the community, but lets not go there :)). I also have a Java framework in Swing with an old-Outlook style side bar and MDI interface. This never made it to a public release, but I used it to create data files for my first mobile phone game, and was at one stage turning it into an editor for Scott Adams format interactive fiction. My main issue is that I absolutely hate programming for Windows. Generally I like to work on non-PC platforms, but if I do ever write for the PC I want someone else to handle as much of the garbage as possible. Using a pure "full-screen" graphical interface like FBGFX, SDL, etc, is nice and easy, but no good for a windowing editor. Swing and the Borland VCL are both okay, but the big problem I have found with the VCL is getting decent pixel-level control of graphics, and I suspect it is similar with Swing. MFC is pretty horrible and platform-specific. I haven't really looked at any of the other multi-platform options. Anyway, my next RPG-related project is likely to be a port/rewrite of the original black&white Palm game Kyle's Quest (which is commercial and closed-source, so I will have to tread carefully) to other relatively low-powered systems. This was an extremely limited game engine - single character, kind of like FF Legend on the GB, with a tag-like means of controlling plot development - but still, some of the games were good, and I would like to try to preserve them. I have figured out the file format already, which I was never able to do with the sequel. The KQ1&2 game editors were windowsy. They relied on importing graphics, so did not contain a sprite editor, and they compiled their output to a different format (a necessary step for PalmOS). When scripting was introduced with KQ2, it had a horribly cumbersome wizard-style entry system. One of the other features of my kq2tool (above) was that it could import and export a script text file, allowing people to use actual code. Anyway, enough rambling. I have to go and play TrackMania against my work colleagues for the rest of lunch. ;) Cheers, Simon _______________________________________________ Ohrrpgce mailing list ohrrpgce@lists.motherhamster.org http://lists.motherhamster.org/listinfo.cgi/ohrrpgce-motherhamster.org
