Development of the Wesnoth map editor: suggestions please

Post by **Morloth** » July 3rd, 2005, 9:23 am

Greetings everyone,

Sirp asked me if I'm interested to make improvements to the wesnoth editor because he doesn't have enough time to do it all on his own. I told him I was and he gave me the green light to make improvements on the editor.

Suggestions
Before I start coding, however, I wanted to check in with you guys. At the moment the wesnoth editor is nothing more than a map editor, we like to extend this to a full-fledged campaign editor in the future. At the moment I count 9 bugs and feature requests in the wesnoth database concerning the editor, if the editor is ever to evolve to a full-fledged campaign editor I need more suggestions / bugs and requests to work with. And this is where you guys come in, if you have any requests / suggestions concerning the editor, please let me know. I'm eager to make improvements to the editor so any suggestion is welcome.

If you post a suggestion, please mention a few arguments why this is a good thing or why you need it. Don't go 'I want the standard map to be bigger!', but tell us why: 'I want the standard map to be bigger, because most of the maps people make are XXX by XXX large and it's really a drag to change that every time I start the editor', for example...

List of tasks
At the moment these are the features / bugs I'm working on:
* Selectable rectangular map areas (for filling, copy/pasting etc.).

In progress (Have to wait till after the 1.0 release...)
* Bug #11967 (partial fixed), need to make the entire tile strings viewable

Done:
* Make the terrain palette 3-wide instead of 2-wide to enable more terrain to be shown at once.
* Expand the selected tiles area. Right now it only shows a fraction of the string for anything but the shortest strings. Could also show the actual selected tile if it doesn't take to much space.
* Bug #11965
See patch #4144

* Shortcut key for toggling show grid
Already works, try CTRL-g

* Bug #10704
Still needs testing under windows, see comments on the bug for more info.

* Replace the Draw, Flood, Start position and Paste buttons with icons and create a toolbar at that location with more options.
* Bug #13652 and Bug #13660
Artwork is redone! Also notice the new icons in the terrain selector!

* Added tooltips to the toolbar buttons, see this screenshot for a tooltip in action!
This should actualy be a tag in the WML, but that won't happen till after the 1.0 release.

* Bug #13855
At the moment this is solved by a dirty hack, I'm working on a new GUI manager design which should fix all current GUI problems. But, of course, this is 2.0 material.

As you can see much more input is needed, so don't hesitate and let me know if you have suggestions to improve the editor. Keep in mind that there is a freeze on the code for the 1.0 release so don't expect to see all suggestions in the 1.0 release. Sirp told me, however, he is willing to include any patches that only affects the editor in the 1.0 release.

I'll check this forum frequently and will comment on suggestions whether they are useful and doable, the list of tasks above will be updated so you guys can see where I'm working on. Don't expect any miracles, I just started with the wesnoth codebase and have to spend time on school, too

.

I'll spend as much time as I can on this editor to make it a powerful tool that eventually can be used to create and edit entire campaigns. I hope you guys can help me in the process, thanks in advance!

- Bram

Post by **freim** » July 3rd, 2005, 9:55 am

Ok, let's see

First I would like to note that the editor is used for more than just making maps. It's also a good tool for testing new gfx, and it would be nice to see it cater to that too.

* Expand the selected tiles area. Right now it only shows a fraction of the string for anything but the shortest strings. Could also show the actual selected tile if it doesn't take to much space.

* A lot of the tiles use the same gfx in the list, so it's inconvenient to see what is what, especially when the string (see above) is cut short. This is a gfx problem though, which would need new more icons to represent the different tiles.

* Ability to show/hide the overlay layer.

* Map preview in load dialog

* Get rid of that annoying auto-scroll in windowed mode! (that goes for the game itself also

)

* Shortcut key for toggling show grid

I think making it a full fledges campaign editor will be very difficult, so I would rather that you use your time and energy on making it a more powerful map editor.

Clarification on bug #10704:
Basicly if the editor fails when it attempts to save a map it just displays an error on subsequent attempts to save without giving a choice to save as a new name/at a new location. Thus you end up not being able to save the map at all. I can't remember if it actually crashes or just get "stuck".

Post by **Morloth** » July 3rd, 2005, 10:49 am

frame wrote: * Expand the selected tiles area. Right now it only shows a fraction of the string for anything but the shortest strings. Could also show the actual selected tile if it doesn't take to much space.

I'm currently working on this item, the tiles area is going to be bigger and I'll try to add a 'auto hide' function so it doesn't interfere with the map. This also fixes bugs: #11965 and #11967.

* A lot of the tiles use the same gfx in the list, so it's inconvenient to see what is what, especially when the string (see above) is cut short. This is a gfx problem though, which would need new more icons to represent the different tiles.

* Ability to show/hide the overlay layer.

* Map preview in load dialog

* Get rid of that annoying auto-scroll in windowed mode! (that goes for the game itself also )

All good idea's, but I'm afraid they have to wait till I've dealt with more serious bugs, but I'll keep them in mind and note them as a TODO.

* Shortcut key for toggling show grid

Shouldn't be that difficult, I'll look into it.

I think making it a full fledges campaign editor will be very difficult, so I would rather that you use your time and energy on making it a more powerful map editor.

The full fledged campaign editor is something for the far future, the current focus is indeed on making the map editor more powerful and to fix the current bugs.

Clarification on bug #10704:
Basicly if the editor fails when it attempts to save a map it just displays an error on subsequent attempts to save without giving a choice to save as a new name/at a new location. Thus you end up not being able to save the map at all. I can't remember if it actually crashes or just get "stuck".

This is a serious bug and it will be one of the first things on my list to do.

That sums everything up

. Thanks for your suggestions, I'll let you know when I've fixed some of them

.

scott · Post by **scott** » July 3rd, 2005, 12:22 pm

I think two useful mapmaker features would be
* to export a minimap screenshot and
* export the full-sized map as a png.

Both features have been requested in the past, but exporting a minimap would be very useful because posting screenshots of the minimap is all but standard when posting a map, which happens all the time on the forum.

Also, I don't know what the current editor does with these (I use Sithrandel's):
* make sure each keep has a side number when saving
* a way to add a description

Post by **Dave** » July 3rd, 2005, 2:56 pm

I think some kind of support for doing symmetrical maps could be nice.

Like you could say you want the map to be symmetric around the X-axis, and then if you make a change to the north-half of the map, the editor will automatically make the same change to the south half.

David

Multiplayer Scenarios / Campaigns · Post by **Rhuvaen** » July 4th, 2005, 12:13 pm

My suggestions:

1. Selectable rectangular map areas (for filling, copy/pasting etc.). Often I wanted to copy/paste a part of a bigger map into a smaller one or vice versa, and text editors don't do this easily if the x-axis size of the map is different.

2. Scaling maps. It would be great if a map could be scaled up and down, and some random dithering be applied.

3. Make scenario/multiplayer files loadable. Only the map data is needed by the editor, all the rest is stored in a buffer and just written to the file on export. Similarly, have an export feature to simply create a scenario or multiplayer file from a map (with minimum, default WML definitions). That would actually be a good, simple first feature in the direction of a scenario editor, but would already be very useful now.

Hooray and thanks that you're doing this! Two thumbs up!

Post by **Dave** » July 4th, 2005, 3:34 pm

Rhuvaen wrote:Make scenario/multiplayer files loadable. Only the map data is needed by the editor, all the rest is stored in a buffer and just written to the file on export.

Unfortunately even this is rather difficult to do properly at the moment. The reason is that scenarios might (and usually do) contain pre-processing directives, and there is no capability to store information about the pre-processing directives and then write them back out. This would be rather difficult to achieve, unfortunately.

I think even in the long-term, the scenario editor would be able to read WML macros, but would have to write everything out with the macros fully expanded. That is, you would be able to get the editor to play with scenarios you had written by hand, but it would change them to be substantially more verbose and difficult to read. It'd also probably strip out any comments.

David

Post by **Morloth** » July 4th, 2005, 11:19 pm

I think two useful mapmaker features would be
* to export a minimap screenshot and
* export the full-sized map as a png.

These are marked as a TODO, I want to focus on simple improvements and serious bugs first before I start at this job. But a good suggestion nethertheless.

* make sure each keep has a side number when saving
* a way to add a description

I'm not sure, but I'll look it up for you.

Like you could say you want the map to be symmetric around the X-axis, and then if you make a change to the north-half of the map, the editor will automatically make the same change to the south half.

I think this is a 'would like to have'. Like above, I'm putting my time and energy on other items first.

1. Selectable rectangular map areas (for filling, copy/pasting etc.). Often I wanted to copy/paste a part of a bigger map into a smaller one or vice versa, and text editors don't do this easily if the x-axis size of the map is different.

Sound like a good suggestion and one I want to see in the editor too. Marking this one on my list.

2. Scaling maps. It would be great if a map could be scaled up and down, and some random dithering be applied.

A 'would like to have' feature, perhaps in the future

.

- Update on my current work, I've released a patch (#4144) that fixes bug #11965 and bug #11967(partialy).

Post by **Dave** » July 5th, 2005, 12:37 am

Letting everyone know that I've made a few decisions:

- Morloth is going to take over development of the map/campaign editor, since he has far more energy and enthusiasm than anyone else.
- The feature freeze doesn't affect the map editor, since it's not a stable product anyway.

Oh, and I changed the title for this topic, to make it clearer.

David

silene · Post by **silene** » July 5th, 2005, 5:43 am

Dave wrote:
Rhuvaen wrote:Make scenario/multiplayer files loadable. Only the map data is needed by the editor, all the rest is stored in a buffer and just written to the file on export.
Unfortunately even this is rather difficult to do properly at the moment. The reason is that scenarios might (and usually do) contain pre-processing directives, and there is no capability to store information about the pre-processing directives and then write them back out. This would be rather difficult to achieve, unfortunately.

I think even in the long-term, the scenario editor would be able to read WML macros, but would have to write everything out with the macros fully expanded. That is, you would be able to get the editor to play with scenarios you had written by hand, but it would change them to be substantially more verbose and difficult to read. It'd also probably strip out any comments.

I don't think it is that complicated. When loading a file, just look for the string map_data="...". There are three possibilities:

1. not present. Just assume it is a map as is done currently.
2. present, and the content is {something}. Try using "something" as the path name for a map. Try at least two parent directories up when looking for the file if it does not begin with ".".
3. present. Assume the content is a map, and try to load it. When saved later, just replace the content by the modified map data.

No WML mechanism is needed at all, they are pure text manipulations. It is only a few lines of code, and it should be able to handle most of the scenarios actually written (there are not many campaign designers who generates map file names on the fly with macros).

blackdeathgr · Post by **blackdeathgr** » July 5th, 2005, 10:56 am

If we ever get it to campaign editor it would be really great as i don't have that much time to start learning programming but i think that from time to time i have some nice campaign ideas. Anyway, my request would be this:
If you actually manage to make a campaign editor please give it as an option to make a multiplayer campaigns. I think it would benefit the game greatly.
Thanks and keep up the good work!

Post by **Dave** » July 5th, 2005, 12:34 pm

silene wrote: No WML mechanism is needed at all, they are pure text manipulations.

Right...but aside from this being rather hacky, the long-term goal is to be able to include scenario-editing capabilities in the map editor. This approach won't allow this at all.

David

Post by **Morloth** » July 6th, 2005, 5:43 am

If you actually manage to make a campaign editor please give it as an option to make a multiplayer campaigns.

It sounds reasonable to add such feature to the map editor, but I have to admit that I don't know what the differences are between a 'normal' map and a multiplayer map, but I'll look into it.

I don't think it is that complicated. When loading a file, just look for the string map_data="...". There are three possibilities:

...

No WML mechanism is needed at all, they are pure text manipulations. It is only a few lines of code, and it should be able to handle most of the scenarios actually written (there are not many campaign designers who generates map file names on the fly with macros).

Right...but aside from this being rather hacky, the long-term goal is to be able to include scenario-editing capabilities in the map editor. This approach won't allow this at all.

You both make good points, but I think Silene's idea is a good one to start of with. I've currently no experice with WML-tags / -scripts, so I think it's a good idea to start of 'easy' before plunging myself in the world of scenario- / campaign- building.

The short term goal of the editor is to 1) Fix bugs and 2) Make it more powerfull. The long term goal is to make it a full-fledged campaigneditor. The code for the editor, as it stands now, is closely coupled with the core code for Wesnoth. This means that most of the features I would like to see in a campaign editor aren't possible at the moment because of the code freeze. Besides, I think that after the 1.0 release some major code / design changes are comming to make headway to version 2.0 (at least, I've got a small list of things I would like to change...). So the initial goal is to make the editor more mature for the 1.0 release and after the 1.0 release I'm going to work more on the campaign and scenario parts.

Thanks again for your suggestions, expect both of them to be included in my little list shortly.

- Bram

Multiplayer Scenarios / Campaigns · Post by **Rhuvaen** » July 6th, 2005, 10:18 am

Morloth wrote:
If you actually manage to make a campaign editor please give it as an option to make a multiplayer campaigns.
It sounds reasonable to add such feature to the map editor, but I have to admit that I don't know what the differences are between a 'normal' map and a multiplayer map, but I'll look into it.

There aren't - except that you must have castles on the map for it to be playable in MP, but that is trivial.
What he meant was multiplayer campaign support, and I think before we have an editor supporting those we should have the game itself supporting them

!

Post by **Morloth** » July 9th, 2005, 7:17 pm

Rhuvaen wrote: What he meant was multiplayer campaign support, and I think before we have an editor supporting those we should have the game itself supporting them !

Good point

*UPDATE*
Anyhow, I just wanted to let you guys know what I'm working on ATM. I was busy cracking bug #11965, but I need to update shared code so the developers decided not to fix this bug till after the 1.0 release. So that bug is marked 'on progress' until I get the green light to update shared code.

In the meantime I've created a little toolbar at the bottom of the editor. I did this because I'm going to need more room to put buttons and other scenario and campaign related widgets on the screen. I haven't checked it in the CVS yet (more testing / adjusting needed), but I wanted you guys to show this screenshot. My art sucks so don't get blown away by it, it will be updated by the professional art people (or so I hope

). If you've any suggestions about this toolbar (position, buttons it should / shoudn't show), please tell me

.

Bug #13652 and bug #13660 are currently taken care of by Freim so expect them to be fixed soon.

For now I'll be working on the features / bugs I've mentioned in my list and will let you guys know when I'm making progress.

Fixed Bug #10704!

- Bram