Re: Xconq testing: Win2K

[Hans Ronne <hronne@comhem.se>]

>Recommendations:
>1) somehow ignore the invalid terrain cleanly; new users are bound to
>mess things up, and internal errors will throw them for a loop.

Sounds like a reasonable idea, but I'm not sure how to implement it.
Perhaps force undefined terrian to type 0 (ocean)?

>Notes/thoughts:
>1) since (I think) all games are supposed to be stored in 'lib', have
>the 'open file' button default to starting there.

How open file dialogs work is usually determined by the OS. On the Mac, it
will remember where you poked around the last time and go there. Which is
frequently (but not always) the lib folder.

>2) I am working on the model of:
>   a) a 'standard config' file that declares all terrain types & unit
>types
>      and their interactions.  This is normally hand-typed.
>   b) a map file.  This is normally entered via gui, and saved "binary".
>   c) a unit placement file (scenario, if you will).  This is normally
>       entered via gui, but might be hand-edited, and saved "binary".
>   d) a 'game' is a small file that pulls all of the above together.
>      This permits a map of W. Europe to be used for various eras, and
>      Set of standard "modern" units to be used in various campaigns.
>
>   This allows the following to be done:
>   - create a single config file that describes Ancient Rome.
>   - create maps for each battlefield
>   - create various unit deployments for each battle

This sounds like an interesting project. Reusable maps etc. is a good idea.
BTW, if anybody wants to make a Gulf War game my ancient near east map is
an excellent starting point.

>   I would really, really like an easy way to save off the map &
>unit-placement as separate files in the GUI; it's been a while, but I
>recall that it was really complicated to save off just what one wanted
>to each file.

That is possible. Just uncheck "Save all" in the designer save dialog and
then check whatever you want to save in a specific file ("world", "terrain"
or "units" for example).

>I would also like to be able to strip out a specific terrain-type, in
>case I bungled the job & created an extra few early on, and would like
>to clean things up.  Maybe the ability of the map-save function to not
>list any terrain for which there were no placements would do this
>perfectly?

Not sure what you mean here. Do you want to convert one terrain type to
another automatically? That cannot be done at present.

>I am hoping that the approach listed in (2) will encourage newcomers to
>build new games: the normal game will be pretty small (because it'll
>just include in 3 larger files), so the user will only have to edit one
>or two
>Of the file to create new games from existing ones.
>
>For power users, it would be nice if there was an easy way to do
>things like:
>- shift a particular region of the map up/left/right/down/mirror.
>- enlarge the map on any side(s)
>- shrink the map (deleting terrain that fell off the face of the earth)

Resizing and moving the map (or world) is possible in the Mac designer save
dialog, which has a special reshape world button. There you can also decide
how previously undefined terrain should be filled. I know this is not much
use to non-Mac users, but it shows it can be done. I may port this stuff to
tcltk, but only after 7.5 is done.

>It sure would be handy if there was a way to keep the 'design' popup
>always s on top of the map, or better - make it into a pane.

>It's always disappearing, and I have to go find it on the toolbar.

Again, this is how the Mac interface works. Maybe you should get yourself a
Mac :-).

Seriously, though, support for floating windows is not that great in tcltk.
The research dialog, which pops up and refuses to go to the back if all
that remains to be done is to pick a research subject, is my attempt to
make a flaoting window in tcltk. It does the job but is rather clunky, and
it took a lot of coding to get there.

And even if I made a floating tcltk designer window, it would probably keep
the focus as long as it stays in front. Meaning that you would not be able
to edit the map.

Hans