How is the in-game editor used?

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How do you use the in-game editor?

I create scenarios using only the editor
1
3%
I create scenarios using the editor that also contain hand coded WML
1
3%
I use the editor to create the map and then hand code all WML
28
70%
I use the editor to create the map and use no scenario or WML features
6
15%
I use the editor for another purpose (please post what it is!)
4
10%
 
Total votes: 40

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Pentarctagon
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How is the in-game editor used?

Post by Pentarctagon »

The reason being pretty straightforward - I'd like to have a better idea of how players use Wesnoth's in-game map and scenario editor functionality.

If there are any questions, please feel free to ask them :)
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jandaro
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by jandaro »

im not really a map-makes, but i would like to add starter units (maybe varying on faction?) using only editor, then, it would be good to add trigger blocks (triggers that trigger if unit steps on hex and trigger, if unit passes through trigger hex) and so on..... i'd like to see that especially because i have no experience with coding at all
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lhybrideur
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by lhybrideur »

Refining my answer.
1) I use the editor to create the map
2) I create a "draft" scenario with that map to place enemy unit that exists at the beginning of my custom scenario.
3) I open this "draft" scenario in my IDE and copy-paste the units into my custom scenario cfg.

It is easier to place those units like that rather than having to write their position by hand in my cfg.
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GForce0
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by GForce0 »

5: I once used the editor to draw out what cliffs would look like, then took a screenshot and made custom tiles from it. But that was more a one time only.
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UnwiseOwl
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by UnwiseOwl »

I use the editor for map creation and then do the rest by hand, but I WOULD use the editor for more if it could do more, or more reliably.
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vghetto
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by vghetto »

I use it for creating maps/masks.
I find it very helpful for looking up terrain codes and setting location_id with Starting position tool.
I use the scenario features for looking up available item/scenery images and then copying the full path to my WML.
Sometimes I use it to view a shrouded map from a campaign (instead of debug).
darkator
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by darkator »

when I hover the cursor over the add item icon, the message is displayed that deleting an item is not yet implemented.
Last edited by darkator on December 18th, 2020, 9:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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WhiteWolf
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by WhiteWolf »

Where's the option for "I hand code everything, I even hand code the map file"? :twisted: :lol:

Anyway, I voted that the map is created in the editor, but WML is hand coded. But the scenario editor did come a long way, so I'm inclined to change this approach.

A few limitations that still bug me:
- It would be very useful to be able to add your custom items. The easier solution would be to add an option to add a new slot, and ask the user for an image path. The awesome solution would be to be able to import entire directories: just give the path (add-ons/my_addon/images/items/), and it could import all images there as addable items. (Item name could be the file-name).
My scenarios use a ton of custom items and that currently needs to be hand-coded - so I always end up hand-coding every item if I'm already doing it, so this could really be a huge convenience improvement in my opinion.
- This same issue is what makes the unit tool extremely limited. The best solution would again be to have the option to import your addons unit directory, but I understand that this may be far from trivial to implement.
- Items cannot be oriented. Adding a togglebox or shortkey for adding ~FL() to the image would be a nice option. Or maybe a general IPF tool would be even better.
- Items should be toggleable as image= or halo= because [item] can be used for both, this becomes especially relevant if using custom items that extend over multiple hexes.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by Pentarctagon »

WhiteWolf wrote: December 18th, 2020, 11:40 am - It would be very useful to be able to add your custom items. The easier solution would be to add an option to add a new slot, and ask the user for an image path. The awesome solution would be to be able to import entire directories: just give the path (add-ons/my_addon/images/items/), and it could import all images there as addable items. (Item name could be the file-name).
My scenarios use a ton of custom items and that currently needs to be hand-coded - so I always end up hand-coding every item if I'm already doing it, so this could really be a huge convenience improvement in my opinion.
- This same issue is what makes the unit tool extremely limited. The best solution would again be to have the option to import your addons unit directory, but I understand that this may be far from trivial to implement.
These two are already possible if I'm understanding - see https://wiki.wesnoth.org/EditorWML#The_ ... oup.5D_tag and then the section below it for units.
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Hejnewar
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by Hejnewar »

I also use editor in order to place units, problem is unit tags that editor is creating have a lot of not always needed things in them and take a lot of space so I need to change them into unit macros anyway.
JustNatan
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by JustNatan »

Pentarctagon wrote: December 16th, 2020, 6:43 pm The reason being pretty straightforward - I'd like to have a better idea of how players use Wesnoth's in-game map and scenario editor functionality.
Tbh the main reason why I don't use the editor for anything else but map creation is because I never knew that you could. It is called "map editor" so I thought it would only be an editor for maps. It had some grey buttons called "Areas" and "Side" but I didn't give them much thought (maybe just disabled, huh?)

Now that I know that it has other functionalities as well, I just started the editor again and I would like to describe my impression:
I see no button in the menu bar that allows me to access scenario features. All buttons that are associated with units and scenarios are gray. Maybe I need to create a scenario. I do. Nice. Looks like it works. Place some bats on the map. Looks good. Go with mouse over them and press delete. Doesn't work. Huh. How do I get rid of those bats? Right click. Delete. Works. F*k not very handy. feelslike no shortcut mentioned in rightclick menu.

Went through the menus, ah Starting Tools, interesting. I want to add one to the map. I press Add. It creates a new side. huh. I want to delete the new side. I press delete-button. It doesn't delete. How do I delete it?

Nice! Goodlookingitems.png Place one on the map. Press delete. Doesn't work. Ah, mb. Right click. No rightclickmenu>delete option feelslike. Can't remove it so I ignore it.

Village Tab is empty. I can see the blue village symbol, but prob just a selection symbol. Try to click somewhere to do something. Doesn't work. Read description. mybad.jpg I create a village and right click it works as intended (flag). I try to remove the village with right click while still having the village tool in my hand and it removes the flag from the village. K mb. I go strg+z a few to imes to get back to a point where the village didn't exist. Wesnoth crashes.

[I did this while writing to have an exact ~first time~ experience and really did not expect the crash ^^]
(I tried to reproduce it, but doesn't work; bad luck prob)
If of course you don't want to make it more user friendly, but just improve features for experienced users: ignore my post.
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WhiteWolf
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by WhiteWolf »

Pentarctagon wrote: December 18th, 2020, 3:04 pm These two are already possible if I'm understanding - see https://wiki.wesnoth.org/EditorWML#The_ ... oup.5D_tag and then the section below it for units.
Oh, that's good to know, thanks :) I'm not sure if the info is very visible though - I missed this section of this page, and probably many others don't know about it.
I'll be honest, I'm not even sure where the editor's ingame help menu is - it's surely not a toplevel section in the F1 help menu. So it might be worth considering to elevate this info (along with other tips and tricks of the editor) to a more visible place in-game.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by Pentarctagon »

JustNatan wrote: December 18th, 2020, 3:28 pm If of course you don't want to make it more user friendly, but just improve features for experienced users: ignore my post.
Right now I'm primarily focused on the even simpler question of just "do people even use it?". Which at least as of right now is leaning very heavily towards "not at all" with some amount of "yes, but not the actual .cfg file that the scenario editor creates when it saves a scenario".

The poll is going to remain up for a couple of weeks at least, but based on the results I do definitely want to change the editor to clear out features that aren't used while improving the features that are used. For example, based just on what's been said so far, it would be an improvement to simply have a "Show WML" button that would allow copying the WML used to place any units and items on the current map to the clipboard instead of saving the .cfg file to the hard drive since the feedback so far from people who do use the scenario editor features is that they manually open the saved .cfg and copy/paste the unit and item WML into their own scenario files anyway.
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ForestDragon
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by ForestDragon »

I've never seriously (opening it up to see what the heck it is once doesn't count :P ) used the scenario editor at all, and code everything manually (even WML itself can feel a bit limiting at times, so you can imagine what my opinion on the scenario editor would be :P). As for what would the point of the scenario editor would even be: I'd say, like most others above, hand-placing units/items.
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Re: How is the in-game editor used?

Post by doofus-01 »

I think I mentioned it somewhere else, but the scenario editor is useful for quickly testing terrain/sprite interactions. Hopefully the whole thing doesn't get tossed if a more player-friendly editor can't be rolled out. Maybe label it "preview only".
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