Mac Level Editor
 

So, I'm working on an offline level editor for Mac (since the online ones suck).
Now that <most> Mac users can use an RC, we should be seeing more Mac developers. This is just a project I'm working on my spare time, so no promises on how long it may take. I will be asking for help from the community as well. Just some basic algorithms on things like displaying the level, certain npc placement. I plan to make it easier to use than the original, with features such as dragging a sign into place, or warps, random detail generating, and hopefully (if stefan is willing to help a bit) some syntax checking for gs2. I doubt I can make one where you can then 'play' the level. But this would be a lot better than what we have now!!

While I appreciate you're trying, you really need to follow the Apple User Interface guidelines. The program doesn't look organised well.

Said guidelines aren't exactly concrete.
Plus, I wanted this to look more like an upgrade of the original one.
What, specifically, should I move around?

Perhaps you should consider them more, then.

1. The inset borders aren't being used properly and you're just drawing over them. It looks awful.
2. Buttons such as New, Load, Save are all basic menubar operations which users expect to find in the menubar.
3. You've got an "About ..." box for a reason. You don't need to put things like "by excalibur" on the main window.
4. The Random Generate area should be it's own dialog box behind a button or menu entry. It looks cluttered where it is.
5. Use tabs instead of the radio buttons.

Not everyone wants to go up into the menu bar for everything. I don't go up to the file menu to save a document (I just hit  S anyway).
But I will take some of these into consideration. As for tabs....well, this wasn't meant to be an easy project anyway! :p

It's where people expect to find such basic functions. Don't try to act like you know better than the basic principles, it just frustrates your users.

The reason that Mac OS X interface design works so well is because it's meant to work the same everywhere.

Looks good so far.

Here's a rough design.
It's not perfect, but you can see the general layout.
Also, all of the button features will be in the menu. I just want a place for them out front as well for quicker access for some users. There will also be shortcut keys for pretty much everything.
http://img342.imageshack.us/img342/4449/picture1xz7.png

Oh cali, you need to put more room for the actual level. On windows, with the same window size, you get more work room than that.

You really should only have absolutely essential items immediately available so that it is less cluttered, especially considering it takes less than two seconds to click "File" and locate the option you want.

Also please stop linking these large images directly; attach them instead.

Looks nice, and I agree with Skyld, you can have some buttons like where it is located now, but a menu bar would be nice, like
File, Edit, Level, Advanced, and Help? And also have tabs for levels

File:
New level
Open level
Save level
Save level as...

Edit:
Edit level as text
Edit signs
Edit links

Level:
Add new npc (would place at (0,0), default, or (32,32))
Add new predefined object
Add tileset (could edit TiledefsOffline.txt in tiledefs folder, or add a new script with text fitted for new tileset and mode)

Advaned:
Load all npcs (would make a gui whihc contain a gui list who list all npcs in that level, and when double clicking it would open that npc)

Help:
Could bring up a help gui showing functions and such, and explains what the buttons etc are for..

Just some ideas/suggestions, got bored :p

What the hell is with the 'detail generator?' The only time details should be 'generated' is with terraingen or levelgen. Not the actual editor itself.

*shrugs* I like to make a 64x64 level, tile it with "Details" like flowers, tufts of grass, etc., make it an Object, then floodfill. 's how I did the water on Classic. It would have killed me to fill in that many levels with either Just Plain Water or 4096 Manually Placed Ripples Per Level. So I think it's a good feature.

Mind, things like mailboxes, fences, patches of dirt, hills, rivers, statues, etcetera, are all rather important in their own right - but such things ought to be added After you make the grass "interesting".

Not everyone wants a cluttered, unorganized, different interface. Just do tabs and menus - if you want "quick access" use hotkeys.

Alright, you guys have seen Mac programs more than me. It's going to look empty though :(

As for the random detail generator, it would throw in things on top of grass tiles, like flowers, taller grass, rocks, etc. Just to make sure it's not plain.

Im sure its a button that randomly places tiles that he considers "details".

o I do believe a lot of those buttons belong in the menu bar section.

Just fill the screen with the editor area. :p

I could make different views?

Yea, you can label yours "craptastic" ;)

Here it is (sorry, I realized I forgot something in the last post).
I can't get the image of the tiles to show however :confused: it's a pict resource, so it should work, right?
*I'm new to Carbon*

Even though I don't have a Mac and never intend on owning one, I wanted to mention that I always wished there was a Graal level editor where everything was in seperate windows. Like each level was in it's own moveable, scaleable window. The tileset tab area would be in another window (that is also scaleable and moveable of course)

This way you could have multiple graal levels displayed on your screen in different windows and you could also display nearly the entire tileset on your screen so that it's easier to find tiles.

Might I suggest a few changes?

With this level editor you'll be able to have them in separate windows, or in tabs.
...Although separate windows is a lot easier to program :p
(most are windows from the level editor :p)

Definitely scalable Tileset Area. It bothers me when I'm trying to search the entire bloody tileset for "The piece that goes at the bottom of a Northwest facing mountain section where it meets the Dirt/Desert ground" and I have to go it 8 columns at a time. (I've grown accustomed to opening Paint Shop Pro, selecting the color I want, and having the damn thing find it FOR me...)

That's a bit useless. You could open multiple level editors but theres really no reason to do so.

Because it's easy on Mac?
:p
It's just windows, not like I'm running the same program over and over.

....Why would you want to open multiple windows over tabs? Please educate me Im such a uneducated level designer.

You can switch between them, or look at their contents more quickly. Just press F9 or F10 on Mac.

But wouldn't it be easier to click a tab with your mouse since most of the level designing is done with the mouse as it is?

Hmm, I might also be working on a level editor of sorts, but I'm using Qt for the interface so that I can compile it cross platform (Windows, Linux and OSX) and still have it look like a native application. It has some interesting new features too. I guess I don't want to give away too much in case I get bogged down by other commitments and can't finish it for a long time, though if people are interested they can ask me about it in-game.

In regard to the interface layout of a level editor, I prefer to have each level open in a separate tab. Having lots of small windows can make an interface seem cluttered to me, though each to their own I guess. It's not that easy to make an interface that sits well though, particularly something like this where you have a large graphical pane, but also need a reasonable amount of area to display the tile selector.

It would be cool if, in addition to the normal resizable barrier, when you double clicked it would toggle between tiles or levels being the center of attention.

Here is my gfx representation of my idea:

I was thinking about something like that. But I was thinking more like the side bar could be hidden or shrunk by clicking a little arrow or something. And maybe have the tile select pane where it could either be in it's own window or dockable in the side bar.

I may continue on the project for the fun of making it, however, I should note: I've quit Graal, why should I continue to develop for it?
If anyone is familiar with carbon, I can send you the files, and you can help out, or...do it.

If you quit graal, why post here still? Anyways you let the severely slim mac users down.

Hey cool, I got tons of software cracks that look just like this level editor :o Also Mac style, for Windoze of course.
If you really want the Mac developers to have cool dev tools, then finish it.

If Graal really wants Mac customers, they'll make it.

Graal doesn't care what platform you use, so they developed (mostly) for the platform that has the most users. End.

Yes, but my statement is still valid.

Just how hard would it be for Stefan to make whatever changes would have to be made to the source code to compile it into something that would run on a Mac?

It's a Linear vs. Geometric complexity problem, by which I mean:
If he makes 1 product on 1 platform, he does 1 work-unit a year.
If he updates it 12 times a year, he does 12 work-units a year.
If he updates it on 5 platforms each time, he does 60 work-units a year.
If he makes 2 more products for each platform (RC and Editor), he does 180 work units a year.

Contrariwise, if he scripts the tools within the 1 program, he only has to update that 1 program. Even better, if he makes a kernel that he can update platform-independant, and makes an emulator for each OS that he never has to update, he only has to update that 1 kernel on 1 "platform" to update all programs, and all tools, on all platforms, all at once.

It's "work smarter, not harder" in action, which is uncommon enough.