Re: [Enigma-devel] Enigma editor, again

[Karen Pouelle]

> You can easily translate the lua code to some (not yet existant) xml
> statements, and there's nothing wrong with making a checkerboard-fill
> option for the xml format.
> 
> BUT: don't expect a level editor to recreate the same when you save the file.
 
In fact I would expect a level editor to recreate it BECAUSE it CAN 
become a part of the format. It certainly doesn't have to, though.

Erich,
I understand what you're saying, however. What concerns me most
is the other way around - if a person creates (or wishes to create)
a non-atomic object in the editor, how will that object be represented
in the XML data file? Obviously an editor can be constructed to 
interpret higher order constructs, and Enigma certainly can - it does
so already with internal, helper functions, and scriptable functions
within the LUA tagged area.

As I emailed privately to Petr before seeing your response here:
The best that I can hope for if the XML tags aren't somewhat
enriched is an intermediate file format that allows for object building
and object and area transformations and persisting them
between editing sessions.  Objects shouldn't be
limited to just rectangular areas, but can be built by them.
Objects shouldn't be limited to floor/stone/items, but could
be filters of attributes of them.

I hope for the internal Enigma editor that an intermediate
file format is considered that will persist objects (meta-constructs,
not just "atomic" ones), for example allow the editor to
construct objects from unions and intersections of
rectangular areas.  

I realise some may never use or need such features,
and perhaps only use the type of layering mechanics that
ant.lua supports.  But those who do expect more from 
a graphical editor and are much more creative than me will
very much appreciate the power to manipulate multi-rectangular
constructed objects via select/control-select/drag-drop/cut/paste.

I went on to say that the rendering engine in Enigma beats
any external editor for "preview" - you can at any time try
the level and see it immediately, instead of waiting for
updates to the editor to follow the addition of new objects
in Enigma.

Erich, It wan't my intention to try to represent fractals in XML,
or any dynamic constructs (the LUA section of the XML format
allows for creations of functions and more complex things),
or even expect an external level editor to render them.
Any scripted functions in the LUA section would be left alone
by the simplest of editors and at best the editor could only
provide hooks and indicate a trigger is calling a function, or
an area is being generated by a function call or scripted section.

But simple sets of atomic constructs are managable by editors
and they could persist groupings to be later translated by slide,
flip, and rotate on the 90's in later editing sessions and tweaks.

I'm glad there's a lot of discussion on this, and knowing that
the ant.lua helper functions are so popular that BBE uses
them is very reassuring to have the ant_39 working on the
internal editor. 

Karen  "Pretzel"