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Author Topic:   ASL Editor...

Computer Whizz posted 26-04-2003 03:57 BST
Hey guy's,
Just posting to tell you that I have the first version of my ASL text-editor.
It *should* work if you have Quest installed, if not then I'm sorry!
I've made it so it works from any folder (the settings file is basically the same as the Default... Default created when file not found!), no shortcuts or registry settings are made.
There may be some issues about memory usage - but I don't see that since I have 128Meg RAM with a 1GHz processor and it has run perfectly 100 times without crashing.
Might be slow colouring large files, if you have ALOT of defined words for highlighting, in the second case it will also slow down your typing down too (if you type "<" then you'll see what I mean). This effect is multiplied on slower machines!
I will add a setting to turn this off later on. You may also want to be careful when editing the settings file - I have put in some simple error-detection code, but if you miss a setting out completely (ie remove the line "Qlocation = ...") then it won't pick it up.
It's freely downloadable from www.roxor.freeserve.co.uk/ASLEditor.zip I have checked the url I have written before posting this time : )
Note: the file HAS to be "ASLEditor.zip", not "asleditor.zip" ect...
Al - if you can't download it, just ask and I'll e-mail it to you if you wish.
As it is my first release version there's much more to go - for example; custom text blocks adding (ie a line you use VERY often, you can custom make), definition block adding (ie a "Define Room" block adding), a variable / procedure / function list creation (I find myself constantly moving about trying to remember variable names).
I have achieved alot in the past week, and any suggestions based on what I've done (hopefully before Sunday) would be nice!
Any further idea's are very welcome.
Any error's you find, and how you create them would be very welcome!
Computer Whizz
Alex posted 26-04-2003 11:23 BST
I've not looked in much detail but a couple of things I've noticed:
The "Browse" button to search for the Quest EXE file doesn't fill in the "Quest File" box after you've selected the file.
If you've got a game open and want to create a new game, you have to click File, then Close, which is a little unintuitive - I expected to find a File | New menu item, but there isn't one.
A tip for you if you want to implement highlighting of ASL keywords but don't want to trawl through the manual looking for them - the QUEST.DAT file in the Quest directory contains the whole list. Just ignore lines beginning with a "#" or "!", then you just need to remove the bit of the line after the semicolons and voila, a list of keywords. You could either turn this into your own keywords list file, or just open QUEST.DAT and parse it straight from the Quest directory.
Alex posted 26-04-2003 11:29 BST
Another thing I just thought of is that if you shell the ASL file itself, Quest will automatically run it, so you don't need the option to find QUEST.EXE anyway. That's how QDK does it.
Computer Whizz posted 26-04-2003 12:54 BST
Ah, cheers!
A 'New' menu selection would basically be the same as 'Close' BUT I can see the attractiveness of the 'New' and will add it.
I'll probably add in an importer for Quest.dat, thanks for the info on that...
And cheers for the info on launching the games - should make it easier!
Computer Whizz

Author	Topic: ASL Editor...
Computer Whizz	posted 26-04-2003 03:57 BST Hey guy's, Just posting to tell you that I have the first version of my ASL text-editor. It should work if you have Quest installed, if not then I'm sorry! I've made it so it works from any folder (the settings file is basically the same as the Default... Default created when file not found!), no shortcuts or registry settings are made. There may be some issues about memory usage - but I don't see that since I have 128Meg RAM with a 1GHz processor and it has run perfectly 100 times without crashing. Might be slow colouring large files, if you have ALOT of defined words for highlighting, in the second case it will also slow down your typing down too (if you type "<" then you'll see what I mean). This effect is multiplied on slower machines! I will add a setting to turn this off later on. You may also want to be careful when editing the settings file - I have put in some simple error-detection code, but if you miss a setting out completely (ie remove the line "Qlocation = ...") then it won't pick it up. It's freely downloadable from www.roxor.freeserve.co.uk/ASLEditor.zip I have checked the url I have written before posting this time : ) Note: the file HAS to be "ASLEditor.zip", not "asleditor.zip" ect... Al - if you can't download it, just ask and I'll e-mail it to you if you wish. As it is my first release version there's much more to go - for example; custom text blocks adding (ie a line you use VERY often, you can custom make), definition block adding (ie a "Define Room" block adding), a variable / procedure / function list creation (I find myself constantly moving about trying to remember variable names). I have achieved alot in the past week, and any suggestions based on what I've done (hopefully before Sunday) would be nice! Any further idea's are very welcome. Any error's you find, and how you create them would be very welcome! Computer Whizz
Alex	posted 26-04-2003 11:23 BST I've not looked in much detail but a couple of things I've noticed: The "Browse" button to search for the Quest EXE file doesn't fill in the "Quest File" box after you've selected the file. If you've got a game open and want to create a new game, you have to click File, then Close, which is a little unintuitive - I expected to find a File \| New menu item, but there isn't one. A tip for you if you want to implement highlighting of ASL keywords but don't want to trawl through the manual looking for them - the QUEST.DAT file in the Quest directory contains the whole list. Just ignore lines beginning with a "#" or "!", then you just need to remove the bit of the line after the semicolons and voila, a list of keywords. You could either turn this into your own keywords list file, or just open QUEST.DAT and parse it straight from the Quest directory.
Alex	posted 26-04-2003 11:29 BST Another thing I just thought of is that if you shell the ASL file itself, Quest will automatically run it, so you don't need the option to find QUEST.EXE anyway. That's how QDK does it.
Computer Whizz	posted 26-04-2003 12:54 BST Ah, cheers! A 'New' menu selection would basically be the same as 'Close' BUT I can see the attractiveness of the 'New' and will add it. I'll probably add in an importer for Quest.dat, thanks for the info on that... And cheers for the info on launching the games - should make it easier! Computer Whizz