Essentials PBS 'Editor' (Lost all the code. Project's over.)

[Cilerba]

My turn, Maruno! :D

Lately I've been working on something I feel you guys will either find incredibly useless, or incredibly useful. I present to you.. my PBS Editor! Here have some screenshots.







Right now I've only gotten the items.txt finished. pokemon.txt is kind of a huge WIP. I do plan on adding support for more than those three.
Another thing, the PBS Editor doesn't actually edit the .txt files (yet, maybe), it just generates new .txt files with the info you put in. You'll have to paste the info into your game's PBS files. I'm definitely open to suggestions/thoughts so fire away! As soon as I stop being lazy and playing Minecraft, I'll get to finishing it up and releasing it.

[Maruno]

That thread name could be confusing. At least mine is literally about what I'm doing for Essentials (which could be all manner of things), whereas yours is probably just about this editor and is therefore non-descriptive. Plus, y'know, mine was here first!

I like this. I've never liked the Editor in Essentials, and if I was an utter code wizard, this is exactly one of the things I'd create. I like the item icon being shown, which I presume is the icon of the item currently being created (if it exists) and not just filler.

If I were you, I'd make it look more like RMXP's Database. That is, have a list of all defined <things> on the left (and an "Add New" at the bottom), and the input boxes on the right. If possible, there would be tabs/buttons along the top for each kind of <thing> so you can flick between editing them. This is for when you can load PBS files, of course.

It would also be nice to have more of the fields be drop-down boxes (i.e. the move, ability and pocket fields, plus whatever others aren't in the screenshots), so that you can only choose from existing <things>. Remember to include a "none" option. Maybe even hide the TM item's move field if the item isn't defined as a TM/HM. Again, this is for when you can load PBS files (but you can still do the pockets now).

The internal names could be filled in automatically, derived from the <thing> names, but are able to be modified if desired. This should probably check the internal names of other <things>, and automatically add a number on the end of the current <thing>'s derived internal name to make sure it doesn't clash. When saving, check for internal name clashes and refuse to save if there are any.

In terms of how you could expand on this, anything currently defined by a PBS file is fair game.

[Cilerba]

That's actually not the icon of the item being created, but I like that idea so it will be. Making it look like RMXP's Database is actually a good idea because I currently hate the layout of the program now.

The reason for not having a lot of drop-down boxes is because people may have custom abilities, types (Might change the types to be textboxes), etc.

And I just might do that to the internal names textboxes. Thanks!

[Maruno]

If you eventually expand this to include editing the abilities, types and so on, and you can load existing PBS files to do so, then any custom things the player wants to make can be done within your program. The drop-down boxes can list whatever's in the PBS files (more correctly, whatever data has been loaded/modified by the program), i.e. including custom things. I'm imagining creating a new ability in the Abilities tab, then going to the Pokémon tab, choosing a mon and giving it the new ability (like how the RMXP Database works).

I'm assuming here that you want your program to eventually cover everything and be as powerful/useful as it can be. If you don't want to go that far, then fair enough, disregard most of my previous comments.

If the appropriate item icon doesn't exist, show item000.png instead and make a little message saying you need to create the icon.

You could do the same for Pokémon, i.e. have a gallery of sprites/icons/footprints for the currently selected species. Just the basic ones are needed, though; you can forget about forms or gender differences or Shadowness - just show normal, shiny, normal back and shiny back, plus the icon and egg icon (usually the default one), plus the footprint.

The choice of Pokémon colors should be more vibrant, I think. They're all rather dull at the moment.

Are you including checks to make sure all the mandatory information exists before allowing it to be saved? I think a <thing> should be considered to exist (i.e. it needs putting in a PBS file) if it has a name/internal name set; if not, it can be ignored even if other information for that <thing> has been input.

A Pokémon's growth rate probably belongs with the rest of its stats.

[LenSho]

Oh God, this looks extremely helpful, especially for a noob like me. I can't wait to try it out :­D

[Seth Pegasus]

This is great! It will make things a little easier for me.

[koby12]

This looks pretty great. It will be helpful with adding fakemon into someones game.
Keep it up!

[~JV~]

This is looking really good! However, I never minded adding pokémon and items through the notepad files. For me the most boring thing in entire essentials is making a list ok pokémon to EACH TM/HM. If I had enough skills right now to make a nice interface that made that easier it would be the first tool I would make... Well, maybe soon enough I'll get enough knowledge in college to do that.

[FL .]

Nice! More quickly and intuitive than Essentials Editor!

Originally Posted by Cilerba

Another thing, the PBS Editor doesn't actually edit the .txt files (yet, maybe), it just generates new .txt files with the info you put in. You'll have to paste the info into your game's PBS files. I'm definitely open to suggestions/thoughts so fire away! As soon as I stop being lazy and playing Minecraft, I'll get to finishing it up and releasing it.

This detail can annoys!

I agree with Maruno suggestions.

[Cilerba]

I'd love to make it edit actual PBS files but I have no idea how to go about doing that. This is kind of my first real program so I'm sort of learning as I go on.

[hansiec]

Originally Posted by Cilerba

I'd love to make it edit actual PBS files but I have no idea how to go about doing that. This is kind of my first real program so I'm sort of learning as I go on.

Easy one:

Ruby Example:

# to retrieve
def get_item(item)
 array = IO.readlines("PBS/Items.txt")
 return array[item]
end

# to edit
def edit_item(item, data)
  array = = IO.readlines("PBS/Items.txt")
  array[item] = data
  file = File.open("PBS/Items.txt", 'wb')
  for i in 0..array.length-1
    file.write(array[i])
    file.writeln()
  end
  file.close
end

Sorry if this is wrong, but this is how I remember Ruby IOs to work. In the end run you will still need to convert the data somehow. Yes I know this is useless as of you are coding this in c++ probably, I just put it out there as an example of how the basis can go towards

[FL .]

My Ruby test that write and read files:

def testIO 
  file_name="testIO.txt"
  array=[]
  1000.times do
    array.push(rand(100000))
  end
  p "array",array
  output=""
  for i in 0...array.size
    output+="\n" if(i%10==0 && i!=0)
    output+=sprintf("array[%03d]=%05d ",i,array[i])
  end
  out=[]
  open(file_name,"w"){|f| f.write(output)}
  open(file_name){|f| out=f.readlines(output)}
  array_final=[]
  for m in 0...out.size
    column=out[m].split(" ")
    for n in 0...column.size
      data=column[n]
      data.slice!(0,11)
      array_resposta.push(data)
    end
  end
  p "array_final",array_final
end

Also take a look in Compiler script section (a little complex). An expert can even manage to left the comments untouched.

[Ivee]

This will be a godsend for someone like me, who's very visual (I have trouble focusing and finding where I am in the text files). A suggestion for Pokemon height/weight is to show both standard and imperial. I agree with Maruno on making the color choices more saturated, too. Will you also display location, like Field, Rough Terrain, Water's Edge, etc?

Awesome job, thank you for creating these!

[IceGod64]

I like the looks of this!

How does it work in terms of reading data? Does it go in the root folder of your project and just know where to look from there? Or is it just a builder?

[Cilerba]

Originally Posted by IceGod64

I like the looks of this!

How does it work in terms of reading data? Does it go in the root folder of your project and just know where to look from there? Or is it just a builder?

Taken from the first post:

Originally Posted by cilerba

Another thing, the PBS Editor doesn't actually edit the .txt files (yet, maybe), it just generates new .txt files with the info you put in. You'll have to paste the info into your game's PBS files.

[IceGod64]

Ah, I see. This would still be extremely handy to have around. A windows GUI is easily faster than pressing up, down, left, and right multiple times just to define a 2-digit number, and there isn't even a way to create Pokémon currently without messing with Pokemon.txt (Which, granted, isn't all that bad, but it's scary for a newbie).

[Maruno]

Have you made any progress with this? What language are you writing this app in? It would be nice to include it in Essentials, providing it does enough useful things.

[Cilerba]

I took a break from working on Pokémon and Items, and I started working on encounters. Not much to show but I'll try and get a screenshot out as soon as possible. VB.NET is the language.

[Cilerba]

I've now got creating Pokémon and items fully working, and I'm finishing up encounters right now. Here's a screenshot of how it looks:

[IceGod64]

Looking great Cilerba! I can't wait to try it out!

[ppooookkkkkkk]

It will be a peace of cake now to add fakemons items

[Cilerba]

Don't worry guys! I haven't abandoned this. I ran into a bit of trouble with the encounters and saving to encounters.txt. Rather than delaying the first release to figure out how I'll finish encounters, I'm going to add metadata, and/or trainers. I'm hoping to get the first release out no later than the end of december.

[Rayquaza.]

This is why I should visit the pokemon essentials subforum more often!