Re: [Adonthell-devel] Dlgedit 0.8pre1

[Kai Sterker]

On Tuesday 19 February 2002 21:15, you wrote:

> Just tested it. Although the list of ideas is good to me, I was unable
> to create any node. Mouse control are totally disabled. On the other
> hand, I have been able to load a dialog. Is it normal?

I would have been surprised if you had managed ;). As it is really a rewrite 
from the ground up, it takes a while before the old functionality is restored.
Most of the lowlevel stuff is done though, so I am beginning to readd the 
controls.

> I'd just add to make sure the editor doesn't need a game directory any
> more, with the ability to import character/quest files.

Yes. I'll definately do that.


> About the modularity, it sounds like a difficult thing to achieve. I'd
> say that if someone wants to isolate some nodes that can be considered
> as a part of the dialog, he can do it and make connections from his
> "subdialog" to the main part - there's no need to hide them. 

I don't know. I think a layer of abstraction (where a complete thread of the 
dialogue is represented by a single symbol) would help keeping a better 
overview over large dialogues.



> Dialog
> re-usability sounds interesting, but the only case when I can think of
> re-using a dialog is to re-use it completely. I mean, characters will
> have different ways to tell things, even if the message is the same.

Well, I can think of two cases:

A single character with multiple dialogues. Some of the main NPC's might have 
a number of dialogues another way to achieve modularity), but perhaps there 
are parts we want to have in more than one dialogue. If they are done as a 
module, they can be written once and integrated into all the other dialogues.

The other case is unimportant NPC's that have to react to some event in the 
game world. Instead of writing something special for each of them, it might 
be easier to have one (complex) module with a number of different reactions 
that can be added to their dialogue.


But that needs more thinking. I don't want to code something that will not be 
used in the end ;).

Kai