Suggestions for organizing resources better - folders and file names

fot1

To organize better the areas, I suggest adding folder in the Area listing menu (left of toolbox). This means allow us to extend the area top level with sub levels, and move the areas to that levels.

(1) The interface for this could be right clickin in the Area keyword, and instead of "new", the menu list "new area" or "new group". Clicking on new group prompts the group name. After hitting ok, the group is show under area. Then we can drag-and-drop areas to a group (if drag and drop is too hard for this old technology, just add a select box on the area properties, and re-render the area listing properly).

This is only a presentational change, but will increase the life quality. I suggested it for Area, but I would love to see this for scripts and conversations as well.

(2) Optionally, if you feel that will be easier, remove the script and conversation name length description. This allow us to use "pseudo-folders" by having longer names. This is worst to use, and depending on how it is implementing harder to do, but again depending on the implementation can be a free feature.

(3) And last, add a similar option for the painting menu submenus (placeables, monsters, etc). Currently we have Custom 1, Custom 2... up to 5, which is not great since you can only have 5 categories. And sometimes you just created a new humanoid type (lets call it trump), and you want to group all your trumps under humanoid.

Sherincall

(1) is doable. If the toolset were a.. normal.. codebase, it'd be a day's work at most. But since anyone who tries to mess with the toolset meets a gruesome end, the devs will likely be very hesitant to do it.
Still, great request, shouldn't be too hard.

(2) is an immense amount of work to do without breaking backwards compatibility. The 16 character limit on resource names is deeply ingrained in the file formats.

(3) is already doable using a custom hak/tlk. CEP has its own categories, I think Project Q as well. You can make your own as well. This does mean your module needs a custom hak/tlk, but with the autodownloader coming that's much less of a problem than before.

fot1

Yeah, I agree that with the hak auto downloader (3) is not necessary. But if is two day development task, would be handy, because creating and modifying with a custom hakpack takes more effort than a right click in the menu, thus being a good usability feature. In comparision with area and script listing, it already support nested structures, so should be easier to hack around. If it is too hard, probably not worth.

shadguy

For 3, Hak is not necessary. Itp skeletons can live directly in your mod, and the toolset can refresh the palette based on the skeleton. Tlk is only necessary for custom itp folders to be visible in the dm client.

It might be nice to break the dm client dependency on Tlk and have it interpret the info in the itp unlocalized when tlk entries are missing. If we do make this stuff easier to customize, then I'll also suggest changing paletteid into a datatype capable of supporting more than 256 values.

Dave