Toolset workflow needs to be improved.
FinalStand
Member Posts: 87
The feedback cycle for working in the toolset is not optimal.
take this simple example of making a conversation with one script.
Create conversation, create script.
To test, you have to:
* Close script window.
* Close conversation window
* Save/build
* F9 to launch
* Test
* F4 + Enter (to close NWN)
If something is wrong
* go back, open conversation window.
* find your place in conversation
* open script
* find script
* make change.
* go though entire process again to test.
Compared to say NWN2 or other tools:
* Save
* Build/Run
* Test
* close NWN2
* Editor still has windows open so you can continue what you were doing.
Or even the blocking window is a pain in NWN. Say you need to do a simple lookup on a tag:
* Working on script
* Close all script windows (which would be dozen)
* Go into items
* Find item/tag
* re open all your script windows.
Streamlining this will make for better development which will make for better Mods and PWs which will draw in more players.
edit:
I just timed my self. If I want to change one variable in a conversation script, test, then change it back an retest then it took over 7 minutes on my computer. Compared to NWN2 which was about a minute. It's faster if I just do script it's self, but still more cumbersome then most environments. You shouldn't be forced to close all your work to do a simple test.
take this simple example of making a conversation with one script.
Create conversation, create script.
To test, you have to:
* Close script window.
* Close conversation window
* Save/build
* F9 to launch
* Test
* F4 + Enter (to close NWN)
If something is wrong
* go back, open conversation window.
* find your place in conversation
* open script
* find script
* make change.
* go though entire process again to test.
Compared to say NWN2 or other tools:
* Save
* Build/Run
* Test
* close NWN2
* Editor still has windows open so you can continue what you were doing.
Or even the blocking window is a pain in NWN. Say you need to do a simple lookup on a tag:
* Working on script
* Close all script windows (which would be dozen)
* Go into items
* Find item/tag
* re open all your script windows.
Streamlining this will make for better development which will make for better Mods and PWs which will draw in more players.
edit:
I just timed my self. If I want to change one variable in a conversation script, test, then change it back an retest then it took over 7 minutes on my computer. Compared to NWN2 which was about a minute. It's faster if I just do script it's self, but still more cumbersome then most environments. You shouldn't be forced to close all your work to do a simple test.
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Comments
On that note, just in general it would be great to be able to have multiple scripts and/or conversations open at once, possibly at the same time as having one or more creature/object Properties windows open. Allowing multiple editors (Conversations, Scripts, various Properties windows) to be open at the same time would make a lot of building tasks much quicker and easier. I can see setting some kind of hard limit on how many are open at once, but with today's common multi-core processors and much larger amounts of RAM than 00-era systems, a little bit more multi-tasking seems like a natural upgrade.