Rocks'n'Diamonds

Congratulations. ConfEdit is out!
And it looks very nice and usefull.
Nevertheless there should be a "Tools + Utilities" section in the forum.

Maybe you're right...

By the way, did anyone bother to look at the "About" under help? :-p

Holger wrote:Maybe you're right...

Does that mean that it will come soon, or does it mean that it will come some beautiful day, or that it's something we'll just have in our dreams?
I also think there should be such a section on this forum.

> Does that mean that it will come soon, or does it mean that it will come
> some beautiful day, or that it's something we'll just have in our dreams?

It means that the current forum has not less than 18(!) sections at the moment, where some games/software/topics that are much "bigger" than R'n'D only have a fraction of that number in their forums and work fine nevertheless, so I think it's wise *not* to add new sections without at least discussing a little if that new section is really needed. :-P

In other words: Before adding that section (which would take me less than five minutes), I want to hear the opinion of some other members if this forum needs *more* sections or maybe *less* sections than it has now.

If there is a consensus that I should add this new section, I will do so. If not, we should think about it again. (Maybe it's a good idea to throw out *two* sections for each *new* section as long as we have more than 10 sections? Just an idea. :-) )

> I also think there should be such a section on this forum.

OK, noted. :-)

Maybe *this* is finally a topic which makes sense for a poll?! :-)

And about ConfEdit itself:

> By the way, did anyone bother to look at the "About" under help? :-p

But yes of course! ;-) ;-)

Holger wrote:It means that the current forum has not less than 18(!) sections at the moment, where some games/software/topics that are much "bigger" than R'n'D only have a fraction of that number in their forums and work fine nevertheless, so I think it's wise *not* to add new sections without at least discussing a little if that new section is really needed.

Good point. Yes, 18 (or 17, depending on who's visiting ) sections is a bit too much.

The more or less unused/useless sections are:
Polls
Puzzles
R'n'D Documentation Project
Hiscores
Off Topic Polls
Testing Area
Forum Help & Tips
Recycled

My suggestion is the following:
Merge Off Topic Polls & Off Topic
Merge Puzzles & Game, Level, Graphic Designers (even though I really really like Puzzles! I hope this won't decrease the amount of puzzles made...)
Move the single Forum Help & Tips topic into R&D Announcements, making it Sticky and also changing all the old and outdated announcements there into Normal
Consider doing something with the Hiscores section... (merge with Game/Level/Graphic Designers? or delete totally?)
RnD Documentation Project is not frequently used, but it is a very important project which should not be forgotten in my opinion.. so that's why I don't suggest any removal of that section.

Would I be correct in saying that ConfEdit is missing options such as frames_per_line?

Can't say... Maybe yes...

-> Should be reported to Alan! :-)

Holger wrote:-> Should be reported to Alan!

@Alan: Would I be correct in saying that ConfEdit is missing options such as frames_per_line?

(just in case...I wonder why he doesn't post anything here on the forum?? but he might possibly be reading this, so I put this post here anyway...)

Well, there are other active members of the R'n'D community who do not use the forum, like Juergen Bonhagen...

For reporting ConfEdit related issues to Alan, you can always use his mail address on the ConfEdit section on my site ("Tools & Utilities" page).

@Alan: Would I be correct in saying that ConfEdit is missing options such as frames_per_line?

To be honest I've never ever heard of frames_per_line, nevermind use it.
Is this a new GIC command or is it just hidden well?

You can add it yourself if you like, just open up the ini file in \data and add it to the end of the list.

Alan wrote:Is this a new GIC command or is it just hidden well?

It's just hidden well.

I know about it because I looked in the source code to R&D.
This command is pretty self-explanatory.

Alan wrote:You can add it yourself if you like, just open up the ini file in \data and add it to the end of the list.

Unfortunately, without the source code, there's no way to make the graphics preview features use this. (Not that I use this option much anyway...)

Unfortunately, with the MicroChunks introduced in level files in R&D 3.2.0-8, the level preview feature doesn't work with newer levels

BTW -- In the level preview program, under the Info tab, where it says "Author:", on Alan's levels, there is a link that e-mails Alan. Can anybody put something in their levels to make that happen with their own e-mail or website? This appears to be even on BD2K3, before ConfEdit.

This appears to be even on BD2K3, before ConfEdit.

I went back in time.

Its just a simple text file, look in Data\links.ini. If the author name in the map matches one of these then it turns into a hyperlink. This works with games as far back as 1998.

I see. So you can't add yourself to the list by putting something special in a level file that Rocks 'n' Diamonds wouldn't notice.