Links in levelgroups

[Tomi]

It's very unfortunate that there won't be anymore features in 3.2.0 because this could be vary handy for the EMC levels collection (or just any *big* levels collection at all).

I'll try to explain with an example:
Let's say you know the name of the levelset you'd like to play, for example "REALLY EASY MINE". When choosing levelset, you enter "EMC LEVELS" (or however it's named), then you enter subgroup "ORDERED ALPHABETICALLY", then "R", then "REALLY EASY MINE".
Or, if you'd just want to play something easy, you could choose "EMC LEVELS", "ORDERED BY DIFFICULTY", "LEVELS FOR BEGINNERS", "REALLY EASY MINE".

However, the mine itself isn't contained twice in the levelsets directory structure, the "LEVELS FOR BEGINNERS" just links to it in its config file, like this:

Code: Select all

link.1:     emc_collection/alphabetically/r/really_easy_mine

It's a bit similar to symbolic links at unix systems.

[edit] fixed grammatical error(s)

[Holger]

> It's very unfortunate that there won't be anymore features in 3.2.0

Well, it depends. It also has strong advantages. The main advantage is that version 3.2.0 will be released before christmas. Christmas 2009, I mean. ;-)

[idea about level links]

This is a very good idea! In fact, it's nearly identical to an idea I have on my "IDEAS" list for quite some time.

My version of this idea is a bit more generic and does not require manually defining links in config files. In contrast, it will use generic properties and build alternative trees from it. An example for this: Imagine the following "levelinfo.conf" file for a specific level set:

name: Cool Level Set
author: Tomi
difficulty: medium
year: 2006

With these (or similar) information (which partially already exists), you can now automatically build different trees, like these:

- sorted by author, then by year, then by name
- sorted by year, then by author, then by name
- sorted by difficulty, then by author, then by name

On the topmost level selection screen, you may then have the following choices:

- classic view (sorted by tutorial/classic/converted/contributions/private)
- author view
- year view
- difficulty view

These top level entries then step down into the corresponding tree.

The more levels are available for R'n'D, the more there is a need for some structured, sorted access to them with different sort methods.

This is on a very high position of my "IDEAS" list, and would nearly have found its way into 3.2.0. It will probably be added in 3.2.1 or 3.2.2, but almost definitely before the next major release after 3.2.0.