Item Editor Suggestion
Ok, so I have an idea for a large revamp on the single item edit portion of GeorgeS' Item Editor. I hope you don't have a problem with me making this suggestion. I think your tools are all amazing. I was trying to think of a way to improve the editing of single items, and this is what I came up with to replace the window that opens with you click the "Edit Item" button:
http://stormhavenserver.com/download...tem_Editor.jpg I know it would mean a complete rewrite of that part of the tool. And I am sure that would take a while. The way it works now is good, but I think it would be a bit better if it was setup where you could view all of the information on an item at once. The screen is very packed (I made this in photoshop quickly), but it gets all of the information in there. I think it would look much better if the fields were all aligned on the right side of each column. I also think that slightly changing the font color for each section would help with breaking it up a bit to be easier to read and find what you are looking for. I did a complete organization of the item fields so that they are all grouped into sections relating together (as apposed to having them placed randomly). Here is the organized list of every field in the Items table with notes: Code:
Name - (Field Name) #Mousover Notes %%Pull Down Select Option //If Name is the same as Field Name, then there are no Parenthesis Let me know if you have any questions or other suggestions on this. Or, if this is something that you don't want to do for the tool. I understand that this would be a fairly major undertaking, and wouldn't blame you. Like I said, your tool is already great as it is. |
This would be pretty cool. I think you could get rid of some of the less used ones though to get rid of the clutter.
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well if plan to have everything on one page, don't forget haste and deities. (you could have TABS on the top and swith betwen section which would hold related things)
also, if George goes along with this I would STRONGLY recomend that he does not scrap the current editor view, but rather have an "alternative view" button, so people can swith to which ever form is easier for them to work with |
Haste is already on there and I already made a note about deities not being on the main screen.
I do think it would be nice if there was a way to separate some of the sections without making it require too many clicks. The idea is to minimize having to scroll around, open other windows, and the least clicks possible to make changing items as quick as possible. Most of the fields that are rarely (or never) used could get moved to another page. But, it would be nice to have as many as possible all in 1 screen. |
Wow - I must have missed this post. That's a pretty neat way of showing all the necessary fields!
I can do that in an upcomming version, but I will keep the current single edit one alive for now. You'de be amazed how many bugs I can introduce with fast changes. I'll see what I can do. GeorgeS |
aya, if you do this- do not scrap the current view - simply make a DIFFIRENT layout button to open alternative window so we chose between the layouts
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I briefly mentioned it in the first post, but I wanted to note again that it might be easier to read if the text was colored slightly different for each section (all light so they are easy to read still). Most of the rows contain more than 1 "section" in them, so I figured I would break them down the way I imagine they should be here. Probably the best way to do this would be to alternate between 2 colors back and forth. Maybe white and a light grey or something east to read on your background.
Here is what it might look like: Code:
Row 1: Also, instead of making another window with all of the misc ones that won't fit on the main page, you could just leave your horizontal scroll bar in there like you have on the normal window in the current editor. The one that has all of the fields listed in it. Thanks for checking this out and huge thanks for deciding to give it a try! I know you already have a ton of work on your plate and you already do so much for this community. I imagine that getting this working will be a fair amount of work, and I feel bad even asking it of you, but I really do think it will help out the tool's usefulness considerably. Some of the server ops I know still use old tools for item editing even though they use yours for everything else. Hopefully this will make a few people who are reluctant to switch over more willing to give it another shot. I am excited about the changes you have done lately and about this one getting done. I know this will make the it much easier for me to make the custom items I am planning to start working on soon. |
I briefly mentioned it in the first post, but I wanted to note again that it might be easier to read if the text was colored slightly different for each section (all light so they are easy to read still). Most of the rows contain more than 1 "section" in them, so I figured I would break them down the way I imagine they should be here. Probably the best way to do this would be to alternate between 2 colors back and forth. Maybe MediumTurquoise and a light grey or something east to read on your background.
Here is what it might look like: Code:
Row 1: Also, instead of making another window with all of the misc ones that won't fit on the main page, you could just leave your horizontal scroll bar in there like you have on the normal window in the current editor. The one that has all of the fields listed in it. Thanks for checking this out and huge thanks for deciding to give it a try! I know you already have a ton of work on your plate and you already do so much for this community. I imagine that getting this working will be a fair amount of work, and I feel bad even asking it of you, but I really do think it will help out the tool's usefulness considerably. Some of the server ops I know still use old tools for item editing even though they use yours for everything else. Hopefully this will make a few people who are reluctant to switch over more willing to give it another shot. I am excited about the changes you have done lately and about this one getting done. I know this will make the it much easier for me to make the custom items I am planning to start working on soon. |
Alot of space can be saved by using a CheckedListBox
all the classes can be put in one, races in another, deities in another, and actually alot of the YES/NO options can be contained in another. just my $0.02 |
The CheckedListBox can also be expanded on enter, and shrunk on leave so that it has more viewable area when it's being used - making it less of a pain to view a large list.
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I'm working on a class which does the expand contract stuff - but thanks for the code in the pm.
So far I've managed to place all the fields on a 1024x768 form, and am now working on making it actually work. GeorgeS |
Just an update - the new edit item form is 1/2 done. It reads all item data, and displays the info like trevius' form above. The only thing left is to be able to write the data back to the database.
GeorgeS |
I managed to complete about 1/2 of the program edit. So far it will read the items, but save is not begun. So far about 16 hours in and 1/2 way done..
The new edit button is "new edit". There are likely many issues still with this - and when you consider the complexity of this, I will be spending some time on fixing things. http://66.159.225.58/eqemu/edit_preview.jpg The latest version has this included. GeorgeS |
Wow, I knew this would take a while to do, and sorry about the extra work lol. But, HOLY COW THAT LOOKS AWESOME! I will start testing this immediately!
Thanks a million, GeorgeS! |
Impressive
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