Message-Id: <199605072215.PAA29174@dfw-ix5.ix.netcom.com>
From: "Dark Shadow" <jdbaugh@ix.netcom.com>
To: "quake-dev@gamers.org" <quake-dev@gamers.org>,
Subject: RE: The GUI of Choice?
Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 17:45:03 -0400
> IMO, the gui makes or breaks an editor. In terms of newbies using an
> editor, only the best gui's will survive. Now die hards will write
> levels with an ascii editor, or will spend several hours learning the
> editor (like the original deus). So i am as eager as anyone to hear
about
> a gui if you have any suggestions.
>
> brian
I personally agree with that statement (GUI making/breaking an editor).
Part of the reason why current DOOM editors such as DCK, DEU for Win, and
to some extent Waded are so popular is because they offer a GUI interface
with organized menu structures and easy to use features. Personally I
really couldn't stand the early DEUs, but I loved the first one for
Windows.
Also, although people scream at me when I suggest vis-bas 4 pro for an
editor, the fact is that making a truly GUI-type, friendly interface is
really child's play using ANY version of VB. As for the shouts that VB is
slow as hell when compared to C++ etc (which is definitely true), external
DLL files can be used for the functions needing speed (as you might have
seen in earlier versions of Wintex which used LBWINTEX.DLL for external
wad hacking functions). One of the advantages of using the 32-bit edition
of VB is that it's much faster than its predecessors, and I think that it
would now be possible to write a decent editor and / or utility using VB
as an interface shell and using external DLL's for the actual hack and
slash of the wads.
Having said that, I've never really liked C/C++. Sure it's fast, but for
most people who aren't necessarily computer science doctorates, C has a
sharp learning curve. So we have to rely on a few geniuses in the field
of C to write programs that don't crash and run correctly <cough..DCK 3.x
is not an example!!> The best way to encourage development of good
editors and utilities, in my estimation, is for a few of you C gurus to
whip up some DLL's which cover basic needs for a utility, for instance, a
DLL which functions like Meddle. Then you get the VB people like myself
to write interfaces using those DLL's. So what's the result? The end
result is a easy to use while slower program, but which is more
advantageous? Speed, or ease of use? If you make a bad-ass editor that's
10,000x faster than what I wrote in vis-bas, sure, it's great, but only
you and the people you force-fed it onto :) will know how to use it. The
long lasting editors are the ones which combine all of the above (ease of
use, speed, etc) into one package, and don't advance one end (speed) at
the expense of the other (ease of use).
-j