View Single Post
TheDaR
Junior Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 10

Old May 31st, 2005, 11:10 PM
In no particular order:

I'd like to see a more practical orientation to the documentation. API references are fine, if you already fully understand the basics of operation and just want to know a particular attribute name or order of evaluation. However, if you're a first time data author, what you really want is a walk through of setting up a data file set, from start to finish. The template/minimal one is good, as far as it goes, but it's scattered all over the docs, and something with a bit more complicated features would be nice. An example of how to set up a semi-complicated exclusion/remainder, including all the various links and options, or how to do a unit like IG Sentinels from 40k, where child links are used to create sub-units which can have different options would go a long way to solidifying the concepts enough that you can then read the rest of the docs for the specifics.

Another thing I'd like to see is some "Best Practices" sections, which describe not the details necessarily of what to do, but why to do things certain ways, and when those ways won't work. A more detailed essay one what things should be units, what items, and what options without any child entity for example, and how to look at your game system and break it down appropriately. Like when it makes sense to create a "squad" unit versus using AB's squad mechanism.

On a functionality basis, the one thing I would most desire would be having ABCreator capable of following various links. I'd love to be able to start from the Unit list, click on an entry in the option list, follow it to the option section, where I can see there's a child item, and then click on that item and follow it back to the item screen.

There's a lot of little functionality improvements you could make in the interfaces in general. For example, editing an exclusion list entry on a link requires that you double click, type a 1 or 0, and then click elsewhere to get it to take. That could easily be a checkbox for each one. Likewise, selecting tags can be somewhat laborious, having to select first the tag group out of a drop down, then doing another drop down to get the actual value. Making the link table on a unit so you can toggle the various fields like 'visible' and 'selected' without having to open the link detail page would be a nice speed up. None of these are killer, but all in all it adds up to a lot of pointing and clicking that you could probably get away without.

More as I think of them.

-DaR
TheDaR is offline   #2 Reply With Quote