Shattered Kingdoms

Curious. But this has been on Smoochy's mind for a while. Is it possible for the Mud to install a better editor for our descriptions ingame? Not technically complaining, but it could get a little better, you think?

So far, the commands (.h) available allow very simple editing. While its nice that the input does accept large chunks of copied/pasted text (at a time), as well as the fact that you can likely make your desc as looooooong as you want it; the options for adjusting, organizing, and setting our descriptions leaves much to be desired.

Formatting (.f) is, of course, a necessity for eligibility. But Formatting always ALWAYs squishes separate paragraphs together, despite wither the paragraph is clarified with the appropriate break . Word Wrapping is a little off as well, but it can be worked around with proper coloring and word length...

The color code provide is pretty darn complicated as well. Not trying to encourage rainbow coloring, of course. Our color code is a foresight once you get the coloring done and over with.

Now, in all honestly, Smoochy comfortably writes a two paragraph description for characters. Smoochy loves her some desc writing!~♫ Along with colors, and a few fancy words, it looks great on Pad & Paper. However, once placed unto the editor, everything is misaligned. And..once the format command is applied, it forces some spaces and text to scatter and...disapprovingly....squishes all applied paragraphs together!

So far, the only option was to accept the editor as it was and rewrite our desc to read acceptably as a one paragraph description with few colors applied...

To be honest, though. This isn't a major problem for the majority of veterans here. But as a still somewhat new player, with prior experiences before SK, it would be kinda nice to adjust some little things here and there...an improved Desc Editor is likely the simplest change/suggestion on Smoochy's mind right now..

Some get around this by knowing that the line is 80 characters wide, by formatting everything to that width (THEN adding color codes) in Notepad before pasting it into the game, by using $A on a blank line for a space, and by not using .F after having followed those steps.

I agree it's clunky, but you can work with it if you want. I am not sure how hard it would be to code a change or how high on the priority list it might be, but the chalkboard in the Weighted Dice, the maps in the Amphitheater, and the honeycomb orb in Oakswarm are all proof that desirable formatting can be done.

I don't read long descriptions - especially if they are multiple paragraphs. If you can't describe a character in three to eight lines - you are doing it wrong.

Just sayin'.

Have also noticed if you try and .c more than once you get an awful lot of string errors, especially after an .f, if you continue to use the same sheet of paper to clean up a mistake. If some staffer wants to see a log of me repeating that glitch, I'd be happy if it meant someone would also be working toward improving it.

The string editor accomplishes the interesting task of editing a multi-line string within a line-by-line environment. TIMTOWTDI.

Formatting behaves more stable for line-breaks if you use the $n or $* or whatever it is. Have you given that a try?

The color code is pretty much straight-up ANSI with $ instead of ^[. There's a lot of terminal issues behind trying to get RGB or some other kind of add-on protocol going. I would much rather see the various bugs in VT mode fixed first.

I am not sure if many people are aware, but I find the commands .s and .a to be very useful in the description editor. I also use .r often. I didn't learn about .a until I became an Immortal, but I think that is just because it isn't documented as far as I know. .a shows the text with all color codes displayed instead of showing the actual color. .s of course shows text with the actual colors and does not display any color codes. .r is great for replacing anything up to a full line of text. I use the ' character on either side of anything more than a word. I could get on board with greater options here, but I have grown very comfortable with the description editor over the years. I am afraid of what bugs would have to be worked out for changing it. Its simple enough to use.

Also dont forget the $* command when formatting for a new line.
Ive never used it myself http://www.shatteredkingdoms.org/desc_editor Might need to cut and past things in a number of lines before the .f command but it might be the solution you are asking for.

Overall, I don't mind the editor, except when it is being grumpy and chucking string errors at me when I catch/attempt to fix a typo prior to posting.

The one huge thing I'd love to see though is a way to re-edit something before posting.

Thats cute an' all Finn. Heh. Really it is. But to be honest, not every player frequenting SK has origins from here. A lot of RP MUDs (while they do not exist in the SK forum or elsewhere) accept desc it different ways. Smoochy does agree that it is not a necessity. However, unless you're willing to volunteer, its difficult to kick a seven year old habit. And noooo offense~♥, but three or eight lines is not some universal standard regardless of weither you decide to read a desc or not..

Just sayin'...♫

As for the additional comments, some of the commands available aren't all that obvious. Guessing the color-code helpfile has more options that work with the editor? If so, its probably better to just practice with it a bit. But its a lot easier to just write in a Notepad and then allowing the Description Editor do all the work. A new one WOULD be nice though...

Depending on what terminal libraries the game has access to, it would not be too hard to implement a WYSIWYG editor.

It would be interesting to be able to save a certain number of strings and work on them whenever before importing them on whatever you're doing, like a room, a note, or a description. Something like a .import and .save function within the string editor. Even that much wouldn't need WYSIWYG, but it would ask for more storage space.