I hope that Alex, in his copious spare time, puts an editor within QDK.

In the meantime, what is/are the recommended editor(s) for ASL? I'm a Notepad user myself. However, I've seen others recommend Notepad++ and others.

In looking at Notepad++, it apparently has a way to format the code depending on what language the source is. Do you know which one of these is the best for ASL?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Alf

Textpad, as Alex has done a syntax highlighting file for it. I believe there is a text editor currently in QDK 4.0 though, but I hope it will be a bit more improved.

Hi, GameBoy. Thanks for the reply. I've been researching editors, and am looking at Textpad now. I don't see any addons for it for ASL, but if Alex has made one maybe he'll let us know. It does have addons for other languages, autocomplete, etc.

Notepad++ also supports addons, fold-ups, etc. I experimented with it some yesterday on creating an addon for ASL. I couldn't get it to work properly on the foldup, as the way in which it wants you to identify the blocks doesn't exactly fit the way that ASL game blocks are defined. The biggest advantage is in its being free. TextPad we have to pay for.

The ideal editor will also allow the insertion of clips of code, such as complete game blocks, autocomplete, and foldups.

So, while we're waiting to see what Alex whips up for us, I'll keep looking.

Any other opinions?

Alf

There's a syntax highlighting file for TextPad here:

http://www.axeuk.com/quest/developer/utilities.htm

It's a little old though - last update shortly after the release of Quest 3.0, so it will have a few keywords missing.

Many thanks, Alex. I'll give it a try. - Alf

After looking at several editors (free and purchased), I purchased UltraEdit. It has the most customizable interface of any. In just a few hours, I was able to make a quite workable interface for ASL. The biggest hurdle was code folding. Since ASL uses the same ending string, "end define", for each code block, it kept confusing the editor. Too, things like nested IFs are somewhat problematic. But now, I have a workable editor - not just for ASL but pretty much any source code/text file. Not perfect - workable.

My next goal with it is to have a workable code snippet library. I don't mind opening another file to copy/paste code snippets from. It's just easier when the IDE handles it for you. If UltraEdit handles it well enough, I'll let y'all know.

I like the QDK. It makes the initial creation of a game easy. All the basic stuff is ready to go. However, when it comes time for more in depth stuff, I like to see all the code at once - primarily with nested IFs, and conditionals of more than one level. That's one area that I hope Alex can expand a bit in future releases of Quest.

So, I hope my research helps others.

Alf

Edited: Using UltraEdit, I was easily able to add a tag file and a template file. I added the usual stuff to the tag file (command, define room, etc.). I added a template for define room, define object. Everything appears to work as expected.

A few years ago (it's been way to long), Ste/Zelimos/GameBoy created a program called ASL Editor, specifically made for editing ASL files. It had all sorts of cool functions and even had color coding or whatever you want to call it. Used to have it, no idea where it resides now. Ask GameBoy about it.

... Actually that was me .

I think I have the VB code around here (VB6) if someone wants to take it on.

I didn't like the way it went through the whole list of possible colour coding though, and I was going to start on having a simple room/object creator to save typing in everything (which would basically add in the bare-bones).

I got a B in computing with that project! .. Didn't quite get an A because it "didn't work" - which meant - didn't have all the features in I said it would.

i would love to get a copy of that if you can still do that

Lol. I use textpad, ther's a free download and only about once a day does it say 'come buy the expensive version' I jsut press no and get on with my programming. lol.

I use notepad++.. Very nifty tool for windows!
Wish there was an equivalent for Linux. Instead I use gvim quite a bit, which is quite lightweight..
I also use kate, kwrite and the other KDE writing utility thing. Kate only for C++ stuff tho.

actually, if someone could write a color-syntax thingy for KWrite, that would be a big help

I always used KWrite as well, even though I had OpenOffice.Org. What distro are you using, 007Bond?

I used Mandriva Linux for 9 months.
Then my brother decided he wanted windows back on the computer, so I tried to make a dual boot system. I ended up corrupting the linux boot record, so I need to reinstall linux.
But yeah, Mandriva Linux 2006.

I mostly experimented with Slackware as different versions were released (9.1 through 11) although I was testing PhoeNUX (unreleased, but with a nice repos.) PhoeNUX is Mandriva based as far as I remember.

BAH! I speet on your Mandriva!

Ever since mandriva changed my disk details and 'extended' it by 10 gigs (making me loose a data partition) I've never forgiven it.
.. Plus I never thought it was as nice as the other distro's.

OOo takes alot longer to load than Kwrite, and is mostly if you want MS office/proper writing stuff.
I mostly use Gvim now to do ASL.
Kate is good to organize the files, good formatting of C++ code and it has a nifty bar at the bottom to actually compile/run the programs.