1165 replies to this topic

[-Hurricane-]

I'd like to make another suggestion for improving the usability.

When I'm looking at different types of resources one after another, I always find it tedious to use the navigation bar on the left to jump around in the file hierarchy. For instance, I open the item branch, then I select LEAT04.itm. The navigation bar is now a huge list of scrollable items, and I'm in the middle of it. Now I want to go to a different category, such as spells. In order to do that, I have to manually close the item branch so I can see the spell category again, or I can leave the item list open but I have to grab and move the scroll bar to get to the spells. I can't see the high-level categories when I'm viewing a file in the middle of a large file list.

Solution: Separate the display of the categories from the file list. Allow the user to see and select the categories at all times, regardless of which category is selected and which file is viewed. I'd imagine there could be two columns on the left instead of the single panel we currently have. Basically, cascading over two columns instead of branching within one column.

[Argent77]

When I'm looking at different types of resources one after another, I always find it tedious to use the navigation bar on the left to jump around in the file hierarchy. For instance, I open the item branch, then I select LEAT04.itm. The navigation bar is now a huge list of scrollable items, and I'm in the middle of it. Now I want to go to a different category, such as spells. In order to do that, I have to manually close the item branch so I can see the spell category again, or I can leave the item list open but I have to grab and move the scroll bar to get to the spells. I can't see the high-level categories when I'm viewing a file in the middle of a large file list.

Or you can open each resource in a new window (right-click on the resource in the navigation bar and select "Open in new window") to reduce the amount of navigation. Or you can open one resource, then open another resource, and then use the "Back" and "Forward" buttons at the bottom of the navigation bar to switch forth and back between the resources.

You can also use the keyboard to quickly collapse the currently expanded resource type by pressing the "Left" key twice while the navigation bar has the focus.

I'd rather not redesign the navigation tree unless there is a very good reason to do it. The navigation tree is a heavily customized component in NearInfinity and adding another level of navigation is an awful amount of work. It would also introduce new problems which have to be solved first. For example, savegame folders consist of subfolders, and theoretically you can put an (almost) infinite number of subfolder levels to any toplevel node of the navigation bar that points to an actual directory (e.g. "Characters", "Movies", "Music" or "Portraits").

There have to be other ways to improve usability which don't require as much work to realize. I can think of adding a popup menu entry for quickly collapsing the resource tree or some kind of quick search functionality. I'm open for suggestions.
 

[-Hurricane-]

Yeah, I had the feeling there was a reason no one had tried this already. It's just a suggestion I thought to put out there, but thanks anyway. Obviously you have already done more than enough for every NearInfinity user.

Or you can open each resource in a new window (right-click on the resource in the navigation bar and select "Open in new window") to reduce the amount of navigation. Or you can open one resource, then open another resource, and then use the "Back" and "Forward" buttons at the bottom of the navigation bar to switch forth and back between the resources.
You can also use the keyboard to quickly collapse the currently expanded resource type by pressing the "Left" key twice while the navigation bar has the focus.

I'm constantly using all of these three methods, believe me. I often find myself even pressing F5 just to get to the toplevel categories at fast as possible. It just would be so much easier if the categories were visible at all times.

[Mike1072]

Thanks for bringing up Back/Forward. I hadn't really noticed it before.

I often find myself in the same situation as Hurricane. The ability to collapse the entire tree via a button click or perhaps a convenient keyboard shortcut would provide some assistance. Hitting Left twice on the keyboard is not convenient because my left hand stays near ASDF for typing when using NI.

I'd rather not redesign the navigation tree unless there is a very good reason to do it. The navigation tree is a heavily customized component in NearInfinity and adding another level of navigation is an awful amount of work. It would also introduce new problems which have to be solved first. For example, savegame folders consist of subfolders, and theoretically you can put an (almost) infinite number of subfolder levels to any toplevel node of the navigation bar that points to an actual directory (e.g. "Characters", "Movies", "Music" or "Portraits").

 
Suggestion: if you were to implement something like this, the category list could act as a filter to a specific node on the tree. "All" would correspond to the root node and the tree view would look the same as it does now, "CRE" would correspond to the CRE node, so the tree would just contain its children, a flat list of .CRE files. "Music" would correspond to the Music node, so you would see the same tree structure that exists in this folder.

(I mentioned an "All" category in case the category list could be modified to exclude categories that are infrequently used.)

Edited by Mike1072, 24 November 2014 - 04:35 PM.

[Argent77]

I see what I can do, but I can't promise anything. The main problem is the close interaction of the navigation bar with the game id system of NearInfinity, which is very limited in its current design and contains a lot of hacks to support modern games. The best way to solve this (and many more) issue(s) would be the implementation of a new game id system, but this would be a huge undertaking for a single person as it defines the very foundation of NearInfinity. Small features such as the ones I mentioned in my previous post have a much better chance to be implemented.
 

The ability to collapse the entire tree via a button click or perhaps a convenient keyboard shortcut would provide some assistance. 

How about a toolbar on top of the navigation bar containing buttons for "Expand/collapse selected node", "Expand all" or "Collapse all"?

[Mike1072]

Sounds good.

[The Imp]

How about a toolbar on top of the navigation bar containing buttons for "Expand/collapse selected node", "Expand all" or "Collapse all"?

Could the toolbar also have a very simplified file finder(that's based only in file name and have previous, and next -buttons around it) ?

Edited by The Imp, 25 November 2014 - 04:11 PM.

[Argent77]

Update: NearInfinity v1.35.0-snapshot-20141202

Changes:

• Added a toolbar to the resource tree which provides easy expanding/collapsing of all or only selected folders and a quick search feature for finding specific resources.
• Improved Extended search: List boxes will autoselect matching items when you start typing (you need to pop up the item list to activate this feature). In many cases you can enter the symbolic name as well as the associated numeric value.
• Slightly shorter loading time of maps in the area viewer.
• Added two new fields to IWD:EE CRE resources.
• NearInfinity menu uses Mac-specific shortcut keys on Mac OS X.
• Lots of bugfixes

[Sam.]

Love the quick search!

[djc]

I can't set the value of "none" for scripts in .cre files. It is not written to the file. It was ok in snapshot 20141105.

[Argent77]

I can reproduce this issue. You can assign "None", but it doesn't seem to overwrite the previous value. I'll look into it.

As a work-around until I've fixed the issue you can do the following: Select and right-click on the field, select "Edit as string" from the popup menu and manually enter "None" into the field to overwrite the previous value.
 

[-Hurricane-]

Thank you for this update!

[Argent77]

Update: NearInfinity v1.35.0-snapshot-20141203

A bugfix release:

• Fixed a bug in resource reference fields where selecting "None" in the resource list didn't overwrite the original content.
• Fixed a bug in handling special cases of WAV resources.
• Invalid or unknown WAV resources won't disable the "Export" and "Find references" buttons anymore.

[Argent77]

Update: NearInfinity v1.35.0-snapshot-20141217

Changes:

• Added support for BG2:EE patch 1.3 improvements.
• Improved BAM resource viewer to support alpha transparency. It's mostly relevant for a number of xxxxC.BAM spell icons in the Enhanced Editions.
• Added proper home folder support for Linux versions of the Enhanced Editions.
• Several minor fixes.

[Solaufein]

Good job keeping this updated constantly. Wish other tools would recieve the same treatment, or updated for the EE games, or just have new tools altogether.

[Argent77]

Current versions of NI seem to have a problem with parsing the (non-)party characters in GAM files. NI just shows the first such character repeatedly instead of going through the list.

Can you be more specific? Which game is affect? Do you have a sample GAM file you can upload? (You have to be logged in to upload files in this forum, but you can also use an external file hosting service.)

Edited by Argent77, 22 December 2014 - 03:27 AM.

[The Imp]

Current versions of NI seem to have a problem with parsing the (non-)party characters in GAM files. NI just shows the first such character repeatedly instead of going through the list.

Can you be more specific? Which game is affect? Do you have a sample GAM file you can upload? (You have to be logged in to upload files in this forum, but you can also use an external file hosting service.)
 

I can answer this. It's definitely the Baldur's Gate (1+TotSC). The char's name all get to be null, see:


I checked the rest(IwD, BG2:ToB, BG1EE, BG2EE), and the BG1 is the only one that seems to be effected.

Edited by The Imp, 22 December 2014 - 03:56 AM.

[Argent77]

It looks like this is an issue since ancient NearInfinity v1.33 and is difficult to fix as the (non-player) character names are deeply hidden within nested structures. Unless I can find a better way, I'll probably handle it the same way as in PST.