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January 30: Phase 1 Close .. (Download: Zircon Beta #87)

Have most of everything I wanted to do for Zircon User-Interface QuakeC API Phase 1 done ... and it does more than initially planned.

January 29: Context Menus (Download: Zircon Beta #87)

Right-clicking on things brings up context menus that allow a more fine-tuned action on something.

Case in point, in the File Open Dialog ... I want to be able to delete junk files I don't want any more.

Finished 95% of it, but walking through how I want it to interact with QuakeC took some meditation. The final 5% is positioning and sizing and then getting a nice example to show = no pics just yet.

Pictured: Phase 1 won't have a silver bullet to dramatically simplify inventory system user-interfaces. That is in a very likely Phase 2. It is possible Phase 2 happens and completes in February, but considerations for Phase 2 need to happen after Phase 1 is done.

Pictured above: A very comprehensive CSQC inventory system -- the supporting code is an absolute behemoth. The pictured inventory system encodes and decodes inventory from a string, transports across levels and save games and works in multiplayer and is exclusively controlled by the server -- supports drag dropping of items, some items like coins will stack, and extra storage (remove the backpack, storage slots = less). I do not like large and complex code, but even now haven't quite had the "Eureka" moment to figure out how to get it to collapse into simplicity, but I want to do such.

January 28: Encoding "Fun" (Download: Zircon Beta #87)

Have a system in place that stores lists, but values are quoted and there is a list separator delimiter that is usually a comma. Then you have the issue, how to put quotes and commas into a list and have it encode if those have special meaning.

So I detect that case and encode the list using base64 resulting in no commas or quotes ... MSxzdHVmZiAsMiwCICwzLHN0dWZmIA==

Not sure if there isn't a "better" way to do it, but it works. Now on to actually important stuff I want to be working on, because NO ===> I do not want to working on the inner mysteries of text parsing.

Take a stake, jam it into Dracula and move on ...

January 27: The Twilight Zone (Download: Zircon Beta #87)

Continuing refinement of User Interface API -- excellent is simply not good enough and re-wrote a redesign of some of the interface aiming for as close to perfect as possible.

The reason "excellent" is not good enough ==> will permanently have this interface as "how to do things easy" and will have code using it.

"Form Systems" take the complex and make it easy -- hiding the complexity behind a veil of simplicity.

Reworked the API to reduce the number of lines of QuakeC by about half in some cases -- and from several lines to a single line in some other cases.

It's Dungeons Or Bust Time (Download: Zircon Beta #87)

The goal is that by the end of February to have a full-fledged "Dungeon Experience" mod completed.

Supporting this is the Zircon User-Interface API for Client Side QuakeC ... which is still in progress but closing in to the goal.

Zircon User-Interface API makes -- otherwise impossible -- largely text based user-interfaces available to QuakeC that can be heavily customized and in the future should allow some fun otherwise impossible mods to exist.

Meanwhile .. don't forget to enjoy Q.U.A.L.K.E.R. 0.4: