a ingame wdl editor... i was thinking about how you can use the console... and then i thought"why not include a file then write to it with the console?"... then you could edit the file and stuff... then open new files to edit also...

but then i thought... the engine probably reads every file at the beginning so a file that is written to will not have a change in gameplay...

any thoughts?...

If you mean a debug panel like most programming languages use then you can!!!

You can set variable values using tab and typing the command in!!!

Is that what you mean???

i know about the console... i meant to be able to open up a document ingame and edit it... like say i was working on my buddies health... and it was too high... and the only way(in my game) you could edit his health form the console is by getting him to be you and then changing the health... but here was my idea...

it would probably be a window that contains the whole... you can scroll up and down... and you can edit the file... cause like sometimes you adjust one thing in a function... test it out ingame then exit and reload... but if you have a ingame editor then you could change it in the file then press refresh or something... and if theres a error then itll take you back to where you just were...

example: say i was trying to get two guys to react to each other... i want guy 1 to shoot at guy 2... and i want guy 2 to run away if he shoots back... lets say i was working on the running away... the first test he ran too fast... so i exit and change the script more... then reload the level and test it again... it works... now i want to change the shoot speed and add a random variable to tell what kind of weapon guy 1 has... ill have to exit and then return to thew game after the changes are made... it works... but that took awhile...

but if i had the Ingame Editor... then heres what would happen... id watch guy2 run away at a fast speed... id pause the game then open the editor(like youd open the console).. change guy2's run speed then close the editor and unpause... he is now running slower... now i want to add the random variable... i restart then pause and open the console... i add the variable and other things for guy1's weapon and then unpause... now guy1 has a rocket launcher... so it wouldnt take as long to change that stuff...

i could probably program it if i knew a way to have the game reread the wdls... is there one?...

That is definetly possible. WDL files are ASCII after all. Just use the file reading and writing functions and whatever panel trickery u want. The tricky part would be reloading tho, im not sure u could reload the wdl files without fully exiting the program then recompiling (running in WED) it.
Cuz i think the only time wdl files can be loaded is after they are compiled by WED. However if u just wanted to edit wdl files inengine still (altho the the amount of time it takes to write the code to do this would probably be way more trouble then its worth) that is possible.

this is just a biiiiiiiiiiig guess, but isnt there a feature in a5 which allows you to GOTO a specific line of code, if so wouldnt it be possible to use that to 'reload' a particular section of code.
Chris

If the script was interpreted, then you could pause, change, and continue.
However, the wdl file is compiled. You have to recompile the whole wdl file before the new file for the engine becomes effective.
I'm guessing, but I suspect the engine loads the compiled (object) wdl file into memory before it runs. And I doubt it looks back at the disk. Which is how A5 is able to run much faster than an engine that interprets scripts....
How do you reload a new compiled file? Build to compile, and then RUN. Which is what you are trying to avoid, I know.

I think you either get flexible, or fast.
I'll take fast....

hmmm... after thinkg about what you said i thought... could you like put everything into one big functuion then whenever you want just reload the funciton... or make a function to reload all your functions?...

maybe if you had a big array of strings...

I believe Branch is the goto command you are looking for.

I've been thinking about something like this for awhile. I think there's a way to get a version of what you're after.

What I'm planning to do is a write a function that reads in the contents of a text file, line by line, and does an execute() on each line (let's call it readAndExecuteFile). Each line of text will be a statement to set a value in some array, but there's no reason why you couldn't set regular variables this way also.

So, to take the original example, I would run my Acknex program in a window, see that Guy 2 is moving too fast, jump to my editor and change the speed value and save the file, come back to my Acknex window and hit the key or panel button to call the readAndExecuteFile function. What this assumes is that you've got some way to "rewind and replay" a particular moment in your program, or some other way of recreating those conditions that caused the action to occur.

So this would eliminate the need to exit, edit and recompile, but it doesn't all happen in the game window like you were talking about. Having an ingame editor would be great, but it would be a lot more work.

Having said this, I've never actually used the execute() function before. Anybody got any tips or gotchas on this one?