0.8.5: Preliminary scripting

I’ve been sidetracked by various other concerns lately and gotten way behind on TURBU development, but here’s the update that should have been out about a month ago.  I’ve started working on developing event scripts, and I’ve created editor windows for the first few script commands.  There’s not much yet, but there will be more in the next update.  Hope you like it!

I’m laying out the script command selection window differently than RPG Maker did it.  Instead of several pages of grids of buttons in an arbitrary order that you have to memorize, the event script commands will be accessed through a tree control.  There will be several categories describing kinds of commands, and under each category is a group of individual commands.  For example, the “Messages” category contains all of the commands used for displaying or setting up a message box.  This should make event commands easier to find, especially the less-used ones.

So far, Messages is the only category I’ve got implemented.  I’m working on switch and integer variable operations, but they’re extremely complicated because they can include so many different things.  But they’ll go in a category called “Basics,” along with several other script commands that manipulate basic attributes of the game.  Changing graphics will go under “Graphics,” and so on.

Hopefully once I get Integer and Switch variable operations working, I can get the rest of them ready pretty quickly and get back on track with monthly updates.

Also, a quick note for anyone who wants to try to build TURBU from the source on Google Code.  In order to get event editors to work right, I had to add some code to the JvPlugin system in the JVCL.  I’ve submitted a patch to the JVCL maintainers, but it hasn’t been added to the official codebase yet.  You can find the patch here. You’ll need to apply it and rebuild JvPluginSystem.dpk for it to work.

EDIT: I accidentally posted a development build, not a release build, and it wouldn’t run unless you happened to have a certain Delphi debugging library installed.  I’ve corrected that, so if you’ve already downloaded 0.8.5, you’ll want to get it again.  Also, the new build includes the editor for switch variables.  (Still working on integer variables.)

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