I've been told that some mapmakers don't use comments. The reason being that they can cause trouble with scmdraft apparently, something I havn't come across, and also that they waste strings, which usually isn't a problem. I personally would go nuts without comments. I don't understand why people would want to make a complex map without them. I heard that Lesk and Tuxlar don't use comments... Sounds strange to me. I've used them for every serious production beyond Solarball. What do you all think about them?

I make maps without comments. I just use well commented javascript to output the text for triggers and I put it into SCMD using the trigger editor that it originally came with. Hence, I do not use comments for my triggers.

Comments also take up strings, which are very valuable since you can only use 1024 strings while still create a safe map.

Whoever told you I don't comment is wrong. I comment almost all of the time.

One of the reasons for not commenting is that it allows you to see the actions/conditions. That's one of the reasons I have agreed with at times when I did not comment. However, currently in my own maps I don't find it necessary to be able to see what the actions/conditions are.

My comments mainly consist of a never comment header followed by a bunch of blank comments, if there are several triggers related to doing one thing. However, if there are unique triggers that do something specific that would easily get lost in a bunch of blank comments, I just comment that with a one word description.

The main reason I comment is because it saves space, and makes it easier to look at in classic trigedit. Being able to see the individual actions/conditions in each trigger without opening the trigger is only marginally useful. I find the organizational benefits of commenting to be more useful.

I comment them with names when I'm working on them, and then delete the text (Blank comment) when the system works fully. Before I would simply comment everything, but then it would be rather hard to decipher what needed to be worked on, and what was finished. (I tend to have big gaps in map making, where I set something aside and forget about it.)

In short Comments rock. (Although I still wish there were folders in the trigger editor.)

Arguing whether to comment or not is like arguing which side of your toast to butter or which end of the egg to crack.

I rarely comment, but some people are comment-whores and have a comment on every single trigger, which IMO makes them more annoying to look at, since you cannot see the actions without going into the trigger. Comments, if used at all, should only be used as headers.

What you can do is use something like notepad++ in order to have comments without taking up strings.

Well I think one either comments everything or comments nothing. Commenting only sometimes seems like you aren't taking advantage of the benefits of commenting or taking advantage of not commenting at all.

Currently I'm using comments in a map to keep track of the possibilities. There are 4 players, and they can enter each others battles. To keep track of this, I need a trigger for each possibility. example: p1 enters p2 battle, p1 enter p3, p4 enter p1, ect. Without comments I'd probably go nuts keeping track of them. However, On my other systems I just use comments until the systems done, then delete them. At the end of my map production process I may add a blank comment to everything to discourage people from editing the map. Of course, that won't stop everyone, but it'll keep most away.

However, on the 2 popular RP's I made, I didn't use comments at all, except for hyper triggers and maybe 3 other timer triggers. That was because there was only a few hundred triggers and I could easily remember them.

Comments allow the user (reader) of the triggers to see/find what they are looking for easier and faster then looking through a bunch of triggers and finding the right condition and action. Although some map makers are extremely poor at commenting their triggers because they say things that are way too general. Me on the other hand. I do something like devilesk does. I have a never conditioned trigger with just a comment. In the comment I have an enter then the general comment on what the next few triggers are and then I hit enter again and then bam! its done. I find this useful because its easy to just highlight a big comment and find the triggers under different players and change them if needed, granted that they are under different players slots. I have made a few maps and so far I have never come close to 1024 strings. I have been upwards of around 700 for some but never too much higher then that. The gains out weigh the risks. You can always remove the comments with a map compressor, but it would be too difficult to go through ones map and not know what your looking at.

Whether one comments or not is rather trivial. It doesn't really have anything to do with whether one makes a good map or not.

I usually never comment because it just makes me confused.

It depends on the map im working on.

For Mini-Game Party, i use blank comments. The only real comments I have are on the very first trigger for each set of mini-games. It's a label to indicate that the proceeding blank comments will be dealing with this mini-game. Blank comments don't use strings at all

I trigger with text, so comments are pointless. I believe that goes for Tuxlar as well, we do use comments, just in a text program that we copy over to draft's text editor.

I see no reason to use comments until you get over 1000 (unique)triggers, up until then I see no reason to, because as long as you are working with the map on a relatively regular basis, you usually can remember where things are, or what things do.

For my own projects, I find the triggers themselves to be far clearer than comments could ever be. If I'm editing someone else's work, and there are many triggers, it helps to have section headings, but not comments on the individual triggers. The only triggers that I do comment regularly are the hyper triggers (though occasionally I'll put non-informative comments with humor content), and that's just to make them smaller for anyone who might be scrolling through them in an old-style editor that doesn't collapse long triggers.

Renaming the unused units that you use for death counts is many times more helpful than commenting your triggers.

Is this thread made because I was complaining about how I didn't use comments cause a lot of ppl on SEN said they don't, and then I couldn't find anything...

Glad to know I'm responsible.


But yes, ever since I about shot myself spending 30 minutes going through near-2000 triggers looking for one, I am going to use comments.

H8 @ non-commenters

Nah its not because me and solar went through a conversation about them and how they are annoying.No comments are better anyways .

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 9 2008, 2:21 am by Twitch.

Psh. I don't even rename my locations.
Eh. I find it rather useless and a waste of time... I can just read the trigger to see what it does.
I have locations planned out before I place them, so I put them in (what I see to be) a logical order.
I don't use nearly enough switches to even bother naming those.
For deaths I just start at the unused ones and go in a consecutive order.
If my map starts getting far to elaborate for me to remember every little detail, I just take a few notes.. and usually they are rather useless anyway.

You should really only comment conservatilvly, although I have never went of the string limit, that is because I have used them rarely, like labling a system or as Falkoner said, a Header. But never use a Never comment, because that is just a waste of space.

Also, I have a form of OCD called Map OCD (Self diagnosed!). It has to be organized, or it dies >:D.

Lol, that's exactly me