Starcraft comments being counted as strings really bugs me. I would love to organize the triggers in my map according to comments, but the string limit is in the way of course. For those of you with knowledge of how an editor is built (programmers I guess), how diffcult would it be to implement a feature in SCMDraft that stores comments in a separate file? Perhaps when you click on the trigger in classic trigedit you can comment it using a separate comment feature that stores comment data for the map in some other .txt file or something, rather than actually writing it to the text triggers themselves. Is this feasible?

It's a good idea, I'm often getting rather pissed at this too.

Hopefully it's possible.

I'd love this aswell, but im afraid i doubt itll come to light, same with farty's trigplug i was hyped for that and i was let down

The best way to deal with it is to separate your triggers into categories and sub-categories, eg:
Trigger 1:
Condition: Never
Action: Comment("Weapons
1- Flamethrower
2- Machine Gun
3- Sniper")
Trigger 2:
Flamethrower trigger
etc...

So you just saved 2 strings

Yeah, and for other ways like location names, you can make a seperate text document, then say like

Location 0 = Death
Location 1 = Sword
Location 2 = Hero

ect. but I agree, it would be cool if more steps were taken for string saving.

Yea I try and use all the tricks for commenting, like if I have a bunch of triggers all related (a system with a specific function for instance) I give them all the same comment (since exact same strings only count once), and stuff like payne suggested, or I don't comment at all, and I even have a separate .txt file to help me keep track of things, but some sort of Editor function would be of great help. I have nothing but intution, but intuition says someone like SI who made SCMDraft could probably implement a comment system fairly easily? I could be wrong, but it would be so helpful.

I agree, something like this has long been needed; as well as the ability to sort these triggers into sections that we can minimize and expand.

I'm sure implementing a new section in the CHK would not be difficult. Following the same format as the STR section, one could have a COMM section specifically only for comments. Of course a seperate file would be better, but the former would be easier to implement. This is up to SI though, so bug him about it.

If you use Tuxlar's trigger method that he used in AstroGears, comments can just be added into the text triggers with no string usage.

Location __ still takes a string.

i think if anyone does this, they defintaly need to include a sort of tree where one can organize their triggers much as theres a tree for mircosoft windows.

that would make mapping a whole ton easier

There is a spot in scmdraft for plugins. What is this spot for... hmm.

could a plugin be added so that the editor could keep comments on the triggers, and not internal coments withing the triggers? (this is the issue at hand, yes?)
So that when a map is saved, the plugin would give the option of saving the comments.txt file. then, when you open the map again the plugin will recognize it... and you get your comments. im not one for programming anything else but my calculator, but it sounds viable.

(i nominate farty!)

I have never reached the string limit in any map... You guys are all crazy string users.

rantent arena maps use massive amounts of strings for one as you generally need to label each move, each enviromental cycle,each additional command,each location(which theyll be alot of if you plan on gridding or atleast multi loc'ing your heros). by no means is it crazy.

What I do is I also categorize groups of triggers..

For example, I'd comment "Choose archer" for one of the triggers.. the rest of the triggers below it until the next comment is all about the archer...

If SCMDraft's text triggers weren't so awful you could fill them with //comments.

What method is that? Also, keep in mind not all of us can use text triggers effectively. I can edit them well enough with notepad++ when I want to change things, but I still use classic for creating a new trigger, since I don't know the syntax for every text command.


Exactly.

We just have bigger projects than what you've made then?

We do this also, but it really isn't enough sometimes.


Well, //comments wouldn't be very helpful for us classic trigedit users.

Which is one reason why I said it was awful.

feel free to make something better then


And if anyone takes a close look at the plugin specs, there is a unused variable for a second string section for exactly this purpose, it just was never activated because the whining about compatibility with starforge/staredit got on my nerves for string recycling, and this would only be worse.

The compatibility is so terrible it doesn't even matter anymore, don't worry about it.