Modding...Death of Innocence...Journey of a Fool

ROFL. I feel ya. 

I really didn't know which was worse:  muddling through minimal modding or trying to connect to a higher modding power.  After pondering, I thought, "I must go higher!"

I was certain this was the right course of action and proceded.  It was then and there that I learned what is truly worse--I had chosen the bear.

Later today I will share where else Eclipse has taken me.

hehe. for the most creative feedback I have ever seen for a tool on this forum.

This zombie did indeed invite the Imperium map maker to look at the tool. I recently finished the Galaxy validations and added in some additional code for multiple passes on these files to handle the template references and was curious if a map maker would find it useful. Little did I know it would prompt such a glorious response...

Now to the comment... From what I see from the various tool makers it's extremely difficult to get feedback on the forum much less a "It's simple" or technospeake.

I do get occasional feedback through messenger for those that are setup, but thats possibly because the tool is pretty stable overall.

I've also personally helped many people get Eclipse up and running in addition to setting up the plugin. I've been using some version of Eclipse for almost ten years now and using advanced IDE's for nearly 15 years now professionally. Though I've done my time with command line editors like vi. I'll take an advanced IDE anyday over basic editing facilities or even Notepad++.

Once the IDE is setup and running though I believe most people find it extremely easy to use. I use the Sins Eclipse Plugin almost daily and am always looking for continual improvements based on my experiences with it. In fact this tool started as a command line validator at it's original inception and is now a feature rich editor and validation utility. I feel pretty good about my accomplishment with the tool and enjoyed coding it. Though if you really want a headache check out the parser and validator logic, hehe. 2500 lines of coding goodness just for the validator logic itself.

Point taken on the non-direct link to Eclipse though. I think in my initial madness I wanted people to look through the how to's (however cryptic) before they started clicking links. Unfortunately I'm a software developer and not a technical document writer

Here's a quote from the last person that attempted an editor...

Oh no, what about mine 

Bcxtreme made a great genuinly GUI txt-bin converter, updated it and then thought no one was interested because he got almost no feedback.

I use it all the time as do some others.  There are others out there and Harpo's are great but for people who aren't in the coding arena, ease of use is important for function.

Open Source developers particularly are proud of their software (and rightly so) but most often they write their documentation for...other software developers.  Often they tend to answer questions in the form of directing people to resources to learn themselves.  Sort of like saying, "Hi, I'd like to go fishing." and having the experienced fisherman draw you a map with directions to the university accompanied by a list of the courses  you will need to graduate with a degree in marine biology.  Developers work with the stuff so to them--so should you.

Your project source page is logically structured and elegant (as it usually must be to get to source forge) and the organization and help files are actually really thorough (which isn't always the case on source forge).

I would suggest take those excellent graphic tutorials you made for the project page add direct links to the needed downloads and then make a single page as, "An idiot's Guide to Eclipse-Sins"--be sure it has lots of helpful pictures ;)  Put a link to your project page there but make the project itself accesible to a Sins player with less tech savy--basically, a sales and marketing page explaining why you need the product and how to use it.

I'm going to figure out today how to add in the actual plug-inpart and I have a bugged file I am going to try to debug.  Eclipse is actually easy to use so far but I can see it would be intimidating to someone who has never touched something like it before.

If it can actually parse and decipher combinations of those darn ability strings I would call it miraculous. It's way easier than other things I have tried here thanks to your pretty good documentation. 

Kudos sir!...now on to the uppercase letter "B".

I can only lose my mind completely once a week. Come back next Friday.

P.S.  Try topic headings such as, "Naked Pics Here!" and "Giving away one free iPad"--packs 'em into the threads.

I actually think your tool is what people will be using five years from now when they are modding Sins because of it's functionality.

Erm.. probably won't happen on this end. lol.

I might look into doing this. I'm not sure if it will make it any more appealing to the less tech-savy as you put it though. In any case it's worth reviewing the "How to's" and FAQ for the tool.

Maybe, I'm surprised though some of the bigger mods don't try it. I know some of the modders for SGI, AHA, SOA2, and BSG use it.

Frankly, I only advertise it to people because I know it's useful because I use it on my Sins of the Fallen mod. I think some authors of software get disgruntled because they want to write the software for others to use and then don't feel they are appreciated for it. In this case I wrote the tool for myself, so it's not going anywhere soon. I write software for other people to use when I'm paid to do it.

I may have sounded like I want feedback to continue and thats not the case. I simply want feedback to improve the tool or help people get started. I think you are right that people may be afraid to ask and possibly rightly so from previous experience. All told I'm pretty sure it's been downloaded by close to 200 different people (just looking at the latest versions only) on my main site and moddb. I have no idea if they were just curious clickers or are actually using the tool though...

On the side, I think the tool is good enough for Ironclad to use.

I actually gave you kharma silently for the weebly after you posted this

I don't even know what Eclipse is. So I didn't really bother looking any further into the subject. What advantage does it have over basic txt editing?

I try my best to write tutorials for people that barely know where the stsrt button for there computer is. I never assume they know this or that and for people that do, its any east scroll through to the parts they need.

I do find screen shots help a lot or even better is a video tutorial like Z added recently.

Forums are very fickle. I seen a study where you can assume for every post in a thread there are 100 readers that dont post feedback one way or another. Now most forums have a views number and if you look on average it is 1 out a 100. Sometimes I do it just to give a good post a bump.

Very softly spoken I see.

I had made video tutorials for SFX editing/model converting from 3ds max -> XSI -> Sins before but I don't think anyone really cared about those.

I think novice modders can be intimmidated by a two part install with unfamiliar programs that then have to be manually loaded and organized.  Noob modders won't even necessarily know what it's for.  Experienced modders/devs/prgrammers always say, "Why do I need____ when I have a text editor?" 

If you have ever watched the show "Pitchman" where they have inventors bring their products to an infomercial guru and he evaluates their salability you'll see many great ideas not used becasue the inventor can't sell the idea to the public.  life is sales.

People need a page that tells them, "If you do this that you have to be able to do this and to that you need our program which does it better, faster and prettier than anything else out there".

People want to hear words like "easy" and "simple".

Both ZombieRus's and MyFist0's instructions are easy and simple.

I'm going, "What? Why not use Notepad++?"

Probably for the same reason you were interested in helping jjz back when...

I don't use a monitor or keyboard.  I navigate by hard drive clicks and type binary by brushing two charged wires together.

I flash my motherboard just by looking at it.  The way real men do it.

what is this motherboard thing, I program MY computers BY twisting the wires togeather as ALL REAL programmers do,

I do not hold with the idea that just flicking switches can be as good.

harpo

I bow to you sir..truly you are the master and I am the apprentice.

just learn your computer history, me I live it

harpo