Well the method I always used to use in Notepad is very much like this, but it's not automated. So if we take the example I quoted in the 1st devlog:
//Code to find the Player's first name,
//from a full name
//---------
//Load in his full name:
name = Edittext$("NAME");
//Find the first space in the name:
cut to = find(name, " ", 0);
//Extract only the first part:
first name = left$(name, cut to);
//Finally, send MMF the result:
first name
If we read it through, we've defined a 'name' variable as 'Edittext$("NAME")', so we can quickly copy the 'Edittext$("NAME")' bit and paste it over any bits which say "name" (i usually do it manually, but you can use Find and Replace if you have a big expression).
Then you do the same with the next variable we defined, 'cut to'. Then we do it to 'first name'.
That last bit should be our finished expression. So the above would become this:
That's a very simple example, so much so that I personally wouldn't bother using this technique for such a simple expression. But it shows how it all works.
For things like Bézier Curves, where the same value is used several times in different places, it's invaluable. It's also useful because if you keep the original script your wrote in Notepad, you can make changes a lot easier.
For instance, in the above example, the reference to Edittext$("NAME") is made twice (once for left$(), once for find()). So if I later decide to read the name from an array instead, I can change the 'name' variable just once and recompute it. It's better than searching through a complex expression a month later trying to find which bits did what.
I've been doing it that way for some time now, but this app basically just automates the process. And hopefully, it'll have some better error checking, like telling you where you're missing brackets, etc.
191 / 9999 * 7 + 191 * 7
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Registered 05/07/2002
Points 185
12th January, 2008
This is amazing, really.
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
M just gave me the heads up on this, and I've had a bit of a read - this looks like an amazing project, and I think you'd be wrong to worry that people aren't going to use it.
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