SciTE for Ren'Py User Feedback

[PyTom]

I'm thinking of updating the current version of SciTE for Ren'Py, and including it in the distribution of Ren'Py. I'm curious as to what current SciTE users think of this, and if there are any changes I should make as part of the distribution process.

Comments?

[Jake]

I'm thinking of updating the current version of SciTE for Ren'Py, and including it in the distribution of Ren'Py. I'm curious as to what current SciTE users think of this, and if there are any changes I should make as part of the distribution process.

I'm not a current SciTE user, but your post made me go back and look again at why not. It turns out that all the things that put me off the editor as I downloaded it a few weeks back can be fixed easily with ten minute's poking around, so I'll give it another try and see how I get on.

However, I'd recommend at least changing the things that seemed to me to be 'not right', if not the bits that I just found inconvinient - if nothing else, they served to put me right off the editor the first time I tried it.


I've unpacked the archive from your website again to make sure I've got everything, here are the steps I have to go through to make it useable for me:

• Change the renpy.properties filter from:

  Code: Select all

  filter.rpy=RenPy (rpy)|*.rpy|
  
  file.patterns.rpy=*.rpy

  to:

  Code: Select all

  file.patterns.rpy=*.rpy
  
  filter.rpy=RenPy (rpy)|$(file.patterns.rpy)|

  (Not essential or even behaviour-changing, but it brings it into line with the other languages' filters and means it's simpler in future to add more file extensions)
• Changed the SciTEGlobal.properties file, line 253 from:

  Code: Select all

  $(filter.renpy)\

  to

  Code: Select all

  $(filter.rpy)\

  (Essential - otherwise the filter doesn't show up in the list. I guess in retrospect it would probably be preferrable to change the one in renpy.properties to 'filter.renpy', but either way...)
• Changed the SciTEGlobal.properties file, line 244 from:

  Code: Select all

  *.properties;*.html;*.xml;*.iface;*.bat;*.e

  to

  Code: Select all

  *.properties;*.html;*.xml;*.iface;*.bat;*.e;$(file.patterns.rpy)

  (Very useful - makes Ren'Py scripts show up in the 'default' file filter, which should be done IMO since it's being used as a Ren'Py script editor here.
  I don't know why the other filters aren't referenced by variable rather than written in as literals, but obviously I'd like to know if there's some really good reason they shouldn't be...)
• Changed SciTEGlobal.properties file, line 101 from:

  Code: Select all

  #buffers=10

  to

  Code: Select all

  buffers=10

  (Useful - the other options for tabbed editing support were set, but without this set to something other than the default tabbed editing doesn't work. Having been using tabbed editors (notably NoteTab and Visual Studio) for ages, I couldn't work on software without tabbed editing. I'd assumed before that SciTE just didn't support it, I had to go poke around their website to find out how to enable it...)

After that small list, the editor goes from really awkward to use to notably easier to use than my existing editor... certainly I wish I'd gone to the trouble of poking it when I first started writing Ren'Py scripts, now I've found out how trivial the changes were...

[PyTom]

Thanks for the feedback... I am by no means a SciTE expert, so the file was a bit off. I'll try to figure out what the buffers= setting does.

[Jake]

Thanks for the feedback... I am by no means a SciTE expert, so the file was a bit off. I'll try to figure out what the buffers= setting does.

The impression I got from the SciTE site was that it's literally how many file buffers the program opens when it's started... which seems a bit inefficient to me, but I come from the Windows generation, really, I've only been coding ten years or so. I've seen references to similar things several times in unix literature that seem to suggest that this was just the way things have been done for a long time in that environment... maybe I'm grabbing the wrong end of the stick.

[Megaman Z]

well apart from the fact that my computer confuses the uncompiled ren'py scripts with the replay files from the touhou games I have (same exact extension, completely different format), there's nothing I've honestly wanted to have changed.

[Alessio]

I'm using SciTE all the time for Ren'Py scripts and think it's a great idea to include it in the package! Nothing really bugged me, I like the editor very much. If I'd change something then probably it would be using the fixed-width font by default, and enabling line-wrapping as well. (But that's probably a very personal opinion, plus it can be switched easily.)

[PyTom]

I'm now considering increasing the size of the Ren'Py distribution. I'll include SciTE, pre-configured to work with Ren'Py (with various commands enabled), as part of the distribution. This way, a tutorial can show how they work together.

[Nafai]

A bit late, but likewise, I find it very very helpful - for someone like me with zilch programming experience - to help me focus more on the story-telling than the programming. The color codes help a lot ^_^

[RedSlash]

For me, no, because I already have SciTE installed and prefer not to download it again and also, I'm guessing you're including a windows binary, which would not work for me. I would prefer you have a separate installer.

But.... for other people, it might be useful since configuring the current distribution of SciTE requires modifying text file which is not very user friendly. Just how much of a bloat would bundling it in do? If it's like < than 1-2 MB I'd say that's negligible.

[PyTom]

I'm thinking scite will add about .5 mb to the download. (But I haven't looked into it too much, to be honest.)

[monele]

If you're using another favorite editor, it's also not really worthy to download this with *every* version ^^;... Would having it as separate download be a real problem ? :/

[Jake]

Perhaps it might be worth having two distributions? One with the tutorial, SciTE and anything else that's useful for budding authors, and another with no tools and a default script that goes:

Code: Select all

label start:
    # Visual Novel goes here

?

[PyTom]

One problem is that multiple distributions increases the work that I have to do making distributions and testing (not fun), as compared to the time I spend coding (fun) or playing games (fun).

I'm sort of getting a feel for what the 5.6 distribution will contain.

- Ren'Py proper, with a simple script that is 2-3 screens long, and only contains the real basics.

- A tutorial/feature demonstration script. This can be arbitrarily long, but is kept isolated from the main script, in a different directory.

- A launcher program, that provides a simple GUI way to run the user's game, run the tutorial/feature demo, launch the editor on the user's game, run lint, package a distribution, etc.

- SciTE.

- Perhaps the mac launcher will be integrated into Ren'Py.

I'd expect the end 5.6 distro to be around double the size of the 5.5 one. (The size Ren'Py adds to games will be mostly unchanged.) Yes, experienced users will probably not use/need all of the features we'll add, but I think it's worth the additional downloading in order to improve the out-of-the-box experience.

[Jake]

One problem is that multiple distributions increases the work that I have to do making distributions and testing (not fun), as compared to the time I spend coding (fun) or playing games (fun).

Approaching this from the same direction I do the stuff I do for work, wouldn't it be possible to have a shortish shell script that pulls together the component parts and outputs a collection of different-content zips for different distributions? You'd then just have to have symlinks to the current distribution version, or copy them to a preset location, and run the 'package up distros' script to get stuff to upload?

Myself, I don't find it a great hardship to download anything up to a hundred MB or so, but I'm all too aware that there are people with more restricted, one way or another, internet connections...

- A launcher program, that provides a simple GUI way to run the user's game, run the tutorial/feature demo, launch the editor on the user's game, run lint, package a distribution, etc.

Now this sounds useful...

[DaFool]

Although I shouldn't really have an opinion -- having used DOS edit, Notepad, and vi for most of my life --, I think the upcoming package configuration for 5.6 looks pretty neat. It gives a nice "all you ever need" bundle feel. It would help if the packages are clearly separated and labelled by directories so users can know what to chuck out depending on their experience level.

Definitely better than reverse-engineering a pretty complex tutorial / demo.