TorqueScript Question

#1 There is no need for Torsion, but it is a really great IDE and will save you time. You are free to use any text editor you like.

If you Google codeweaver, you will find another TorqueScript editor (which is free), but it is no longer being developed.

#2 Notepad works.

#3 Notepad is also terrible.

At the VERY least I would recommend ConTEXT, with the downloadable Torque Script highlighter. That will give you code highlighting and (I believe) code folding.

Don't underestimate the time that code highlighting will save you. It acts as a primitive, quick syntax checker for your script. With code highlighting I can tell write away when I have typed "fnuction" instead of "function" rather than having to wait until I run the game and something doesn't work and I have to track it down, etc etc.

Other (essential IMO) things that Torsion gives you:
* Text searching across all the scripts in your project ("Where is this function called?")
* Auto-complete code helpers ("What are the parameters of this function?")
* Notification of your scripts failing to compile, before you even start the engine (big time saver)
* Integrated DEBUGGER with BREAKPOINTS

Seriously, that last one is so SO SOOOO huge! Problems are so much easier to find and solve if you can throw a Breakpoint in your code (the code stops executing there and waits for you), and then you can watch it execute one step at a time and inspect variable values on the fly. This functionality will (without a sweat) save you man-months or man-years of time tracking down problems.

IMO the benefits of Torsion for the cost is an absolute no-brainer.

#4 Most serious Torque devs I know use Torsion. I generally use TextPad with some syntax highlighting, as it's my default text editor. But I don't do much TS work; if I was going to I would switch.

#5 The obligatory post I make every time I see notepad suggested for editing TorqueScript and how you shouldn't use it as it can add binary garbage to the file making it unusable.

The same three suggestions I make every time:

Torsion (your best option)
Codeweaver (your best free option)
Notepad++ (handy for fast edits when you don't want to wait for a full IDE to load up)

#6 I use torsion, but Tribal ide is free. Outdated, but still works fine. I used it before I purchased torsion.

#7 If you use a mac, xcode is perfect, especially if you put in the torquescript library.

#8 Well thanks for your advice. And I just purchased Torsion just a few minutes ago. So I guess Torsion is the way to go :)

#9 Congrats. You'll love it.

#10 To chime in here, if you copy code from the official docs or from online pages, you might end up with hidden characters. As Scott and the others said, copying this code into Notepad or Wordpad could lead to some major syntax errors and hard-to-track bugs. Using an editor with syntax highlighting and debug printouts will help you catch these problems.

#11 What's the benifet of using another program besides notepad?

#12 Uh, isn't that what everyone just got finished talking about?