Torsion integration improvements
by Rene Damm · in Torque 3D Professional · 01/20/2011 (8:44 pm) · 10 replies
After a long stretch of original dev work, I've recently been getting into full swing with T3D again and damn, forgot how much fun this can be. In between squishing the little buggers, I'm also sneaking in a few little improvements here and there (just can't help it). First and foremost among these is something I always missed: less trouble jumping to and fro between scripts and a running game instance.
You certainly know the thing. You have an object in front of you (material, Gui profile, whatever) and you want to jump to it in Torsion, so you switch applications to Torsion and then have to tediously browse through the file or symbol tree to get where you want.
Or you see an error message in the console.log and just want to quickly jump there but instead you have to tediously locate that stuff by yourself.
No more.
Have your game started and want to open the respective .torsion project? File -> Open Project in Torsion.
Have a datablock selected in the Datablock Editor and want to jump to it in Torsion? Right-click -> Jump to Definition in Torsion.
Looking at an object that's referencing a Material (or any other kind of object) and want to jump to the Material's definition in Torsion? Right-click -> Jump to Definition in Torsion.
Have an object with scripted functionality and want to jump to one of its methods? Right-click -> Inspect. Right-click method -> Jump to Definition in Torsion.
Have a Gui open in the Gui Editor and want to quickly append some script methods to the Gui file? File -> Open Gui File in Torsion.
And finally... seeing some annoying script error in the log and want to jump to the corresponding sources in Torsion? Just click it.
This isn't groundbreaking stuff by any means but it's little things like this that save on tedious clicking and make me smile :)
Disclaimer: This is all fresh off the press so everything may change. If not, it's part of the 1.1 final.
You certainly know the thing. You have an object in front of you (material, Gui profile, whatever) and you want to jump to it in Torsion, so you switch applications to Torsion and then have to tediously browse through the file or symbol tree to get where you want.
Or you see an error message in the console.log and just want to quickly jump there but instead you have to tediously locate that stuff by yourself.
No more.
Have your game started and want to open the respective .torsion project? File -> Open Project in Torsion.
Have a datablock selected in the Datablock Editor and want to jump to it in Torsion? Right-click -> Jump to Definition in Torsion.
Looking at an object that's referencing a Material (or any other kind of object) and want to jump to the Material's definition in Torsion? Right-click -> Jump to Definition in Torsion.
Have an object with scripted functionality and want to jump to one of its methods? Right-click -> Inspect. Right-click method -> Jump to Definition in Torsion.
Have a Gui open in the Gui Editor and want to quickly append some script methods to the Gui file? File -> Open Gui File in Torsion.
And finally... seeing some annoying script error in the log and want to jump to the corresponding sources in Torsion? Just click it.
This isn't groundbreaking stuff by any means but it's little things like this that save on tedious clicking and make me smile :)
Disclaimer: This is all fresh off the press so everything may change. If not, it's part of the 1.1 final.
About the author
#2
I think the same! :-D
01/21/2011 (3:25 am)
Rene you know you are in my TorqueHero list, right? :-)Quote:it's little things like this that save on tedious clicking and make me smile :)
I think the same! :-D
#3
01/21/2011 (6:38 am)
Nice! While you're at it, how about making the script reloading feature work? Whenever you edit a script with Torsion attached, it asks if you want to reload the script, but it doesn't do anything but generate an error on the console, which means Torque doesn't know what to do with the reload command. 
#5
A shame. But it's used now :)
There's so much more that could be done here. Been thinking though that nowadays, with what Microsoft is offering through the VS SDK and the availability of the VS Shell, I'd probably just add TorqueScript editing and debugging support straight to VS and get all the bells and whistles of VS for free--plus, of course, an environment that all devs are already familiar with. This way you could have your TorqueScripts right beside or C++ engine projects in VS or standalone in their own projects.
Hehe, you know, one day I want a T-Shirt for that... "TorqueHero" :) Surefire way for getting some puzzled looks in town.
I'll definitely take a look.
01/21/2011 (8:57 am)
Thanks guys :)Quote:Torsion has had support for launching projects and file+line for almost 5 years now... by request from JustinD for TGB. It never got added and was forgotten.
A shame. But it's used now :)
There's so much more that could be done here. Been thinking though that nowadays, with what Microsoft is offering through the VS SDK and the availability of the VS Shell, I'd probably just add TorqueScript editing and debugging support straight to VS and get all the bells and whistles of VS for free--plus, of course, an environment that all devs are already familiar with. This way you could have your TorqueScripts right beside or C++ engine projects in VS or standalone in their own projects.
Quote:Rene you know you are in my TorqueHero list, right? :-)
Hehe, you know, one day I want a T-Shirt for that... "TorqueHero" :) Surefire way for getting some puzzled looks in town.
Quote:While you're at it, how about making the script reloading feature work?
I'll definitely take a look.
#6
Should have thought of that years ago :D
01/21/2011 (11:15 am)
I don't use Torsion... butQuote:... that would rock my world!
I'd probably just add TorqueScript editing and debugging support straight to VS and get all the bells and whistles of VS
Should have thought of that years ago :D
#7
awesome.
torsion has been one of my favorite tools from the begining, realy nice to have this support.
Quote:
I'd probably just add TorqueScript editing and debugging support straight to VS and get all the bells and whistles of VS
SECOND++++
01/21/2011 (11:16 am)
oh this is lovely Rene!!awesome.
torsion has been one of my favorite tools from the begining, realy nice to have this support.
Quote:
I'd probably just add TorqueScript editing and debugging support straight to VS and get all the bells and whistles of VS
SECOND++++
#8
I wrote a patch for TorqueScript Edit and Continue years ago, but it had a few bugs and no one bothered to test it... so nothing came of it.
Rene says he will give it a look. If it gets into T3D 1.1 then those Torsion features will finally work.
01/21/2011 (12:06 pm)
Quote:While you're at it, how about making the script reloading feature work?
I wrote a patch for TorqueScript Edit and Continue years ago, but it had a few bugs and no one bothered to test it... so nothing came of it.
Rene says he will give it a look. If it gets into T3D 1.1 then those Torsion features will finally work.
#9
01/21/2011 (12:31 pm)
+1 for Quality of Life improvements 
#10
01/24/2011 (6:17 pm)
Wooooot! Quality of Life improvements +2. I've use Torsion and I would really love some of the material errors to go away (Advanced Script) if at all possible. 
Associate Tom Spilman
Sickhead Games
Torsion has had support for launching projects and file+line for almost 5 years now... by request from JustinD for TGB. It never got added and was forgotten.