CEGUI Project update

[scriptkid]

Hi all,

As you might (or not) have noticed, there has not been much activity on the CEGUI code base lately, nor on the supported tool (editor). In this message i will try to give you (on behalf of the entire team) a little project update. This is not a bad-news message, so don't worry that we will pull the plug and leave you in the cold! But you owe an explanation because most of you are contributing to this project in one way or the other. Oh, and of course using it!

The main reason for the silence is the absence of CrazyEddie. Being the project leader he has always be the one to pull this project and have a glance and the mantis tracker (bugs) now and then. Besides that, he used to be aroud on IRC and the forums most of us all. And be honest he just has most knowledge about the system and the design decisions.

Besides that, there are some discussions in the team about the future. Should we focus on new features?, or tools? There is already a form topic with requests for 0.6, but we need to have a good look at it ourselves and prioritize it.

For the time being (Eddie's absence is scheduled so he should come back) we will put the focus on supporting the current 0.5 release through the forums mostly. However since nobody knows when he will be back, we -the team- might go our own way based on your input and requests at some time in the (near) future.

We do still believe that CEGUI is a great library, but it might take a while to reach a next version this time. In the meantime, we hope that you keep creating cool GUIs with the current version!

Thanks for reading this!

[Taharez]

Nice to get an update

I really think think the focus need to be on helping drumicube to get the editor to a release state. The library itself has been usable for some time, and despite the occasional complaint on performance and usability, easy content-creation is my top priority. Might just be because the artists in my current project are about to start creating the gui skin, but I think there's a lot of people thinking the same Either way, I appreciate all the work you guys put in!

[kungfoomasta]

I'm on the same page as Taharez. In fact, I was the one who emailed drumicube and got him to give us a status update.

Drumicube seems busy currently, but perhaps we should ask him to come up with his planned TODO list, and see if we can help get any of the items implemented.

I have been trying to keep up with the thread on the tool, but I may need to re-familiarize myself with it, its been a while.

Great job with the Library CEGUI team! Lets keep it going!

KungFooMasta

[drumicube]

Hi, and sorry for not giving news earlier...
Well, I have found a new job and I also have to finish a big Website: That's the two reasons why I'm not working on the SkinEditor at the moment.
It's temporary of course, but don't expect very much from me for at least one more month...

Regarding the CESkinEditor Project:
You can still download my latest version, and continue to work on it:
Dependencies are not big: latest CEGUI ,WxWidgets , and the latest Silly.
compilation had been tested under Linux and Visual Studio 2003.

Regarding what need to be done on it: A LOT !
In my opinion, this is truely the backdraw of CEGUI, and if it was just me V0.6 would not even been proposed, 100% of resources on the tools and nothing else!
Just for your information, in the current state , I can do more with BETAGUI and their 88 lines of codes...
So far I wasn't even able to produce a new skin from scratch , don't forget there's about 500 Ko of complex XML to edit, stop the new features please !!!

Just to sum up, where I was before stopping my work on the Editor:
I was about to create some king of .prj files (skin project), they should merge all the needed files for a skin (Font, Sheme, ImageSet, and Layout)
Anyone who wants to get involve on this is really welcome: Don't forget I was totally alone on it, not so fun...

Is it also possible to have some news about when CrazyEd shoud be back ?
Thanks.

[scriptkid]

Hi,

well these replies are clear to me. Tools it is! You are right that there hasn't been much support from the team, except for some quick tests. We need to help you our more, that's for sure.

So i understand that it will/should be a complete skin editor and not 'just' the initial imageset editor, right? Just to be on the right channel with you.

About Eddie: we don't know ourselves, really. So let's just hope that it will happen sometime not long from now...

Bye.

[kungfoomasta]

For me, The most beneficial thing would be imagesets and skins. Layouts.. not so much.

This weekend I will dig through Drumicube's thread and try to setup and compile the project in VS2005. I admit I am noob when it comes to GUI stuff... I will first try to build and understand the code (and probably ask questions ). Hopefully others will do the same, and we can discuss things.

Glancing over Wiki topics, it looks like skins are most complex. From what I saw, imagesets aren't that bad.. although I don't understand what the offset variable represents.. it makes sense to me just having an origin point and a width/height to define images (no offset variable). Anyway, reading a little on skins got pretty complex pretty fast, at least for me. But I'm willing to put in effort to help where I can!

KungFooMasta

[scriptkid]

Hi,

your help is much appreciated! Although i shall remember that you are the one who disrepects layout editing tools

Yeah the skins are the hardest part. Not sure about the best apprauch to edit those, but this is not the thread for such discussion anyway.

You should be able to get drumicubes's code up and running. It worked fine for me a while ago. VS2003 though..

I don't know about the meaning of offsets in the imageset, sorry...

Bye.

[kungfoomasta]

Haha,

I just write everything in code, for better or worse. Back in my first iteratior of making UI menus, I had some complex displaying of windows, and didn't think a layout would be a solution for me. I have to implement all the event handlers, so might as well keep everything in the code.

KungFooMasta

[lindquist]

Hey all.

The offset parameter is applied just before rendering and displaces the image to allow for stuff like cursors with the "picking point" not being the top-left corner.

This is used for TaharezLook resize cursors to give an example.

I'm not going to have much time for CEGUI, but I think I will have another look at LuaFalagard - which is a project I worked on months ago. It essentially allows you to code skins in lua instead of XML with many benefits. Fx operator overloading for easier DimOperator chains etc.

I'd like to hear ideas regarding this. I realise that it's not a WYSIWYG skin editor but I think it could make a difference and is a start.
So I'll be posting some time in the near future with (hopefully) something you can play with!

[Levia]

Well, you already received my feedback.

I think its great as it is the only real skin editor there is..ok, you still need to write some lua code for your own widget, but that doesnt really matter as much - its useful.

As far as ideas, I think a few samples would be good, as its quite far already, you are able to do lots of things already altough it still needs some more lua skin files (For the other widgets of WindowsLook and TaharezLook and such) but that'll probably come

[Pompei2]

I would be very happy to try this out, as I will begin to adventure me in the dangerous skinning territory

[lindquist]

This post is another news update for the CEGUI project.

Paul (CrazyEddie) has left the project, deleting his sourceforge accounts without notifying anyone on the team. We have to assume he wont be back and as such, CEGUI is entering a new "era". There will be changes in the team and we will be looking for new blood to carry on the project.
The current team situation is that we are pretty busy (as has already been said here), but we will try be around as much as possible to maintain the project.

We hope that some of the more active members of the community will continue to help running the show, or even become more officially involved.

[Pompei2]

Hmmm, that's some bad news.

Maybe (I say maybe) I will work on the font formatting section, as this is the one I want the most. But it depends on the free time my university and friends gives me

[jacmoe]

Yes, that's bad - but not totally unexpected.
I hope he's alright.

Yes, CEGUI definately needs new 'blood'.

If people more actively submitted patches, they might eventually get invited as team members.

I think it is imperative that the CEGUI team becomes even more open about the state of development of CEGUI.

Memory issues, error reporting / exception handling and crash-free tools are what I hear is most wanted from CEGUI, along with documentation.

Lastly, I want to thank the remaining CEGUI team for their great work!

[Levia]

I have a patch! Support for Irrlicht 1.3. Ill submit it soon