DeleD Community Edition

[Paul-Jan]

Chronoszphere submitted a patch that will introduce an explicit key-value separator in the tags, instead of the "space" we currently use. In other words, it will allow spaces in ke/value pairs.

This is great, but will potentially break:
a) creating properties out of tags in scenes from older DeleD versions in the DeleD interface.
b) exporter plugins doing the same thing.

I know the only plugin affected by (b) is the Torque exporter, but I don't know about (a). Are people using this much in their scenes currently?

The DeleD policy for backwards compatibility is "when it's important, for as long as it's necessary". So gentlemen, your opinions please.

[chronozphere]

We could delay this patch for a month or so, to let every plugin developer update their programs.

[paul_nicholls]

[chronozphere]

The thing that has changed is that names and values inside a "tags" section are now separated by an "=" and that name-value-pairs are separated by ";". Before this patch, names and values were separated by " " and the pairs were separated by "|".

This has some implications on the plugins as some may rely on tags. After this patch, some of them may not work because they parse the tags using the old separators.

[paul_nicholls]

[trucker2000]

I haven't used the tags in the torque exporter in ages. The only thing I remember it was used for were portals. (which can be added inside torque now from within the editor)
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[chronozphere]

NashaUV does not rely on tags.

However, the plugins for my Tuberunner game do. But I can easily update these.

[Paul-Jan]

[quote]It's Chronozphere with a Z[/quoe]

Ah yeah I blame my left hand .

I like your suggestion of delaying it for a month. We'll announce it at some proper place.

[Grandmaster B]

Its probably better to have a "=" seperating the key and value. But please lets discuss the tag seperating symbol. I find both ";" and "|" not ideal, they both break the possibility to use scripting in tags.

For example this tag:
OnReady=function(in){g_Ready=1;}

Or this:
OnStateClose=function(in){g_State|=CLOSE;}

Maybe a more exotic symbol may fit better. I can only think of "@" for now. Or maybe two symbols like "@@".

[chronozphere]

Well, if you want to include scripting in tags, I suggest you use some kind of character escaping scheme. A scripting language "might" also use @ or @@.

We should discuss this separating character indeed. Maybe make it customizable.

[Grandmaster B]

A scripting language might use any existing character but i know no existing language that use the "@" symbol, thats why i suggested it. It its used by javadoc but that is extremly unlikely to be used in the tags.

Using escape sequences in the value is the thing that should be avoided and it does not work anyway.

A customizable symbol isnt a good style and it must be a scene property then. Using a fixed character sequence for the tag delimiter is the way to go in my opinion.

[chronozphere]