Finding the right entity can be a huge PITA. Is there a tool out there that helps with browsing, searching, managing, tagging, sorting, organizing, viewing, etc? Surely someone else out there (with serious coding experience) has been frustrated by this, too!

try starting here:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213600#msg2531644

That's good for stuff in a level map. What about the entity list itself. I mean like if you click purchased, you get a long list of names and have to go through each one of them to see what is in there. I think that's what Leando was meaning. Something like that would be a big help.

Ah I see my bad, I don't think there is but you never know

Let us say : there is, but it is not out in the wild.

Also, it has a wider approach than just listing the names: it also targets "doublettes hygiene", "altered paths" reconciliation and possibly a "find a model from those I posess with suitable likeness to one I don't posess" feature ; the latter two aimed at .fpm files you might receive from others.

The core - of course - is an analyzer scuttling down the entitybank directory subtree and recording what .fpe files and corresponding .bmp icons it finds, so, later, the program can answer search requests by not only showing the name(s) with
the "paths" to find them, but also what they look like [imagine how many items you will get as a result if you search for "build*" or "barrel*", just names are not efficient here].

The bad thing is that the user has to initiate a (re-) scan manually now and then to update the internal list, because there is no known way to learn automatically that GG "just has downloaded a few new models". I'm trying to speed up the scan process by evaluating the editors\downloadinfo directory, but ....

And the worst thing is there is no way to get the path found over to GG's editor, the user has to manually follow the path displayed in GG's editor.

The search facility is currently limited to just a single partial string search in the objects' names - so, it is VERY basic.

A feature to assign and maintain searchable custom attributes is still not implemented; it probably would at least mean employing sqlite as a background database.

I would really like some input on the following questions before I release something to the public:
* Will users actually take the trouble to maintain custom attributes ?
Probably not if there is not an easy feature to select a number of entries and mass-assign attributes ?

* how many user defined attribute columns are useful ? Are "5" ok, too many or not enough ?
* Is the author's name of a model a useful search attribute at all?

[edited 1 time]

The fact that you have thought this out as you have gives me faith in whatever you come up with.

Custom attributes could come in handy for searching. Even better if they could be read by LUA in the engine.

I think 4 or 5 should be more then the majority would use. Should be able to pin point it down to a few entities with those search features.

I myself am willing to do the extra scanning to get the info in such details.

Thanks for the feedback, Myke. I wasn't aware that LUA can reach out / interface to other programs, but if LUA can read sqlite databases, that could be a solution. I'll look into it.

I like the direction this conversation is going. As was discussed by others in my absence, I'm not talking about entities already in the map (but while we're at it, yes, that's a huge PITA, too), but about finding entities within the library to place in the map as we're building it. Having a tool like that would be amazing.

yrkoon: I love where your thoughts are going, and if you were to build something like this, I'm sure the entire community would be grateful. I'm wondering, why limit the number of user-defined attributes ('tags') at all? If you are planning on using a database, couldn't a table for tags be created? It would probably only have two columns: the key and the tag name. The user would be able add new tags, stored in that table. Then the list of tags could grow as big as the table/database can handle. Another table would then connect entities and the various tags that are assigned to them. Just a thought I had, based on a *very* limited knowledge of some database-driven website frameworks. I've never built such a thing, and have only worked with them in a minimal capacity, so forgive me if my idea has flaws or won't work as I imagine.

Thanks again to anyone helping or contributing to make something like this a reality! Ultimately, I think the GG UI needs a major improvement in terms of Entity Management; it is definitely at the top of my list for GG improvements. Why this isn't on the voting board, I don't understand.

I am working on a FPE Manager/Entity browser for my own use but it is in its very early stages, I thought about using SQlite as a backend but in all honesty my file search routines have been perfected over time they are pretty fast, I can recurse my entire entitybank (15.4GB) in 0.300ms I would see no speed benefit from using SQlite and I wanted to keep it dynamic so if I add an entity it will show in the browser without having to add/rebuild databases and I search filenames and FPE header with regEX, my plan is to be able to add tags to both entities and folders so this will offer 2 modes of search

what I wanted was a one-stop tool for searching/tagging and editing of FPE's, it would be nice to link this with the main IDE but I figure Lee will not implement any linkage unless he see's an actual working tool so I decided to go ahead and code one in hope it could sway the plugin situation, if not at least I have a tool for myself and others if they wanted it



I'm open to suggestions for this tool, I have basic browsing functionally and will have the properties box populated with FPE settings tonight, before I start work on the menu and toolbars (currently just placeholders) it would be great to hear what you guys might like to see added, if anything

I find the problem
How I sorted this out was simple.

To find entity that you want to use it is difficult if you have many of similar entities in many different folders.

How I fixed this was to create a game.

In the game I have my flat world with a path going round all the entities that I have.
It is like a showroom type thing. All entities that are similar are in an area called (GUNS) or (one story buildings) or (Characters)
Make a mini map (png image) and put that on screen to show where you have put all your entities.

Then start the game. Look at the map and then walk round the path to look at the entities that you want to use in the game you are making.

Each entity has the file address at the bottom. I used Prompt but then changed to (center on color).

When you have more entities just add them to the area that holds all the similar types.
Then save as standalone.


Sorted.

Why not all media creators should place a tag=Codeword or anything similar in the fpe. So we can create a tool to search and sort these entities.
We set codewords as community like: kitchen, tree, trash and so on and use these.

But for this plan we need a lot of modellers who want to do this, so I throw it away.

I think that's an awesome idea, and I think I've seen someone suggest it before. Hell, maybe it was you! Perhaps Lee could somehow integrate that into GG itself. The amount of assets is overwhelming at this point, and management should be a priority.