Variant Manager Screen Shots

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Configuring the “Drop” command using a Plug-in. Note that the available containers are configurable via the “containers” parameter, and that the “keystroke” is the ‘d’ key. Clicking “pressed D” would allow the user to set a new key binding just by typing it.

Part of the Variant Manager’s support for “Runtime Data”, ie data that may change at runtime rather than design time, is the ability to enter 1 or 2 dimensional lookup tables. This is a 1D table containing the “base” experience levels required for the Player to gain a level.

Managing the attributes of the root/item/type group, which contains all items. Under “Global Attrs”, we specify that all Items can be represented as ASCII characters, can be configured with the “Default” Global Attribute Set, which contains a displayable name and an active flag, and that Items are Nouns, indicating that we need to specify article information for them in supported languages. Under Local Attrs, we define two additional attributes not available to other Groups; Extra Attributes allows specification of arbitrary key/value pairs, and weight is the item’s weight. Note that this screen sets up how Items are configured; it does not configure actual Items. This screen is reached by selecting the “root/item/type” Group, and clicking , the third button from the left above the tree.

Configuring an actual Item, as defined above. Note that there is a tab for each Attribute Set selected above under Global Attrs (ascii-visual, default, and noun), and one additional tab for “Local Attrs”, containing the Attributes “attributes” and “weight”.

The Variant à Properties screen sets Variant Meta Data like version, default language, name, etc.

SimpleGame configures player equipment slots entirely using the Variant Manager. Legal item types may be selected, and internationalized messages are captured. The SimpleGame code is responsible for supplying replacement text for {0}, which will be the Item’s name preceded by the appropriate indefinite article, eg “a Dagger”.

Let me know what you think! My name is Thomas Seufert and my e-mail address is seufet@users.sourceforge.net