Offline Colors.INI Editor Download

Being that Im off until new years, I had some freetime today.

I wrote an offline colors.ini file editor.

Heres a screenshot.

Heres the download.


Features:
-Full colors.ini parsing
-Color name parsing for readability
-Colors are seperated into groups
-Colors have descriptions of what they do

-Does not fail if colors.ini is modified by the lindens and colors are added. It parses new colors correctly. (they just dont have group assignments/descriptions, they show up as 'Unknown group' and 'No Description Available' but are complelty editable)

-HLS and RGB color editing. (Well HLS is just a color chart like the win32 common dialog. See the screenshot)

-Preview the colors, with and with out alpha blending.


Requirements:
If you run SL you can run this. (Win95/NT not supported, due to alpha blending dll call).. (msimg3.dll.. er something)




Installation:
Unzip the downloaded file, run setup.exe.
This is an installshield installation. Pretty straight forward.

Dependencies:
all dependencies are distributed. windows common controls 5.0 sp2 i think, as well as common dialog, etc...

Development Environment:
Visual Basic 6.0 sp5 (hey i was in a hurry)
Windows XP sp1 + all fixes as of 12/22/03
InstallShield Developer 8 sp2
Visual source safe 6.0 sp whatever...

Misc:
Download size is ~6mb


*Edited to correct download link*

Source will be made available upon request....

Fantastic! Thanks so much, Michael, it is really appreciated.

by the way, not all the descriptions are finished.. alot of them say 'no description available'

once i type all those buggers in, i will release an update 'colordesc.dat' file which will be all thats needed....

anyway..

oh, and if someone is inclined to edit the colordesc.dat file - use notepad, and email me a copy

Nice work This will help greatly with making up new color schemes.

I have a whole list of new features im adding tomorrow. Ill also finish the description data tomorrow, and Im whipping up a quick web page for it as well...

I also need to put a 'this ugly icon and the second life name are trademarks linden labs' on it, etc..

*edited*

Can't thank you enough, Michael.

Don't forget to bill Linden Labs for your time.

Let's see...

1 hour form creation
1 hour object model creation
4.5 hours development
1 hour beta
.5 hour correcting
.5 hour in installshield

.5 hour on tech support getting my 10mb webspace setup. wankers.

2.5 hours drinking beer wondering why im doing this because in a week theyll be on 1.2.38 and have an inworld editor...

.5 hour screenshot, uploading and posting on the forums.

---
12 hours * (my standard billing rate of $90/hr) = $1080

Hey can i get that in L$?

Just tested it out, it seems the .ini that your editor creates are in different form (some lines are in different places) than the ones in 1.2 now. And when i try to use it and log off SL then log back on the client just crashes every time, it could just be me. Its still awsome though, lol. Maybe they changed the .ini file composition from the preview to the final release? I'm not sure.

Disregard the above post, I figured out the problem and its completely my mistake... I had saved some color.ini's from preview when I was messing around with them, and to save time and because I'm lazy I was just trying to use one of the ones saved from preview instead of making a whole new one with the new colors.ini not realizing they were in a different format.

So for future reference for anyone else, don't use color.ini's you've saved from preview with the final release, it doesn't work.

Completely my fault, I apologize.

The program is working great Michael thanks

Glad to hear it Oz.

To anyone using the application: feel free to post feature requests, any nuiances in the UI, or any other comment.. You never know how well it performs until its in someone elses hands. Or how many bugs you wrote in

All feedback is welcome!

Thanks

Feature suggestion: A pieced together screenshot showing the UI, with all windows open, allowing to choose the item to edit by simply clicking on it.

Yes I'm aware thats alot of work, but you asked for it ;)

lol. I knew that was coming. I have a few hours into the development of it already.

I had alot of other features and a few fixes I added this morning, which have been sidetracking me quite a bit.

Christmas vacation rocks. I don't have to look at another piece of code until... wait... I'm coding on vacation too...

damn

Even us simple minded people can use this.
What is an Alpha?

Alpha is the transparency. A value of 0 means fully transparent, a value of 128 means semi-transparent, a value of 255 means fully opaque.

It's also...

First letter of the Greek alphabet (alphabet comes from the first two letters in Greek... alphabeta)

In-house testing before a game is released

The dominant male of a pack of animals

The first born of a nest of reptiles.

I could think of more if you give me the time, too!

Ok new version.

Heres a screenshot.

Heres the download.

Installation:
--------------
Since this is a pet project, im not going the patch + service pack release method. This is a new installer.

* If you have this installed already, uninstall it before installing this new version. * (it just makes life simpler)

Unzip the downloaded file, run setup.exe. Again, this is an installshield installation, it's self-explanatory.

Start menu:
-------------
The shortcut is now in its own folder under start->programs instead of the 'second life' folder. This is because I also added a shortcut to the release notes of the application.



Release Notes:

SL Colors Ini Editor
Version 5.0.0.3

Released December 23, 2003
==========================

New Features
------------
- Colors can now be sorted in the list. Sorting can be done by
group name or by color name, both ascending and descending.

- Colors now appear sorted by group name alphabetically when a colors.ini file is first loaded.

- RGBA entry boxes now have up/down controls tied to them, making it much easier to make minute adjustments to the RGBA values.

- The HLS color model charts now more accurately picks up mouse movements near the edges. It was limiting Hue to 358 instead of hues maximum value of 360.

- Tooltips have been added to the HLS color model charts indicating the current hue, lumination, and saturation values.

- HLS entry boxes were added. Up/down controls were tied to them much like the RGBA entry boxes.

- Many more descriptions were filled in. 95% of the descriptions are now filled in.

- An about screen was added, indicating copyrights.




Corrections
-----------
- The colors in the list didn't have their RGBA updated in the
RGBA columns in the list. This was a display problem only. The RGBA columns in the list always showed the original RGBA values.

- The undo button was not being enabled in all instances.

- When no file was open, the 'save' and 'save as' menu items were not disabled. Clicking either menu item caused the application to generate a runtime error and exit.

- When dragging the mouse in the hue/satuation color model chart, the mouse was not being clipped to that region of the screen. The lumination slider did this, but the h/s chart did not.

- A color with no descriptions available showed up as [[Unknown]] group instead of [Unknown]. Same with the description, the brackets were doubled.



Note: some formatting of the release notes was lost on copy+paste.

Awesome work Michael.

If anyone wants to share their color schemes I started a thread on SL Universe, feel free to post or use any of them

http://www.sluniverse.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=1&messageid=353

Fantastic tool!!! You mentioned wanting input, here are the only things I can think of,

A checkerboard pattern underneath the preview with alpha so we can see what it will look like on both extremes.

A custom color box so themes can be saved for fast picking (if you like to work with a certain grouping as a base) or just want to quickly transfer colors from one to another.

Keep up the awsome work!

Neil

Neil - love the checkerboard idea. In fact i just finished it.

----
Havent repackaged the executable for release, I'm waiting for more modifications before I release a new version.

-----
Someone else mentioned making it look like a screenshot and editing each item by selecting it on screen. I was thinking about this, and its rather intense but can be done, but quite frankly not worth the effort, as im guessing LLabs will release an inworld editor soon.

Then I was thinking about whipping up a quick preview theme window, using a screenshot, overlayed w/ the colors so it looks like you actually modified the screen. This is totally doable but I have some concerns:

1. if a new color is added to colors.ini it will not preview. the current method works no matter what is added/removed to the colors.ini file.

2. How would I implement it? would i have a preview button, or would it be a different window that always updates as you change the colors? if so, how would that window be positioned? behind the editor?, do i make the editor an MDI form, with 2 child windows... i dunno its a design issue im thinking about...

3. screen resolutions. do i take the screenshot in 800x600 and force the user to at least have 8x6 to run the app? etc..

4. its a pain in the ass.
-------

Also, im looking at some sort of theme manager... i dunno though... right now you can just make multiple colors.ini files.. i would like the ability to compare colors.ini files, especially if i implement a preview window..
-----

...wrapping presents...

That is the best gift that I could get. No need to rap it. Ziping it will do nicely.

Michael

As to your questions(more musings than anything I'm sure) but I have some suggestions on how you could handle it.
Not presented in the order of your questions...
a) 640x480 ss, its enough to get the point of how things would look, exactness not precisely needed, just general.

b) A second floating window or an mdi child would work, I would think the floating window would be better for ease of positioning. Defalt startup location for preview window parallel to Main window.

c) Udating the colors as they are changed in the color box would be the "best" solution but also the more difficult to do, honestly if you bother to put this feature in at all clicking a preview button that updates the screen would be totally ok by me, I'd just be tickled to have that kind of feedback from it!

d) Keep both methods available so that as new colors are added it works properly but we also have the benefit of the ease of use that comes with the preview window

e) I dont see LL making a inworld editor anytime in the very near future, they have many other major issues that need to be resolved first I would think, but one never knows. Perhaps someone at ll could verifty and thus save some effort and time if it is in the works and coming soon.

f) you rule

g) On the comparing note, that would be badass.

Keep the good work.

I just released the final update that i will perform until friday, due to the holiday.

Heres a screenshot.

Heres the download.



Installation:
--------------
Again, im not going the patch + service pack release method. This is a new installer.

* If you have this installed already, uninstall it before installing this new version. * (it just makes life simpler)

Unzip the downloaded file, run setup.exe. Again, this is an installshield installation, it's self-explanatory.




SL Colors Ini Editor
Version 5.0.0.4

Released December 24, 2003
==========================


New Features
------------
- Alpha blended preview window now has checkerboard pattern. Thanks to Neil Protagonist for offering this suggestion.

- New alpha blending routine. Now longer requires msimg3.dll.

- Alpha blended preview window is now backbuffered for better refresh rates.

- Regrouped a handful of color names. Eliminated the 'defaults' group by moving the colors in that group to more specific groups.

- Corrected and added color descriptions.




Corrections
-----------
- Shortcuts now get their own start->programs folder titled
'sl colors ini editor'. This was actually done in the
5.0.0.3 release, but i forgot to put it in the release notes.

- Application was prompting for save when file wasn't dirty.
On save the application was not setting the 'original colors'
to the 'update colors', and the isdirty() method was comparing to see if the updated colors on every color item matched the original colors, therefore isdirty() was always set to true if any of the colors were edited, regardless if the edited colors have been saved.

- Fixed INI capitalization in the installer and shortcuts. This
was actually done in the 5.0.0.3 release, but again, i forgot
to put it in the release notes.

- Fixed release notes icon under start->programs



Note: some formatting of the release notes was lost on copy+paste.


Enjoy

I recommend updating to this version (5.0.0.4) for the following reasons:

1. alpha blend checkerboard pattern gives better feedback.
2. the save prompt after you just saved is annoying as hell.
3. MUCH better color groupings and descriptions.

Happy holidays to all.