GTAMP

Ideas for Sty Tool, as this seems the current best/only place for them:

1. Support the command line. So if I double-click a .sty file, it actually opens that file instead of just starting the tool.
2. Re-write the retarded "Yes/No/Cancel" message box about importing tiles with different palettes. Nobody can understand it and the confusion can waste epic amounts of time. Such as the way Golden Lap had to be built.
3. Maximise and resizing in general should draw sprites in all available space. (You could draw them page-by-page, left-to-right, with a 1px white gap between pages and no gaps between sprites. Or keep the 1px gap between sprites and create a bigger gap between pages where you can put the page number.)
4. Scrolling should be vertical, not horizontal.
5. Scrollwheel should scroll.
6. Inherit XP themes? Buttons don't look like XP buttons, for example.
7. Name buttons consistently. "go away!" might be novel to a Slovene weirdo when he's making at app at 4am 6 years ago. But it doesn't make good button text for users, imho.
8. Generally make the UI more like Windows, instead of using microscopic text and misaligned controls.

Sty Tool is a tremendously useful application. All the functional stuff works correctly and it enables editing just about everything. But the interface could really benefit from some usability TLC.

You might find more ideas in old topics on GTA Forums "Old School Modding" area or the Gouranga! Forums "Modding & Editing" area.

Oh, sorry Ben for delay.

I haven't read this topic for a while now and just today noticed your post here.
Thanks alot for your suggestions.

My ideas / questions:
--------------------
But what about the UI itself? I.e main window?
I think it could be better. And all the sprites there. Could be sorted so they are not in one big sheet like now (add option to switch between views).
I don't know if it's useful or not but it may be handy sometimes.

BTW: should i add menu or just use buttons as they are?


But i will start working on your list and implementing them.

I suggested it once before (maybe gtaforums?) but if you import a file with a sprite number in the name then stytool should automatically select that sprite number instead of having to manually enter the number and then search for the sprite on the screen.

I guess it was in map editor topic. I don't know.


Can you give me some of the sprites that have such names?
So i can test it.

I haven't played much with cars or such things lately so i don't know where these can be downloaded.

Most of the links i tried are dead.


And about XP style. The buttons do not care about XP or any style because they are self-made.
Im gonna remove them and use some other components and add XP manifest.

At the moment it doesn't care even about manifest. Still displays that a bit ugly style.
Also i think im gonna add some registry info saving. For example default directory when Open Dialog is executed. So it will be saved in registry. Registry is better because then it will be just pure EXE with no additional trash. But in Vista and Win7 it's another question. But i can test it out on my Win7.

When you export a car or sprite in STY tool, it gives it a name. If I import that same filename that I just exported, it should know where to put it or at least ask me.

http://azz.gtazz.com/doku.php still has heaps of cars to download. They aren't all named that way though and many were created before Style Tool was created.

I'd like to be able to import a huge bitmap and have it automatically split into tile sprites. It's probably hard to keep the correct colours.

Thanks for the link. I got some.

There's only one feature I really miss in STY Tool, and that's the importing custom palettes (*.pal files) in stead of automatically generating a palette for each new tile. If you could add this to STY Tool, Gain's STYed would finally be obsolete.

The interface could be improved, I guess. The importing tiles message Ben mentioned indeed seems to confuse a lot of users, but I don't think the rest is in desperate need of improvement. STY Tool may not be pretty, but it works and that's good enough for me.
Still, it never hurts to improve.

Ben.
LOL, just noticed that line: "making app at 4am 6 years ago"

Lantyz:
I will look at that. Will mess a bit with Gain too(l). To see what it does there.

OK.

Little list what i have done or doing already:

• * Added menu

• * Added toolbar

• * Added XP manifest

• * Added some more error checking in some places

• * Hunted for alot of memory leaks caused by improperly coded button components, thanks to EurekaLog

• * Replacing old buttons with new ones that support XP themes

• * Fixed error and other such "childish" strings, like reported by Ben

The drawgrid is giving me headaches sometimes, which holds the tiles.

More to come. I will show pic soon how it looks like.

Would be great if you also took a look at making 'true' transparency support. I don't know if .bmp's support transparency actually...? I prefer .png (24bit) to be honest...

Sounds promising. I've updated the topic to more accurately reflect this is about B-$hep's revisions to the existing tool by JernejL.

is it possible to combine wil,bil and ste .stys to one?

Why?

I think it could be done but other than GTA2 STY tool will not read such sty file that has 3 or more Sty's in them.

if yours will ang it will work in gta2 i would like to you do it

Did you get any further with this? Is it stable enough for a beta release?

yea i would like to start work at my own sty file (with no pal,tile limit etc.)

Any progress?

Is there a newer release available (newer than 4-6 years)?

my suggestions:
-delete a texture/replace it with a black tile - button/ (or by del key)
-select multiple textures(for exporting, importing, deleting, palette sharing, ...)
-delete unused textures options for a selected map(maybe in cooperation with TM)
-possibility to make it integratable into trademarks editor

-correct the confusing arrangement of the tiles. It different from the one in dma editor.
-show which textures use a specific palette.
-ability to generate a shared palette for multiple textures.
-export/import palette as .pal
-option display a texture with a different palette without changing it.
-find unused palettes
-sort textures by size x/y (helps to find similar textures)

fix the bugs in gci modifying which produces malformed entries:

JernejL: surprise! Updated STY tool.
JernejL: maybe you can put it on gtamp, i no longer have a gta site..
JernejL: it has few minor fixes t.m. asked for
JernejL: it fixes 2048 sprites limit, removes red rectangles in sprite viewer, and fixes the remap #0 viewing
JernejL: also you should alert people trying it to make backups of .sty files
JernejL: there were some under the hood fixes which might break, but t.m. was testing and didn't notice any.. but just in case



Link removed.

JernejL: it fixes 2048 sprites limit, removes red rectangles in sprite viewer, and fixes the remap #0 viewing

how about tiles limit and displaying/useing it by gtamapeditor?

Sektor wrote:JernejL: surprise! Updated STY tool.
JernejL: maybe you can put it on gtamp, i no longer have a gta site..
JernejL: it has few minor fixes t.m. asked for
JernejL: it fixes 2048 sprites limit, removes red rectangles in sprite viewer, and fixes the remap #0 viewing
JernejL: also you should alert people trying it to make backups of .sty files
JernejL: there were some under the hood fixes which might break, but t.m. was testing and didn't notice any.. but just in case

He is alive! Awesome.

T.M. stands for TradeMark? If so, that is good news - two developers that can help each other is always better.