Advanced Tiled Loader - No longer maintained

[pauljessup]

I don't think anyone is saying Tiled is not a valid solution- it's a great one, and I know the creator pretty well (we ran RPGDX together back in the day) and he's an excellent programmer, one of the best. I'm creating my own solution because even though Tiled is a good solution, it shouldn't be the ONLY solution, and for some projects it's not a good fit or even a viable solution at all.

For example: what if you were working on an Game Maker? Tiled would create more hurdles to ease of design/use to non-programmers/content-creators. It would be "outside" the system, so to speak, and require various work arounds. Also: it's not a native Lua solution, and so you can't leverage Lua as a scripting language to it's fullest within Tiled. Lua is meant to extend things, to build upon things...a mapeditor in Lua would have advantages TIled could never have.

But like I said- it's a valid solution. It just shouldn't be the ONLY solution.

[Karai17]

I completely disagree. Tiled not being written in lua is in no way relevant to its viability. Tiled is a very easy program to use with a fairly mild learning curve. It's in no way "outside" the system. Everyone uses multiple tools for projects--each tool specializing in a particular task. Should we also write a text editor in love simply because other text editors are written in C++?

If you want to create a new map editor or text editor in love, you're absolutely welcome to do so and I commend the effort to bring diversity and choice into the toolbox of game developers. But if the sole purpose of that activity is "because other solutions are not lua-based", then I think you need to reconsider your priorities.

[pauljessup]

Dude? Did you not read it? I said above that it is a viable solution, but it IS NOT a viable solution for all projects.

t's in no way "outside" the system. Everyone uses multiple tools for projects--each tool specializing in a particular task. Should we also write a text editor in love simply because other text editors are written in C++?

It's "outside the system" if you're building a game maker. Like RPGMaker. Or something like that. In other words- it's another, separate program you have to launch. It's also "outside the system" because it won't work seamlessly and intuitively within a game maker that you are building. If you're building a tool that makes content creation simple and easy to understand and learn, and not something that requires several work arounds, then Tiled will not be what you need. It's that simple.

You're thinking of just making things for yourself? Awesome. Rock on. Tiled is perfect. Working with a team who can easily pick up what you need them to? Okay cool, also awesome. But one size doesn't always fit all.

If you want to create a new map editor or text editor in love, you're absolutely welcome to do so and I commend the effort to bring diversity and choice into the toolbox of game developers. But if the sole purpose of that activity is "because other solutions are not lua-based", then I think you need to reconsider your priorities.

Yup. And you have no idea what kind of power you could have by using something like that. That's cool. You probably won't need that power. But I do. The stuff I have in mind...I do.

Take for example, let's say how Zoetrope handles Tiled Objects. It's pretty nifty, I think. But it also highlights how Tiled and Lua are two separate environments, the fact that you would need to place the object, assign it a value, then go into your code, create an object in code with that value, and then code that object. What if, instead, you created that code for that object, and then the map editor saw that code and used it within the environment to drop these objects down natively and intuitively? That would cut down on some of the coding, don't you think? Or what if you could extend the editor, adding neat add ons to the toolbars, adding special effects to different map layers, or even structuring the environment that matches your game?

All done in Lua? Or if you could download plugins and modules made by other programmers, in Lua, that would extend the functionality of your games?

What if opening the map editor while your in the game (not leaving the game) by pressing a key, like F12? ANd hey, it was all free to include in any game you wanted to, even commercial ones?

So why then, do I need to rethink my priorities?

[ryanleesipes]

If someone offered to maintain this would it be considered? I think Advanced Tiled Loader is great and it has been central to my projects so far! Please let us know Kadoba. Obviously it could be forked, I suppose, and maintained as a different branch. Your thoughts on this would be great!

[Kadoba]

ATL can always be branched. I do not mind if someone else takes over, of course, but I'm a little hesitant to have just anyone take over the main branch. I can update the opening post and github readme to direct people to a new branch if one takes off.

[Karai17]

Shameless self promotion: New Tiled library in the works!
https://www.love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=76983

[monolifed]

I ported this to 11.0
It got slightly lighter
https://love2d.org/forums/download/file.php?id=18112

[Karai17]

To what end? STI works just fine and is much, much lighter fundamentally.

[monolifed]

I am not sure what you mean. I didn't make any comparison to other libraries.
I just posted this here for a heads up

[zorg]

Of all the cases of necroing, i think i can safely say, this is the best one; updating projects for newer framework versions.