[ALPHA] Freeform Jazz: The Visual JAZZ Graph Tool, TESTERS NEEDED by ChaosMageX
Freeform Jazz, my tool for viewing (and someday editing) JAZZ graphs with a node graph style GUI based on the one seen in The Sims 3 Behind the Scenes video, has finally entered its alpha stage and its source code has been uploaded as part of A's s3pi-wrappers.
Those who have Visual Studio 2010 or 2012 and who wish to alpha test it can check out the latest revision of its source code from here:
http://code.google.com/p/s3pi-wrappers/source/checkout
After that it's just a simple matter of opening up the solution in Visual Studio, compiling the Tools/FreeformJazz project and then finally debugging it. Just keep in mind that it is still unstable, so I strongly suggest backing up any Sims 3 package file, exported jazz script resource file, or exported key name map resource file you try overwriting. This instability is the same reason why I haven't uploaded a compiled binary of it. I need a few alpha testers who are willing to help me work out all the bugs by rigorously debugging it in their own copies of Visual Studio.
I encourage everyone to give it try and tell me how user friendly it is, how easy or hard it is to use, what you think of it, etc. If at any time while you're debugging it you get an error, please take note of as many details about it as you can, including the stack trace from the error, what steps it takes to get to the error, what packages and jazz graphs you had open at the time, and any possible solutions you might have for it. You can post these details in a reply to this topic, or be creating a new issue on the Google code project here:
http://code.google.com/p/s3pi-wrappers/issues/list
As for the roadmap for the tool's development, the first thing on my to-do list is to completely overhaul the currently unfinished settings dialog so that it is no longer modal and the user can still manipulate the jazz graphs while adjusting the settings, and then complete the unfinished section for adjusting the settings of the automated graph layout algorithm, and then make the settings persistent between sessions with the tool. After that, I can then begin the arduous task of creating custom user controls for modifying the properties of state machines, states, actor and parameter definitions, and every type of decision graph node, as well as creating an Undo/Redo system for stepping through just about every single change an end user can make to a jazz graph. Creating the Undo/Redo system will lead to coding the menu items for adding and removing nodes from both state graphs and decision graphs, and then after that it's basically done, unless I think of some other feature that's worth adding.