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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Sep 2008

    Default Notepad annoyance

    So I've been designing a sort of rogue-like video game, and my program takes an ascii "map" and turns into a dungeon. Like

    WWW
    W W
    WWW

    Is essentially a wall with a one tile hole in the middle. Now as you can see, if I want to actually visualize said dungeon correctly while designing it, I need to use notepad or something similar where all the characters have exactly the same height and width.

    My problem is I start with a room with all Ws around the dimensions I need and just a bunch of spaces in the middle. If I want to make a wall somewhere in the middle, it unfortunately shifts everything to the right after it. Basically what I need is an "insert" key but notepad apparently doesn't use that like word does. So is there anything that makes text files that I can use something like insert, or does anyone have a good idea of some alternative that would let me do this?
    -"I believe in gender equality, so SHOOT ME YOU WUSSY!"
    -Oh hey, let's go steal the tv from the corpse house?" NOBODY HAS EVER SAID THAT UTAHRAPTOR!
    -Stan you're pointing a gun to GOD. I.. I can't even THINK of a better metaphor.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    celtois's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Canada

    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    If you aren't scared of a little bit of rough and dirty in setting it up, gedit's windows build should do exactly what you need, you can switch between overwrite and insert using the insert key on your keyboard. http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/

    Mind you I run the linux version so I can't promise you it will work the same as it does for me.

    I'm kinda in love with this program it's basically notepad with a lot more features and open source, meaning I can use it to write documents and actually have them spell checked, and it even supports some basic coding syntax stuff.
    Last edited by celtois; 2011-04-11 at 12:12 AM.
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  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Anxe's Avatar

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    Jul 2005
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    Davis, California
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    Male

    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    copy and paste into word and then copy and paste back into notepad?

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Djinn_in_Tonic's Avatar

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    Nov 2006
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    Stuck in a bottle.
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    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    Any program will work if you use a fixed-width font. The Courier font family, which you should have on your machine by default, is probably the go-to for something like this, but there are numerous other fixed-width fonts out there.

    Here's a site with a few fixed-width font suggestions if you want something fancier than Courier.

    Ingredients

    2oz Djinn
    5oz Water
    1 Lime Wedge


    Instructions

    Pour Djinn and tonic water into a glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Garnish with lime wedge. Serve.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Sep 2008

    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    Ah, tried gedit, and it works great :)

    Also tried courier on word, which would be nice but even setting the linespacing to the lowest, .5, made the spacing between lines too large for me to figure out what the dungeon would look like.
    -"I believe in gender equality, so SHOOT ME YOU WUSSY!"
    -Oh hey, let's go steal the tv from the corpse house?" NOBODY HAS EVER SAID THAT UTAHRAPTOR!
    -Stan you're pointing a gun to GOD. I.. I can't even THINK of a better metaphor.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    celtois's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    Canada

    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    Glad to hear gedit works great for you. It's always great to see some support for the open source alternatives that I love. Even better to see peoples problems fixed.

    (I hope you mean it works for this project anyways. )
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  7. - Top - End - #7
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Sep 2008

    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    Yeah, that's what I meant :) It looks pretty handy in general, tho.
    -"I believe in gender equality, so SHOOT ME YOU WUSSY!"
    -Oh hey, let's go steal the tv from the corpse house?" NOBODY HAS EVER SAID THAT UTAHRAPTOR!
    -Stan you're pointing a gun to GOD. I.. I can't even THINK of a better metaphor.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    celtois's Avatar

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    Jan 2007
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    Canada

    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    Oh yeah gedit is pretty sweet if you start learning all the crazy stuffy you can do with it. =D, you can have documents calling other documents, and all sorts of really cool stuff, such as file chaining. At least I'm pretty sure it's the one I'm thinking of for doing all that cool jazz, I tend to have too many handy little programs kicking around to keep track of them all.

    Mind you it is a nice sensible text editor. Keeps things simple enough for me to just type since most of the time that's all I need.

    I'm glad to hear everything worked out for you! Good luck with your game.
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  9. - Top - End - #9
    Colossus in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Feb 2007
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    Manchester, UK
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    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    Quote Originally Posted by Greep View Post
    Also tried courier on word, which would be nice but even setting the linespacing to the lowest, .5, made the spacing between lines too large for me to figure out what the dungeon would look like.
    You can turn off the spacing between paragraphs entirely--it'll be that that's causing your issue, I bet, since you'll presumably have a carriage return at the end of every line.

    Mind you, I tend to use Excel if I'm making simple maps anyway...

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Orc in the Playground
     
    PirateWench

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    Oct 2008
    Location
    Preston, England
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    Default Re: Notepad annoyance

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    You can turn off the spacing between paragraphs entirely--it'll be that that's causing your issue, I bet, since you'll presumably have a carriage return at the end of every line.

    Mind you, I tend to use Excel if I'm making simple maps anyway...
    That might be a much better idea, excel saved as a CSV or something. Then you can find/replace out the , if you need to.

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