Previous news: 26 May 2007

Strip Editor Forever!
I've spent more time working on the Strip Editor than I has before this week, which was thankfully meant I've made lots of progress. Here are the main bits I can remember or wrote down:

Flip
Sprites and textboxes can now be flipped vertically and horizontally. Which means I don't need to have two versions of all the sprites walking in different directions.

Font enhancements
They can now be made bold/itatlic, plus the alignment in the textbox can be set to left, center or right aligned.

Misc
* Alpha blending now works on textboxes and sprites, so basically everything.
* Sprites and textboxes can be locked in place, so that they don't get selected again accidently.
* The selected object gets a visible selection box.
* Panel background images now automatically resize.
* Border styles now work.
* The delete object method now works correctly.

Each feature takes quite a while to implement as firstly I have to get it working in the browser, using JavaScript. Then I have to allow that property to be saved, using AJAX which talks to a C# asp.net back-end which saves the property in XML. Finally this XML data has to be read and used to draw the property. So basically each feature implemented it a three stage process.

Here in old Blighty it's a three day Bank holiday weekend, meaning that I'll be able to continue the relentless march onwards... and also I'll be working on the Strip Editor, haha!

Mav