OpenMW-CS Record Filter/Search Future

[CeYaSpaceCowboy]

Hello All!

I am new developer working on the project. Some of you might of met me in the discord as SpaceCowboy. Ive decided to work on the editor tooling as it needs some love to reach its potential. Through querying the users and comparing vanilla Morrowind Construct set to OpenMW-Construction Set ive learned something...

People seem to dislike/misunderstand the record filter systems. Ive seen this in the modding community and in openMW. Would we be open to considering an abstraction over it or a simplified method for more intuitive end user use? Im not arguing its not robust, reading the documentation clarifies things a ton. Its just not what they expect.

The value of openMW, from my perspective, has to do with the engine and its potential to be a game creation system. Not its potential only to the Morrowind community, dev or modder alike. While editing morrowind is the most important short term goal, to create RPGS separately on an incredible/extendible FOSS engine for rpgs to me seems like the natural progression. Maybe thats not the ideology we have! And thats okay, set me straight.

But if I am a guy, who want to make an RPG and im suggested openMW, we want to make it for him right?
Post 1.0 might be the right call there. And im genuinely not trying to make waves, I just want to make the editor good
Of course that goal means making editing Morrowind great first!

[Mistahtokyo]

Copying in from Discord:
Basically, like Google search, there should be a default state when you type something in without any arguments. For the objects/meshes, for example, that could be the name/id. That way you can quickly type Ex_hlaalu_b, for example and get everything with that.
If you want to narrow down your results, you can then modify your search with the various arguments/filters to filter other things out, but you should not be required to input them.
If it can be done without slowdowns it'd also be nice for the list to update as you type your search. So, if I'm looking for an outdoor Balmora static, by the time I've typed "Ex" the list should already be shrinking to show only things with that in it, then shrinking further as I type "Ex_b_Hl"... etc etc"
Basically a live search that updates as you type.

[unelsson]

Can we have both somehow? Simple system as a default, then more complex filters for advanced users.

[Mistahtokyo]

Can we have both somehow? Simple system as a default, then more complex filters for advanced users.

That is literally what my post suggested. If you simply type in a name without anything else/no arguments it uses a default filter/behavior. If you type a filter it uses the filter.

[CeYaSpaceCowboy]

Yes, I believe its possible to have both. We can use the existing system and provide a simpler layer over it. I dont know the effort level, but, im sure we can manage.