Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

User talk:Briess

2009-11-13T15:17:07Z

Larek: /* Cannot add new accounts */

== Extension request ==

(mostly copied from [[User talk:senso]])

A string manipulation extension would allow things to be dynamically created from raw files and other powerful templates. With the upcoming big change to creature structure in DF, something that pulls info directly from raw data would really help rework the creature pages. I've been looking through some extensions, and one of these would fit well (in order of preference)
#http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MultiReplace
#http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RegexParserFunctions
#http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:StringFunctions
The first one is a replacement function that can preform multiple replacements in one call (and it supports regex). The second one is a straightforward regex engine, and the last one is a collection of string manipulations. For my suggested purpose just one of the three would be enough, but none of them completely covers the tasks the of others. So, if possible, having all of them would be best. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 21:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

:Their functionality does overlap a lot. The differences are as follows:
*Multireplace can preform multiple replacements with one call, which the second one cannot. It can evaluate regular expressions for the replacement.
*RegexParserFunctions can preform a regex replacement. It can also be used for a regex search, which multireplace isn't meant for.
:Multireplace would be better suited for a template that generates diagrams. Regexparserfunctions could do this by nesting the function call many times, which I don't think is a good idea.
:Regexparserfunctions would be better suited for a template that pulls information from raw data files. Multireplace could do this by matching everything before and after the matchtext and cropping it, like so: '''(.*)(matchtext)(.*)=$2'''. However, to do this multireplace is effectively matching the entire page at once. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 22:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

::This is a possible alternative: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RegexFunctions [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 05:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

==Archive Subdomain problem==
Sorry to bother, i sent an email to senso, but it seems that you are the new admin. Grats.
Yesterday i was surfing the archive [http://archive.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Main_Page] and suddendly it started to redirect to a french blog. Now it redirect to the main wiki. (Actually every subdomain redirects to the main wiki, also invalid ones) Can you bring it back? I know that it's rarely used, but sometimes it's funny to build 2D nostalgia fortresses. --[[User:Tempus|Tempus]] 09:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

== Contact info? ==

Thanks for stepping up. Are you going to have an e-mail contact addy, for less public communication? --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 17:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

== Favicon ==

The favicon for the previous wiki seems not to have been copied over. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 18:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:http://web.archive.org/web/20071127071819/http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/favicon.ico [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 01:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== You may want to watch this page ==

[[Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Spamreport]] [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 01:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== Short delay for new accounts? ==

Some wikis have a policy of a short waiting period between the creation of a new user account and the ability to edit an article. (On the main wiki, I believe this is 30 days.) This delay achieves 3 things, but the only one I'm really concerned with is that it would ''seriously'' slow down bots and spammers. As a side benefit, it also prevents confused newbies from editing before they have a feel for the wiki as a whole, and spontaneous, ill-considered or mean-spirited contributions from a variety of other less-than-serious sources, such as the occasional spur-of-the-moment vandal or the late-Saturday-night beer-goggled comedy writing team. I think 1 week would be ample, but even a 48 or 72 hour period might slow the spam bots. No editor who has a worthwhile contribution to make would resent 48 hours to consider their first effort.

Just a thought.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 02:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== IP numbers instead of sig? ==

When I was trying to use the standard <nowiki>--~~~~</nowiki> sig, IP numbers are coming up instead of the user/date. See [[Talk:Furniture Industry]]. Don't know what's up wi'dat. --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 06:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Is it possible you were logged out at the time? I enabled anonymous edits for at least a trial period earlier today...
Okay, that must have been it - I had no notification that it wouldn't accept my edit, so... 
Otoh, I, for one, do have a problem when a page gets edited by [[24.198.25.175]] - how do I respond on their talk page? More, don't some smaller ISP's still share IP numbers between users over time in the same area? So... who, exactly, made that edit? Everyone with that ISP? Lastly, when keeping getting a feel for who is editing what, and their style, hard to mentally keep casual track of an IP addy. Just one vote, but in this case, it's one of dissent.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 18:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
:Well, you da boss. You may want to make a general announcement, perhaps on the "current events" page? It's rather jarring to see IP's instead of user:names, and I would never have guessed that their :talk page would work - might want to mention that, too, for all the other ignorants out there. (Also, if I never "don't log in" again, I'll never see any response to the one IP edit I did make, right? 2 user pages for each editor w/ a user:name? And even more if they (don't) log in from different locations/IP's? hrmmm...)--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 08:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
You're on 'er, yer honour. Sleeep gooood...--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 09:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

==leave==
User AcpasNorol wants to leave the wiki (see edits). I think he was blocked before, are old spamaccounts still blocked? --[[Special:Contributions/92.202.37.191|92.202.37.191]] 13:01, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

==Personal==
Thanks for cleaning up after me, including the formatting on the joining page. --[[User:The Architect|The Architect]]

== Deletion Policy ==

Redirects serve two purposes - links from other articles, and Searches. These fit under neither category, or none that also fit other policies (like singular/plural article names). And a lot depends on what links to them - since most of these were orphans (or effectively so, any reference only being a conversation re deletion) what are the odds of a search? 
Re plurals - I guess on one hand once they're there, they might as well stay, but they do set a bad precedent, and they are serving no good purpose except as an undesirable crutch. 
As far as "bizmuth bronze", that's a terrible precedent imo - do we start allowing any and every misspelled word to be "redirected"? If it's regional (armour/armor) or a common confusion (adamantium/adamantine) I support it 100%, but misspellings? Bleh. Remind me to make a redirect page for the metals iorn and steal, and sliver and goaled, among others. Double bleh. 
[[Personality modding]] was someone's pet project that was never started beyond posting the (almost blank) page, and abandoned and forgotten by late '07, not updated until [[user:I2amroy]] copied/pasted the entirety of the personality page onto it without further comment. It had no links except on 2 user pages, one where we were recently wondering "WTF ''IS'' this?", and another that's listed under "old forum links". Since the page itself was 2 years old, and has nothing that the original didn't... I think it's another that could get trimmed without loss, as the odds of anyone typing in "personality modding" are slim to none. 
So my position is "Lose 'em all, no one will ever miss them, and it's a cleaner site without" - but that's my opinion - the final policy is up to you.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 18:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
.... Er, I really meant if you still disagree, I'm more than willing to continue discussing what the appropriate course of action should be over any editorial policies we may have on this wiki.
Nah - I'm opinionated and vocal, but that's not the same as being always adamant in that opinion nor believing that means that I'm "right" (nor always spoiling for an argument/fight, some evidence to the contrary). I've voiced my point and the reasons behind it, and I believe you've weighed that (Respect) - so if in your estimation it doesn't wash, that's all good by me. (In this case.) ;) The policies are a collaboration as much as the content itself, and we've held to that process. So, until next time... ;D --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 23:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

== graphic gone missing ==

[[File:Pumpsnc4.png]], from the [[pump]] page, is MIA. I have no idea why or how, she gone.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 09:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

== Quote page - Karl's recent deletion constitutes vandalism ==
Karl is continually removing any and every quote I add to the quote page while leaving alone anything added by anyone else. Ie, he's clearly attacking me rather than trying to improve the quote page. This behavior is strikingly aberrant especially because he seems to be in favor of keeping any other quote no matter how bad.

I've acted in good faith to improve the quote page, and am trying to participate in a dialog about the other deleted quotes which I honestly don't feel belong on the page on their own merits. He's judging quotes i've added solely on the basis that I added them. He's also deleted other quotes i've added previously, and appends his recent changes summary with smilie faces as if he thinks he's being funny. This amounts to vandalism pure and simple. Needless to say, this is unacceptable behavior.

--[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 16:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: My attempts to talk with him about it on his talk page caused him to merely delete my text with no response. I hate to ask it, but i'm asking for administrative action - he's clearly incapable of separating personal from substantative differences. --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 16:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The quote I removed was based on the way you remove them, they were not grade-A funny quote. A taste of your own Medicine. You judge quote based on your biased opinion, saying they need to be funny, which is not the case, it's written nowhere on the wiki. You try to impose your own twisted sense of humor on this wiki. The fact no one cares about the quote make it hard to add them back, even if me and corona wanted to have some back, you opposed your veto, saying it was hardly a consensus.

You are by the way really condescending vs me and corona, talking about whining and all, did it ever occur to you that humor might be a personal taste ?

Oh, and by the way, it's unnecessary to copy/paste your rant on multiple page. --[[User:Karl|Karl]] 16:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

:As much as i hate to have a discussion with you on someone else's talk page
:First, the discussions, while on related issues, served different purposes. Namely a referendum on the quotes talk page on those quotes versus talking with an administrator about the appropriateness of particular editing behavior.
:Second, you're applying a different standard to quotes I've added than to other quotes on that page, which means you're targetting them because I've added them. Ie, exactly what I've said above. I doubt anything which I add you would ever consider grade-A funny, solely because i've added it.
:Third, they certainly aren't quotes crafted by me - i've merely noticed them and decided they should be added. They deserve to be judged on their own merits. You're not hurting me by removing them because I added them, you're hurting the page, and you're penalizing the people whose material it was originally.
:--[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 16:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

== Number of regex evaluations allowed per page ==

The number-of-functions-per-page parameter in the regex parser functions extension defaults to 10. Limiting it to a small number isn't warranted since computation time is based more on the complexity of the expressions involved rather than the quantity. A higher limit would allow [[template:diagram]] to be used more than three times on a single page. I've compared the serve time of these two pages: [[User:VengefulDonut/g|a]] [[User:VengefulDonut/r|b]], and found the difference was usually about 0.003 seconds. Based on this, I don't think its use is dangerous. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 17:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

:Hmm. If the ceiling is a few hundred, we probably won't bump into it. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 13:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

== Cannot add new accounts ==

The wiki will not allow new accounts to be created as the picture thing seems to be set up wrong

<pre>
To help protect against automated account creation, please type the two words you see in the box below:

This reCAPTCHA key isn't authorized for the given domain. More info </pre>

Please fix, I would like to set up and account versus being just an IP

:I found this other site "http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/" by googleing "Briess contact wiki" which looks very simular, and reCAPTCHA works on. That .net site did let me make an account and post the above message. Then it showed up on the .com site, and then the .com site let me log in. [[User:Larek|Larek]] 00:33, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

::Well I still can't post on the .com site as each post seems to require the annoying reCAPTCHA thing (which doesn't work). But any thing I put on that other .net site, shows up on the orginal .com one very quickly. [[User:Larek|Larek]] 00:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

:::Briess asked, The .com site is the First (and Second) hit on google when searching for "dwarven fortress wiki" which is http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com And yes I know that its "Dwarf Fortress" not "Dwarven Fortress", is just that when I speak to others about DF "Dwarven" is usally said since it is Dwarfs that build that Fortress.

::::Well I don't know what you have access to, and how lowlevel you can get on the webserver. But a Robots.txt that prevents google from indexing the .com site would fix my issue.
::::I can't find any trace of a 301 redirect on the .com site through IE6 or Netscpe. Also redirect checking tool http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/ seems to think there is not redirect either. Hope this helps. [[User:Larek|Larek]] 15:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

40d Talk:Macro design

2009-11-13T14:55:46Z

Larek: Rebuttal

== Updates to my work in progress ==

Wow thats a lot of updates to a page I was building, that had no links to, with no discussion page entries.., and I had to go to bed.

I like most of what has been done except for the following
*Changing a "Step to Far" to Off-by-one Errors
**This is the exact opposite of the common off-by-one error of arrays and for loops, while it is an error of just 1, this is misleading I think. Also "off-by-one" is really just a CS term.
* The Change (labeled " Off-by-one") to make "current" into "initial"
**This is wrong, as it can occur anywhere in the script not on just the initial movement.
* In Fast Movement
** The Concept of the cursor jumping was removed and replaced with " the cursor moves ten squares instead of one". The old Term of "Jumping" gets across the idea of skipping/is-faster than ten squares of movement
* What was wrong with "(nearly half)"
* "Troubleshooting"
** this is a "design" page, not a how to code page. the Original "Problems to avoid" term is more toward the concept of "read this section first and have it in your head while coding". Not to figure out what when wrong after the fact. Hopefully if they design it right the first time, it will work perfectly with no debugging.
* I think the Second Edge Collision paragraph read a lot better the way it was.
* "applies to a command" isn't correct.
**Original didn't have that issue

Over all I'm glad for the help (especially in the conversion to a 3rd person), I just didn't expect it until the page was actively linked some where. I'll make the above changes if I don't see a justification not-to comments. [[User:Larek|Larek]] 22:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

: Heh, yeah, every edit you make shows up in [[Special:RecentChanges]], and there are several people who watch that page. In general, as soon as you click save, people will see your change and look at it, and if it's in the main namespace, they will probably make changes, too. If you want to keep exclusive ownership over something, you can make a user page like [[User:Larek/Macro design]]. We'll still see it, but it's considered bad form to ''edit'' someone else's personal pages.
:* Why do you say it's the opposite of an off by one error? The programming term is used to describe confusion in loop conditions when iterating over an array. It seems quite analogous to me; maybe you can elaborate.
:* Re: current vs initial, my thought was that it's the starting point for a given series of movement commands. Personally I think that's clear from the context, but I'm open to other ideas.
:* Would you be happy with "the cursor '''jumps''' ten squares instead of one"? I wouldn't have a problem with that.
:* I thought "(nearly half)" would be obvious to anyone reading the numbers. In general, if text is unnecessary, then removing it means you get to the next necessary idea faster.
:* You say it's not about debugging, but the first clause was already "When your script doesn't run as planned" before I edited. That sounds like debugging to me. Personally I don't think debugging is inappropriate on a design page; people following along are likely to need debugging strategies unless they somehow do everything perfectly the first time.
:* I thought the edge collision section was missing some key concepts, specifically the possible disparity between changed-area and traversed-area which is the root cause of the problem in the first place. What advantages do you see in its original phrasing?
:* Admittedly, "applies to" is metaphorical. I was trying to express that now instead of (normal jump)(backpedal jump) you have (backpedal jump)(normal jump), since the "backward" movement takes place earlier. I'll try to think of a better phrasing, but please feel free to come up with something yourself.
: But welcome to the wiki, and thank you for contributing!
: --[[User:HebaruSan|HebaruSan]] 00:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

::Wow, So we have hawks, perched, looking for fresh meat. :)
::No it wasn't a personal page, It was a initial work in progress that I hadn't gotten to a first release state yet. I had not Idea that you could do sub-user pages. The heavy editing with no comments through me off a bit too. Water under the bridge.
::*"the opposite of an off by one error", off-by-one is a CS term and I'll use your diagram to hopefully show what I mean.
<pre>

In the 'normal' world people count like this

1 2 3 4 5 6 7...
# # # # # # #...

They teach that in Kindergarten I think.

However in the World of Bits, CS (arrays, integers, loops etc) count like this

0 1 2 3 4 5 6...
# # # # # # #...

There starting value is 0, so their first(1) operation is dealing with item zero(0).
Since CS People originally lived in a non bit world, they tend to revert back creating
and off by one.

In DF macros we don't count, we transition like this

1 2 3 4 5 6 ...
#>#>#>#>#>#>#...

So at the end of the first(1) operation we are dealing with item Two(2), thus the
opposite size of '1' than the CS notion is from the Kindergarten method.
</pre>
::* The other place I see programmers use off-by-one is that, a lot of loop and data structures (like ques)have initial-case and/or final-case conditions that differ from the main content of the loop or structure. When their code doesn't run right, instead of trying to recalculate the loop variables, they first test to see if they're off by one (in both directions), and see if it works.
::** This is like DF macros, But in the DF case it should be always one to high, hence the name "a step to far". Where in this second use if off-by-one its multi directional. I'm not set on the old name, but I think that implying a direction and not implying guess-and-check is good.

::*I thought current was easier it to understand, instead of a whole bunch of moves each with an initial position. I guess it's more of a flowing concept than a start, stop, start, stop... Doesn't matter too much, it's just a wording opinion.

::*Yes I think the term jump, helps the concept greatly

::*True the text should short and sweet, but we could also write a page that says "do good coding" and thats it. People tend to get "glossy eyed" when you throw a lot of numbers at them. which this article does. I thought reiterating the the count went from 38->11 is god but taking that to 11->6 its Really good too. Sure it's easily notice that they lost 27 steps in the first optimization, and that saving 5 steps isn't bad. But I wanted ''nearly half'' in there, to draw attention to the second optimization, That it is saving 45.5% ~= 50% which is big, or at least sounds bigger than just 5.

::* Cool you caught me on my own language. Hey it was a work in progress. Yes I do expect them to do a some debugging, but not debugging the design but mistakes when typing in the code.
::** I think however that the design-not-debug is still a good idea. The Back Peddling part shouldn't be a debug anyway since, if script runs correctly once, most people will stop and call it good. (and not see an issue with their Back Peddling) Its a thing that needs to be thought of during the design. And the Travel length should be "in the designers mind" too.

::*The first way, I thought, was easier to read. You made the long middle sentence even longer with more "big' words. And the original seemed to have a lighter tone.

::*OK Lets see,
::** Original
::*** "travels over the same area the previous "_FAST" command covered."
::** Current
::*** "now applies to the first "_FAST" command"
::** If the Original is no good how about
::*** "now backs up in the space the first "_FAST" command had already traveled."
::** Or something else..
::[[User:Larek|Larek]] 14:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

40d Talk:Macro design

2009-11-12T22:37:11Z

Larek:

== Updates to my work in progress ==

Wow thats a lot of updates to a page I was building, that had no links to, with no discussion page entires.., and I had to go to bed.

I like most of what has been done except for the following
*Changing a "Step to Far" to Off-by-one Errors
**This is the exact oppiste of the common off-by-one error of arrays and for loops, while it is an error of just 1, this is missleading I think. Also "off-by-one" is really just a CS term.
* The Change (labled " Off-by-one") to make "current" into "initial"
**This is wrong, as it can occure anywhere in the script not on just the inital movement.
* In Fast Movement
** The Concept of the cursor jumping was removed and repalced with " the cursor moves ten squares instead of one". The old Term of "Jumping" gets across the idea of skipping/is-faster than ten squares of movement
* What was wrong with "(nearly half)"
* "Troubleshooting"
** this is a "design" page, not a how to code page. thge Orginal "Problems to avoid" term is more toward the concept of "read this section first and have it in your head while coding". Not to figure out what when wrong after the fact. Hopefully if they design it right the first time, it will work perfectly with no debugging.
* I think the Second Edge Collion paragraph read a lot better the way it was.
* "applies to a comand" isn't correct.
**Original didn't have that issue

Over all I'm glad for the help (espescally in the conversion to a 3rd person), I just didn't expect it until the page was activly linked some where. I'll make the above changes if I don't see a justifaction not-to comments. [[User:Larek|Larek]] 22:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

40d Talk:Macro design

2009-11-12T22:35:52Z

Larek: Updates to my work in progress

User talk:Briess

2009-11-12T22:06:43Z

Larek: /* Cannot add new accounts */

40d:Macro design

2009-11-12T02:04:04Z

Larek: Inital Page Submission

Playing Dwarf Fortress means lots of typing. Macros should likewise mean a lot of planing, hence a design. This page is to go over the design issues when creating a macro and how to avoid problems and slow/massive code. The design of the operation/structure that you creating a macro for this page will not help you. You should be most familiar with it though as you've probably typed it in hundreds of times before bothering to turn it into a macro.

=Macro Delay=
Its been seen on the forums, and on this wiki where macros take a long time, and in some instances hours to run. The stated solution is to change an 'erroneous' leftover tag MACRO_MS in \data\init\init.txt from 150 to 0. This is a misconception, by script-kiddies. The game as shipped includes no preset macros so the default init is set to a value that the human player can see ea a ch move as they debug any mistakes in the first macro they create. Most macros on any system commonly run better with some delay between command so a MACRO_MS:1 seems to be a goo run-time setting

=Planing=
Design is all about planning ahead of time to achieve a better result than simply 'winging it'. There are thousands of ways to do the exact same thing, but with a design we would like to pick the best or near-best solution. In the case of DF's macros we want to see our macro run in the fewest steps possible, and getting the most out of each command.

Start by planning out you design as series of steps to create the final result. Then code each step individuality, while taking note of the before/after steps. Like the complete macro, each step has many possible different coding solutions. Try to pick one that is simple (short) but also goes best with the step before it and will end where its advantageous for the next step. Try to keep a step to a single type of operation, this will save the time of continuously switching between modes.

:Example: Fields (Boxes\area-selections) have four corners. Your code traverses from one corner to the opposite to define the field, it doesn't matter which corners you start at. So pick a start and stop point of you field that's good for the next or previous (or both) step(s). This saves a lot of time spent walking the cursor around.

=Repeats=
Command repetition is only a coding short hand. The following scripts are identical in the time it takes them to execute.
<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:20]
</pre><pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:1]
</pre>

While it's much easier to read the condensed version, but to DF, its the same in every other way.

=Movement=
Most of the time a macro takes to run is moving the cursor around. This can be sped up through the use of the "_FAST" versions of the move command and by moving diagonally

==Standard Movement==
There is a "_FAST" version of every cursor command. "_FAST" movement jumps ten squares in the same time a normal movement takes to travel on square. This the same as holding the shift key the the game UI.
The following code,
<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:33]
</pre>
is the same as 33 moving commands however,
<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP_FAST:3]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:3]
</pre>
is the exact same action in only four commands

==Back Peddling==
When the 1's digit is higher than 5 backing up can achieve faster run times
<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:38]

Goes to

[MACRO:CURSOR_UP_FAST:3]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:8]

Brings 38 commands down to just 11, however this can be better optimized by backing up.

[MACRO:CURSOR_UP_FAST:4]
[MACRO:CURSOR_Down:2]
</pre>

Is the exact cursor change but in only 6 moves (nearly half). This can have side effects however (covered below) and must be done carefully.

==Diagonal Movement==
Most people using modern computers are spoiled with their Tetris(TM) shaped, arrow key block. The number pad has arrows too, and on a select few keyboards the {{key|1}} {{key|3}} {{key|7}} {{key|9}} keys have arrows as well. It doesn't matter if your keyboard has arrows on it or not to DF, you can move with the {{key|1}} {{key|3}} {{key|7}} {{key|9}} keys so we can also code diagonal movement in our macros too.

<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:8]
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT:8]

can be replaced by

[MACRO:CURSOR_UPRIGHT:8]
</pre>

This Dropped the command count from 16 to 8. It also works for non-squares too

<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:12]
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT:16]

can be replaced by

[MACRO:CURSOR_UPRIGHT:12]
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT:4]
</pre>

This saved us 12 unneeded commands.

The "_FAST" works in the game and in your scripts on diagonals too. Further bringing down the the previous example command count to just,
<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_UPRIGHT_FAST:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UPRIGHT:2]
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT:4]
</pre>

So From 38 command to just 7, with a little planning.

Diagonal movement commands are written as Vertical then Horizontal with no separating "_"

=Cursor Return=
When designing your script its a idea to plan where to leave off. The two common ideas ones,
*Back where the script started, which is less disorienting to the user.
*In position for an instant repeat of the macro, if this makes sense.
:If you macro makes a 3 square wide section of hallway to the left, then put the end the cursor in position to allow for a repeat call of the macro to add a second section.
Both are better than just stopping the cursor wherever it happens to be.

=Problems to avoid=

==A step to far==
When your script doesn't run as planned, check if you went to far on a movement action. To make a 5x5 box the code is
<pre>
//written for ease of reading
[MACRO:SELECT:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_LEFT:4]
[MACRO:CURSOR_UP:4]
[MACRO:SELECT:1]
</pre>

Those are 4's not 5's. The cursors current position it always 1, since it's movement your defining not size. Its and easy concept but also easy to forget/mess up.

==Edge Collision==
Edge Collision can be helpful in several situations. When you hit a edge you stop there, no matter how far your script wants to travel that way. This is per command and if your not expecting to hit a wall, it will corrupt that execution of the script. There is no way to avoid this. And in most cases its the script-runner's fault not the script designer.
However as a designer you can run into trouble with the Back Peddling optimization mentioned above. Back Peddling can jump you out of the working area of your script and then return, as long as there is enough extra space around your script area to do so. If an edge happens to be there, instant problem.

:If your scrip is made inside a 17x4 rectangle, getting across it with the following,
<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT_FAST:2]
[MACRO:CURSOR_LEFT:3]
</pre>
Is fine as long and edge wasn't 19 squares away.

I would recommend to only use back peddling that does not go outside of your script's work area.

With Back Peddling movements that are larger than 10 spaces a simple change of order of operations can fix the issue. Here is the above example, with an order changes

<pre>
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT_FAST:2]
[MACRO:CURSOR_LEFT:3]

is really just

[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT_FAST:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT_FAST:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_LEFT:3]

so we can reorder it to

[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT_FAST:1]
[MACRO:CURSOR_LEFT:3]
[MACRO:CURSOR_RIGHT_FAST:1]
</pre>

This is the same run time/#commands, yet the cursor says inside the script area.
:For script areas of 6, 7, 8, or 9 your just out of luck and I would suggest not Back Peddling, but which a script area so small speed isn't that much of an issue.

:The Back Peddling "LEFT:3" command travels over the same area the previous "_FAST" command covered. If it had been placed first you would have Back Peddled out the other side.

User talk:Briess

2009-11-12T00:37:02Z

Larek: More comments about accout issuses

User talk:Briess

2009-11-12T00:33:05Z

Larek: /* Cannot add new accounts */

User talk:Briess

2009-11-12T00:28:27Z

Larek: /* Cannot add new accounts */ new section