Unbelievable there is no "Step Back" function to revert from a stupid and time consuming delete mistake...

[Lau]

Unbelievable there is no "Step Back" function to revert from a stupid and time consuming delete mistake...

[Elphaba]

Unless they rewrite the mission editor too, this won't come. Some others will probably point you to the 3rd party web app that's currently £14 a month on patreon to use which I think is... cheeky... but it's pretty poor that this is the mission editor that ED seem to be keeping going forward. It gets zero love. Every yearly 'looking forward' video they do - the mission editor and the scripting get ZERO mentions.

I looked at what it would take to log 'transactions' and roll back for undo/redo in the mission editor lua, and it's a big job. A really big job. 

[Lau]

@Elphaba Thanks for your feedback, it is scary how the old DCS is preventing the new DCS from evolving... The least would be to have a warning window pop asking for confirmation before the unit gets deleted. If an option was added in the unit settings (e.g. in the page where NVGs, chaff etc can be configured, albeit a page in the CVN or any other way...). I mention the carrier, because in my case I only wanted to delete a trigger that was next to a waypoint of the Carrier Group which in turn I used for timing all the triggers of the mission I worked for months. Deleting so much work for a simple mistake was a real nightmare.

Sure it is not a lot of work to simply allow players to choose on which units this warning window would pop up.

I am sure I am not the only one mission editor that almost ripped his hair off after such event.

Best,

Lau

[Exorcet]

7 hours ago, Lau said:

it is scary how the old DCS is preventing the new DCS from evolving... The least would be to have a warning window pop asking for confirmation before the unit gets deleted.

I understand the want for an undo button, but it's pretty low on my personal list of importance. A pop up sounds like a hindrance that would just slow down unit deletion and is not something I'd want to deal with.

You can save your mission if you want to go back and can even save multiple versions as a stand until an undo is added.

7 hours ago, Lau said:

I mention the carrier, because in my case I only wanted to delete a trigger that was next to a waypoint of the Carrier Group which in turn I used for timing all the triggers of the mission I worked for months. Deleting so much work for a simple mistake was a real nightmare.

You can select units and triggers from the lists on the left side of the screen. No worry about clicking the wrong item that way.

[Limaro]

From point of view of a developer, I know that a "simple" undo is often more complicated to realize than you think. It might be easy to safe the mission after every step. However, this might be an issue, when the missions get large.

If you want to track the done actions, it's getting very tricky.

Examples:

If you delete a unit that is part of triggers, or there is another unit following this unit. and you delete it - all of these relations are removed as well. Undoing this, means to also redo all these actions.

There a unimaginable ways of simple edits, that results in many actions done from ME. And like @Lau says, DCS is old and evolved a lot of changes. I guess it might just be too hard to realize a later undo/redo.

[Lau]

14 hours ago, Exorcet said:

I understand the want for an undo button, but it's pretty low on my personal list of importance. A pop up sounds like a hindrance that would just slow down unit deletion and is not something I'd want to deal with.

You can save your mission if you want to go back and can even save multiple versions as a stand until an undo is added.

You can select units and triggers from the lists on the left side of the screen. No worry about clicking the wrong item that way.

@Exorcet I might not have been very clear in my message, the idea I am trying to convey is that the warning pop up would be optional, the players deciding to activate it or not for some important units like carrier groups by simply adding a tick mark in the unit configuration page in the ME. That means if you do not use the option you wont get any hindrance out of it. I do save multiple missions but a lot of things can be done in an hour of work or even in ten minutes, there are times when your work is just not backed up and you are at risk of losing precious time. The pop up window seems like an easy work around to an otherwise complex implementation of a step back function.

Best,

Lau

[evanf117]

On 3/14/2024 at 8:18 PM, Lau said:

@Elphaba Thanks for your feedback, it is scary how the old DCS is preventing the new DCS from evolving... The least would be to have a warning window pop asking for confirmation before the unit gets deleted. If an option was added in the unit settings (e.g. in the page where NVGs, chaff etc can be configured, albeit a page in the CVN or any other way...). I mention the carrier, because in my case I only wanted to delete a trigger that was next to a waypoint of the Carrier Group which in turn I used for timing all the triggers of the mission I worked for months. Deleting so much work for a simple mistake was a real nightmare.

Sure it is not a lot of work to simply allow players to choose on which units this warning window would pop up.

I am sure I am not the only one mission editor that almost ripped his hair off after such event.

Best,

Lau

a way around this is instead of deleting units i just use the key bind to cut them so what ever units i deleted last, intentional or unintentional, are saved for me to paste if need be until i delete more units

[Lau]

Thanks evanf117, noted I added a red mark on top of the delete key...

Best,

Lau

[Mistermann]

5 hours ago, Lau said:

Thanks evanf117, noted I added a red mark on top of the delete key...

[notproplayer3]

Folks at ED can create industry leading aircraft simulations but adding an undo/redo button (and drag select) is too hard or time consuming for them.

WTF 

I hope it'll at least be added when the dynamic campaign ships.

[Raisuli]

Oh.  You mean like I used the delete key to get rid of a waypoint I didn't need (twice) and blew up twenty or thirty minutes of fiddling to get my gates perfect both times?  The good news is I'm a certified former sailor and am allowed to use language like that, but 'undo' would have been good for my blood pressure, not to mention my self image.

[Elphaba]

8 hours ago, notproplayer3 said:

Folks at ED can create industry leading aircraft simulations but adding an undo/redo button (and drag select) is too hard or time consuming for them.

WTF 

I hope it'll at least be added when the dynamic campaign ships.

In order to do all that you have to build all of the mission editor controls (all the dialogs, windows, sliders, increments, decrements, text boxes, and EVERYTHING else that can be configured, to handle 'TRANSACTIONS'. Then you have to build a transaction manager to keep a log of past transactions (i.e. changes to a name field or a number value) and be able to send those historical transactions BACK to all of the relevant controls and aircraft, infantry etc etc etc.

This is basically a complete REWRITE of the whole mission editor. This can't be shoe-horned in because nothing in the lua code knows anything about 'transactions' and so every control dialog or value that can be changed is atomic. 

Its the same reason why drag/select/multi-edit can't be done without a rewrite. There is no mechanism is the current mission editor to update the same value (transaction) across multiple units, nor any way to show a subset of common parameters that can be changed when selecting multiple units of different types.

This is why every time Nick Gray releases another one of those end of year pats on the back videos that the common folk go mental for, for all the eye candy, I'm standing alone in the comments screaming "MAKE A 21ST CENTURY MISSION EDITOR!!!" because this is over 20 years out of date. And I don't call adding 2d glyphs and drawings a 'huge improvement'.

What everyone wants can't be done with it as it is. It needs a complete re-write. In which case they should write it so you can view and edit the world in 3d, and it should be a separate app you can run side-by-side with the game (like modern game engines) and design and edit your mission/campaign on the fly and watch live flags/triggers and tests whilst the mission is running and even inject new triggers/actions/flags at the same time.

But how do you think ED can sell that? It's not going to bring in any extra revenue, so whilst a literal handful of people still make campaigns that sell using this 25 year old relic, what's the incentive (other than doing right by the customers) to make it better?

When the polls go out, most people are Single Player and happy to go on PVEVP servers or quick action... 

I guess it's a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche... and therefore they can ignore it.  

Edited April 6 by Elphaba

[buceador]

2 minutes ago, Elphaba said:

This is basically a complete REWRITE of the whole mission editor.

This is exactly what is needed to drag the ME into (as you say) the 21st century but as I have mentioned before, with the non affiliated DCS Web Editor on the horizon I imagine ED will let that become the defacto editor for DCS and avoid having to rewrite the current ME...