I wasn't able to build until I put the scripts for the editor coroutines into an editor folder.

Windows 10
Unity 2018.2.1f1

Something that has come up while working on #9 is making it so Merino is not dependent on the main Yarn editor window being open at all times to handle actions such as saving and playtesting.

While I've managed to separate and organize most of the code in question I'm left with the design decision on how/where the playtest window will be displayed if playtesting is started via the nodemap window similar to that of Twine.

With the current codebase, the Yarn editor window has to be open for the user to see the playtest toolbar which appears inside of it and pulling up the entire window if the user just wants to check something quickly from the nodemap isn't ideal.

Would we rather include the same playtest toolbar in the nodemap window so it can be shown independent of the Yarn editor window or should shift towards creating a new playtesting EditorWindow which will appear and close after playtesting and can be used by both the Yarn editor and the nodemap window?

in version 0.5.1 I cannot load a single file. All yarn.txt files are greyed out.

I seems like Merino v 0.5 is enforcing unique IDs across yarn files in a folder.
A "-2" is added to a node on the node that has the same name in a different .yarn file.

there are at least two Yarn name types we'd want to be able to refactor:

• node names
• variable names

node names in Yarn are very important...

• nodes link to each other via node names
• there can be no duplicate node names, validation is needed

however, "never changing your node names" makes it difficult to reorganize a complicated story sometimes

so, it would be great if Merino could automatically change node name references if you rename a node

• renaming a node that is referenced in another node should prompt a refactoring confirmation pop-up, where merino asks to find and replace all instances of that node name throughout the whole yarn file
  • detecting node references would likely require a regex, to make sure it's referenced within double brackets like [[NodeName]]
• also perform validation and make sure there are no duplicate node names in the file
• also include a "disable refactoring pop-up" etc. setting in the Merino Editor Preferences page

and then, do the same for variable names (like $variableName) as well

for now, unassigned / with no timeline on when this will happen, unless everyone starts screaming that they need this much sooner

implementation in the sidebar should resemble #3 (comment)

• internally, this is what Yarn Spinner already does... all files get loaded into the same network
• this is pretty important for huge projects with lots of files / scenes / characters
• for earlier discussion, see previous issue #3

work to do:

• need to edit MerinoTreeElement to add two new leaf pseudo-types... a "folder" leaf and a "file" leaf
• add "load folder" button (or let user select multiple folders? need to research Unity Editor's built-in folder picker utility)... sets string[] currentFolders
• a "load folder(s)" method should traverse currentFolders for all subfolders (recursively) and generate the data for the TreeView, will need to modify GetData as appropriate
• a "save folder(s)" method should call SaveData for each item
• should we let users rename folders and files from the sidebar? seems weird to duplicate functionality that's already in the Unity Editor project tab, but I think it's pretty possible

from #36

so this is also part of a bigger UX design problem with how Merino should handle Yarn Commands...

• if Merino executes Yarn Commands during edit mode, it would likely edit the current scene in harmful ways or just flat-out crash when that command isn't intended to execute outside of play mode
• but Yarn Command coroutines can be very important for timing dialogue, delays, setting variables or game state, etc.
• some users might engineer their game to support running in-game Yarn Commands during edit time

some possible design solutions:

• checkbox on PlaytestWindow ("Execute Commands?")
• user configurable blacklist / whitelist of Yarn Commands to execute and/or ignore

most of the work will involve grabbing the code from the Yarn Spinner DialogueRunner (https://github.com/thesecretlab/YarnSpinner/blob/master/Unity/Assets/YarnSpinner/Code/DialogueRunner.cs) and porting it to Merino's internal dialogue runner (https://github.com/radiatoryang/merino/blob/master/Assets/Merino/Editor/Scripts/Playtest/MerinoPlaytestWindow.cs)... especially the DispatchCommand functionality

PRs are welcome, but if not, I'll get around to this in a month or so

In the new merino 5.4, I am getting a console error the first time I try to add a new node while selecting a node. I can only add a node while selecting the yarn.txt file in the merino editor. After dragging that under a node, I can then add subsequent nodes under that node.

Attaching a screenshot of my error, which is the second error. (The "Control 5's" error happens a lot and doesn't seem to have any consequence.)

• will probably rely a lot on this for info / implementation: http://www.clonefactor.com/wordpress/public/1769/
• we're not using TextField, we're using TextArea... so instead have to use TextEditor.SelectWord to grab the current word being typed, and then compare word distances there
• user can define a custom list of auto-complete terms too, good for keeping speaker names consistent?
  • or automatically detect speakers? hmm
• wish list: use reflection to automatically detect all YarnCommands in code base? is that possible?

For the new NodeMap (which works great btw), for existing files, the links only represent parent/child relationships between nodes, not order of nodes or what nodes really link to each other.

For example I have many nodes that go to other nodes [[likethis]], and the nodemap does not show connections between them.

to get undo support working, Merino uses a secret temporary ScriptableObject (MerinoTreeData serializedTreeData) so that it can use Undo.RecordObject() with it... but I think I don't quite understand the undo system well enough to fix various bugs / extend the functionality

Merino also keeps its own stack of undo snapshots, so that it can compare those snapshots to Unity's undo stack, diff strings, and move the keyboard caret cursor back to the undo point (see MerinoEditorWindow.OnUndo())

we still need undo support for:

• drag and drop in TreeView... reordering tree (maybe hook into OnTreeChanged()?)
• AddNewNode()
• DeleteNodes() (this is tricky because I also don't understand the undo system too well, and I suspect you also have to revert the currentFiles and fileToNodeID dictionary as well... should we store this data in serializedTreeData somehow?)

I suspect there's probably some much more elegant way to do all of this, instead of manually recording undo snapshots everywhere in all these different methods... again, help would be appreciated from someone who understands Unity's undo system better, and can explain more about how to handle all this

PROBLEM:

• text area dynamically scrolls horizontally to accommodate extra whitespace without starting a new line, which is bad because it breaks the syntax highlighting and causes a weird ghosting / drifting effect on the text (the syntax highlighting label has no way of knowing the text area is secretly scrolling horizontally)

TO REPRODUCE:

• when editing a node in the main Merino editor window, just type a bunch of spaces past the right-edge of the text area box; the text will scroll horizontally to accommodate all the whitespace without starting a new line
• or sometimes, when exiting playmode, this happens for some reason

STATUS:

• can't fix this, the behavior is built into Unity Editor's IMGUI TextArea with no way to change the behavior?
• might be able to access some extra options on the TextEditor via reflection, but I doubt it'll help
• this is mostly just an annoyance though, doesn't seriously harm files or functionality
• I feel like this didn't happen back in Unity 2017... what happened, did something change?

WORKAROUND FOR NOW

• to get the text box back to normal, move your keyboard cursor / caret back to the left
• OR avoid using a lot of a whitespace

ROADMAP:

• in 2020, explore porting the main text editor to the new UIElements system, which hopefully has much better text editing support than all the hacks I've been doing here

When I hit tab on the text editor in Merino, it gives me a tab size of 16 spaces, which is obviously an absolutely ridiculous amount of space. Ideally I'd want this to be configurable like most other text editors (4 is my preference), is there some easy way to change this?

Unfortunately I've found that one misplaced space can mess up multiple options when presenting shortcut options (->). Merino should have the ability to show invisible characters much like other text editors.

When loading a folder into Merino, yarn files with no nodes in them are not loaded and need to be loaded one by one.

I'm on Windows in Unity 2018.3.4f1 and Merino v0.5.3

First of all, thanks for this great tool.

I have Merino open in a tab next to my inspector and sometimes when I switch over to it, it's empty of nodes as if it has lost reference to the folder I opened. It also spits out these two error messages repeatedly:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object Merino.MerinoEditorWindow.DrawMainPane (Rect rect) (at Assets/Merino/Editor/MerinoEditorWindow.cs:1476) Merino.MerinoEditorWindow.OnGUI () (at Assets/Merino/Editor/MerinoEditorWindow.cs:1230) System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222) Rethrow as TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:232) System.Reflection.MethodBase.Invoke (System.Object obj, System.Object[] parameters) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MethodBase.cs:115) UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName, System.Object obj) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:342) UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:336) UnityEditor.HostView.InvokeOnGUI (Rect onGUIPosition, Rect viewRect) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:302) UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

and

GUI Error: You are pushing more GUIClips than you are popping. Make sure they are balanced. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

If I load that folder again, it works for a little while until I get this error again. I'm running Unity 2018.3.0f2. Not sure if I can tell which version of Merino I'm running but I'm pretty sure it's 0.5.0.

Having textmesh pro rich text messes up the text box in Merino:

text to reproduce: Sally: <size=60%>Hello I am 60% smaller than the rest

After going into playmode, then out again, the TreeData get's corrupted.
I had the window open in a tab.
And of course, then it doesn't save.
treeData seems like it becomes null. That error is thrown at line 910 in MerinoEditorWindow

Having the window open (not in a tab but just open) also reproduces the error.
Maybe rebuild the treeData after playmode change? https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/EditorApplication-playModeStateChanged.html

I created my yarn file and inside I write a command but the command doesn't call the Ienumerator method who I assigned

This is just a minor annoyance -- Unity treats *.cs files as text assets so when you double click on a source file it opens Merino. i can submit a PR if you'd like or you can drop the snippet below into the top of MerinoEditorWindow.OnOpenAsset.

string path = AssetDatabase.GetAssetPath(instanceID);
if(Path.GetExtension(path).Equals(".cs"))
{
    return false;
}

It would be really nice to be able to add tags for nodes. Just ran into a situation where I wanted to use YarnSpinner's GetTextForNode to get the raw string from a node. This only works if the node has the tag rawText, so being able to add this without editing the file itself would be cool.

in case you've missed it, Yarn Spinner is currently in the middle of a big re-architecture / re-engineering phase

at the moment, Merino is currently only compatible with versions before v1.0 unfortunately

once the dust settles and Yarn Spinner solidifies, I'll go back and rewrite the Yarn Spinner integration

(but in the meantime, sorry!)

When I load a folder in v. 0.5.1, and then enter and exit playmode, all the files are unloaded.
This is not critical, but quite a nuisance, in the long run, when writing and testing.

In the Node list (which you can reorder), you can add a node underneath another node. This is purely for organizational purposes, but quite useful. This structure does not get saved into the file.

Wanted to give this a go as I've worked with/on the original Yarn editor and a couple other in-engine visual dialogue systems.

Will be pushing code to the following branch on my fork. feature/node-map

It is converting every line ending to CR LF which causes the Yarn Editor to not draw lines between nodes. It needs LF only to function correctly.

If you move the Merino folder in Unity to anything other than the root Assets folder, it spams errors and loads an empty window.