Horde3D

I've been using Horde beta3 and i like it alot for it's simplicity ! here are some suggestions :

1) Keep xml for FX data. XML is very useful because it can be validated using xsd and also using emacs and some plugin i can write shaders in xml using autocompletion ! FX like in Ogre sucks because i've to remember the syntax all the time in emacs pressing control-space gives me all the possibilities within a contex.

2) Avoid the h3d prefix ! keep the namespace and let people know of "using namespace Horde3D". I'm having some hard time reading the documentation and seeing h3d stamped all over the place ! also writing h3d all the time is painful !

3) Make the api fully introspectable, like Ogre, where there is always a way to view what is loaded, the state of the system and browse all loaded resources starting from a root "node".

This is it. don't make me stick with horde 3beta plz !

Pure XML is very verbose, and not particularly flexible. The beta4 system seems to strike a nice balance between function and readability.
Learn to touch-type, then you won't worry about these things

On a less facetious note, the h3d prefix is required to interface nicely with C, and thus other languages such as Python and D.
This isn't entirely trivial to design in a C API, but it is certainly a reasonable goal to aim for.

Keep in mind the Horde is not meant to be Ogre - if Ogre suits your purposes better, it might probably be a good idea to use Ogre

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Tristam MacDonald - [swiftcoding]

The new system is heavily inspired by CgFX which is a de facto industry standard. In the future the übershader system (#ifdefs) may be extended to cover the FX section as well and that would not work with XML. Maybe your editor can be configured to auto-complete the new keywords.


I'm not sure if I understand you correctly but it is already possible to iterate over all resources using the API. If you mean introspecting the resources in visual studio, you can compile the engine in debug mode and step into it. The resource manager class will show all current resources.