My suggestion is this; a program we can download for free to let us make mods quicker and easier. As it is right now, there's .object, .frames, .recipe, .material, and so on. It's all written in JSON, which is surprisingly simple and easy to understand, even for a complete moron like me. Problem with that is that if the user makes ONE small error, the whole mod just doesn't work. So, why not automate it to make it easier on us? The User would do the following: - Make art (out of program) - Decide on names - Determine what it takes to make the item The program would do the following: - Fill out JSON by itself (User wants recipe to require 10 pixels and give glass? one.) - Set up file format by itself (Correct use of [, {, and so on) - Provide dropdown menus and text boxes for user editing (categories like furniture, light, crafting, etc. Text boxes to type names and descriptions.) - Automatically set up the frames (This image is 16 x 32, and the user said it has 2 frames? I'll split the image in half.) As is is now, one mistake would screw it all up. With a program that checks and validates it by the game's standards, this would make the process cleaner and less problematic.
If you suspect an issue with your json you can throw it in a validator easily enough. Some ide's might also have plugins that will validate as well.
Another good workflow is to simply copy a similar original file and replace it with your data. Then you have all brackets, textboxes and presets for the frames correctly set up. You just need to go in and replace the original names and texts or copy and paste categories or such data from other files. This does not just work for the JSON files, but also for all graphics. For my hair and monsters I simply load some basic original parts into layers, draw my stuff on a new layer on top, hide the reference layers and export it to my own file. Helps with picking the right colors, matching all frames and lining up parts.
