Primary Zelda Hacking

Welcome to the development thread for ZOLE 5. That's right, a new ZOLE. ZOLE 4 is being scrapped in favor of a whole new program, which should be called something like Zelda Oracles Suite or something, but ZOLE 5 looks more catchy.

So what is ZOLE 5, and how is it different from ZOLE 4? Well, simply put, ZOLE 5 will be 100% plugin-based. Every single feature it has, from the startup screen to loading interactions and drawing them, will be from a plugin. The entire project and all of the plugins will be open-sourced, so you can either change or make anything you want. You could even add Link's Awakening support to it since the plugin system doesn't depend on the Oracles. All it takes is a little bit of C# knowledge, and don't worry, there will be tutorials.

Why a plugin system? Well, let's be honest - ZOLE 4 had a ton of flaws when it came to development speed. The fact that there were multiple programs made it hard enough, and developing ZOLE 4 Live took a lot of extra work for me. The entire thing was a mess. Now, with this new system, GBHL will be scrapped and its core will be integrated into the plugin library with a buffer write log, so Live support will be built into the plugins at only a few extra lines of work. The best part is you'll only have to open ZOLE 5 and that's it - no ZOSE, ZOTE, or any of the other programs. They will all be plugins.

This project will definitely take some time, but in just a few short hours I was able to write the plugin system and get the startup plugin started. I don't have any screenshots, as it's not finished, but believe me, the plugin system is powerful and simple. Speaking of simplicity, some of the plugins I write for the harder stuff, like warps or interactions, will have an "advanced" and "simple" mode. Advanced will keep them just like they were in ZOLE 4, where the possibilities are as limited as the original engine. Simple will be more text- and image-based, so new people won't have such a hard time doing stuff at the cost of the possibility of editing the raw data.

So, ZOLE 5 is currently in development. I'll try to release occasional WIP builds, so bug testing can be done ahead of time. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to the future!

~Lin

Well, I will be back every day to check up on the progress on the development!

I am sure that it will turn out to be an awesome program! Good luck, and have fun developing it!  :thumbup:

Hey, you came back!  I was pretty bummed when I came here a while ago and the site was down.  Looking forward to see what ZOLE 5 looks like!

Tell me about it!

Quick question:

Will this be able to edit things like the maps that you view via SELECT, the credits or dialog text, or the object spirit sets (Don't know if this is the correct term or not) (e.g. change Links's spirit set to Din's or Nayru's spirit set so you will be playing as Din or Nayru)?

I'm not sure. For a while, it's going to be barer than ZOLE 4, and I haven't gotten much work done recently because I've been having computer problems. I should be able to resume work soon, but the past few days have been quite painful and I wasn't able to work.

You better get that shit up soon! I can't wait!  :thumbup:

good to see you decided not to quit on us. :D

looking forward to this. keep up the awesome work, Lin.


~Kishin

This sounds wonderful! I can't wait to see this!   :thumbup1:

*adds to the excitement*

Can't wait to see what's in store for Zole 5

I don't mean to make anyone upset, but I don't think this will get finished. ZOLE 5's code is slick, clean, fast, efficient, and flexible, but it's just too hard to make plugins communicate with each other. I'm thinking of sorta taking the idea of ZOLE 5 but making it like ZOLE 4, and titling it Zelda Oracles Suite where everything is still built into one program, including Live and what-not.

That would make more sense. Glad to know that you are still working on it! Can't wait for the first public release!

Nice to know this is still going, but what are the major differences be in ZOLE 4 and 5?

When do you think we will see the next version of ZOLE? Just wondering.

I don't know. Right now my priority is making a Minish Cap level editor.

Ok then.

Well that cool lin, I suppose.  ;)