I pretty much finished up the note editor tonight, except a few bugs in the delete function. Due to memory issues (e.g. I am completely out, I really had to go through every inch of code, substitute bytes for words under all (possible) circumstances, reduce the maximum number of notes (which was too large anyway)) and due to usability, I changed the way the editor works slightly from whats listed in yesterdays entry. Its mostly the same, with a few differences:

1. Instead of strumming up and pressing keys to delete those keys and strumming down and pressing keys to add notes, you just always strum down and hit the buttons you want. If there are no notes there, it creates them, and if there are notes there, it deletes them (i.e. xor). This saved a LOT of coding and actually makes there fewer things to memorize on the note editor.
2. I changed it so you press the first four buttons and strum up to clear all notes from the song. This is easier than trying to hit all five buttons.
3. The whammy goes from 1/3rd speed to full speed – not to double speed.

Everything except for a few bugs in the delete functionality works like a champ – the whammy bar functionality is pretty neat, I’m glad I could include it in the game, even if just in the editor – it at least works well as a fast forward. The only part I’m not too pleased with is due to speed requirements while recording, notes can’t be recorded in their final organized order – they have to be thrown into the end of the array and then packed when completely finished – or when the song is restarted. It takes about 15 seconds to pack, so whenever you want to restart the song in edit mode it takes 15 seconds. Not a huge huge deal, but a little irritating. I tried to optimize the algorithm, but when push comes to shove, its just a sort over 5 arrays of about 150 items each, it just simply takes a little while on a 1mhz processor. At least I don’t have to reload it off disk again though, its all done in memory until the save is performed.

I’ll be fixing up the bugs tomorrow, off to bed now!