Printing an actor's rules

tatiang

I know that this has been requested before but I'm wondering if anyone has independently created a way to export and/or print an actor's rules from xml. If not, can anyone point me to a tool (or the command line) for a way to parse the files? It would be so helpful to be able to print even a rudimentary copy of my rules for debugging purposes.

JohnPapiomitis

You mean print the rules to a piece of paper, so you can look at what you have?

You can always just take screenshots and print them

tatiang

Yes, I suppose I could do that, but it cuts the names of attributes off rather poorly. Still, it could work for now. Thanks. And yes, ideally I'm looking for a way to print an actor's rules on paper.

MotherHoose

@tatiang … ah! you want this for your students …

you can print the scene/actor XML from the project contents …
but, if you open them in Safari you see that can be confusing as the references are by id and have the XML tags.

when I am trying out new Expressions … I usually have a Note behavior just above that and click/drag the expression to it …
sometimes makes it easier to find my mistakes!
you can copy the actor's name and the attribute to it … plus the behavior name from it's editable title bar

you can copy/drag the contents of the notes to a textEdit file and print from there
sounds convoluted … but it is mostly highlight and drag … even to the textFile!

@};- MH

tatiang

@MotherHoose After I printed the xml using Xmplify -- as suggested in another thread -- I quickly realized I would need to label the rules if I plan to print again, so yeah, adding info to Notes seems like the best solution for now. Still, I may try my hand at an xml parser... not sure I'm up to the task!

Clouds

@tatiang

"Yes, I suppose I could do that, but it cuts the names of attributes off rather poorly"

Do you mean expressions (rather than attributes?) - if you can't see expressions on a screen shot simply click on the expression, it opens up to show the whole expression:

tatiang

@Tynan, yes I meant expressions. I hadn't remembered that you can display multiple expressions at once. The screenshot is helpful. Thanks, everyone!

MotherHoose

caution: a screenshot with extended expressions probably will not print in the printArea of standard 8.5x11 paper … even in landscapeMode
those screenshots may need resized … and may/may not blur out making the expressions unreadable
having more behaviors/rules that require scrolling to view, will require more than 1 screenshot

@tatiang … let us know how you make out with XML

@};- MH