Program to display 1, 2, n step evolution while editing?
Posted: August 25th, 2009, 6:30 am
Hiya. There's a feature I've wanted in a Conway's Life editor for decades now, and considered writing my own editor just to have, but it'd probably be simpler to use an existing one if there is one, and I'm sure there must be. Or if not, perhaps it could be written as a Golly script? I have no experience with Golly scripts, but it seems like it ought to be doable, assuming the layer commands are scriptable.
What I want is simply an editing view that lets me toggle pixels, with an automatic display by the side of how the pattern will look 1, 2, and 3 generations later. It seems this'd be quite handy for creating big still lifes, for example, and low-period oscillators, and also for creating patterns that evolve into things like letters.
If Golly scripts can manipulate layers in the way I'd like, then this ought to be fairly simple with a tiled view of 4 layers: have the script hook into every editing click and make it run a few evolutions, replacing the contents of each of the layers with the generated grid at the specified number of generations.
Does anyone know of an editor with this feature, or is anyone feeling kind enough to write a Golly script to do it? I know Python, but haven't used Golly's scripting at all, and while I'd be happy to, I don't fancy grubbing around in documentation for Golly API calls.
Any thoughts gratefully appreciated. Thanks!
What I want is simply an editing view that lets me toggle pixels, with an automatic display by the side of how the pattern will look 1, 2, and 3 generations later. It seems this'd be quite handy for creating big still lifes, for example, and low-period oscillators, and also for creating patterns that evolve into things like letters.
If Golly scripts can manipulate layers in the way I'd like, then this ought to be fairly simple with a tiled view of 4 layers: have the script hook into every editing click and make it run a few evolutions, replacing the contents of each of the layers with the generated grid at the specified number of generations.
Does anyone know of an editor with this feature, or is anyone feeling kind enough to write a Golly script to do it? I know Python, but haven't used Golly's scripting at all, and while I'd be happy to, I don't fancy grubbing around in documentation for Golly API calls.
Any thoughts gratefully appreciated. Thanks!