A text-based console in itself shouldn''t be so hard. Creating a commandline interface to the rest of your program could be since you have to think of a viable set of commands, implement (or find) a parser suiting your needs and creating an interface in all parts of your system you want to control.

I haven''t done it before, but I think you should start by creating a list of things you want to be able to control. From then on, it should easy to merge into the remaining design process. If you have the time (and resources) to create a really good system for that, like the ability to use scripts or macros and a well-structured set of commands, you could even make it an integral part past release.

Hello Trysil,

I agree whole heartedly - Putting a console like interface into your game/ application would be great for debugging and generally tweaking setting. Though size and complexity of implementing a console greatly depending on the level of functionality you want to support.

Thinking along similar lines to you I''ve started to implement a console for reuse with various games I write from time to time. Anyway so far I have a working prototype, admittedly integrating into your game/ application is not as easy or slick as I eventually want. And I''ve recently designed some improvements to the architecture to enable more flexible text entry.

Anyway from this so far I''ve learned, writing a console can be a significant task (unless you severely limit the console scope - to simple stuff such as getting and setting properties)

The current project files can be found at:

http://www.geocities.com/y6jn9/

Where a half written user guide would be a good place to start, if your interested in the current approach aims.

Any comments/ suggestions even help would be appreciated, aim your e-mail to:

Tom.Hey@mail.com