CTP2 Editing GUI

[J Bytheway]

I'm writing a CTP2 Editing GUI for my own (nefarious ) purposes. Kind of like EasyMod for CTP, only not really - mine's very different and much better (obviously ). Well, in some respects, anyway, and if I get it doing everything I hope to.

I know many (most?) people prefer fiddling the text files themselves for most of the time, and I sometimes feel the same way, but I'm hoping the strengths of my program will be its ability to do mass changes, e.g. Double the cost of all age three advances, generate all the statistical bits of the GL, etc. (Although none of that is implemented at the mo - there's only a basic editing interface; you can't even add or remove entries yet ). I wrote lots of little applets to do these things for CTP, but I wanted to conglomerate them this time around.

So, is anyone else interested in using such a thing? And if so, would they like to help test it during development (which is of course the most dangerous stage in terms of the possibility of losing all your work, etc.)?

Or are you all hardcore text-files-or-nothing people?

[Immortal Wombat]

I generally just delve into the text files, I never used Easy Mod for CtP, I didn't trust it not to screw everything up, and not tell me where or what it had done. But what I do find annoying is large-scale changes, like advance costs, unit abilities etc. If there was a way to cut advance costs on a large scale, add/remove flags across the file, that would be very useful.

[Locutus]

I agree with IW basically. I never trusted Easymod (it had some known bugs and I feared the unknown ones) and similar tools (I think someone once designed a Excel sheet which accomplished the same thing as well). So normally I wouldn't be too eager to use your tool but the mass changes thing certainly sounds very, very useful and tempting to use...

[J Bytheway]

Very well, I shall make mass changing my priority. I'll keep you all posted.

[The Big Mc]

I know I normally go into the text files you notice things better that way

[Martin Gühmann]

Actal I needed a lot of time to add all the new goods to my mod, a lot of Great Library work, work with the uniticon.txt, goods.txt, goodID.txt. Such a tool would accelerate the mod developement a lot. A lot of work was copy and paste and modifying the copied entries, and sometimes I forgot something to change. And of course it would help people to start modding. So we could get new modmaker. Of course it would be good if such a tool would be open source, so everyone who knows the program language and has the time could help develope this program.

Some feature I like to see in are a Great Library prewiev, multi language support, saving all files in a certain mod directory. Ability to load all files of this mod (gamefile.txt). And a textfile viewer as subwindow.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

The GL is the worse part for the modders in my point of view. A lot of work and really boring!
Something that connects would be nice.
Eg. it would read in prereqs if you write something like EnableAdvance for a unit it would find the unit in the Uniticon.txt read the Unit.txt find the line EnableAdvance recognize the advance finding it in the Advance.txt serch it in the uniticon again and link it to to the advance entry of the library.
I dream with it everytime i start the GL work for my unreleased mod.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Actal I needed a lot of time to add all the new goods to my mod, a lot of Great Library work, work with the uniticon.txt, goods.txt, goodID.txt. Such a tool would accelerate the mod developement a lot. A lot of work was copy and paste and modifying the copied entries, and sometimes I forgot something to change. And of course it would help people to start modding. So we could get new modmaker. Of course it would be good if such a tool would be open source, so everyone who knows the program language and has the time could help develope this program.

I'm not sure if I like the idea of my bad, inefficient, code being visible to everyone - but I suppose it wouldn't be too bad . I'm writing it in VB6 (I know - not a *real* programming language, but I don't care).

Some feature I like to see in are a Great Library prewiev, multi language support, saving all files in a certain mod directory. Ability to load all files of this mod (gamefile.txt). And a textfile viewer as subwindow.

GL preview. Hmmm... Should be doable.

Multilanguage support already built in to a certain extent, but you can't develop in two languages at once - you have to choose one way or another. And all the comments, help, etc. is in English.

Files are currently saved in their respective game directories - I was considering the option to save them all in a copy of the directory tree for the purposes of zipping and distribution.

You can already import a project from a gamefile.txt (I tried it with cradle and it seemed to work fine).

Textfile viewer would be easy if you didn't want to edit in it whilst the GUI was open - but having both at once would be asking for trouble. Regenerating the text of the file repeatedly would slow things down and use up more memory (and the memory consumption is quite considerable already...)

Originally posted by Pedrunn
The GL is the worse part for the modders in my point of view. A lot of work and really boring!
Something that connects would be nice.
Eg. it would read in prereqs if you write something like EnableAdvance for a unit it would find the unit in the Uniticon.txt read the Unit.txt find the line EnableAdvance recognize the advance finding it in the Advance.txt serch it in the uniticon again and link it to to the advance entry of the library.
I dream with it everytime i start the GL work for my unreleased mod.

That's what I plan for, only my vision goes further yet. But it won't be easy. It almost certainly won't be in the first release version.

Progress so far is that you can edit pretty much as I wished for, add, remove, copy, paste entries, and I've got good support working for the advance tree.

Now working on the mass changing code, but the big job is designing all the structure files to describe to the program the content of each data file (I've only done a couple for testing purposes so far). The one for units.txt in particular will likely be a big job...

[Pedrunn]

I can wait as long as you finish it
But I cant wait to see it ready.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Multilanguage support already built in to a certain extent, but you can't develop in two languages at once - you have to choose one way or another. And all the comments, help, etc. is in English.

Actual I meant the possibilty to develope your mod in more than one language. It is ok if the program is in English only. But if you don't have the view over files that aren't in the English version is a problem of EasyMod and this shouldn't be in your program.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Actual I meant the possibilty to develope your mod in more than one language.

Yes, I understood, and you can, but at present you would need to have a seperate installation of my program for each language. It would be easy to change that to just needing seperate ini files though.

Either way, you won't be able to develop mod in multiple languages in a single interface all at once - you'd have to close & open again. But the two different versions of the mod could share some data files.

[Martin Gühmann]

Actual in CityMod2, ApolytonPack and GoodMod, all the files in the ..\ctp2_data\default\ folders are shared. There are only for the strings extra folder. All string files of the English version are in a folder called ..\ctp2_data\english\ for the German version in a folder called ..\ctp2_data\german\ so this shouldn't be too difficuilt to implement.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

To keep you all updated:

I have encountered a rather large problem in that the memory consumption of the program is enormous - loading units.txt, advance.txt and buildings.txt gives me an 'out of memory' error. I had got all the code optimized for speed over memory consumption, but it looks like I'll have to change that. This will, unfortunately, delay things considerably...

On a lighter note, the mass-modification code works a treat.

[J Bytheway]

That's fixed (as far as possible). I'm proceeding to the GL (No idea how fast this will be).

Just to wet your appetites I attach a screenshot showing my increasing by 20% all advances in ages 7 to 10. (It's all a bit scrunched up as I wanted to make it as small as possible). Tell me what you think.

[child of Thor]

I for one will find this very helpfull, so keep at it please.
I don't really have enough time to learn Slic(at least for the time being), so this will be a very nice way for myself(and others i'm sure)to change things quite easily. Can you also use it to add/edit Great Libary entries?

[J Bytheway]

As I said, GL entries are what I'm now working on. My plans are rather ambitious, so I don't know how long it will take. Might be a day or a week.

[Martin Gühmann]

child of Thor J Bytheway is working on a advance CTP2 textfile editor, not on a slic file editor, this one would be a little bit more complicated but I think not impossible as the game develope team considered to do it on their own. Therefore you have still to learn slic (or ask someone) if you want to do more than just modding the text files. By the way the CTP2 icon for the CTP2 editor would be much cooler (like ModSwapper) than just this a standart icon. Maybe an additional textfile editor/viewer would be to much but would it be possible to view the code of a currently selected advance/good/unit/citystyle......

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
child of Thor J Bytheway is working on a advance CTP2 textfile editor, not on a slic file editor, this one would be a little bit more complicated but I think not impossible as the game develope team considered to do it on their own.

Quite. I was, however, considering a feature to export small chunks of repetetive SLIC code, like the following from CRA_homeguard.slc:

CRA_MILITIA_TYPE[0] = UnitDB(UNIT_SPEARMAN_MILITIA);
CRA_MILITIA_TYPE[1] = UnitDB(UNIT_HOPLITE_MILITIA);
CRA_MILITIA_TYPE[2] = UnitDB(UNIT_LEGION_MILITIA);
CRA_MILITIA_TYPE[3] = UnitDB(UNIT_MAN_AT_ARMS_MILITIA);
CRA_MILITIA_TYPE[4] = UnitDB(UNIT_INFANTRYMAN_MILITIA);
CRA_MILITIA_TYPE[5] = UnitDB(UNIT_MACHINE_GUNNER_MILITIA);
CRA_MILITIA_TYPE[6] = UnitDB(UNIT_HOVER_INFANTRY_MILITIA);

And I'm sure that as SLICers get more ambitious and the code gets more complex these kinds of things might get much longer. But that wasn't a priority - it's not that hard to do with copy-and-paste (but you are more likely to make a mistake).

By the way the CTP2 icon for the CTP2 editor would be much cooler (like ModSwapper) than just this a standart icon.

Good idea. I was wondering about what to use as an icon. It's possible to add icons next to all the files in the list on the left, too, if anyone has any bright ideas as to what to use.

Any preference as to the icons on the various subwindows? I don't want to use the CTP icon for all of them...

Maybe an additional textfile editor/viewer would be to much but would it be possible to view the code of a currently selected advance/good/unit/citystyle......

A textfile editor/viewer is really easy (so long as you don't want syntax highlighting or anything fancy like that - there's one in the sample applications for VB . It's certainly much much easier than the GUI I've made so far). It would be possible to view the code of the currently selected entry, but if you wanted this visible all the time and constantly updated it would slow things down since the relevant data is stored in an object tree, so it would have to keep regenerating the text. I don't think it's necessary since the interface is very WYSIWYG but if you still want it after you've tried using the editor then I'll try to oblige you.

Anyway, enough talking - time to get back to coding for those annoying GL entry things...

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I don't think it's necessary since the interface is very WYSIWYG but if you still want it after you've tried using the editor then I'll try to oblige you.

OK good point let's wait, but it doesn't matter if I still write my suggestions down. Therefore I think the user should have the possiblity to switch on the text viewer and also the options constantly update and update by button request.

For the icons of the subwindows I first would have a look on the program and than I could get some ideas. For example for a window dealing with cities we should use an example city style and if we use one than a fan created one, because this is closer to modding. Of course we could also use shrink down GL images of the various concepts for wonders, cities, units... but that wouldn't be closer to the original game and not so close to modding.

-Martin

[Immortal Wombat]

And I'm sure that as SLICers get more ambitious and the code gets more complex these kinds of things might get much longer. But that wasn't a priority - it's not that hard to do with copy-and-paste (but you are more likely to make a mistake).

I was thinking of this at about midnight last night while I debugged a big chunk of copied-and-pasted code...

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
it doesn't matter if I still write my suggestions down.

Indeed not! Please continue to make any and all suggestions you can think of. You know how modding is more addictive than playing? I'm discovering that meta-modding like this is more addictive yet. I spent the whole of today coding that GL stuff, and it's all coming together now. Unless I get distracted by Uni work it should be finished tomorrow.

And then it's on to some serious alpha-testing (the dull end of programming... ).

For the icons of the subwindows I first would have a look on the program and than I could get some ideas. For example for a window dealing with cities we should use an example city style and if we use one than a fan created one, because this is closer to modding. Of course we could also use shrink down GL images of the various concepts for wonders, cities, units... but that wouldn't be closer to the original game and not so close to modding.

Thanks, I'll keep this in mind. But at the moment I have nothing which will create icons so it'll be far down the list of Things To Do. In the mean time I have set the icon of the primary window to be the CTP one.

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
I was thinking of this at about midnight last night while I debugged a big chunk of copied-and-pasted code...

Also, can anyone help me with this:

I was glancing through the units.txt fields and noticed SpaceLaunch - clearly this is obsolete. Are there any others that are obsolete? It would really help to decrease crowding in my interface... I can post the full list of fields if it would help. It's just that I haven't really done enough CTP2 modding to get the hang of all these little facts.

[Martin Gühmann]

Actual the order space lunch is still part of the orders.txt and the space plane can go into space it just works a little bit different than in CTP1. Actual there are more fields that aren't used in the units.txt and maybe work, therefore I would include them all espeacily the wonder fields like ReduceWorldPollution/ReduceWorldPollutionValue or
AllCitizensContent, note if you have a field and a field with value in its name than it is actual only one entry with a value.

I already copied with a texteditor all the possible flags from the ctp2.exe, unfortunatly I never finished this flag list this version contains more entries than the version that was at least on Hex's homepage, also slic and some UI elements.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Thanks, this makes for interesting reading. I was trying to decrease the number of fields, not increase them, but never mind...

The thing that interests me most is the VisionClass field for units - there's Standard, Underwater and Stealth and then some UnusedBitx - is it possible to make use of these unused bits? In CTP1 you could use 9 visibility classes, and three just isn't enough! Maybe I'll try putting UnusedBit3 in some unit and see what happens...

I am correct in thinking that the Description field does nothing, right? But it has to point to a valid entry of junk_str.txt

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
The thing that interests me most is the VisionClass field for units - there's Standard, Underwater and Stealth and then some UnusedBitx - is it possible to make use of these unused bits? In CTP1 you could use 9 visibility classes, and three just isn't enough! Maybe I'll try putting UnusedBit3 in some unit and see what happens...

Of course you have to add a unit that has the vision class UnusedBit3 and add a unit that can see a unit of viosion class UnusedBit3, very interesting is that you can give an tileimprovement such a can see flag, too.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I am correct in thinking that the Description field does nothing, right? But it has to point to a valid entry of junk_str.txt

junk strings are strings that should be removed from the game, but the game designers hadn't enough time, therefore the ctp2.exe needs these strings there but doesn't use them.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Another update:

I've pretty much done the GL generation code (It's very ugly from the programming point of view, and it's slow, but it works just fine). I've noticed a few other little bugs which need to be cleaned up.

I'll get back to you soon.

[J Bytheway]

OK, I think it's finished now. To any of the powers that be who are listening: can I put this up on the ctpmodmakers site?

[child of Thor]

Great! from a power who's not, thankyou and i can't wait to try it out

[Locutus]

OK, I think it's finished now. To any of the powers that be who are listening: can I put this up on the ctpmodmakers site?

Great Of course you can put it up there, it's a public site, anyone can put anything (CtP1/2-related) up there. But if it's final, you may also want to submit it for the Apolyton Database (see the topped thread in this forum)

[Pedrunn]

What? How? Where? Wanna see it! Wanna see it

[J Bytheway]

It's certainly not a final version - I'm sure bugs lurk yet.

I've never packaged a VB executable before, so it could take a little while for me to figure that out. Hope to get it available before too long - probably this evening, maybe tomorrow.