CTPEd v0.2beta Release

[J Bytheway]

I've encountered a couple of problems (one minor, one major) - this means further delays I'm afraid...

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
OK, time for another progress report... Comment preservation is apparently all done. At present any comment associated with a deleted field instance or entry is lost - if that's a big deal for anyone then tell me and I'll add the option to save them as I described a few posts ago.

I think I can live with this, shure we have have to see how it comes out.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I was planning to impliment the adding of the info about where to put blank lines, etc. in the exported files, but I probably won't bother since it's been nearly a fortnight since the last release.

I forgot this one another important think for me, the decission here is hard: On the one hand if you implement it first we have to wait much longer for the next version. But on the other hand a new version would give me more to play.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I had looked at DiffDB.txt, and silently screamed because it's so totally different from the other files (in all the ways that you said).

I'm inclined to not support it. It's a lot of work for just one file, and I think other things are more important. Certainly I won't be supporting it soon.

In the mean time I'll make a format 0 .ces file for it.

That can only be a temporial sollution the aim of CTPEd should be to allow evreyone to modify the files much easier and faster as one could do it with a text editor, that's also the reason why I am not confident with format of the const.ces file. But as you said there are more improtant things. In the case of the DiffDB.txt I agree.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
The NumArgs thing in theory allows more than one argument, but in practice I haven't implimented it yet, and anything other than 0 will be treated as 1.

I think this can wait. IIRC I didn't see it anywhere else.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I've worked very hard to ensure that it isn't a problem. But it isn't used anywhere yet, AFAIK.

That is good , because if you want to use CTPEd for CTP1 you might want to make a age.ces for the CTP1 age.txt it contains a substructure in a substructure, too.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I'll make that error more clear, but as I said above, if you put fields with no name they're almost certainly the problem.

Thanks.

In the mean time I made a map.ces, although this files contains two problems:

The first one is that it has an unusual name as Locutus pointed out in another thread. The names contain spaces.

The second problem is again no names for multiple substructures. These entries contain a lot of them. But I think this could be solved if you would use a special caracter in the *.ces file to indicate that the entry has no name and right start with a '{' and will be closed somewhere with a '}'. To be able to view the map.txt in CTPEd I modified the map.txt a little bit. I removed the spaces in the entry name and I added an 'S' before the entries. So I was able to view this file in CTPEd but unfortunatly I was only able to view the first substructure field per entry I wasn't able to access the other ones.

Finally I found some small problem in the govern.ces, the last fields GLHidden and another one weren't editable.

You can find the three files in the attachment.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I think I can live with this, shure we have have to see how it comes out.

Indeed

I forgot this one another important think for me, the decission here is hard: On the one hand if you implement it first we have to wait much longer for the next version. But on the other hand a new version would give me more to play.

I think I have an idea for a compromise that will give us the best of both worlds.

That can only be a temporial sollution the aim of CTPEd should be to allow evreyone to modify the files much easier and faster as one could do it with a text editor, that's also the reason why I am not confident with format of the const.ces file. But as you said there are more improtant things. In the case of the DiffDB.txt I agree.

Good, and I agree with you in the long term.

I think this can wait. IIRC I didn't see it anywhere else.

Until I noticed it in DiffDB.txt I thought It was not present anywhere in CTP2, I had included the option only for the possibility of extending to CTP (where it occurs frequently).

In the mean time I made a map.ces, although this files contains two problems:

The first one is that it has an unusual name as Locutus pointed out in another thread. The names contain spaces.

The second problem is again no names for multiple substructures.

I think I see a way to approach both of these problems from a programming point of view.

Finally I found some small problem in the govern.ces, the last fields GLHidden and another one weren't editable.

Thanks

I've just thought of a solution to the major problem I mentioned in my last post, so I'll try to get that dealt with tonight.

After the upcoming release I probably won't be doing any new features for a while (thoguh I will do small changes/bugfixes) because I need to start my Uni holiday work.

[J Bytheway]

OK! This time I really think the comment preservation is working properly. I've tested it on tileimp.txt, which is just about the most complicated file around, and here's another before-and-after for you:

I put in:

#0
TILEIMP_ADVANCED_FARMS
#1
 {
#2
   Icon ICON_TILEIMP_ADVANCED_FARMS
#3
   Tooltip TOOLTIP_TILEIMP_SELECT_FARM2_BUTTON
   Statusbar STATUSBAR_TILEIMP_SELECT_FARM2_BUTTON
   Level 2
   Class:Farm
#4
   ConstructionTiles 1
#5
   ConstructionTiles 6 #6
   ConstructionTiles 7 #7

   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_BROWN_MOUNTAIN
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_GLACIER
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_MOUNTAIN
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_TUNDRA
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_DEEP
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_RIFT
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHALLOW
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHELF
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_TRENCH
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_VOLCANO
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WHITE_HILL
   CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WHITE_MOUNTAIN

   Excludes:ATM
   Excludes:Farm
   Excludes:LandDetector
   Excludes:Mine
   Excludes:OceanFarm
   Excludes:OceanDetector
   Excludes:OceanATM
   Excludes:Structure1
   Excludes:Structure2
   Excludes:OceanMine
#8
   TerrainEffect
#9
{
#10
      Terrain TERRAIN_DESERT
      Terrain TERRAIN_GRASSLAND#11
#12
      Terrain TERRAIN_PLAINS
#13
      BonusFood 20
      EnableAdvance ADVANCE_AGRICULTURAL_REVOLUTION
      ProductionCost 500
      ProductionTime 2
      TilesetIndex 8
#14
   }
#15
}

I fiddled for a while without actually changing anything and then got out:

#0
#1
TILEIMP_ADVANCED_FARMS {
 #2
 Icon ICON_TILEIMP_ADVANCED_FARMS
 #3
 Tooltip TOOLTIP_TILEIMP_SELECT_FARM2_BUTTON
 Statusbar STATUSBAR_TILEIMP_SELECT_FARM2_BUTTON
 Level 2
 Class: Farm
 #4
 ConstructionTiles 1
 #5
 #6
 ConstructionTiles 6
 #7
 ConstructionTiles 7
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_BROWN_MOUNTAIN
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_GLACIER
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_MOUNTAIN
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_TUNDRA
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_DEEP
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_RIFT
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHALLOW
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHELF
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_TRENCH
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_VOLCANO
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WHITE_HILL
 CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WHITE_MOUNTAIN
 Excludes: ATM
 Excludes: Farm
 Excludes: LandDetector
 Excludes: Mine
 Excludes: OceanFarm
 Excludes: OceanDetector
 Excludes: OceanATM
 Excludes: Structure1
 Excludes: Structure2
 Excludes: OceanMine

 TerrainEffect #8
 #9
  {
  #10
  Terrain TERRAIN_DESERT
  #11
  Terrain TERRAIN_GRASSLAND
  #12
  Terrain TERRAIN_PLAINS
  #13
  BonusFood 20
  EnableAdvance ADVANCE_AGRICULTURAL_REVOLUTION
  ProductionCost 500
  ProductionTime 2
  TilesetIndex 8
  #14
 }
 #15
}

Which has everything pretty much in the same place. As you can see (depending on how good you are at spot-the-difference ), sometimes the comments move from beside a line to above it or vice versa, but that shouldn't be too drastic, I hope.

I still haven't checked what happens if I actually make modifications to the entry, but I'm fairly confident.

Tomorrow I aim to arrange the compromise I mentioned above for the output format, and that should be all. I hope...

It's past 2am and I'm tired. Good night. (I don't think I've ever used that smily before...)

[J Bytheway]

Update v0.4.0

Exactly one fortnight since the last one...
Update at:

http://ctpmodmakers.250free.com/JBTW/CTPEd040.zip

New in this version:

- Added option to share clipboard between files of same type
- Added many more of Martin's structure files
- Added support for citysize?.txt
- Moved definition of comment and delimiter charachters from project files to structure files (not necessary in substructure definition files)
- Fixed minor bugs with the calculation of when to put a scrollbar on the entries editing window
- Implemented crude comment preservation - comments will be kept in roughly the same place between importing and exporting, or lost if their associated entry/field instance is deleted
- Put preference to allow for alteration of the indent increment
- Added option for number at the top of files of format 3 to provide for messageicon.txt
- Improved information in 'Field allows multiple but has no argument' error
- Added the possibility to include additional format information in the .ces files
- Fixed a bug with the help that appears in the status bar
- Advanced file version number to 0.3 due to significant changes - do not use project files from the previous version, rather import from *_gamefile.txt

Still on my to-do list:

- Extend the GL template system to assist with SLIC coding.
- Add error checking systems to allow you to track down problems before you crash CTP2.
- Write more structure files (You can help me with this! Yes, that means YOU!)
- Optimise the code to increase speed and reduce memory consumption.
- Option to hide fields which are superfluous or always set to the same thing (e.g. Branch in advance.txt)
- Sorting tool to rearrange entries in files
- Error checking tool to spot common problems
- Dropdown list for field values with only certain options like CanSee:
- Multi-language support
- Track modification to remove unnecessary overwrites on export
- Make it possible to see more than one of a multiple field at once
- Support for newsprite.txt, DiffDB.txt, map.txt
- Multi-entry copy/cut/paste/delete

Warnings:

Not tested as much as I would have liked, especially with regard to the formatting (the last thing that I did), and how it behaves in concert with the comment preservation. I think things might get a little strange if you are playing with comments in a file with more than one field instance on a line.

I recommend that you back things up if they have comments which you're especially attached to.

This will overwrite your preferences when you unzip it.

If you suffer from out of memory errors then please tell me and also (if you can do without it) turn off comment preservation.

As I said before, I won't be doing any major work for a while now, but I'll certainly fix bugs and make small changes.

Things that have changed in the structure files (for those who wish to assist with their creation):

I've shifted the specification of the various comment and delimiter characters in - that goes just under the version number, but not in files which are specifying a substructure (which inherit the information from their 'parent' file). At present all files support both # and // comments, but you can remove support for one if it was necessary for some reason (e.g. in script.slc we don't want # comments, not that script.slc is likely to ever be editable through CTPEd).

The new formatting (for blank lines, etc. in data files) works like this:

In the .ces file (If it's format 1 - too many meanings for format!) you specify whether you're going to bother to include the format information as one of the boolean options at the start.

If you say you will you have to put a lot more info into the .ces file (I've done it for advance.ces, so you can look there for an example) specifying how many new lines are placed between and after field instances. Note that that is new lines, not blank lines. One new line is zero blank lines.

If you say that this information will not be included then it will all revert to the default of one new line in each place - that is the state all the other .ces files are in at present.

As a result the formatting of some files actually looks worse in this version than in the last , but has the potential to look better .

If you put formating info into any .ces file(s) then please post it/them here for inclusion in the next version.

[J Bytheway]

Don't let the horrific dire warnings and threats of lack-of-support put you off, will you .

[Pedrunn]

How do i intall this version of the ctped? I did not followed much the recent versions but the readme remais the same as the 0.2 version still i cant find the .ini or even have a clue on how to make it work.

[J Bytheway]

This is an update - You unzip it over the top of an existing install. If you don't have an existing install then you won't have the ini file, nor the necessary dlls and so forth (well, actually you probably do, since I only used standard MS ones, but you might not...). You need to install the version linked to on the first post of the thread first and then unzip the update over it.

[Pedrunn]

The version 0.22 download is in a broken link.

[J Bytheway]

Yes, I removed the updates prior to v0.3.0 because they probably shouldn't be needed by anyone... I'll edit the posts to that effect.

[Ekmek]

can I add new civs with this?

[J Bytheway]

Not easily and not at the moment, because no structure file has been made for civilization.txt (IIRC that's the relevant file). If you made a structure file, then you could, but I think that has a lot of multiple fields, which are not supported very well at present.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Not easily and not at the moment, because no structure file has been made for civilization.txt (IIRC that's the relevant file). If you made a structure file, then you could, but I think that has a lot of multiple fields, which are not supported very well at present.

Actual only the city fields are multiple, so it shouldn't be a problem fro CTPEd to handle it but it wouldn't do it in a very comfortablle way. By the way you need another file the civ_str.txt that store all the strings.

So far I thought I could test the layout preservation on the advance.txt and modified the advance.txt. I think this will be the first file modified with CTPEd that will be released. Unfortunatly I wasn't content with the output layout. First I wasn't able to find the place where you define the numbers of spaces or tabs in front of the fields in the substructures. Second I wasn't able to find the place where I could difine I many new lines should be between the different entries. Third I think it would be better if you could specify how many new lines should be before the first field instance. That would be better instead of just having the how meany new lines at the start of an entry definition. In the attachment you can find the original file generated by CTPEd and the file with the layout I want and achieved after some manual editing.

So far I didn't figured out how the mass modifing option work, but it seems that I can modify with it also an single entry like multiplying and interger field or devide it.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

Forgot the attachment.

[J Bytheway]

I'm sorry - I can't get online with my PC right now, so I can't help with that - I'll do so just as soon as I can. The numbers of spaces or tabs is defined in the preferences, not the .ces file. That's a bit inconsistant, nut I seem to recall you requesting that at some point...