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**MrBaggins** · March 11, 2004, 12:18

I guess we could... but I don't think we should.

My vote would be... no.

**Locutus** · March 11, 2004, 13:29

Errrm... you call that modmakers friendly?

Excel can work with the existing setup as well and there are programs like J Bytheway's CtPEd for those who want more advanced editing tools. For those of us who actually have and know how to use a decent text editor (i.e. NOT Notepad/Wordpad), the current setup works great. Your proposal makes text-file editing near impossible.

**Ekmek** · March 11, 2004, 13:31

I'd like to see it in a format that would allow for an easier mod editor, i guess excel would be one way.

It should also allow for a lot of different abilities or requirements (like consume shield, food each turn, or resources) in anticipation of new features

**The Big Mc** · March 11, 2004, 13:45

what about linux

i don't play ctp2 on Linux but I would say at the moment most scenarios are probably compatible with Linux ( tell me if I am wrong) if we change it to this set up the linux moders will lose out

**Locutus** · March 11, 2004, 15:12

There's no such thing as a CtP2 port to Linux for CtP2. Some people are working on it but it doesn't exist yet. And no, for Linux it shouldn't make an awful lot of difference how the scenarios/mods are organised as far as I can see. But because the end-of-line characters are different in Linux, they'll will have annoying reduntant /r's at the end of every line. Shouldn't cause any problems, but in some text editors it looks ugly (but the better editors can even deal with all sorts of EOL formats -- I know mine can

)

**Gilgamensch** · March 12, 2004, 04:17

Originally posted by Locutus
Errrm... you call that modmakers friendly?

Excel can work with the existing setup as well and there are programs like J Bytheway's CtPEd for those who want more advanced editing tools. For those of us who actually have and know how to use a decent text editor (i.e. NOT Notepad/Wordpad), the current setup works great. Your proposal makes text-file editing near impossible.

CtPed, is it in the directory? I haven't seen it there.

How do you want to have it working with the current setup? It ttok me quite some work (hex-editor) to get it into this format?

BigMc,

as I said, it shall be saved as a csv-file, means comma-delimited and IIRC also under Unix/Linux there are programs like excel which can read those files.

Coming back to those text-editor guys:

There wouldn't be really any need anymore, just use the master-sheet, change&save. Easy to go.

**Locutus** · March 12, 2004, 05:49

Originally posted by Gilgamensch

CtPed, is it in the directory? I haven't seen it there.

Not sure, don't think so. But it's in the topped threads in the CtP Creation forum for sure. Here's the CtPEd thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=50102

How do you want to have it working with the current setup? It ttok me quite some work (hex-editor) to get it into this format?

I never try to use Excel for stuff it wasn't meant to be used for, but I suggest you ask the guy who did the Excel sheet for CtP1.

There wouldn't be really any need anymore, just use the master-sheet, change&save. Easy to go.

Yes, there would be a need for something more for most people: about €200 to buy a stupid M$ product you'd probably never use for anything else.

**Gilgamensch** · March 12, 2004, 06:12

Thanks for the link

I'll have a look, if you remember who it was I would appreciate it

Yes, there would be a need for something more for most people: about €200 to buy a stupid M$ product you'd probably never use for anything else.

Most computers which you by nowadays (even for the last 2 years) are normally equiped with it and second as the file is saved as cvs you can use any similar program. IIRC even the (IIRC) free star-excel (or however it is called) can import from a csv-file. It would be just, that we would just need to change once, what you use afterwards, isn't really the question. Excel I suggested as I know it not to bad and it is fairly easy to use (if you know what you are doing

)

**Locutus** · March 12, 2004, 06:30

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
I'll have a look, if you remember who it was I would appreciate it

I remember who it was just fine, it was Fin Fahey. But since I doubt you know him I figured I wouldn't mention him by name.

But I did you a favour and looked the file up: turns out it's Access, not Excel. Which makes sense, since Fin was a very intelligent guy, he's smart enough not to use a Spreadsheet program to manage a database. The file can be downloaded here: http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?id...ts=4650&cat=36

Most computers which you by nowadays (even for the last 2 years) are normally equiped with it

No, they don't. Maybe if you buy a HP or Packard Bell PC, but how many people are that stupid? And even those people who do still pay the €200, they just don't realize that.

Excel I suggested as I know it not to bad and it is fairly easy to use (if you know what you are doing

)

Excel works fairly well if you use it properly -- as a Spreadsheet. Why people always complain it's a crappy database manager is beyond me: it isn't a database manager at all, so you shouldn't use it as such.

Either way, I don't think we should shut those of us who don't know how to use Excel (or similar programs who can open the same file) out of modmaking. Which is probably about 70-80% of all PC users. A text file everyone can deal with.

**Gilgamensch** · March 12, 2004, 07:19

Thanks for the link, just downloaded it and checked. Even into there you can import csv without problems.

But I am not talking about having an mdb-file, which we can't use at all for CTP2. I was talking about using excel (and similar programs) to create

CSV-files not an XLS file. Those files you can still edit via a text-editor or use Excel (and similar) to modify it easily.

And I am not talking about having excel as a database-manager, just a tool to make it easier to change.

SO Excel would just be a tool to create csv-files, if you still don't understand what csv stands for:

CSV, comma separated view, so a normal text-file.

The Excel would be for people, who have it and could use it to CREATE a csv-file. If you don't have excel, just import the CSV to any program which can handle csv and you can do whatever you want, just has to be saved again as CSV.

**Locutus** · March 12, 2004, 07:59

The MDB file links to the text files, it updates them as well, while leaving them in their original format (or at least that's my understanding, I have little experience with Access myself, not exactly my favourite database program).

I'm not opposed to having tools to help modding, aux contraire. But I *am* opposed to using a format for the text files that seriously hinders modding, as your proposal does.

If Excel doesn't have a decent import function that can handle EOLs, that's a deficiency of Excel, not CtP2 (but again, Excel was never intended as database program, so you can hardly hold that against the program). A deficiency which other programs (such as Access, to the best of my knowledge) don't have, so you could use one of those instead.

But if you want to use CSV to store CtP2 data, you could easily write a simple script that converts CSV files to and from CtP2 format. Doesn't Excel have (limited?) VBscript support? Never used it myself, but I think I read about that somewhere. Even a simple VB script should be able to handle such a conversion.

I know what a CSV file is but have you ever actually tried editing one with a text editor? CtP2's file format is by far superior for its purpose, much easier to read and edit without the aid of non-standard software. By using a CSV file, you pretty much force people to use a database-like program rather than a simple text editor. A lot of people wouldn't even know any such programs, let alone be happy to have to buy/download and learn to use one.

Adding extra tools for CtP2 modding is great, but the tools should be designed for CtP2, not the other way around.

**The Big Mc** · March 12, 2004, 08:09

yes locutus excel does have vba code. it would be posible to generate the code to change it but why bother the amount of code needed would never pay for the time you save

**Locutus** · March 12, 2004, 08:11

Well, I don't know how VB works in Excel but replacing a few comma's with EOLs and vice-versa and inserting a few braces shouldn't be that much work...

**Gilgamensch** · March 12, 2004, 08:26

The file by Fin Fahey is only partially 'useful'. Some files are covered some others aren't.

And Access is even less known as Excel or similar.

But if you want to use CSV to store CtP2 data, you could easily write a simple script that converts CSV files to and from CtP2 format.

The reason why I suggested to move to csv is, that a lot of programs alow import/export of csv without any problem. CSV was/is a 'standard' transfer format, even for databases.

Even a simple VB script should be able to handle such a conversion.

Yes you can, but that would ultimitvly restrict it only to excel.

I don't know access to well, but there isn't any EOL into whatever translation.

When importing a csv-file (supposed all the commas are there), you can use any program and have a nice overview, like in a table. Same goes for modifying, just change it, save it as csv and all done.

CtP2's file format is by far superior for its purpose, much easier to read and edit without the aid of non-standard software

don't really agree, have you ever tried to find units with certain values/restrictions ? Like which units are ignoring ZOC? With csv and imported into excel, make a sort on this coloumn and off you go. You want to easily change 10 units to have ZOC, no problem. You want to know all flanking units? Again no problem. You want to see all sound-files.........whatever........

You want to quickly see, who can attack what?

It would be all in the same position, easy readable and changeable.

And about how to learn to use it:

I think everyone can learn in 2 minutes (even if via help) how to import/export a csv-file. So that sounds a bit off.

The buying 'reason':

CSV would not prevent people from being able to modify it with a text-editor. As you might have seen I left the descriptions in:

;DefaultIcon;ICON_UNIT_ABOLIT
IONIST;DefaultSprite;SPRITE_ABOLITIONIST

So the only difference for using a text-editor, you would be reading horizontal instead of vertical ...yeah..great deal........

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DESIGN: Changing the units.txt layout

DESIGN: Changing the units.txt layout

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