[Editor] External Script Document for "Actions"

[Thisdale]

Would it be possible to have Script-Based support for written content in the Editor? An external scripting document or Log or file of some sort, to manage and edit the content of "Actions" in triggers?

 

The purpose of this is to easily edit content of certain TriggerActions easily and rapidly rather than having to go in the narrow column of events, find the proper one and edit it manually every time.

 

This is particularly useful in Randomized or Variation of events (branching) where you need to change a word or a coordinate in multiple "Message to Group" (or coalition or whatever).

 

The suggestion would instead, offer the following:

 

Have a string generator/tracker.

Each Message is a string in the "Action" Message (such as: [VO_Brief03-034935245klm]).

The document contains all the Strings (manually or automatically generated...).

 

The external document could look like this:

 

[VO_Brief03-034935245klm]

 

"This is junker 31, we're at the crash site. How copy?"

 

[VO_Brief04-034335245kom]

 

"Bravo, this is Charlie, we are near Junk 31"

 

[VO_Brief05-034955225Apm]

 

"You're late, Junker 31"

 

When the mission is created, all the "action - Msg" contain only the strings. But go fetch the text content from another document (external), where it is easy to edit and change content.

 

So in practice, you can look up the document and do "CTRL-F" (to search) for "Junker 31" and type in "replace with" "Starbound 45".

 

Instead of going through every single event, highlighting every "Msg" action and manually replacing every "Junker 31". This is extremely time consuming, and error-bound.

 

Naturally, you can also make bigger changes.

 

This way, it becomes extremely easy to track your VO and your in-game text, because you can name both the same way (string).

[Rakuzard]

Maybe I got you wrong, but what you are suggesting is quite exactly how it's done.

 

The .miz file is nothing but a renamed .zip. Open it with any Zip-program, navigate to I10N\Default and you will find a file "dictionary" (without an extension) in there. It's human readable and contains all text from all triggers and even the mission briefind and everything else. Sounds like the file you would want to edit with CTRL+F and so on. :)

The string generator you proposed is also in place and creates strings in the format "DictKey_ActionText_xxx" (or instead of ActionKey it can be WptName, UnitName, ..., ...).

Edited August 24, 2016 by Rakuzard

[Thisdale]

Maybe I got you wrong, but what you are suggesting is quite exactly how it's done.

 

The .miz file is nothing but a renamed .zip. Open it with any Zip-program, navigate to I10N\Default and you will find a file "dictionary" (without an extension) in there. It's human readable and contains all text from all triggers and even the mission briefind and everything else. Sounds like the file you would want to edit with CTRL+F and so on. :)

The string generator you proposed is also in place and creates strings in the format "DictKey_ActionText_xxx" (or instead of ActionKey it can be WptName, UnitName, ..., ...).

 

Oh hell! That does work rather good indeed! Didn't know this existed (in this format anyways).

Thanks for the head's up!

 

It's a little hard to manage (that i can see) but i'll give that a try!

 

Thanks bud!

[Rakuzard]

It's a little hard to manage (that i can see) but i'll give that a try!

 

It's not harder to manage than what you proposed.

 

You can always unpack the dictionary, edit it with your favorite texteditor (I recommend Notepad Plus Plus, it has highlighting for LUA - the dictionary is nothing else than a LUA table) and repack it into the miz-file.

If your favorite zip programm supports it, you can use drag & drop to get the dictionary out of and back into the archive.

Works for me. :)

[Thisdale]

It's not harder to manage than what you proposed.

 

You can always unpack the dictionary, edit it with your favorite texteditor (I recommend Notepad Plus Plus, it has highlighting for LUA - the dictionary is nothing else than a LUA table) and repack it into the miz-file.

If your favorite zip programm supports it, you can use drag & drop to get the dictionary out of and back into the archive.

Works for me. :)

 

Awesome Sauce!