Requests for new components (and features)

Open the options screen (Ctrl-Alt-O) and select the "Alerts" tab. If you see a dropdown next to the Reminders checkbox with 3 options (Message, Popup, Both), you have the new version.

I'm not talking about a new ZIP or EXE installer, btw. I'm talking about getting the files directly from Subversion on SF.net. Each file matches up to a "version" but it's not the 0.16 version we publish but the individual chaingelist revision # (308 most recently, IIRC).

EmperorFool said:

Open the options screen (Ctrl-Alt-O) and select the "Alerts" tab. If you see a dropdown next to the Reminders checkbox with 3 options (Message, Popup, Both), you have the new version.

I'm not talking about a new ZIP or EXE installer, btw. I'm talking about getting the files directly from Subversion on SF.net. Each file matches up to a "version" but it's not the 0.16 version we publish but the individual chaingelist revision # (308 most recently, IIRC).

Click to expand...

Ok, I guess I found the necessary files from Subversion. I was totally unfamiliar with how sourceforge worked, so I had to look around a bit before I understood the system (seems like a good way to work with a team of modders). I didn't find a way to simply get all of the newest files, I had to download them all individually. I just downloaded all the python and xml files which I might need and stuck them in the right place (I created a regular mod out of it, not a customassets mod) and everything seems to work, so I guess I did it the right way.

Now the open borders alert and the options to change the reminder mod are active. I changed the reminder mod towards my preferences and it all seems to work ok, no errors here.

There is one weird thing though: now whenever I activate the reminder I get the word 'whip' already entered as if I will want to create a reminder to whip something which is only one of the many things I create reminders for. I also noticed that the timer was already at 1 and not 0 which is ok as you will never create a reminder for this turn.

By the way, reminders never seem to be saved in the savegame. Whenever I load a game, the game has forgotten about the reminders that I created for the next turn(s). Is that the way it is supposed to work? It would be very useful if reminders could work after you had loaded the game the next day because that's the moment that you will have really forgotten about what you were planning to do during the next turn.

Good job with updating the reminder section of this mod.

Roland Johansen said:

Ok, I guess I found the necessary files from Subversion. I was totally unfamiliar with how sourceforge worked, so I had to look around a bit before I understood the system (seems like a good way to work with a team of modders). I didn't find a way to simply get all of the newest files, I had to download them all individually. I just downloaded all the python and xml files which I might need and stuck them in the right place (I created a regular mod out of it, not a customassets mod) and everything seems to work, so I guess I did it the right way.

Click to expand...

You can download files manually as you did, but if you want to use the power of SV, you need to download from the SF website Tortoise SVN a simple client which allows you to create a local repository in one folder of your choice and to keep it always updated with the online repo. When you have created it, a simple right-click and selecting update your folder will be synchronized. Then from there you can export the files directly into BtS folder. Of course it is much more useful for modders who also have to upload files from local repos to the online one.

Cammagno said:

You can download files manually as you did, but if you want to use the power of SV, you need to download from the SF website Tortoise SVN a simple client which allows you to create a local repository in one folder of your choice and to keep it always updated with the online repo. When you have created it, a simple right-click and selecting update your folder will be synchronized. Then from there you can export the files directly into BtS folder. Of course it is much more useful for modders who also have to upload files from local repos to the online one.

Click to expand...

Ah, I see. I knew there had to be a better, more efficient way to do this. If I want to get some intermediate version in between official versions again, then I guess I will do it that way. Thanks for the information.

The HOF Mod has a nice feature that automatically saves your game when you exit to desktop. I really liked that feature and it would be cool to see it in this Mod (as this is now the de-facto Mod I use). It also used a very good naming convention on those auto-saves (I don't know what it is off the top of my head, but it would be cool to steal the naming convention).

Roland Johansen said:

I had to download them all individually.

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Ouch, ya that's the hard way. I'm glad it worked for you, but if you want to update in the future, definitely grab TortoiseSVN. I wrote up instructions in our old development thread that were short and sweet. It sounds complicated but it's pretty straightforward. I'll see if I can find them tonight or just write up new ones.

Roland Johansen said:

There is one weird thing though: now whenever I activate the reminder I get the word 'whip' already entered as if I will want to create a reminder to whip something which is only one of the many things I create reminders for. I also noticed that the timer was already at 1 and not 0 which is ok as you will never create a reminder for this turn.

Click to expand...

Oops, I didn't mean to leave that testing code in. I purposely defaulted the spinner to 1 for the reason you specified. I will remove "whip" though.

Roland Johansen said:

By the way, reminders never seem to be saved in the savegame.

Click to expand...

Yet another item on my wish list. I put a comment in the code, but I haven't made it save reminders yet. It shouldn't be too hard, though.

@OneBinary - That's a good idea. Others have mentioned some good things to snag from HoF as well, so maybe I'll tackle that after the first release. I've already punted PLE
to the next version, and I'm bummed about it as PLE is very nice. We'll see...

EmperorFool said:

Yet another item on my wish list. I put a comment in the code, but I haven't made it save reminders yet. It shouldn't be too hard, though.
@OneBinary - That's a good idea. Others have mentioned some good things to snag from HoF as well, so maybe I'll tackle that after the first release. I've already punted PLE
to the next version, and I'm bummed about it as PLE is very nice. We'll see...

Click to expand...

Well... we have to leave something for 2.0 release, don't we?

I would recommend focusing on 1.0 instead of new features, then proceed towards next release Release early, release often - any feature can be pushed to the next release that way.

Regarding saving reminders - is that possible while maintaining savegame compatibility? That's essential for BUG IMO - this is unaltered in all ways including savegame compatibility.

Elandal said:

Regarding saving reminders - is that possible while maintaining savegame compatibility? That's essential for BUG IMO - this is unaltered in all ways including savegame compatibility.

Click to expand...

I know EF may have some way better ideas than this, but here it goes anyway.

Blake's BetterAI for warlords had something to savegame writing that wouldn't break with games without it. But it messes with the DLL, of course.

A simple way to do this is to save the reminders in an auxiliary file, say like the CDA.txt file, for each savegame. It can be buggy, as the reminder file would have to be shipped with the savegame, but I think it's the easiest way to do it.

FeedBack said:

A simple way to do this is to save the reminders in an auxiliary file, say like the CDA.txt file, for each savegame. It can be buggy, as the reminder file would have to be shipped with the savegame, but I think it's the easiest way to do it.

Click to expand...

Not a bad solution, IMO. If the auxiliary file will not be shipped, the savegame will work anyway, only without recorded reminders... I like tihis compromise.

FeedBack said:

A simple way to do this is to save the reminders in an auxiliary file, say like the CDA.txt file, for each savegame. It can be buggy, as the reminder file would have to be shipped with the savegame, but I think it's the easiest way to do it.

Click to expand...

No, don't do that. You can save information in the save, no problems. In fact, the unit naming code does just that. Look at how I've saved the counter information in the save and the do the same with the reminders.

What Ruff said. Many objects (City, Player, Unit, Plot) can have an arbitrary "data" string attached to them. The savedgame reader/writer knows how to handle this. You as a modder are free to write any information you want to that slot.

Doing this feature won't be difficult, but I want to do it right which means using SdToolkit so if we add other mods that write to the same object they won't overwrite each other. Ruff has already started using SdToolkit for the unit naming, so this should be pretty straight-forward.

EmperorFool said:

What Ruff said. Many objects (City, Player, Unit, Plot) can have an arbitrary "data" string attached to them. The savedgame reader/writer knows how to handle this. You as a modder are free to write any information you want to that slot.

Click to expand...

WOW, it seems that Firaxis this time really tried to make the things easy as possible for modders. Or if not easy, at least doable.

I removed the default (testing) text for the reminder.

There was some other change I made . . . .

Shoot, what was it . . . ?

Oh yeah, reminders are now saved. Enjoy! Or just set a reminder to enjoy it later.

Wow! I mean.. Wow! That's what you get for being used to use so many workarounds at work... Those guys made it right this time! And EF... Your speed is amazing too! Thanks!

Btw.. Ruff, the unit naming convention is amazing! There's only one problem I see... A friend of mine is too lazy to fool around with it too much... Y'know... What about creating some pre-defined patterns, like those in your Warlords mod, for people like this, uh, friend of mine? I see Cammagno already did the "default" for CDA, with a lot of options...

No rushing, of course.

FeedBack said:

Btw.. Ruff, the unit naming convention is amazing! There's only one problem I see... A friend of mine is too lazy to fool around with it too much... Y'know... What about creating some pre-defined patterns, like those in your Warlords mod, for people like this, uh, friend of mine?

Click to expand...

Well, you can tell your 'friend' that the bug.ini file that is in the repository has some already set up.

EmperorFool said:

I removed the default (testing) text for the reminder.

There was some other change I made . . . .

Shoot, what was it . . . ?

Oh yeah, reminders are now saved. Enjoy! Or just set a reminder to enjoy it later.

Click to expand...

Ok, I installed the TortoiseSVN client and found out how it works and downloaded the newest version of all of these files (I did a checkout in a seperate directory). That took a while since the download process was pretty slow (60 KB/s) for some reason. Now I combined the files from the Bug mod folder and the flavor mod folder and combined them with my own minor xml-modifications into a BTS-mod and it all seems to work. Thank you.

I noticed that all these files kept some sort of link with the TortoiseSVN client and have an extra tab when you ask about their properties. Does this make them somehow different than other files? Did copying them from their original download folder to the combined mod folder change something about this link with the online version of these files?

I noticed that there is a cache file in the system memory after installing the TortoiseSVN client (TSVNCache.exe). It's there every time, even after a fresh system start so I guess that it is needed for this program and can't be loaded when the program activates. I try to keep my system as clean as possible and don't like additional programs that I don't plan to use often to use system memory. Since I don't plan to use this very often as I will normally download finished mods, I don't think that I want to keep it installed. Are there some consequences to uninstalling this client? What will happen to the files that have additional TortoiseSVN properties?

By the way, I do appreciate that you allow me to download an intermediate version of this mod to experience just added features. Thanks for the help.

Roland Johansen said:

I noticed that all these files kept some sort of link with the TortoiseSVN client and have an extra tab when you ask about their properties. Does this make them somehow different than other files? Did copying them from their original download folder to the combined mod folder change something about this link with the online version of these files?

Click to expand...

Into each folder and subfolder of the SVN local repository, there is a hidden folder called ".svn", with several subfolders and files; these are responsable for the "some sort of link" you spoke about So if you copy folders from the local repository to the BtS folder, you also copy a lot of useless stuff.
The thing that you have to do is not to copy them, but to use the Export command. Right-click on the folder that you have chosen as local repo, choose TortoiseSVN and then Export, then select the BtS folder as destination folder. (pay attention that the checkbox about the unversioned files is not checked). Doing this, only the "true" files will go to the BtS folder (you will see that they won't have the SVN mark over the normal icon).

Cammagno said:

Into each folder and subfolder of the SVN local repository, there is a hidden folder called ".svn", with several subfolders and files; these are responsable for the "some sort of link" you spoke about So if you copy folders from the local repository to the BtS folder, you also copy a lot of useless stuff.
The thing that you have to do is not to copy them, but to use the Export command. Right-click on the folder that you have chosen as local repo, choose TortoiseSVN and then Export, then select the BtS folder as destination folder. (pay attention that the checkbox about the unversioned files is not checked). Doing this, only the "true" files will go to the BtS folder (you will see that they won't have the SVN mark over the normal icon).

Click to expand...

Hah, I never noticed the hidden folder because I had 'show hidden files and folders' switched off. Ok, I did the export thing and now the files don't have the SVN mark over the normal icon anymore and I recreated the mod folder with these 'new' files. Thanks again for the help Cammagno.

Those ".svn" folders maintain all of the information about the files you have pulled from SVN. You could uninstall* TortoiseSVN, leaving the ".svn" folders on your hard drive, and at some later point reinstall Tortoise and sync to the latest version of the repo.

The only downside to keeping the ".svn" folders is the small space they take up. You can always just grab the full repo later rather than just the changed files. The ".svn" folders allow you to grab just what has changed.

*Or simply disahle it from running using msconfig I think. I'm not sure since it's an extension to Windows Explorer rather than a separate program, but I suspect that'd work.