Request for some help modifying the Reader...

[Equinox 1,209]

I have a few very simple (I think) changes I'd like implemented in the Reader.

Problem is, I'm not a programmer, and I won't be able to learn C++ for another 2 years.    I was wondering if there was anyone out there who knows C++ that might be interested in helping me?  My goal is making the Reader a bit more user-friendly by implementing a better description system for Exemplar properties.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Maybe this is not exactly what you are looking for, but the upcoming SimCity Building Database will have some kind of Exemplar Description viewer. simrolle used a standalone version extensively for creating the program, and he also thought about implementing it on some form into the program itself.

 

http://img263.echo.cx/img263/91/exemplardescriptions5qv.th.gif>

[Equinox 1,209]

That's quite cool, but I've been doing the description and name altering myself since yesterday afternoon.  What I'm really shooting for is a way for the Reader to pick up user-friendly names for property values (e.g. for the Occupant Types property, showing CO$$, CO$$$, rather than the numerical values), in addition to a few very minor changes to the GUI.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Ah, yeah, that would be cool. It displays those things in the preview windows, but when you double click on a property, only those numerical values are displayed. It's esp. annoying with the the transit enabled tiles and other long rows of numbers. The database analyzer will show them in plain text, too, and you even can configure what you want to be displayed and what not.

[6459978. 106]

Hmmm... I know a fair bit of C++. If the changes are simple I might be able to help.

[Equinox 1,209]

Cool!

Do you have MSN or AIM?

[ardecila 124]

Equinox - you should be able to change the Property Value names by modifying ingred.ini in your Program Files/SimCity 4/Apps folder.

You can edit in in Notepad. It basically defines properties for the game. I've done it several times without any adverse effects. Of course, you should save a backup before you change anything....

[Equinox 1,209]

That looks like exactly what I want.  I'm not seeing any of my changes reflected in the Reader, though! 
Do your changes show up in the Reader?

[Andreas Roth 607]

If I'm not mistaken, the descriptions the Reader uses are in the Properties.xml, so you could try to change them there.

[Equinox 1,209]

True, I've done that, but I want to create new descriptions for values for certain properties.
e.g. I wanna have it display NDEX rather than 0xb5c00d01 in the OccupantGroups property.
Ingred.ini is the right place to go, but the Reader doesn't pick up any changes I make to it.

So, it looks like what I want here is for somebody to add the functionality of the Reader checking Ingred.ini and - even better - a custom user file of defined value descriptions.  ('cause I'm not too sure about adding new ones to Ingred.ini; as far as I can see, that file is for descriptions of preexisting OccupantGroups; besides which, it mentions if you add anything new here, be sure to do so in kSC4OccupantGroups.h as well! or something like that ... obviously, I don't quite have SC4's source code available.)

[Andreas Roth 607]

Ah, there you go... Of course, this is possible with the building database.

http://img132.echo.cx/img132/5809/exemplardescriptions28xn.th.gif>

[DarkMatter 21]

Well, I figure I should mention, DatGen has a full, flexible plugin API that you can use to quickly pump out any tool you need. You don't have to be a C++ programmer, either. You can use C#, VB.NET, J# (java, basically), Perl, Python...any .NET supported language. The API is fully documented, as is DatGen's architecture. Check out www.datgen.info , the developers and tutorials sections. Writing plugins for DatGen is extremely easy, since you don't have to worry about writing all the code to load and parse the DBPF. You just need to write file type handlers (simpl classes to load and save individual file data, many of which are already written), and the plugins to display file type data.