Useless extractor while I come up with good one XD

[ubiquitous]

So been bored and decided to give programming a try. Sadly its beating the hell out of me XD No surprise there since I want to make an windowed editor for the text files extracted by gibbed tools. Now for modders who already know how to look and read the files these tools wont be for you cause you are too smart already

The program included in this post is an extractor. It reads the file you tell it to and then breaks it down into different folders depending on their category and saves each individual file into its own text file. I have not added the function to merge all files back into a single file so for now its just an extractor. I am guessing not much different than kant's after reading his code. If his code does the same thing then my code is far from his cause mine came out 3 times as long lol. The program still has some flaws I haven't addressed but works well for the most part. The main flaw I forgot to fix is if there is a space between the cItem and the { it will not save that item.

Good:
cItem
{
}

Bad it will not save this item:
cItem

{
}


Anyways my final goal is to make a program that reads a file, or files if I ever get past the first stage , and sort them within expandable categories. Once expanded you will see the properties pertaining to that item within their corresponding category.

Example of what I am trying to do in a window format:
cPlayerWeaponItem expands to show all items in the category
-Fireaxe expands to show all its properties
-SledgeHammer expands to show all its properties

cCinematicItem expands to show all items in the category

cSurvivorItem expands to show all items in the category

cNPCWeaponItem expands to show all items in the category
-Expand to show Militia Sniper Rifle expands to show all its properties

While it will still require gibbed tools to upack the datafile.big doing this might help out get new modders get on the right path since it would make it easier to find and mod things.

With a single file it shouldn't be to hard to accomplish but if I include all files found in the datafile folder that might be more than I can accomplish at my current skill level. I might not even be able to do a single file in the format I want to.

Well while I experiment some more and make progress towards my goal I hope I come up with other tools that might be useful to others or even just fun little things like the extractor which I might or might not use in my final program.

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[Wizard]

Cool tool dude, keep up the great work I know Programming is no easy task, but its all in practice =D

[anno1404]

thanks for posting what you have thus far.

[ubiquitous]

Small update to my item extractor turning into more of an editor now. I admit its not what I had envisioned when I started this project but hopefully it still makes it a little easier and more organized to mod stuff. Still no save function in this but if you guys would be kind enough to test it out quickly and let me know what you guys think.

My original idea was to have a tree view but I've been unable to get it to work right with my current programming knowledge. If the text box feel isn't for everyone I can also make a data grid view but I found it to feel better with the text box. It might just be my preference since I always preferred it so let me know what you guys feel would make it easier and I will see what I can do.

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[moloko]

It does work smoothly, though to be honest, there isn't much use yet. It's surely helpful to get an overview about the kind of items and their names, but everything else can be achieved by text search. I hope you add some more features and then it's a great tool.

[ubiquitous]

Latest version of my editor still not much of an improvement since last time since I got tired of all the fails I got XD This version has saving and re-merging the file so its a single file again. The re-merged file will be in the same directory as the .exe to prevent accidental replacement of original.

Functions as of now:
Browse - Locate text file you wish to extract info from.
Extract - Extracts all items from the chosen file.
Merge - Becomes available when any changes have been made. It will merge all files so any modifications you made are saved into a single file.
Save - Saves changes done to an item in the text box on the right side.
Exit - Self Explanatory

Delete Category - Deletes the entire selected category.
Delete Item - Deletes the selected item.

Any changes done to any item must be saved for now I have added the save button to prevent accidental unwanted editing and saving. Also all changes applied must be merged before closing the program or changes will have to be made again. I will fix this in the future as this is still a work in progress since I am still learning So if you guys got any suggestions on what to add function wise then let me know so I can try and learn that as well

As of now this application requires the use of gibbed Tools to extract the text files that this application breaks down a step further. I am still trying to decipher Gibbed tools source code in order to integrate it into a window form but I am failing at understanding it with my current knowledge.

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[anno1404]

Keep working on it, I am so glad you post what you have so far. Nice job! I changed the title to "extractor" so people know at a glance what you are working on.

I find that tech people are good at making stuff, but have a harder time describing the utility and purpose of the tools. this drives me crazy on Wikipedia and mediawiki.

I am still 100% unsure what this tool can do, maybe a brief simple example in the first posting?

[ubiquitous]

The application isn't much different from notepad right now. What it does is read through the file you choose and then it separates it into different folders according to the category they are found. So it places all cFoodItems into their folder and all cPlayerWeaponItems into their folder and so on.

Once extracted you have two combo boxes in the application. One to choose the category and one to choose the item found in that category. When you choose the item it displays all of the items properties on the right side in the text box editor. It makes it a little easier to find things for those who don't know how to use CTRL + F or get discouraged by so much text

For now the application only works on files where order does not matter. So for how all levels are arranged and items.txt. I have not developed a method for missions.txt or sgraph.txt where order matters yet so still working on it but I think I may be on the path to the solution

I'm sure there are better methods than mine but since I am still learning this is the best I can do right now. Also integrating an add function for new items shouldn't be too hard with this method so hopefully I can add that later on

[anno1404]

thanks for the explanation

[ubiquitous]

This is pretty much same version as last one with small additions. I added a few minor things like a progress bar and optimized code so program does not look frozen anymore.

I have also just noticed that the order of missions.txt does not matter so this program will also work with that file. It will split up all the missions to make it a little easier to read the code for each mission so you can find things easier if something is unlocked in a mission and you want to learn how it was done.

Only file I think it wont work with right now is sgraph.txt as that file is picky as hell and I haven't tried to make it work with a specific re-merge sorting order.

There is a new button at the bottom of the application which is the new addition I am working on. You can click it and it will open another window but it has no real function as of yet. Eventually I plan to hopefully be able to make it place all items from a level in the window which could then be moved around for easy placing for mods but still plenty of time before I am able to complete that tool if I can even pull it off that is.

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[anno1404]

Jul 6, 2011 23:29:36 GMT -5 ubiquitous said:

This is pretty much same version as last one with small additions. I added a few minor things like a progress bar and optimized code so program does not look frozen anymore.

I have also just noticed that the order of missions.txt does not matter so this program will also work with that file. It will split up all the missions to make it a little easier to read the code for each mission so you can find things easier if something is unlocked in a mission and you want to learn how it was done.

Only file I think it wont work with right now is sgraph.txt as that file is picky as hell and I haven't tried to make it work with a specific re-merge sorting order.

There is a new button at the bottom of the application which is the new addition I am working on. You can click it and it will open another window but it has no real function as of yet. Eventually I plan to hopefully be able to make it place all items from a level in the window which could then be moved around for easy placing for mods but still plenty of time before I am able to complete that tool if I can even pull it off that is.

Very awesome as always.

[ubiquitous]

Simple tool that has proved useful to my use. It is a list extractor and its window mode so self explanatory on how to use no need to type any commands or anything. It also has a little box in which code for wiki and proboards comes out it creates a simple table with all the data extracted. Be patient with it as it may take some time depending on the size of the file and how many keywords you add to the list.

Simple layout
Text boxes:
File text box = Displays file you want to search for keywords in.
Header text box = Allows you to rename any of the headers of your table so you wont have to struggle to much to customize the code.

Numeric:
Up and down = allows you to choose which of the column headers to modify.

Buttons
Browse = Browse for file
+ Sign = Add keyword to the list.
- Sign = Remove selected keyword from the list.
Extract list = Extract the keywords in the list from the file selected.
Load list = Load a previously saved list.
Save list = Save the list that has been extracted.

Check boxes:
Collapsible = Makes wiki table collapsible
Spoiler = Makes ProBoards table a spoiler so it imitates the collapsible property of the wiki.

Tables:
Displays all data extracted and allows you to modify or delete data you do not want on the list.


Ok so the program isn't a great tool but it does help navigate the bigger files like sgraph. I've found a lot of useful data with this method and hope it helps out others. The program isn't designed great so its a little slow at times when extracting the data.

Also do not hit the save button if no data was extracted or if the table is empty as this will likely cause a crash in the program.

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[anno1404]

Jul 20, 2011 5:24:29 GMT -5 ubiquitous said:

help navigate the bigger files like sgraph. I've found a lot of useful data with this method and hope it helps out others.

Great the community desperately needs this -- nice job.