Mixed Questions

[Schulz]

Thanks for the answers. Is it possible to set up suicide or submarine units preventing enemies to pick their casualties?

[Cernel]

@Schulz No. However, you can hack such a behaviour by having those units suiciding at power 0 while also having an AA attack (defensive or offensive), and setting the relative AA properties so that AA casualties are randomized. However, the exact dynamic of this randomization is currently inconsistent, thus it may be liable to change in future, if any developers fix the problem. More information about this last issue here:
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/989/open-aa-revised-bug-aa-fire-casualty-selection-issues

[Schulz]

Does anyone help me how to preperly create "Objectives file" and and objectives panel. Seems like there are hidden rules about that for example zip name is world_war_ii_v3 while objectives name is "World_War_II_v3_1941" XML one is "WW2v3-1941"

[beelee]

The spelling needs to be the same as the map name at the top of the xml (not the bottom of xml )except you need to use underscores "_" instead of "spaces".

So this "World War II v3 1941" is written like this in objectives.properties "World_War_II_v3_1941".

[Schulz]

Thanks, worked but seems still there is an issue

[redrum]

@Schulz Can you post your objectives.properties?

[Schulz]

objectives.properties

[Cernel]

@Schulz The first item of all entries for any national objectives in the objectives.properties file must be the name of the game (as per the "info name" in the game file (xml)) and the objectives.properties file itself must be in the main map folder of the map that game is calling (as per the "mapName" in the game file (xml)). All game name spaces inside the mentioned properties file must be substituted with undescores.

@redrum @LaFayette @RoiEX @ssoloff I wonder what do the developers think about this method of using underscores instead of spaces (I know it comes from the handling of spaces by properties file)? I could have a game called "Pact_of_Steel_2", another game called "Pact of Steel 2", and another one called "Pact of_Steel 2" (and more!), and they would figure as different games, but they would all call the same objective, named "Pact_of_Steel_2". Does this make actual sense? To keep the system univoke, should underscores better be disallowed in the "info name" completely, maybe (also since the game title is really better not to have any underscores anyways, as it is a user displayed element)?

[Cernel]

@Schulz said in Mixed Questions:

objectives.properties

I see everything in that file is on a single line (no line breaks). You probably lost all those for opening and saving the original with a limited text editor, that is not reading the line breaks of that file (typically this happens if you open with Windows Notepad a text file that has non-Windows line breaks). You need either remaking all line breaks where they are supposed to be or restarting from the original, this time opening it with an editor that sees those line breaks.

Not a developer and not much of a knowledge of properties file, so I'm not sure of what I'm saying (and I haven't tested it).

[RoiEX]

@Cernel Good Question.
If you ask me I wouldn't substitute anything at all. While it's true that properties files have their limitations, it's certainly possible to have a key with spaces if the spaces are escaped correctly. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.properties#Format
However because we probably want to stay compatible, this behaviour will probably stay for a while...

[Cernel]

@RoiEX Can you try that? I tried to escape spaces (substituting underscores with spaces with a backslash beforehand) and the game didn't get it.

[RoiEX]

@Cernel it could be the case that we're not implementing it correctly.
Please remind me tomorrow to have a look at this

[Schulz]

objectives.properties

Adjusted now but still does not work.

[Cernel]

@Schulz No line breaking after the equal sign. I really suggest opening the original file with a text editor that can see the line breaks (I'm assuming you opened it with Windows notepad), if that one was formatted correctly.

[Schulz]

I've succesfully created the Objectives file. Thank you so much.

[Cernel]

@RoiEX said in Mixed Questions:

@Cernel it could be the case that we're not implementing it correctly.
Please remind me tomorrow to have a look at this

In the_pact_of_steel/.../objectives.properties I've substituted all occurrences of "Pact_of_Steel_2" with "Pact\ of\ Steel\ 2". The Objectives tab is gone.

In any case, if both underscores substitution and backslash escapade [sic] would work, I suppose you developers would have to decide the best practice, and make sure the_pact_of_steel follows it.

Myself, I prefer underscores to all those backslashes, but the item that I really dislike is that a same character (the underscore in properties) is representing two different ones (the underscore and the space in info name). So, in that case, I think the info name should not be allowed to have spaces and underscores. Thinking again about it, I would actually disallow spaces in infoname, and automatically convert underscores to spaces when the name is shown to the user, but this would require mass converting most current xml (and obliging people to do the same, @RogerCooper comes to mind).

I'm not even sure having this properties file referencing specific games inside a same map was a good idea, to start with. Maybe all this should have been part of the xml only. It is also inconsistent for pretty much any other properties, as, for example, if you customize tooltips you cannot customize them for each game in the map, even though I'm not seeing why having several same-map games with different unit characteristics should be less supported than having the same situation with different objectives, instead. Am I right?

[Cernel]

@Cernel How about keeping the properties working with underscores, representing both info name underscores and spaces, and deprecating (meaning keeping supporting indefinitely), spaces in info name, while updating the display as to always show underscores in info name as spaces, to the user?

[RoiEX]

@Cernel I agree that this kind of reference isn't really ideal, and there are a lot of other things that I'd consider weird or inconsistent.

I think most of the weirdness comes from the possibility that you can define multiple xmls within a single zip.

IIRC @LaFayette did some brainstorming on what a potential replacement could look like a while back.

In any case I'm not a fan of doing automatic substitutions, because 1. it adds complexity and might be confusing to new map makers who would have to learn about it first and 2. In my experience this leads down a rabbit hole where more and more substitutions are demanded, where it would be simpler to just make a clear destinction between display names and actual unique keys to separate maps.

[LaFayette]

FWIW, the way maps are linked to folder, to source XML file, and then to the display name is very archaic and problem needs a better design. The duplication is painful and source of errors. Maps going to http-server and being stored in database instead of repositories will be an opportunity for us to re-think this.

[Stohrm]

@beelee said in Mixed Questions:

The spelling needs to be the same as the map name at the top of the xml (not the bottom of xml )except you need to use underscores "_" instead of "spaces".

So this "World War II v3 1941" is written like this in objectives.properties "World_War_II_v3_1941".

@beelee I just wanted to say "thank you"; as this just helped me resolve an issue I didn't even realize that I had. Since the Objectives tab wasn't even showing up, I failed to notice that they were missing.
So, besides the "objectives.properties" file, are there any other places where the map name(s) need to match? I gather the "README.md" file needs to match the map name at the bottom part of xml; or is it even necessary if the files are just local to my computer and not being uploaded to GitHub?