chtml Testing

[Fyron]

I need some help testing the behavior of chtml, especially on XP systems. Note that this is highly beta (perhaps alpha) version.

chtml_2006_05_09.zip (http://www.spaceempires.net/files/temp/chtml_2006_05_09.zip)

Please download the archive and extract it into the SE4 folder. It will go into a "chtml_2006_04_16" folder.

Run it by double clicking chtml.exe and choosing option 2, to parse settings.ini. The interactive option (1) is not working at present. It is currently configured to read the stock data files and create single HTML files for them in "chtml_2006_04_16\out\". It only reads 6 of the files at present.

You should get some valid html files created in the out folder. If so, please open settings.ini and change inFileDir to point to a mod. If you wish to try TDM-Modpack, change it from:

inFileDir := ..\Data\

to:

inFileDir := ..\TDM-Modpack\Data\

It should happily overwrite any files it needs to in the out dir. For the most complete test, it might be useful to manually delete them before running chtml again, however.

Try a few mods out, see if the output makes sense for the mod (and is not consisting of empty files). Then, please report on what worked and what didn't work.

[Captain Kwok]

A couple of early comments:

The readme.txt file is kind of garbled with notepad, but works ok with Textpad.

Also, none of the formatting options seem to work. I tried choosing them by number and it kept saying it was invalid input...

The MS-dos prompt thing is cumbersome, particularly considering I haven't really used such things in the last 10 years or so.

Note I have XP Pro SP2.

[Fyron]

Probably should have mentioned that the interactive mode isn't quite upgraded yet, and the readme is reflective of that as well. Been working on making the functionality work with the settings file parsing.

Notepad doesn't interpret newline characters properly. It only likes carriage return gobbley-gook.

[Captain Kwok]

What about making it a more traditional windows program with some sort of GUI? I'd be more inclined to fudge around with it.

[Fyron]

The only user interaction is choosing some settings, which in the current implementation is best done with settings.ini. A GUI would be a lot of work (possibly more than the rest of the program) to basically replicate a text file.

[Captain Kwok]

It shouldn't be all that hard to make two text fields for input and output directories plus some radio buttons for the output options. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

[Fyron]

win32 gui code in c++ (and most languages) is quite messy. A gui written with it that does little more than draw the settings file with buttons isn't a big concern at this point in time. What I am concerned with is making the program work.

[Captain Kwok]

Hey, it's ok for me if your fancy computer engineering UC program doesn't teach you the skills to program for modern computers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

However, because I like this idea so much (the .html generation thing) I will purposely try and parse something after my exam today.

[Fyron]

I have added a preliminary gui frontend (chtmlgui.exe):

chtml_2006_04_29a.zip (http://www.spaceempires.net/files/temp/chtml_2006_04_29a.zip)

You might need to get the library file MFC71.dll if you can not run chtmlgui.exe. You should be able to place it in the chtml folder and get the gui to run. If not, placing it in Windows\System32 should work.

I should also mention that the file menu doesn't do much of anything. I might add the ability to load and save settings files in the future, or I might delete it.

Edit:

Fixed an issue with image file extension.

[Captain Kwok]

Thanks. For some odd reason it just feels easier to use the program with the visual gui! I even generated a few files and it seems to work well.

Glad to see you took some of my advice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

There's a typo in the option choice - it just says "Option", perhaps it should be "Options". Also I would change "Parse Which Files" to something else.


I will try using the program to generate some SQL DBs for my SFEmod website next weekend.

[Yimboli]

not sure what chtml is?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Neither am I.

[Fyron]

CHTML is a program designed to generate HTML files for the data files
in any mod. These can be used as part of a mod manual, a mod web site, etc.

[Captain Kwok]

I think you need to give your program a better name than CHTML - which doesn't really reveal its function. It's too late tonight for me to think of anything better at the moment though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

For the image options box:

I'd make "Image Extension" to "Image Type" and have a drop-list of supported extensions rather than allowing user input. You probably should also put (pixels) by image size so people know what the units are.

And I suspect that you'll add functional browse dialogs for the input/output fields etc?

[Yimboli]

so if I made a mod, I could run chtml to generate more appealing-to-the-eye information on what I changed? does it compare values to "stock" values to filter and only show what's changed? actually i have lotsa questions but i'll wait til i get home thursday and try it out myself =)

[Fyron]

I have made the SQL outputs work properly. There are no longer any "results" fields, since I plan to convert my site to use INNER JOIN.

chtml_2006_05_09.zip (http://www.spaceempires.net/files/temp/chtml_2006_05_09.zip)