Guide: Wraithlord's dominionsKB *major* ver 1.00

[WraithLord]

Thank you all for your compliments. It makes happy to know you find it useful.

As to your points,
First, to use with vim you need to do the following:
1. Download and install VIM.

It can be installed on all platforms.

2. DL the UTL script

2.1 Unzip it to VIM plugin dir. For example, on my windows its "c:\Program Files\Vim\vim71\plugin", on my linux its in "/users/username/.vim/plugin"

2.2 Start VIM. Then run :call Utl_finish_installation()
meaning, you press : to go to VIM command prompt, then you type (or paste) call Utl_finish_installation(), last you press enter.

2.3 Open the document with VIM. For any entry in the TOC you can jump directly to section by doing pressing \gu when cursur is on <> thingi. I'll give an example,
I want to read the Patala guide, I open the document in VIM after completing the above steps then I press /Patala (tell VIM to search for Patala). I get to-
7.14 Patala <URL:#tn= 7.14 Patala>
7.14.1 Guide to playing Patala competitively <URL:#tn= 7.14.1 Guide to playing Patala competitively>

Now I press f< (tell VIM to go to first <> link),
then I press \gu (tell UTL to jump to link) and I get directly to Patala section.

As for converting as Edi suggested, converting to HTML is relatively easy. Would that make the document more convenient to read?- If so, I'll make the conversion.

[Sombre]

Html would be most useful if you were to convert it. Everyone here by definition can use html.

[lch]

Ooohhh, hahaha, I just noticed that you're trying to get Windows users to use a text editor like VIM. +1 geek points to you, but I'm quite positive that this HAS to fail.

I've had a look at the file structure. While there seems to be no parsers/converters at all for the UTL thing, it would be quite easy to write something for this. I could write something which outputs a big-*** HTML document, for example, but since all the text is considered pre-formatted and uses text-style bullet lists etc., I don't think that it's very feasible. If anybody wants to have this more portable, then I'd like to ask you to either use a text format which allows a little more markup, like the format that man pages use or Perl's POD, or just really start a Wiki on this and do it all in Wikitext.

[llamabeast]

but since all the text is considered pre-formatted and uses text-style bullet lists etc., I don't think that it's very feasible.

I didn't quite follow that bit sorry. Which bit would be difficult? Is it to do with the fact that newlines sometimes are important and sometimes not, or something like that?

I'm not implying it's easy you understand, just trying to clarify my own understanding of the problem.

[lch]

HTML ignores all superfluous whitespace (spaces, newlines, tabs) and shortens it to a single space. Thus you'd have to use PRE tags for pre-formatted text for the whole document if you'd convert it to HTML. Or you'd have to "guess" the document structure and put in paragraph tags etc. yourself, but writing such a parser is definitely non-trivial. Furthermore, text is used for bulleted lists like this, too:
Code:

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My thoughts on the blessing:

- Most things that a Niefel (or even a Jotun) hit, die so why not make them hit a little better; I'll also be fielding fewer troops than my opponents -> F4 for +2 att.

- Since I'm fielding fewer troops, my troops must make more hits to get rid of enemy troops; also my Jarls need to buff and NOT get hit while too much fatigued -> E4 for reinvigoration +2.

- Magic Resistance: Goooood for Jarls -> S4

- To drive the affliction chance down and 10% regeneration -> N6

---

or Code:

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HOLY, 11 sites (10 effective)



    * Level 0: 2 sites, 1 rare, 1 special (506 Holy Crypt of Anre, any land but cave, unique)

    * Level 1: 2 sites, 2 common (1 any land, one only in sea)

    * Level 2: 2 sites, 2 uncommon (1 unique)

    * Level 3: 3 sites, 3 uncommon (2 unique)

    * Level 4: 2 sites, rare (410 Temple of Time, any land, non-unique; 414 The Ward, any land but cave, unique)

---

Linux man pages, Perl's POD pages and Wikitext all have easy text markup for things like bold/italic text, lists etc. So I think that this might be a better portable format.

[WraithLord]

Oh, writing such a parser was just what I had in mind. I was thinking of using the basic power tools for this the twins sed and awk. It should make writing the parser more feasible.

I admit I'm far from being an HTML expert though, so I might be missing some hidden (for me) difficulties.

I think the best way to get a feel for how difficult the parse is will be to start writing it. Probably if I get stuck I could get help from you Ich.

[DonCorazon]

I just chose to open it in Word and it is pretty easy to read. Nice work WraithLord (600+ pages in my file format) Caramba!

[lch]

Wraithlord, I really think it's far less work and a better end result to redo the whole thing in another format than writing a parser. Some things are easy to replace, for example the URL links, but some things might be needlessly complicated. I'd setup a Wiki for you so that you can use a real Wiki, too. But if you want to write a parser for this, regardless, that's ok.

If you want to use a text-based markup language that's easy to write, easy to read and easy to parse (which e.g. Wikitext is not), then use Perl's Plain Old Documentation: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html
There are already converters for pod to pretty much anything: pod2html, pod2latex, pod2man, pod2text, pod2usage and a podchecker to check the syntax of your pod files.

[WraithLord]

Very well, I think I'll go for the POD option. I'll do a KB2POD translator and then I'll use the existing converters to produce latex (and PDF) and html.

Don't know how much time it'll take to complete but I'll be on it 'till its ready.

[WraithLord]

Gandalf has graciously agreed to host the document on his server, so it's now also there.