New weapons help document & HTML template

[Daynarr]

Great idea.

[raynor]

Unzip this program into a new directory and tell where to find components.txt and where to find the component pictures. It will create HTML files using ColdSteel's template for all the weapons and store them in the directory you run the program out of. The image path is absolute so you don't have to create the directory in your se4 path.

While writing this program, I noticed that Tractor Beam II has two lines with different values for Weapon Display. I think the second one should be deleted and that this is a BUG! My program displays an error message when it reads the second one but it doesn't affect the program's performance.

Let me know what you think and/or what changes you would like to see.

[ColdSteel]

Wow raynor, thanks!!!!!
That was really, really fast. I can't believe just how great this SE4 community is!

What did you end up coding it in? C++?

I do think we need one more piece of html to make it a bit more user friendly and that's a main html index page that has all the weapon links. Basically it would just have links to each of the html files that your program creates.

Would you like me to go ahead and create that template? We could either use that as a static index page distributed along with your program file or you could also generate it from your program along with the other html files.

If you do include it in your program then any additional weapons that might get added later by MM would automatically have a link generated dynamically which is the main advantage over just having a static page. The other advantage is that your program would be the only thing that needs distributing. With the static approach we'd need to distribute the index and the program which is just a tiny bit messier and not quite as elegant.

So, let me know which way you'd prefer and if you want me to go ahead generate a main index page template.

Once finished I think it should be posted over in the mods forum. We could also provide it as another resource to the new documentation project that some of the community here have just started up. I hope everyone will take a look at the html pages that raynor's program generates and let us know if we missed anything as far as useful information in the template.

Also, if people do find the utility useful, this concept could be extended to all components not just weapons.

Thanks again, raynor. This is just great and I'm sure this will be very useful to everyone.

[Possum]

I am simply knocked out!

Raynor, Cold Steel, both you guys seriously deserve a community service award for this. This is simply outstanding work.

I hereby award this project the Possum Pawprint of Approval

And I do very much agree with CS's suggestion for an index file to top it all off. DAMN, this is good work; what a great way to start my SE4 day

[Will]

quote:

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Originally posted by ColdSteel:
C++ might by kind of clunky.

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Since when is C++ clunky?

[raynor]

Thanks for the comments, y'all. I'm glad you liked it and that I could give back a little to the SE4 community.

Oh, hi Will. Er, I may not have much in the way of my share of work on the manual since I spent some time writing this program instead. What can I say? Programmers much prefer writing code to writing documentation.

ColdSteel, it would be great if you could create an HTML template for the index page. We definitely, definitely want the program to generate everything. That way the program will work also for those folks who have added their own components.

This program is written in Object Pascal (Borland Delphi).

[ColdSteel]

Okay, I'm on it.