TOOL: Language File Editor

A simple text editor designed to assist with modifying/adding strings to your (english).str files

from Sins Forums
Well, here it goes. Like I said. This is a barebones, hardly working version of the program. This thing does require .net Framework v 2.0 or later to run.

What you can do with this version:
- open an existing *.str text file (all language files use that extention modified only by the actual name of the language it is for)
- save a loaded file to disk
- edit the IDS and its associated values as plain text (only error checking so far is duplicate IDs)
- add new strings
- delete the current string
- a very limited search function by begining of the ID

You can create a file from scratch if you wanted, save it and the IDs in it would work. This program sets the framework for whatever editor we get from the devs or the community creates to be able to integrate an entity file's strings. EX: You're editing a ship. In the NameStringID (or whatever it is) entry, there would be the name of the string and a button that would bring up a standalone editor for that ID. So here it is. Try it out, give some suggestions, post error reports. This is for the community.

The file can be found here
11,324 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Isn't there already one?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I would like such an editor - editing with texteditor looks weird.
would be nice if the editor had a counter for the number of descriptions.
@carbon016 : there is an excel-tool with vb-macros -> not useful for people with openoffice
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Ok. I'll see if I can't get it into something a bit more post worthy after work. should be up tonight.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I´m translating the game texts to Spanish, quite hard work, so this tool would be really useful for me. If you need someone to do some testing, just tell me and I´ll send you feedback.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks, I´ll give it a try.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Cool! Somehow I missed this thread.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
They seem to do that. :)

I promised myself that I'd only bump this thread once. If it's really not something the community wants, then I won't waist my time on it anymore.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I dont think it is so much that the community does not want a good utility as much as it is that the community does not know how to use it effectively yet since we dont have all the mod tools yet.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Well i guess not much comments cause no one complains about the imbalance of the +100 and -100 button
Its just perfect in my opinion and very very useful if you want to change / add a lot of research subjects.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
@1Spartan - True. Well, at least I have a framework down for it, and the concept would work for a full editor. It would just take a long time to get any one part of it working. I don't want to dedicate too much of my time on it and find out that no one is going to use it.

@DARI - I'm glad it's helping you out, but what do you mean imbalance of the +/-100 buttons?
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
unlike a gameplay mod no one can complain about being smt imbalanced - except those überpowerful +100 button that really needs to be nerfed :LOL:

gj thx for that editor
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Hehehe...Funny. Just for you Dari, the next version will have a nerfed +100 that actually only jumps 75, just to keep the power balanced.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
Hey Bink, I actually just started making this same tool as part of a whole tool suite I was thinking up. Good work!

Do you happen to know what the rules are around duplicate IDs? Because loading into my tool it caches the ID's and it found about 1000 duplicates!! Maybe a dev somewhere will enlighten us!
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks for the tool. Perfekt to make some changes to the sometimes odd german version.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Ok, A nice and simple test. I found an id and created two copies of it with a number added to each one so I know which one came first in the file. Here's what that piece looked like:

StringInfo
ID "IDS_PLAYERAIDIFFICULTY_EASY"
Value "Easy1"
StringInfo
ID "IDS_PLAYERAIDIFFICULTY_EASY"
Value "Easy2"
StringInfo
ID "IDS_PLAYERAIDIFFICULTY_EASY"
Value "Easy3"

Something simple, that I could find easily in the game. With my modded English.str, I fired up Sins, started a single player game with a couple of AI opponents. In the setup screen, I went to make one of the AI's Easy, turned out that it was an Easy1 player.

So, to be sure, I tried it again throwing the strings in different parts of the file as opposed to one right after another. I got the same result. So it looks like it will take the first one of any ID and ignore any duplicates.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting thanks for the investigation!