Forum board for development tools

[Livio]

Hi guys! I've browsed the forum a bit but I can't find a place where all game development tools are listed.
Looks like that many software tools (deprecated and not) are lost in time and threads inside forum.
For example I've discovered SAEdit2 by pure coincidence.

To make it short I want ask you if it's possible to have a forum section (or a pinned thread) dedicated to development tools only.

[EJlol]

As far as I'm aware there are not that many development tools. I guess besides SAEdit you have Tiled.

As for deprecated, you have this TMW workshop xml thing:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4366

However besides tools there may, or may not, also be some interesting script lying around somewhere. For instance there is (most likely used to be at this point of time) a python script that takes the item database, and outputs a nice table for the wiki (https://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php ... _Reference).

[jesusalva]

Currently every tool we use, apart from Tiled which is a project on its own, Transifex (which is also a project on its own), and Gimp (or Blender, which are generics - MS Pain for a certain meway), is on evol-all repository.

Legacy tools will be under tmwa-server-data/tools, if I recall correctly. Do note most of them are deprecated as well.

Some others, like Contrast, are no longer used and can only be found randomly.

[gumi]

there is also some hercules-related tools in StaffPlugins but you likely won't need those unless you are doing server development

[Livio]

Graphics development:

Spoiler:

[*] Maps:

• Tiled

which is a project on its own, (which is also a project on its own), and Gimp (or Blender, which are generics - MS Pain for a certain meway), is on evol-all repository.


Server development:

Spoiler:

Translations:

• Transifex

Misc:

• https://github.com/HerculesWS/StaffPlugins

[Livio]

Is okay like this?

Graphics development:

Spoiler:

[*] Maps:

• Tiled

Raster images:

• Gimp
• MS Pain

Server development:

Spoiler:

Translations:

• Transifex

Misc:

• https://github.com/HerculesWS/StaffPlugins

[gumi]

see also evol-tools:

• evol-mode for Emacs
• syntax highlighting for Geany
• license checker
• tools to manage a local Hercules server
• manaplus branding for evol
• saedit2
• xml schema & validator script
• tmxcopy (mostly obsolete now)

[jesusalva]

see also evol-tools:

Don't forget a few other tools which are only used by staff (never by members)

• Monster Automatic Balancing Reference
• Equipment Automatic Balancing Reference
• Moubootaur Legends Weapon Overrider
• Moubootaur Legends/TMW MiniMap Renderer Stage 1
• Moubootaur Legends/TMW MiniMap Renderer Stage 2
• MiniMap Renderer Stage 3 (script file is created by stage 2)
• Moubootaur Legends/TMW Adler32
• Moubootaur Legends Swiss Knife (unused here, we use `make contrib`)

There are other tools eg. the hercules folder, a basic syntax converter from a TMWA server to Evol2 (works with TMW-BR, Evol old server, and might even work with TMW) - remember basic syntax is not enough to make a server run.

And a few that I have no idea what are for, like upalyzer.

[jak1]

...

And a few that I have no idea what are for, like upalyzer.

upalizer from biorn? that is only for checking adler32 in ur updates dir. since ur using github.io its outdated.
it just reads the resources.xml (or txt)
checks the zips adler32 hash sum
and prints errors, if there are any.. so not really needed anymore

[Livio]

Keep going like that! The more knowledge and tools we share here the more will be easy for people to contribute!

[jesusalva]

Keep going like that! The more knowledge and tools we share here the more will be easy for people to contribute!

Most of those tools are only for active development.

Normal contributors only use text editors, (Tiled if maps), (Audacity if audio), (Gimp if art), (Blender if Hocus), (MS Pain if meway), (Transifex if translator), a localhost, and GitLab pipelines (they're automatic when submitting a merge request. They will report every error and it cannot be merged if errors are present).

All those countless tools are otherwise 99.0% of time meaningless to contributors.

Of course, if you compile and can run, you could use saedit to aid writing XML for spritesheets (even if we're using standardized XMLs now, so if your sprite do not work with the standard XML, your sprite is wrong) - still an interesting preview tool for sprites, and Contrast to aid in translations (do that even work, though? So many syntax changes).
There used to be a Gimp plugin to help with spritesheets ~12 years ago.
Hocus is making his own plugin for Blender, iirc.

Apart those, which as I said might not even work, and usability is limited. We don't have any special development help tools. Maintaining them usually is harder than developing content without them.

[Livio]

Don't lose yourself with that philosophy: I expect every kind of people here so the only real concern to me is knowing things.
The easiest way is to put everything up in a tree style list so if someone wants to try they don't lose time searching, setting up incompatible software or developing their own. Just like I did with bot rules thread I'd like to sum it up inside a nice and clean thread.

[Livio]

Graphics development:
Maps:

• Tiled.

Raster image editors:

• XPaint (http://sf-xpaint.sourceforge.net/)

Translations:
Transifex Online Service Projects:

• ManaPlus

• TMW2: Moubootaur Legend

Evol/Hercules server development:

• evol-tools GitLab repo:

Local server:

• Local instance management tools

IDE additions:

• evol-mode for Emacs

• syntax highlighting for Geany

WEB content:

• TMW2:ML MD2HTML Wiki Generator script

Misc:

• https://github.com/HerculesWS/StaffPlugins

• license checker

• manaplus branding for evol

• saedit2

• xml schema & validator script

• tmxcopy (mostly obsolete now)

Bot clients
TMW Legacy:

• Manachat