0.8.9+ New format for campaign difficulty descriptions

[silene]

The column separator is no longer the comma. See http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3069 for additional information.
It has a consequence on campaign descriptions. It was quite common to have this kind of code before:

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       difficulty_descriptions="&human-spearman.png," + _"Spearman" + "," + _"(easiest)" +
               ";*&human-swordman.png," + _"Swordsman" +
               ";&human-royalguard.png," + _"Royal Guard" + "," + _"(hardest)"

It no longer works. Users won't be able to select the difficulty when a new version of Wesnoth is released. The correct way of doing it will now use macros to hide some special characters.

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       difficulty_descriptions={MENU_IMG_TXT2 human-spearman.png _"Spearman" _"(easiest)"} +
               ";*" + {MENU_IMG_TXT human-swordman.png _"Swordsman"} +
               ";" + {MENU_IMG_TXT2 human-royalguard.png (_"Royal Guard") _"(hardest)"}

Please think about it when Wesnoth 0.8.9 (or 0.9, or whatever) is released.

[scott]

Is this macro new as of 0.8.9?
Is _"text" the same as _[space]"text"?

[quartex]

I'm confused by your example. Is MENU_IMG_TXT or MENU_IMG_TXT2 the name of the macro we should be using? You seem to be using them interchangably.

[silene]

Is this macro new as of 0.8.9?

Yes.

Is _"text" the same as _[space]"text"?

I can't answer for sure, I don't know how the WML is really parsed, there may be some oddities with spacing in macro parameters. _"text" is probably the same as (_[space]"text").

[silene]

I'm confused by your example. Is MENU_IMG_TXT or MENU_IMG_TXT2 the name of the macro we should be using? You seem to be using them interchangably.

Not at all. MENU_IMG_TXT takes one image filename and one string. MENU_IMG_TXT2 takes one image filename and two strings. And so on. They are macros to hide the complexity of the syntax of the menu items.

[turin]

has this been updated for all official campaigns or do designers of said campaigns do it themselves?

[scott]

And, do campaign writers break their campaigns for the new version or all old versions?

This came up with 0.8.3, but I started making mine during/after 0.8.3. What did everybody else do?

[silene]

has this been updated for all official campaigns or do designers of said campaigns do it themselves?

It has.

And, do campaign writers break their campaigns for the new version or all old versions?

I'm not sure to understand the question. I would say it's up to you whether you decide to support the old versions of Wesnoth or the next version of Wesnoth. The change does not prevent old games to be played, it only prevents new campaigns to start if they have multiple difficulty levels.

[scott]

it only prevents new campaigns to start if they have multiple difficulty levels.

Doesn't that sound broken to you? Anyway, I'll probably split the difference and wait a while but not too long.

[silene]

it only prevents new campaigns to start if they have multiple difficulty levels.

Doesn't that sound broken to you? Anyway, I'll probably split the difference and wait a while but not too long.

Sorry, I still don't understand what you mean. Yes it is broken, it was the whole point of this post: to warn campaign designers that the comma is no longer a special character. So if you are using commas in campaign difficulty descriptions as special characters, the next release of Wesnoth won't be able to display the campaign difficulty selection box, hence preventing the user to start the campaign.

[Invisible Philosopher]

If you want it to work in 0.8.8, you can put this before your campaign tag:

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#work in 0.8.8:
#ifdef MENU_IMG_TXT
#else
#define MENU_IMG_TXT IMG TXT
"&"+{IMG}+","+{TXT}#enddef
#endif
#ifdef MENU_IMG_TXT2
#else
#define MENU_IMG_TXT2 IMG TXT1 TXT2
"&"+{IMG}+","+{TXT1}+","+{TXT2}#enddef
#endif

However it won't work in versions before 0.8.8 because they didn't have string concatenation.

[silene]

Nice trick, thanks! This solution didn't occur to me (if it had been a normal programming language like C I would have thought about it, but I'm at loss with WML).

[MadMax]

Add this to game.cfg, and you can use ifdef to determine version.

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#define 0_8_8
#enddef

You will need to change the version with every release for it to work right.

[Dwarvish Bard]

Code: Select all

       difficulty_descriptions={MENU_IMG_TXT2 human-spearman.png _"Spearman" _"(easiest)"} +
               ";*" + {MENU_IMG_TXT human-swordman.png _"Swordsman"} +
               ";" + {MENU_IMG_TXT2 human-royalguard.png (_"Royal Guard") _"(hardest)"}

If you want to use custom images here, what do you have to do to make them visible? It looks like various campaigns just stick them in their images/ directory, but when I do that they don't show up at run time.

BTW, I've tried deleting everything in my cache directory before starting, to no effect.

[Invisible Philosopher]

[binary_path]

Use http://wesnoth.slack.it/?ReferenceWML and/or look at other campaigns that do it.

And don't post semi-irrelevant comments in sticky threads like this.