Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[sundeth]

Hello everyone, I'd like to show a little side project I'm working on that hopefully will help out to create mods for DF.

Background: I began playing DF in february, never heard of it before, since then I'm fully in, have made many fortresses so far. As someone more into the building aspect of the game, it triggers me really bad seing empty rooms, so I went on looking for mods to add more furniture, but there aren't many options out there, so I decided to make my own, it didn't take much time to realize that it's easier said than done. So I begun experimenting with raw files, making scripts and other stuff to figure what to put where..slowly I realized I was making a mod manager tool, and I've been working on it ever since.

Project
The prints below are actually a version 2 of the tool, version 1 was quite funcional, I was able to create this mod (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2948815651) using it, but I've scrapped the whole thing and started over as the older ui was very confusing.

Part 1 - The Raw File Viewer
When you start the app, it asks you to pick your DF folder, it then lists all mods (including vanilla files). It is also currently possible to create a barebones mod or delete the ones you've made. Only mods made with the tool can be deleted. It also allows you to update yor local mod files and to move your mod to upload it on steam.


For now, it's only possible to edit ModInfo data


Part 2 - The Token Library
This is where the fun starts. As I've said, my main objective is to easy things up, so instead of you havind to dig the wiki, I've build what I call the Token Library, basicaly, I dug the wiki myself and made a series os scripts that download the token tables from the wiki. As long as the Wiki urls remain, it will be possible to update your library without the need to update the tool. I'm sure there are a lot of stuff to improve, your feedback will be very usefull here.


Part 3 - The Occurrence Library
Unlike the Token Library, this one lists every token used on any mod (including vanilla) that you currently have installed, Search is still not working, but the data is being filled up.


Part 4 - What's Next
Currently I'm fixing bugs with the Libraries and preparing to start the tool to manage and edit raws, integrating it with the libraries to add stuff like cloning.

Project Source / Releases
First alpha release available, still very WIP, but it's possible to have an idea about the project. It requires java 11 or higher to run (get it here)
https://github.com/sundeth/dwarffortressmodmaker/releases

How to help me
While more people coding could help. The project would be quite richer if anyone could standarlize the Wiki Token pages, also, it would be nice to have a source for templates and the likes. Besides that, any feedback from people with experience making mods would help too.

FYI: english is not my main language, let me know if you find anything wrong.

[voliol]

Hey cool! And welcome to the forums sundeth! There have been a few "full" modding tools in the past, but none really survived until 0.47 before the premium release, and surely nothing in v50 with all its modding changes. Looking forwards to see where this goes.

The mod made with the v1 version makes me wonder what graphics-raws functionality is planned? Something to click a tile on a spritesheet and have the raw be auto-generated from that would be really nice, imho.

Have you seen the DF Language server, by the way? The discord for it has lied mostly dormant since the v50 release, but I know there is a lot of work which has went into that, and that it might act as a better backend for parsing/token info than the wiki for that reason.

[crazyabe]

just something to think about, but until relatively recently- in a lot of ways there wasn't a real need for a newer modding tool from one perspective, because while yes- the game did change between- as an example- v0.34.11 and v0.47.05, the vast majority of the underlying tokens were essentially the same when it comes to such things as actually building a creature, item, or civilization, with those lacking or differing being easily accessible and well documented for the purpose of manually adding them for whatever version of DF one was working upon.

[sundeth]

I have just uploaded a "pre release" version so you can start playing around and see how it's going, still a WIP, it lacks the tools to set graphics and edit the "insides" of raw files.

The mod made with the v1 version makes me wonder what graphics-raws functionality is planned? Something to click a tile on a spritesheet and have the raw be auto-generated from that would be really nice, imho.

Yes, absolutely, I already have most of the code for that, just need the ui made for version 2. I've started working on the actual raw editing, so I expect to have something done soon.

Have you seen the DF Language server, by the way? The discord for it has lied mostly dormant since the v50 release, but I know there is a lot of work which has went into that, and that it might act as a better backend for parsing/token info than the wiki for that reason.

I'd rather use the wiki so I can link to it and users can read the documentation. It would be really nice to have a proper, standardized way to get the data, for now the wiki will do

[Viax]

It would be a blessing for
1. making mods compatible with each other easily,
2. Maybe we could save our mod setup and stop having fun with many arrows in the word generating -,-
3. Finding a particular change current mod adds.

Great job already, keep it that way and wish you luck!