Tools & Utilities

ConfEdit 1.0.1 by Alan Bond

This program is only available for the Windows platform. It is known to work fine on Windows XP, but may need some tweaking on Windows 7 and newer.

If you should have problems running this program (especially if it complains about missing OCX files like “GGlock.ocx”), the reason is most probably a missing Visual Basic 5.0 runtime. You can install it directly from the appropriate Visual Basic 5.0 runtime installer from Microsoft.

If ConfEdit still complains about components not being correctly registered, manually registering those components as follows should help:

• open “cmd.exe” and “cd” to the “ConfEdit” directory
• enter “regsvr32 xxx” for every file “xxx” that ConfEdit complains about

The commands above may be required to “Run as Administrator”.

What is ConfEdit?

ConfEdit is sort of a cross between a CE-dit and a text editor, except that this special “text editor” is totally geared towards R’n’D conf file (textual configuration file) editing and nothing else.

It’s pretty much finished (at Xmas 2005), and the author has already started on the sequel (which is a total rewrite), but ConfEdit 1.0.1 is perfectly functional and has gone through lots of testing on different machines and Windows versions, so here it is! :-)

Screenshots

Key features

• Super fast loading of large conf files (tested with an unreal 30 MB one).
• Colour coded text helps you identify groups and spot errors quickly.
• Auto complete with every known R’n’D keyword included.
• Powerful animation control with instant WYSIWYG realtime results.
• Create or edit previous animations instantly without touching the keyboard.
• Audition PCX, WAV, MP3 and all supported modular (MOD) music.
• Stand alone level viewer (with hex editor), see a level with its custom graphics from Explorer (with lots of level information)!
• Conf file error checking.
• Launch R’n’D from ConfEdit, with optional selected text only (good for quick testing).
• Fully dedicated BASIC script control for text, file and level manipulation.
• Future proof INI based language file.
• Works with all conf types, so you can edit games from years ago.
• Mode based interface. Open a “graphicsinfo.conf” file and you are in “graphics mode”. Open a “soundsinfo.conf” file and you are in “sound mode”.
• Multiple open files, groups, recent list, styles, zip support, AVI to bitmap, convert any image to a PCX, replace and search, bookmarks (with images), auto backup, easy tape file injection and level hibernation, tidy up text functions.

One of the main features of ConfEdit is the ability to edit and create animations from text! This means you can load ANY conf file, place the cursor at the desired element and then view it. It doesn’t matter where the cursor is, it can be in the middle of a block of text which refers to Rockford, and Rockford will be viewable and editable. What ConfEdit does is convert this text to an animation, lets you edit it, then convert it back to conf text (or just update). This means ConfEdit doesn’t need project files or extra file info as all changes are in the conf text only.

The ALT key is “god” in ConfEdit

Clicking parts of text with the ALT key pressed will do 3 different things for each mouse button:

• Left: Shows a quick preview of the element the cursor is over (or play WAV, MP3 etc.).
• Right: Edits the element’s animation.
• Middle: Inject or remove textual commands from that element (very handy).

BASIC

BASIC is in ConfEdit to take the chore out of repetitive tasks, and the author has used it a lot himself! A good example is Photomap2’s “graphicsinfo.conf” file: The author didn’t type all the 256 custom element’s data, but made a small BASIC script that did it in seconds. It’s also handy for post level editing, like beveling all steel walls in a level like BD2K3 (which takes hours to do in R’n’D’s editor).

BASIC includes:

• Every possible type of textual command is available to you. (And this means every type!)
• Variables, groups, sub routines, functions, lists and lots of handy constants!
• Cool 3rd party program handling, do “anything” to any other program.
• User resources embedded into the scripts (like images, sounds or other programs).
• Zip and registry support.
• Total file support: Copy, delete, rename, compress, encrypt, CRC check files and folders.
• Lots of commands for RnD levels: Open a level file as an object, plot single elements, draw shapes, lines, boxes, flood fill, copy and paste sections, powerful search and replace with grouping! Convert level versions (up and down), change all the cave info (time, count etc).

The only thing it is lacking is a help file (sounds familiar? ;-) ). There will be a mini FAQ soon, but for any problems just mail the author at evilzippy@hotmail.com, or just start a thread in the forum.

Download

Just download the archive, extract it to your favourite place on your hard disk and enjoy!