TOAW III Scenario Viewer

[parmenio]

I've recently updated a utility I wrote a while back to load and parse scenario text dump files from the TOAW III Editor. The sections are displayed in a navigable tree in one pane and the contents of a section in another when a tree node selected. It's been ported to C# (the original was written in C++) to ease updating it to the new XML scenario format going forward. In addition, because of the issue with the detailed equipment inventory (i.e. Force 2 doesn't display correctly) it can use the XML OOB dump from the editor to generate this information (always assuming the XML OOB dump is correct). If a .OOB file exists with the same name in the same location as the .TXT file it will use it. I've also further enhanced it to allow navigating through equipment types and seeing what units (sorted by formation) have that equipment assigned - sort of a reverse view of the sections that show formations and units. It can help you, for example, determine which formations have ferry-bridging teams or engineer squads or rail-repair units etc. without wading through the entire OOB unit by unit.

There are some screenshots using Overlord 44 from the Classic TOAW folder that probably explain it better:

Application once a dump file is loaded:



A formation node:



The complete Allied inventory calculated from Overlord 44.oob:



Where are my Engineer squads?



It's called the TOAW III Scenario Viewer and is available for download from here.

Hopefully it will be of use to others.

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: parmenio

I've also further enhanced it to allow navigating through equipment types and seeing what units (sorted by formation) have that equipment assigned

That is a brilliant feature[&o]

[L`zard]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

ORIGINAL: parmenio

I've also further enhanced it to allow navigating through equipment types and seeing what units (sorted by formation) have that equipment assigned

That is a brilliant feature[&o]

@Sil; "aint this guy the cat's pajamas" ????

Hiself needs drafted to Toad, less I miss my guess, LOLOL!

[Boonierat]

Your site seems to be down right now, I'll try later, maybe you should upload it to Gamesquad as well [8D]

[parmenio]

ORIGINAL: Boonierat

Your site seems to be down right now, I'll try later, maybe you should upload it to Gamesquad as well [8D]

Site seems to be ok at the moment.

Upload to Gamesquad? .....tried and failed....twice. [&:]

Is that a permissions thing?

[Boonierat]

Cheers, I can access it now.

[damezzi]

ORIGINAL: L`zard

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

ORIGINAL: parmenio

I've also further enhanced it to allow navigating through equipment types and seeing what units (sorted by formation) have that equipment assigned

That is a brilliant feature[&o]

@Sil; "aint this guy the cat's pajamas" ????

Hiself needs drafted to Toad, less I miss my guess, LOLOL!

Parmenio may fill the empty daytime coder seat from Toad.

Seriously (as if I wasn`t serious)... thanks Parmenio for your efforts.

[laska2k8]

crash at startup...

maybe need some libriaries ?

[kenwolfe]

I had a problem trying to load the TXT and OOB exports from the Italian Campaign 1943-1945 scenario. It came up with this message:

Unhandled exception ' ' hexadecimal value 0x01 is an invalid character, line 11323 position 30.

I think it is getting hung up on this line from the dump:

Unit:16 RF PzGr HQ,16 RF PzGr Div (2298)
This is an SS unit and the unit name includes the special lightning-bolt character. XMLPad Pro also flags this in the OOB as an invalid token. I presume removing the special characters from the dump and/or the OOB would resolve this. The problem is, after I encounter this problem once the utility will not even start up any more, even after I uninstall and reinstall it. I have tried this on two different Windows XP machines with the same result, one is at Service Pack 2 and the other at SP3. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[parmenio]

ORIGINAL: laska2k4

crash at startup...

maybe need some libriaries ?

Details of the crash?

It may be the same as above...

[parmenio]

I think it is getting hung up on this line from the dump:

Unit:16 RF PzGr HQ,16 RF PzGr Div (2298)

I've got exactly the same problem with the "Holland - A Bridge Too Far 1944" scenario - chock full of invalid characters in the unit names. I ended up having to open it up in a HEX editor and do a "search and replace" to get rid of them. Can't work round it - the XmlTextReader expects characters that are text.

It looks like the uninstall is failing to remove a registry entry...

In "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Matrix Games\The Operational Art of War III" is an entry named "scenario viewer". Delete it or clear it - that's the "last file opened". I'm about to release a new version, so I'll add a workaround for this problem.

Edit: Alternatively, if you don't want to edit the registry, temporarily rename the OOB file. The text dump should display, you'll just see a number of odd characters appearing in the display.

[parmenio]

Can't work round it - the XmlTextReader expects characters that are text.

Actually I can work round it.... I'm basically going to pre-process the file to translate the lightning bolt (hex 01) to an 'S'. So, for example your problematic unit will appear as '16SS RF PzGr Div'.

I'll do that for both the TXT and OOB files.

[kenwolfe]

I renamed the OOB and now the viewer starts up fine, thanks. For now I'll just manually change all the invalid characters in the OOB file to printable ones using XMLPad... I've had to do that in the past just so that XMLPad will process the XML file properly.

[parmenio]

New update released:

TOAW III Scenario Viewer 1.1.0.0

New features: A new "Places" node will be displayed if an MML file is present for a scenario. This also provides named location information for another new feature - a replacement "Deployment" node (per force) calculated from the OOB file. This provides a turn by turn view of formations and units. In addition, the unit names are hyperlinks. Clicking on them will open up a Unit Info dialog. These dialogs are closed either by clicking on the usual "x" in the top right corner or automatically after two minutes. This feature has also been added to the "Complete Inventory" nodes.

Note: Up to now, SS rune characters (present in a number of scenarios) caused the TOAW III Scenario Viewer to throw exceptions when reading an OOB file and would cause odd characters to appear in a TXT dump. These lightning bolts are now converted to 'SS' and should no longer cause problems.

Known limitation: The new Deployment nodes currently don't display units activated via an event. I want to add in using the Event XML file in the next version so that information on the event can be displayed rather than the raw event no.

Screenshots:

New deployment section:



New Unit Info dialog:



New Places section:



Updated inventory section:



Note: The Places section display is from Overlord 44, the rest from Holland - A Bridge Too Far 1944.

[Erik2]

Excellent...

Erik

[parmenio]

Version 1.1.1.0 update

I've had to do an update to the Viewer due to a bug I discovered today....

24th September 2009. Bug fix/Change release

Change: Now adds a "Deployed by Event" node to the Deployment section if required.
Fix: Duplicate formation names no longer cause problems.

[ralphtricky]

Awesome tool!

[Boonierat]

You should wrap it with 3.4 Ralph [8D]

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: Boonierat

You should wrap it with 3.4 Ralph [8D]

I'd love to. I need to check with Matrix to see if there are any issues with doing that.

[macgregor]

Please forgive this dumb question. But what is this for -just viewing units? Monster scenarios where one needs to find equipment jammed up in the rear? It doesn't allow one to edit? i have yet to get an editor to work without crashing. But i'm having other problems with this game. For the second time in EA, practically the entire German army and air force has been stopped by units with a strength of 5 or less, causing 7-9% casualties and almost none to the defender. We're talking 20+ to 1. Whatever special circumstances are responsible I'm sorry, but that's too much of a combat power differential. It's like the defenders are killing 12 germans each without loss.