Editor freezes

[ernieschwitz]

I´ve made an event, and i wanted to change a textmessage in it.

I go into the editor, choose my event, and choose the line where the event is located, press the button to change the text for the event, no problem. I edit the event, add some text

"(Allies of [regimename][tempvar]7[/tempvar][/regimename] are now at war with [regimename][tempvar]4[/tempvar][/regimename] as well)"

And when i press the Ok button the editor simply freezes.

At first I thought it was because i had deleted a line, later in the code, but that wasn´t it. Then i thought it might be because I was using spotify to give myself a tune to listen to while editing, but that wasn´t it either.

I have a scenario file, that will reproduce the crash each time I use it, in the described manner.

[ernieschwitz]

This is with version 2.14 installed...

[ernieschwitz]

I tried a few goofy things to see if i could fix it.

Among others importing the event is not a fix. Reinstalling 2.14 is not a fix. Even an empty file with the event imported is not a fix.

[ernieschwitz]

I even tried this:

Deleted the original ExecMessage line and replaced it with a new one... using the old text that i had copied and pasted...

This is what i pasted:
[regimename][tempvar]4[/tempvar][/regimename] declares war on [tempstring]0[/tempstring]!

[regimename][tempvar]7[/tempvar][/regimename] has sworn to protect

[tempstring]0[/tempstring]!

[regimename][tempvar]4[/tempvar][/regimename] is now at war with

[regimename][tempvar]7[/tempvar][/regimename]!

(Allies of [regimename][tempvar]7[/tempvar][/regimename] are now at war with

[regimename][tempvar]4[/tempvar][/regimename] as well).

Caused the system to freeze as well....

[ernieschwitz]

In fact, just pasting that into a totally new event, made just by loading up the editor and selecting an event, making a single line containing that exact same ExecMessage does the same thing... it freezes.

[ernieschwitz]

It seems, i am coming up against a text length limit of some kind. I have tried just doodling in some random characters at the end of my original text, and it still freezes. However, short messages are no problem...

[lancer]

Hi Ernieschwitz,

The editor has a few known(?) kinks in it that will crash it consistently.

Nesting regime and tempvar's as above will do it. There are a few others that occur within message dialogues. I make a habit of saving the game file before doing anything tricky within a dialogue.

One way to tackle the nesting of regime/tempvars is to write it out in a seperate text editor and then copy/paste directly into the dialogue screen. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

Heavy Stringlist manipulation will also crash the editor in short order. Save before you tweak here as well.

Once you know where the land mines are they are easy to avoid or deal with. Overall it's pretty robust.

Cheers,
Lancer

[ernieschwitz]

Hi Lancer,

Thanks for the response. I was fearing this. I really hope Vic has a solution, as this is bugging the crap out of me...

[ernieschwitz]

I think I found a workaround.... making a long tempstring, and simply just using that instead... So that the actual ExecMessage becomes "[tempstring]1[/tempstring]"... or something like that.

[Vic]

Send me the scenario file please. To vic@xs4all.nl. I'll take a look. I couldnt reproduce by using that text string, it must be something else. Any other issues (lancer) that can be pinpointed i would like to get as well.

I hope to do a new (pre) beta patch within a few weeks to port the fix for the Win8/Win7KB2670838patch that hit mainly dc1. And i could take these issues along.

Best,
Vic

[lancer]

Hi Vic,

I consistently have the same problem with nesting [regimevar][tempvar]... as ernie above.

Another aspect of message dialogues that usually crash the editor is when you edit an existing dialogue. Deleting text and var's in the middle of message and replacing it with new of the same, is a prime crasher. Doesn't seem to be related to the amount of text in the dialogue although it does appear to be dependent on the amount of text after the point where you delete. The more text after the deletion point the more likely it is to crash.

Stringlists, in the editor, I find to be O.K but very delicate. Once you start fiddling around you can easily induce a crash although specific instances of that are difficult to pin down. Deleting things is usually the reason, whether that is text within a stringlist field or columns (not so much rows). Overall it's manageable though.

On a related note I've found that stringlists go completely out of scope (inaccessible) if you add/remove units in the middle of a procedure. Only happens after the add/remove, not before. I can workaround this by hiving off the add/remove part into a sub-procedure (calling it from within the main procedure) which overcomes the problem.

I suspect that adding/removing units not only resets the unit numbering but it also affects other, related memory registers. Not a big deal as easily dealt with but worth a mention.

Interestingly stringlists don't seem to work in a called sub-procedure, only in the main procedure.

[edit] if you are planning on doing a patch would it be possible to include a gamevar that indicates if the 'higher production cost' option has been selected? This option changes all the calculations for my Enhanced Resource Mod and I've currently got no way of telling whether it has been selected or not. Not a great drama as only one person has picked it up but if it's easy to do then it would be nice to have. [/edit]

Cheers,
Lancer