TOAWxml Editor

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
It appears that all of the Soviet (Force 2) units are marked as Divided Subunit. And the XML file has them all, 1225 of them, marked as a parent unit. Yet in the game Deployment mode I can divide the units.

<UNIT ID="1225" NAME="6-41 MC Mcyc Rgt" ICON="Motorcycle" COLOR="105" SIZE="Regiment" EXPERIENCE="untried" PROFICIENCY="33" READINESS="100" SUPPLY="100" EMPHASIS="Limit Losses" PARENT="1225" STATUS="0" REPLACEMENTPRIORITY="0">

Which gam file is this? Something is very strange with it, because the PARENT attribute does not show that it IS a parent, but that it HAS a parent, which is the unit with the specified ID. In your extract the unit ID and parent ID are the same, which I've not seen before.

[EDIT] I now see that this is the Directive 21 gam file, but it is the AXIS rather than the Soviets which have this problem. All of the Axis units appear to be "orphan" divided subunits, with themselves as a parent.

[76mm]

On further review of 4-5 scenarios, it appears that when the game exports a scenario to XML (before being touched by TOAWxml), it converts all Force 2 units to Divided Subunits, in most cases with itself as a parent--which is obviously wrong (for at least one scenario (Chinese Farm), the game made the parent the unit's ID + 500).

The good news is that I should be able to fix this pretty easily, at least for units where the Parent ID is the same as the Unit ID. I expect to be able get to this within a couple of days, to scan scenarios when being loaded and then delete the PARENT attribute for units where the Parent ID is the same as the Unit ID.

The bad news is that:
(1) For other cases (ie, Parent ID = Unit ID +500), I might not be able to help, although with further testing this might be possible; and
(2) I'm not sure, although I suspect, that when the game exports to XML, it might overwrite any existing PARENT settings, so that existing divided subunits become "orphans" with themselves as the parent. If this is the case, there is also not much I will be able to do to fix this, because I won't have any way of knowing (from the XML) what the real Parent ID should be (you would have to go into the in-game editor to find the divided units and subunits).

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

On further review of 4-5 scenarios, it appears that when the game exports a scenario to XML (before being touched by TOAWxml), it converts all Force 2 units to Divided Subunits, in most cases with itself as a parent--which is obviously wrong (for at least one scenario (Chinese Farm), the game made the parent the unit's ID + 500).

The good news is that I should be able to fix this pretty easily, at least for units where the Parent ID is the same as the Unit ID. I expect to be able get to this within a couple of days, to scan scenarios when being loaded and then delete the PARENT attribute for units where the Parent ID is the same as the Unit ID.

The bad news is that:
(1) For other cases (ie, Parent ID = Unit ID +500), I might not be able to help, although with further testing this might be possible; and
(2) I'm not sure, although I suspect, that when the game exports to XML, it might overwrite any existing PARENT settings, so that existing divided subunits become "orphans" with themselves as the parent. If this is the case, there is also not much I will be able to do to fix this, because I won't have any way of knowing (from the XML) what the real Parent ID should be (you would have to go into the in-game editor to find the divided units and subunits).

Then the XML export for the game is bugged. I'm going to post it as such in the dev forum.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
Then the XML export for the game is bugged. I'm going to post it as such in the dev forum.

Having looked at quite a few scenarios now, I'm pretty sure that this is the case.

I think this is surmountable (as described above) if the XML export does not over-write existing Parent IDs for units which start the game divided...but after looking at about 15 scenarios, I can't find ANY scenarios with a divided unit in Force 2--so tomorrow I'll modify an existing scenario and figure this out.

If the XML export does overwrite existing Parent IDs, I don't think I can fix Force 2s that include split units.

Gotta run for now, will be gone for most of the day...

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
EDIT: This file is corrupt and is good for nothing.

Here's the GAM file I was trying to load into the TOAWXML editor

Hey Larry, I took a look, as far as I can tell that is an OOB file rather than a real "gam" file--that will probably wreak havoc with the code... Did you rename that file to a gam from something else?

In future, I hope to add the ability to export/import just OOB and Event files, but that is a bit down the road.

I produced a GAM file then deleted all the non <Force.....</Force content and that includes the <MAP stuff and the <EVENTS stuff so that it contained just the AXIS force and the SOVIET force and I intended to save those two as separate XML files.

[76mm]

OK, I've spent about half an hour trying to figure out how to divide a unit in the in-game editor, without success. The manual says that this can be done in the deployment editor, but does not say how, and I don't see any way to do so--can someone point me in the right direction?

[larryfulkerson]

I'm wondering if the right-click menu doesn't have "divide unit" on it ( when you right click on the selected unit )?

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
I'm wondering if the right-click menu doesn't have "divide unit" on it ( when you right click on the selected unit )?

As far as I can tell, there is no right-click menu in the deployment editor?

[sPzAbt653]

Select a unit, hit 'U', on the bottom row of buttons there is one to Divide or Re-combine the unit.

[sPzAbt653]

On a side note, when I put together Autumn Fog the idea was to have the appropriate USA front line units divided so that after they were destroyed they could reconstitute and recombine. This seemed like a great idea, but in practice it created such a goddam headache for the scenario that I ditched it and further decided never to work with divided units again. I've seen so much in this thread about the damned divided units that I thought I would rant about them. Few scenarios use them, and I would suggest that others not use them in scenario designs.
At any rate, Tom still has to put up with this wart of a feature and he has my sympathy for that.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
Select a unit, hit 'U', on the bottom row of buttons there is one to Divide or Re-combine the unit.

Well, duh, I could have sworn I looked there several times already, but there it was.

But the good news is that it looks like PARENT values for real divided subunits are NOT overwritten when the XML is exported, so I think this should be a relatively easy fix. Will work on it today.

[76mm]

OK, I think that this is fixed--I will post a link in the first post in a few minutes. Please play around a bit and make sure that it works properly now!!

I also went ahead and revised the "invalid XML replacement character" to "$" instead of "Z" (or "@")--since most of these problems are connected with SS units, I figured that "1st $$ Panzer" was better than "1st @@ Panzer".

Don, I could not replicate either of the crashes that you encountered. I have no idea what might have caused the first, so didn't do anything with that. For the second, I replaced the default "--" with "2", which I hope will fix the issue (but not sure, since I can't replicate it).

Generally, if you encounter a crash, it would be really helpful to send me the relevant gam file, because without it I might not be able to replicate the problem, and if I can't replicate it, I can't fix it...

[Zovs]

I just downloaded this and unzipped the new files directly into my 1.14 installation. I believe I did this for 1.13 to 1.14 but not sure.

When I run this it still shows 1.14.

Is there something else I need to do?

[Zovs]

I belive the correct files are in place since I see the manuals (PDFs) for 1.13, 1.14 and 1.15. In the application files folder I see: TOAWXML_1_0_0_13, TOAWXML_1_0_0_14 and TOAWXML_1_0_0_16 no _15?

[Zovs]

Just got a crash.

I am using 1.15 (but it shows as 1.14).

I loaded my XML fine. I clicked on a unit to expand it and then clicked on Add New equiptment. Selected the Support Squad, set Max. Qty. and Current Qty. Clicked add and it spews this:


See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at TOAWXML.frmEquip.btnEquipAdd_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3394.0 built by: NET472REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v4.0.30319/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
TOAWXML
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/dlazo/AppData/Local/Apps/2.0/0J3ZBGVD.XO7/3L9XK7NQ.Q3W/toaw..tion_bb51667b7c9905d2_0001.0000_e3874bfdc864fc7c/TOAWXML.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3324.0 built by: NET472REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3362.0 built by: NET472REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3056.0 built by: NET472REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3056.0 built by: NET472REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Core
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3362.0 built by: NET472REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Core/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Core.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3056.0 built by: NET472REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml.Linq
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3056.0 built by: NET472REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml.Linq/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.Linq.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Data
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3260.0 built by: NET472REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_32/System.Data/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Data.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Numerics
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.3056.0 built by: NET472REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Numerics/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Numerics.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.


So I closed TOAW-XML-Editor and reopened it and did the above and it allowed me to add the equipment.

So it seems it will crash on first load when you add a custom eqp file?

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Zovs
I just downloaded this and unzipped the new files directly into my 1.14 installation. I believe I did this for 1.13 to 1.14 but not sure.

When I run this it still shows 1.14.

Sorry, I just forgot to change the version number.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Zovs
Just got a crash.

I am using 1.15 (but it shows as 1.14).

I loaded my XML fine. I clicked on a unit to expand it and then clicked on Add New equiptment. Selected the Support Squad, set Max. Qty. and Current Qty. Clicked add and it spews this:

I can't replicate this, I had no problem adding a support squad to new or existing units, in either force. Can you send me the gam file? Unfortunately I have no idea what that debugging stuff means.

[Zovs]

Tom,

Sent a pm requesting your email.

Also, in the add equipment list there is two references to the United States in the drop down list.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Zovs
Also, in the add equipment list there is two references to the United States in the drop down list.

Not sure which eqp file you're using, but most repeats are from mispellings (one eqp file has "Unites States" and "United States". I have also seen a few duplicates without mispellings, and I'm not sure what might be causing these, I was thinking that one of them might have been entered with a foreign language OS and thus letters that look the same might not be exactly the same. But that is just a guess, and I don't know how to fix it if that is the problem anyway.

As for the equipment files, it can't be as simple as first time use of a custom eqp file, because I've tested several different eqp files and never had a crash. So I think it must be something else...

[Zovs]

Tom,

I sent you my files. I am using a custom equipment file, essentially its the stock version from the game, but I corrected the annoying wonky spellings of things like StURMM@@m0###rse Tiger and ToldI$$# II a (also sent).