Game Guides Archive

Submitting Resources Using The Ingame Notepad

There is now an easier way to submit resources to the SWGCraft.com resource database, using the ingame notepad. This is the first phase of automating the submission of resources. Subsequent phases will hopefully allow you to automatically submit resources without leaving the game.

The Ingame Notepad

In case you didn't know, there is a notepad available to you within the Star Wars Galaxies game. You can call it up by typing '/notepad' from the command-line. This will give you access to a basic text editor that will save it's content to a text file in your Star Wars Galaxies folder.

You can access this text file by looking in your profiles directory. The path to the text file will be something similar to the one below, depending on where you have the game installed to.

D:\Star Wars Galaxies\profiles\MyName\notes.txt

I also set up the copy and paste feature in my setting. Making numpad 7 copy and 9 paste. Easy to do goto keypad setting - all - scroll down to find it.

The Format Of The Data

The site is now setup to parse the contents of this text file, looking for resource data formatted in a specific way and to allow you to submit this information in to the current resources database. The data the site will look for must be in the following format:

swgcraft_start
resource1name,resource1class,resource1valuea,resource1valueb,resource1valuec
resource2name,resource2class,resource2valuea,resource2valueb,resource2valuec,resource2valuec
swgcraft_end

For example:

swgcraft_start
ovvipi,nab solar,265,500
trisedasian,carb steel,731,575,965,916,312,594,941,926
houkae,rainbow,632,207,143,752,36,361,481,383
swgcraft_end

There are a few things to note in this example.

• You must enter the full name of the resource, exactly as it is spelt ingame.
  
  


• You do not have to enter the full resource class. You only need to enter enough of the resource class for the site to uniquely identify which resource class it is. More about this later.
  
  


• You do not need to specify what attributes the numeric values belong to. You just need to enter them as they appear on screen in the resource information window. The site will fill in the values in the order you give them.
  
  


• The swgcraft_start and swgcraft_end must be on lines of their own.
  
  


• Each resource must be on a line of it's own, with the values seperated using commas.
  
  

For example, you could enter this resource:



using the following:

swgcraft_start
evi,chromite,456,218,556,567,909,195,417
swgcraft_end

Getting The Values In To The Site

To get the values from your notepad in to the site you need to open the text document and copy and paste the section of text you want to use in to the Add Resources form at the bottom of the Current Resources page. The best way is to create a shortcut to this text file on your desktop, making it easy to access once you have left the game.

You should copy and paste everything between and including the swgcraft_start and swgcraft_end lines.

I had thought about allowing you to upload the notepad document to the site. However, this would mean browsing to the folder where your notepad document is every time, which would be time consuming. Also, the method I have chosen allows you to collect resource data from multiple servers in the one notepad if you so wish - just copy and paste the appropriate section of the text file in to the appropriate current resources page.

Once you have submitted the the Add Resources form then the interface for adding resources will work in much the same way as before. The main differences will be that the values will already be entered for you.

If a resource has already been entered but not verified then the values from your notepad will overwrite the previous values and any differences between the old and new values will be highlighted in bold. If a resource has already been verified then the values you entered will be ignored but the resource will be marked as available if you are entering it for a new planet.

If the site cannot figure out what resource class you mean or if the values you are missing then it will ignore the entry.


More About Resource Types

The trick to saving time with this method is to learn how to enter resource classes with as little typing as possible. To help you figure out how best to enter resource class names, here is how the code behind the scenes works.

It takes the value you entered for the resource class and splits it in to seperate words. It then loops through the words and looks for them in the resource class list, matching anything it finds, even partial matches e.g. if you entered 'nab' as one of the words then it will find 'nabooian'.

As it loops through each of the words it cuts down on the number of possibilites by only using the list of resources it found from the previous word e.g. if you entered 'nab solar' then it would first make a list of all Nabooian resource classes and then look for 'solar' in the new list.

If it finds only one match then it is a success. If it finds more than one match then it ignores the resource class you entered.

For most resources classes you will only need to enter one word e.g. vertex, chanlon, phrik. For resources that are planet specific you will need to enter part of the planet name, part of the main class type and also part of the class sub-type e.g. 'dant ani bone' or 'dath avi bone'.

Play about with it and you will soon get the hang of entering resource classes with the minimum amount of typing.