Vondell's Current Projects

[Fern]

They look good in the screens.

There are freeform unlock problems and also you might want to rethink your string ids. Plus one is done incorrectly.

Do you want the info here in the thread or by pm?

[(Designer)Vondell]

Here in the thread is ok with me, in case the info can help others reading later. I am not surprised I missed some things, I am a bit rusty. Thank you!

[Fern]

These are Jays observations:

For Vondell's modern wooden fences, I did not check everything, but I noticed some problems. The unlock file is an older file and should have the "-" removed from its file name. We also now remove lines from unlock files that start with ";" when it is unlocking only 1 thing, which this does. That unlock file is used for the 3 decorative walls. There should also be unlock files for the exhibit walls. For the shorter wooden wall, I would use "lowfence" instead of "highfence" in its ".ai". For the glass exhibit wall ".ai", cHelpID should be 9300 instead of 39300. The other 2 exhibit walls use the ID for the Invisible Fence, even though they are not invisible walls. fern suggested 9311 for the taller one and 9322 for the shorter one. Those messages are:

9311, "Wooden Slat Fence"
39311, "Purchase a wooden slat exhibit fence.  Average strength. Animals may climb out of it. Does not allow guests to see into an exhibit made only with wooden slat fencing."

9322, "Low Wooden Slat Fence"
39322, "Purchase a low wooden slat exhibit fence. Average strength. Animals may climb out or jump over it. Allows guests to see into an exhibit."

But those mention that the animals can get out, which they cannot. Plus they say average strength. I do not see any existing messages that look appropriate. So maybe new messages should be created.

 

My thoughts. There are more to come as I have to look at a couple of things in the ai and test it ingame. "invisible fence" really is not suitable since they are anything but invisible.

Wooden Slat Fence lang0.dll
Preferred scn: unlockwoodenslatfence.scn

Low Wooden Slat Fence
Preferred scn: unlock-lowwoodenslatfence.scn

If you want to continue with the Plexi:

Plexiglass Fence lang0.dll
Preferred scn: unlockplexiglassfence.scn

Jay missed one possible id

Woodslat Window lang0.dll (ZT) changes to Wooden Slat Window Fence lang100 (CC)
Preferred scn: unlockwoodenslatwindowfence.scn
9330,    "Woodslat Window"
39330,    "Purchase a windowed wood slat exhibit fence.  Average strength and price, but primates may climb out of it and strong animals may bash through it. Allows guests to see into an exhibit."

We have been throwing around ideas about making a "Long Life Fence" id

[(Designer)Vondell]

5 hours ago, Fern said:

These are Jays observations:

For Vondell's modern wooden fences, I did not check everything, but I noticed some problems. The unlock file is an older file and should have the "-" removed from its file name. We also now remove lines from unlock files that start with ";" when it is unlocking only 1 thing, which this does. That unlock file is used for the 3 decorative walls. There should also be unlock files for the exhibit walls. For the shorter wooden wall, I would use "lowfence" instead of "highfence" in its ".ai". For the glass exhibit wall ".ai", cHelpID should be 9300 instead of 39300. The other 2 exhibit walls use the ID for the Invisible Fence, even though they are not invisible walls. fern suggested 9311 for the taller one and 9322 for the shorter one. Those messages are:

9311, "Wooden Slat Fence"
39311, "Purchase a wooden slat exhibit fence.  Average strength. Animals may climb out of it. Does not allow guests to see into an exhibit made only with wooden slat fencing."

9322, "Low Wooden Slat Fence"
39322, "Purchase a low wooden slat exhibit fence. Average strength. Animals may climb out or jump over it. Allows guests to see into an exhibit."

But those mention that the animals can get out, which they cannot. Plus they say average strength. I do not see any existing messages that look appropriate. So maybe new messages should be created.

 

My thoughts. There are more to come as I have to look at a couple of things in the ai and test it ingame. "invisible fence" really is not suitable since they are anything but invisible.

Wooden Slat Fence lang0.dll
Preferred scn: unlockwoodenslatfence.scn

Low Wooden Slat Fence
Preferred scn: unlock-lowwoodenslatfence.scn

If you want to continue with the Plexi:

Plexiglass Fence lang0.dll
Preferred scn: unlockplexiglassfence.scn

Jay missed one possible id

Woodslat Window lang0.dll (ZT) changes to Wooden Slat Window Fence lang100 (CC)
Preferred scn: unlockwoodenslatwindowfence.scn
9330,    "Woodslat Window"
39330,    "Purchase a windowed wood slat exhibit fence.  Average strength and price, but primates may climb out of it and strong animals may bash through it. Allows guests to see into an exhibit."

We have been throwing around ideas about making a "Long Life Fence" id

 

Interesting. Noted the information for the unlock files.

 

I did choose not to use the cHelpID strings for the Wooden Slat fences because of the non-matching information about climbability/durability. 

 

My mistake there was thinking that the ID I used was a blank/null ID instead of one that had been associated with the invisible fence. I have that fence but I must not have the lang file to match. (Side note: I just learned 7-zip can open .dll files so now I can actually look through all the game lang file IDs/strings directly.)

 

Could I use the three Wooden Slat cNameIDs for those exhibit fences but not use the associated cHelpIDs?

If so, what is the most appropriate option for assigning intentionally blank cHelpID strings? I assume not assigning one at all would cause issues.

If cNameID and cHelpID must match, I think I would prefer that both the name and tooltip be blank vs. displaying incorrect gameplay info.

 

Is my assumption correct that exhibit fence cNameIDs should not be used for decorative fences?

 

A "Long Life Fence" ID is a good idea. I am alright with not having the fences need an additional lang file, even if it means blank names and tooltips, but I still think it's a good idea and if we had one I'd probably use it.

 

Thank you and Jay for your help and insight. If either of you notice anything else feel free to add info.

 

EDIT: One more question - is the preferred method for unlock files that they each be separate files? I know we like to combine files in other contexts. Now that I understand the unlock files a little better, is there a particular reason not to combine the unlock files into one "unlockvwoodenfences.scn" that just points to each ID the fences use?

 

This is all good info, I've already learned a lot just by considering all of it.

[Fern]

There are already fences out there done by me that are long life but have the ingame ids. So the tooltip is incorrect on them too. But recently I did this for the winter contest.

My snowy post and rail is unbreakable and uses this

5869, "Long Life Fence"
35869, "The Long Life Fence lasts for years."
60869, "the Long Life Fence"

It was added to the ZTCDD.dll Updated: December 8, 2024 by Jay to add messages for Long Life Fence. Available at DG.

unlocklonglifefence.scn

Tooltips are linked by the ZT program to the cName and also one other id.

If you want ids you need to check with us as to whether it has been allocated. We ran out of ids once and Jay found usable ones and keeps track of them. Also they should be added to a combined dll either here at Tek or my ZTCDD one or the ZKL one

I copy this over for Jay so he can add to it.

[Fern]

That last line is for all things that use a freeform. All fences and anything in the building menu

From Jay: Good for you (Fern) on remembering the name "Long Life Fence". Previously you mentioned "Unbreakable Fence", which is why I couldn't find it.

As for other comments... We should never intentionally use a currently unused ID. Even if an ID is unused now, it may not be in the future. It is also safer to have a valid ID instead of intentionally picking an invalid ID number. We have seen cases for other things where an invalid number confused ZT, making it have problems.

Yes, 7-zip can look inside ".dll" files. But that also depends on what program 7-zip is set to use for "View". There are 2 programs I use to look inside ".dll" files. One is called Resource Hacker. It is free, but not open source. Most people in the ZT community use that because it was available even before ZT was created. Its web site is:

http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker

The other is RisohEditor. It is free and open source. Its web site is:

https://katahiromz.web.fc2.com/re/en/

As fern mentioned, you should not create a ".dll" only for your things. ZT has a limit of how many ".dll" files there can be. In the early days of people making things for ZT, each person made their own ".dll" and we quickly hit ZT's limit. So ever since then, we use ".dll" files "for sites". LANG--ZTCDD.dll and LANG--ZKL.dll are actually for multiple sites. If messages are likely to be used for more things in the future, LANG--ZTCDD.dll is the best place for them, since that ".dll" is meant to be for the entire ZT Community.

Technically cNameID and cHelpID do not have to match. But it gets confusing when they do not, because ZT does not use the cHelpID setting directly. It first tries to add 30000 to it and tries to find that ID.

Exhibit fences and decorative fences can use the same cNameID settings and cHelpID settings, as long as both messages make sense for both fences. For my cliff walls, the exhibit fences and decorative fences use the same IDs.

Yes, it is preferred to use separate unlock files instead of combined unlock files. That is because separate ones allow reusing the same unlock file for things made in the future that use the same ID.