To build this program you need
- Lazarus IDE: https://www.lazarus-ide.org/
- Free Pascal Compiler: https://www.freepascal.org/
No support is given.
The program searches for .ini files which are not BINI files in the selected directory and all sub-directories. From those files it extracts specifically formatted text and puts it inside an .frc file - which then can be used via adoxa's Freelancer Resource Compiler to convert it into an resource DLL file.
The program registers the resource text within the .ini files and to which key-value lines they are assigned to, and automatically generates IDs for those and writes them back into the .ini files.
All relevant information for this tool is written in normal commentary format inside the ini files to not break any other tools or the game itself.
There are three keys for the tool to register resource text inside the files:
;res strfor simple unformatted strings (new lines however work);res htmlfor formatted text;res $someNamefor referring to another named resource
To name another resource for the ;res $ lines, just add a globally unique name after the usual keys. For example:
;res str MyGreatName
and then you can reference it anywhere by writing
;res $MyGreatName
The tool will then use the exact same IDs here instead of making a new text. This is intended for repeating entires like for trade lane names or the barebone ship statistic infocards.
The names must be unique through all files. They are case insensitive.
The formatting of any text is following exactly the same rules as adoxa's FRC wants it. Its readme describes it as:
Sequence RDL Notes
-----------------------------------------------------------------
\b <TRA bold="true"/>
\B <TRA bold="false"/>
\cC <TRA color="#RRGGBB"/> C must be lower case
\cName <TRA color="#RRGGBB"/> Name matches case
\cRRGGBB <TRA color="#RRGGBB"/> use upper case hex letters
\C <TRA color="default"/>
\fN <TRA font="N"/> one or two digits
\F <TRA font="default"/>
\hN <POS h="N" relH="true"/> one to three digits
\i <TRA italic="true"/>
\I <TRA italic="false"/>
\l <JUST loc="l"/> left
\m <JUST loc="c"/> center (middle)
\n <PARA/> adds a new line in plain text
\r <JUST loc="r"/> right
\u <TRA underline="true"/>
\U <TRA underline="false"/>
Name RRGGBB C RRGGBB C may be prefixed with:
---- ------ - ------
Gray 808080 z 000000 d to use 40 (dark)
Blue 4848E0 r FF0000 h to use 80 (half)
Green 3BBF1D g 00FF00 l to use C0 (light)
Aqua 87C3E0 b 0000FF
Red BF1D1D c 00FFFF
Fuchsia 8800C2 m FF00FF
Yellow F5EA52 y FFFF00
White FFFFFF w FFFFFF
Find the line you want to add the resource text and you want to have automatically get a new ID. Then simply make a new line below it starting with one of the Keys. After that you must start each line of the resource text with a commentary symbol and a space following after ( ;_ ). The actual ID of the entry will be automatically adjusted later and does not matter for editing here.
Example:
[Weapon]
nickname = gun_mark01
ids_name = 1
;res str
; Big Bang Gun
ids_info = 2
;res html
; \bBold Heading\B
; \mCentered Text\l
; \n
; This is the last line of this infocard.
...and the rest of the weapon settings...
With this the resource text "Starflier" will be automatically assigned to the preceeding ids_name, and the infocard text will be inserted for the ids_info.
Some values like firstname_male accept an entire range of IDs. This can be done by simply writing multiple resource blocks below the line:
firstname_male = 1, 100
;res str
; Hans
;res str
; Olaf
;res str
; Heino
;res str
; Peter
...
The tool automatically recognizes those special cases and assigns the first and last ID correctly to this.
Those ID ranges are only automatically assigned for:
firstname_malefirstname_femalelastnameformation_desiglarge_ship_names
Sometimes the game lists multiple IDs in one line. Again for this, simply create multiple blocks as in the previous example.
The only use-case for this is:
rank_desig
Descriptions of bases in Freelancer are separated into two infocards. One is directly assigned to the [Object] in the system file. This is usually the general statistics on the base (e.g. population count, type name, etc).
And then there's always a second infocard which describes more detailed information on the base. This is just visible to the player when at least once docked on the base.
To create those two related infocards for a base, simply add two resource blocks to the base's ids_info:
[Object]
nickname = li01_01_Base
ids_name = 1
;res str
; Planet Manhatten
ids_info = 1
;res html
; Diameter: 500km
; Mass: 3*10^8kg
; Population: 500000
;res html
; Planet Manhatten was the first planet settled by colonists in Sirius.
; The entire planet's surface is one big connected city.
; It is the capital of Liberty.
To achieve the linking of those two resources the tool will automatically add a map entry for it inside the infocardmap.ini file usually located in DATA\INTERFACE\ directory. To always generate them anew it does delete all entries that contain an ID number which is outside the vanilla game's ID range.
The tool can also create global resources at the first line of any read file that are not directly linked to something. This is only useful if this global resource is given a name and referenced later. One example may be the barebone ship statistic infocards.
;res html ShipStats
; Hull Points:
; Mass:
; Nanobots/Batteries:
; Cargo Space:
and then later referenced by:
[Ship]
nickname = ge_fighter
ids_name = 1
;res str
; Starflier
ids_info2 = 1
;res $ShipStats
ids_info3 = 1
...
Freelancer allows for multiple entries of a faction name or zone name to handle grammatical cases present in other languages (e.g. English has just 1, German has 4). Via adoxa's Name plugin this can be achieved in mods, too.
Again, for those simply add multiple resource blocks to the relevant entries. The tool will always just assign the first resource's ID in the ini file, but keep the others and put them into the output in the defined order.
[Zone]
ids_name = 1
;res str
; Badlands
;res str
; The Badlands
;res str
; the Badlands