File Editor, Any recommendations?

[aernor]

A long time ago I used to be know how to debug code and put a sub routine together. Can anyone recommend a very simple to use editor? I'd like to poke around a bit and see how things work.

 

[mickabouille]

Depend very much of what you mean by "file editor" and "editor". There's a continuum of less to more complex/featureful editors even without asking what OS you're using (because the most simple are often IS-specific).

Do you need a text editor? Really simple, can be extremely lacking in features, think notepad or a little more involved. I don't know what there are like on windows, on linux that would be kwrite.

Do you need a code editor? Those are text editor, often with any base features, often with configurability and extensibility as goals (because there are many code and data languages). I'd say vscode  (visual studio code not visual studio), and I think (not sure) notepad++ would also be in this lot. Kate is originally for linux but exists in the windows store. There was atom too but I haven't used it for a long time.

(If what you have in mind is related to modding, maybe vscode with the bgforge plugin?)

[aernor]

Sorry its taken me a while to reply. I'm using Windows XP. I would like to put together the code and write my own mods, but the priority for me is ease of use, a simple tool that I can download and put together some code. Many many years ago the first few pages of programming manuals were often devoted to printing a couple of words on the computer screen, usually "Hello world", then everything else followed. I suppose the equivalent for our purposes would be to "create a creature" on screen and have it do something, talk, move or whatever. Does that make sense? Thanks.

[subtledoctor]

Still not entirely clear what you are trying to do. In situations like this, the more specificity the better. Like, if you want to create a guy called Nayber in Beregost who will follow the party around saying "howdy, neighbor!" fifty times, people can point you to resources to see/learn how that is done. If you want to make the "Sword of Neighborliness" which can cast Friends 3x per day but is cursed to remove any magic boots worn by the wielder, people can point you to information on that sort of thing. Etc.

In general, to literally edit files, you'll want to use Near Infinity which is a file editor designed to work with the file structures found in Infinity Engine games.

To make mod, like adding a dude to Beregost, you would generally use Weidu. (Which is a scripting language that you may or may not find easy to use for 'Hello World' kind of stuff.)

The best way to get caught up on good methods for doing things like adding a dude to Beregost is to simply see how other people have done it - almost every mod has its weidu scripts right out in the open and you can see how they achieve things and adopt techniques useful for your project. For adding a dude to Beregost, I might start with the Branwen BG2 mod which I understand is designed as a kind of tutorial.

That's all very general. As I say, for more specific information you'll need to make more specific requests.

[aernor]

Many thanks that mostly covers it. I would love to get to the point where I can write a complete mod with or without Sword of Neighborliness. So it's Near Infinity and Weidu and Branwen. That's a bonus I can never recall where that mod is. Just one final question. Is there anything special about the installation for Near Infinity or Weidu? Thanks again.

 

[subtledoctor]

Near Infinity requires Java… it may supply its own version, you may need to convince your OS to allow it, etc. - I honestly forget. 

Weidu is an .exe that runs whatever you put in a .tp2 script - and they are associated by filename. So every mod actually uses an identical executable, only renamed to match their scripts. Some OSes and/or antivirus programs are not very happy about this downloaded-from-the-internet program that goes by many names, you may have to whitelist it in some way.