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[Tool] Foundry Export - Extract Dialog for Spell Check
benalexander
Member Posts: 40 Arc User
I just realized, that I cannot keep myself short. So here are the essentials:
I made a program. It's called "Foundry Export". Your can download it here. It can help you with checking the dialog and spelling of your foundry mission. Instructions are included.
I also just realized, that the inability to keep myself short is probably a key reason in me needing a program to check absolutely monstrous dialog trees in my foundry missions.
Have Fun*
*Fun is not guaranteed. Terms and conditions may apply.
And now, the long-winded version I couldn't help but post anyway:
Hello my dear anglophone fellows,
I bear greetings from the German Foundry community - and also a gift. When I was proofreading a fellow authors mission, a thought came to mind: There had to be an easier and all around better way to extract the dialog from the export file.
So I downloaded Visual Studio and came up with a little program that does exactly that. You simply open your export file, hit a button and out comes a (hopefully) neatly formatted .txt document you can load into MS Word or Open Office to check for spelling errors.
As we all know too well, the dialog interface of the foundry editor is far from perfect and tends to do just as well as the attempt to invade Russia during winter. Basically, it's a total mess and nobody is happy about it. I am aware that some of you take the high road and write their dialog outside the foundry editor. This program will most likely only be of limited use to you. However, the rest of you might find it helpful, which is reason enough for me to share this little side project of mine with you guys and gals.
So, how does it work? It's quite simple, actually:
1. Load your foundry mission and play test a map.
2. Enter /ugcEditorExportProject Mission.txt in the chat. This will create the export file. It will be stored in the C:\ [...]Star Trek Online\Live\Data folder.
3. Star the Foundry Export, click on “Open File” select your export file
4. Click on “Extract Dialog” and give it a few seconds.
5. Congratulations, you now have a formatted text document with all your dialog
6. Check your spelling with a program of your choice
I tried my best to keep the extract short, structured and understandable. Export files can have thousands of pages, the extract has only a fraction of that. And if a say fraction, I mean it. One of my mission got down to 2% of its original size – I calculated!
But what else does Foundry Export do? I'm so glad you asked!
I added labels to differentiate between objectives, actors, buttons, dialog, etc. and some more context clues so you can easily find your text back in the foundry editor. Text was put in order of type or map. Furthermore, the extract only shows the text / dialog, the player actually has a chance to see. No one cares that you named your Gorn captain-group “Hellish Boss Fight Lizards of Doom” or that you called your interactable replicator “Janeway's glorified coffeemaker”. The player won't see it, you don't have to check your spelling. Consequentially, unused maps are also omitted.
However, every bit of text the player can read will be extracted with absolutely no mercy. This obviously includes all kinds of dialog with their title and buttons (Mission Description, Grant Mission Dialog, pop up dialog, Talk to Contact objectives, default prompts), but also the names of NPC contacts, actors of NPC-groups, interactable objects in space and basically everything – except one: Interact buttons that read “Interact” sadly are not distinguishable from buttons, that just have their default text left unchanged. Some of them might not even be seen in the mission. The export file is weird that way and I don't want to bore to with unnecessary technical detail. On second thought, I might have already done that, but I hope in a reasonably humorous way. And who needs to check the spelling of default interact buttons anyway?
You might now ask yourself, whether you should really download some ominous program from the interwebs without ever having seen what it does. Well, let me put your mind to rest. If you would be so kind and click this link, you will see the extracted dialog of one of my missions. It might be a German mission, but the formatting should speak for itself. Look at it. Look. At. It. Isn't it beautiful?
By now, you should be convinced to give this little program a chance. And even if you prefer to write your dialog outside the editor, there might always be a few mistakes in things you have changed later or the name of inconsequential NPC contact number 47. Even just changing the formatting can help by giving you a fresh look on your mission. There have been studies on that – which I am too lazy to look up. If you are still not sure about this, let me just add that I've hidden my family's secret almond-cokkie recipe inside the program. These cookies are so delicious, we, the German foundry community, are currently trying to bribe our CM with them. If you want them, you have no other choice but to download this program.
Please feel free or urged or pressed to download Foundry Export here:
To conclude, I have to admit that I am in fact not a programmer. This is the first thing I have ever made in Visual Studios. It looked so easy at the beginning, I lost all respect for the professionals within 5 minutes and then gained it back during several curse-filled days of excruciatingly tedious regex expressions. (You don't know what “regex” is? Consider yourself lucky.) Basically, this is a hobby project and I can not guarantee you it won't melt you PC, convince cybernetically enhanced squirrels to launch an attack on you or cause the sun to explode. It has been tested, of course. And quite successfully. So far there have been no sights of mischievous rodents or exploding stars. But one can never be too careful.
That said, I bid you farewell. Yours truly
benalexander
I made a program. It's called "Foundry Export". Your can download it here. It can help you with checking the dialog and spelling of your foundry mission. Instructions are included.
I also just realized, that the inability to keep myself short is probably a key reason in me needing a program to check absolutely monstrous dialog trees in my foundry missions.
Have Fun*
*Fun is not guaranteed. Terms and conditions may apply.
And now, the long-winded version I couldn't help but post anyway:
Hello my dear anglophone fellows,
I bear greetings from the German Foundry community - and also a gift. When I was proofreading a fellow authors mission, a thought came to mind: There had to be an easier and all around better way to extract the dialog from the export file.
So I downloaded Visual Studio and came up with a little program that does exactly that. You simply open your export file, hit a button and out comes a (hopefully) neatly formatted .txt document you can load into MS Word or Open Office to check for spelling errors.
As we all know too well, the dialog interface of the foundry editor is far from perfect and tends to do just as well as the attempt to invade Russia during winter. Basically, it's a total mess and nobody is happy about it. I am aware that some of you take the high road and write their dialog outside the foundry editor. This program will most likely only be of limited use to you. However, the rest of you might find it helpful, which is reason enough for me to share this little side project of mine with you guys and gals.
So, how does it work? It's quite simple, actually:
1. Load your foundry mission and play test a map.
2. Enter /ugcEditorExportProject Mission.txt in the chat. This will create the export file. It will be stored in the C:\ [...]Star Trek Online\Live\Data folder.
3. Star the Foundry Export, click on “Open File” select your export file
4. Click on “Extract Dialog” and give it a few seconds.
5. Congratulations, you now have a formatted text document with all your dialog
6. Check your spelling with a program of your choice
I tried my best to keep the extract short, structured and understandable. Export files can have thousands of pages, the extract has only a fraction of that. And if a say fraction, I mean it. One of my mission got down to 2% of its original size – I calculated!
But what else does Foundry Export do? I'm so glad you asked!
I added labels to differentiate between objectives, actors, buttons, dialog, etc. and some more context clues so you can easily find your text back in the foundry editor. Text was put in order of type or map. Furthermore, the extract only shows the text / dialog, the player actually has a chance to see. No one cares that you named your Gorn captain-group “Hellish Boss Fight Lizards of Doom” or that you called your interactable replicator “Janeway's glorified coffeemaker”. The player won't see it, you don't have to check your spelling. Consequentially, unused maps are also omitted.
However, every bit of text the player can read will be extracted with absolutely no mercy. This obviously includes all kinds of dialog with their title and buttons (Mission Description, Grant Mission Dialog, pop up dialog, Talk to Contact objectives, default prompts), but also the names of NPC contacts, actors of NPC-groups, interactable objects in space and basically everything – except one: Interact buttons that read “Interact” sadly are not distinguishable from buttons, that just have their default text left unchanged. Some of them might not even be seen in the mission. The export file is weird that way and I don't want to bore to with unnecessary technical detail. On second thought, I might have already done that, but I hope in a reasonably humorous way. And who needs to check the spelling of default interact buttons anyway?
You might now ask yourself, whether you should really download some ominous program from the interwebs without ever having seen what it does. Well, let me put your mind to rest. If you would be so kind and click this link, you will see the extracted dialog of one of my missions. It might be a German mission, but the formatting should speak for itself. Look at it. Look. At. It. Isn't it beautiful?
By now, you should be convinced to give this little program a chance. And even if you prefer to write your dialog outside the editor, there might always be a few mistakes in things you have changed later or the name of inconsequential NPC contact number 47. Even just changing the formatting can help by giving you a fresh look on your mission. There have been studies on that – which I am too lazy to look up. If you are still not sure about this, let me just add that I've hidden my family's secret almond-cokkie recipe inside the program. These cookies are so delicious, we, the German foundry community, are currently trying to bribe our CM with them. If you want them, you have no other choice but to download this program.
Please feel free or urged or pressed to download Foundry Export here:
To conclude, I have to admit that I am in fact not a programmer. This is the first thing I have ever made in Visual Studios. It looked so easy at the beginning, I lost all respect for the professionals within 5 minutes and then gained it back during several curse-filled days of excruciatingly tedious regex expressions. (You don't know what “regex” is? Consider yourself lucky.) Basically, this is a hobby project and I can not guarantee you it won't melt you PC, convince cybernetically enhanced squirrels to launch an attack on you or cause the sun to explode. It has been tested, of course. And quite successfully. So far there have been no sights of mischievous rodents or exploding stars. But one can never be too careful.
That said, I bid you farewell. Yours truly
benalexander
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The editor is down ATM but I'll definitely give this a spin as soon as it's back up. Many thanks!
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
Greetings
benalexander
Edit: Oh dear, I necroed my own thread... sorry
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I've created a post about how I suggest doing that: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1247575/how-i-suggest-we-can-preserve-our-work
Edit: Well, it was there but I apparently edited it too many times so it's now being flagged for approval. Hopefully it will come back later, otherwise I will have to rewrite it (it was a long post though so I hope I don't have to).
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
I see that the export file contains the entire mission, not just dialog. Is there another tool that can extract costumes? I can see there's data for them in the file.
You are most welcome. I've tried to get the costumes out of the file - there are most definitely in there. Theoretically they could be used in the in game tailor menues on your char / Boffs. The main problem is the saved costumes at the tailor in game are saved as screenshots with the mata data written as plain text. Changing even one number of this data will make the file / screenshot / costume unusable in game. So if you or anyone else knows a way to manually edit screenshots-costumes, it would be possible. At least in a manual way...
I know the STO Academy website has some a utility that allows you to change some data in a costume screenshot file -- faction, gender, species, etc. So it's possible to edit costume image files without rendering them unusable. I don't know how, but it can be done.
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.