Using XCC INI CLT to integrate UMP into your mod

XCC INI CLT

What is XCC INI CLT?

XCC INI CLT is a Command Line Tool which can add or subtract two INI files quickly. It is very useful in some cases.

The Pros & Cons of CLT'ing

Pros:

1. Faster than integrating manually
2. Very useful in multiple-coder environment

Cons:

1. Swallows comments
2. Is a command-line tool, which is confusing for newbie modders

Choose for yourself whether CLT is useful for you. To me, it looks very useful in certain circumstances.

Tutorial: using the CLT to integrate the UMP into your mod

The YR 1.002 Unofficial Mini-Patch is a very valuable addon to your mod. But it is a continuing effort, which means you have to continuously monitor its progress and add the new fixes as they are discovered. Some modders are too lazy to do that each time the UMP gets updated.

So, here's an easier way to integrate the UMP into your mod easily:

• Go to XCC Utilities site > Utilities > XCC INI CLT. Download it and extract it somewhere (for this example, I'll extract it to Z:\xcc ). Rename the xcc_ini_clt.exe to just clt.exe .
• Download the UMP.
• Extract the contents of UMP somewhere, then copy the ini/rulesmd.ini file from the archive to the same directory as the CLT. Rename it to rulesmd_ump.ini .
• Extract an unedited rulesmd.ini from the expandmd01.mix file. Put it in the same directory, rename it to rulesmd_orig.ini .
• Copy your mod's rulesmd.ini file into the same directory.
• Now you have three versions of the rulesmd.ini file - an unedited one, an UMP one, and your modded one. Since UMP provides the default inis with the fixes integrated, there's a problem, if you integrate the UMP into your rules now, your changes, except for new units, will be reverted. So we'll need to find only the differences between the UMP and original files, and integrate only them into your mod's rules.
• Before we go any further, there's a bug in CLT which affects the [MirageWH]. The comment symbol used there , // , is not recognized by CLT, thus it will swallow the whole section. So, open all three ini files in notepad, and search for //, and replace it with ; . Repeat for all three files. Save and close.
• Then go to Start - Run - cmd (Win 2000/Win XP) or command (Win 9x/ME). You'll get a window which is called a 'command prompt'. It has lots of uses besides this, but we don't care about that now. First, you need to navigate to the directory where you extracted the INI CLT. To do that, you'll need to type (Remember, I'm navigating to Z:\xcc ) :
• (You only need to type the part in italic, the rest will be provided by Windows)

C:\Documents and Settings\DCoder>z:

Z:\>cd XCC

Z:\XCC>

• cd is a windows command to "change directory". If you are using a deeper directory, you can either type

Z:\>cd a\b\c

Z:\a\b\c>

• or

Z:>cd a

Z:\a>cd b

Z:\a\b>cd c

Z:\a\b\c>

• Now, you're ready to find the differences and integrate them. In command prompt, type

Z:\xcc>clt rulesmd_ump.ini - rulesmd_orig.ini rulesmd_diff.ini
XCC INI CLT, Copyright (C) Olaf van der Spek 2000            XCC@XCC.TMFWeb.NL

Z:\xcc>clt rulesmd.ini + rulesmd_diff.ini rulesmd_integrated.ini
XCC INI CLT, Copyright (C) Olaf van der Spek 2000            XCC@XCC.TMFWeb.NL

Z:\xcc>

• In the first line, I'm telling the CLT to subtract the content of rulesmd_ump.ini from rulesmd_orig.ini (leaving only the changes) and save the result in rulesmd_diff.ini .

  In the second line, I'm telling the CLT to insert the content of rulesmd_diff.ini into rulesmd.ini and put the results into rulesmd_integrated.ini . (Remember that CLT swallows all your comments. Ooops.)

Congratulations, the UMP rulesmd.ini has just been integrated into your mod's rulesmd.ini . You can repeat the procedure for other ini files if you want.

This might look a bit complicated, but in fact it's a pretty simple and easy way to integrate the UMP into your mod.