Well, thats not any fun at all

Ok... Next questions... What version of Eclipse are you running and What version of Windows? I can try and recreate here and see if there is maybe a compatibility issue.

Edit: I'm assuming you downloaded the 3.5.x Eclipse Classic but just want to make sure. I'm using Windows 64 but I have a Windows XP machine I could try on too.

Hmm, same environment as me. If you placed only the jar into the dropins directory it should have installed. I'll try and do some research on what might have happened. I'm curious does the Windows/Preferences/Sose Preferences show for you?

That would be a no as well. I also re-downloaded the plugin, just to make sure I didn't get a bad download or anything, but still no luck.

EDIT: The newer version didn't work either, and no Sose Preferences.

No worries I might try reinstalling Eclipse later today/tomorrow, depending on when I have time.

Just got it working, reinstalling Eclipse worked. On my current build it says I have 683 errors and 725 warnings But I'm pretty sure most of those are because some of the files are in binary

I don't mind at all, and I'm glad you like the mod. To be honest though, I'm don't really think that will help me much, I'm basically rebuilding it from the ground up, to eliminate as many of those errors/warnings as possible. But I appreciate it nonetheless And thanks for the great tool!

Ok, it seems that a lot of the errors/warnings I'm getting are because your tool expects [.particle] or [.entity], etc at the end of where they are referenced. Like in my CAPITALSHIP_COLGALACTICA.entity file, all of the weapon particle effects say there should be a .particle at the end. The fighter squadrons say there should be a .entity, as do some of the abilities, but not all of the abilities, which is weird.

Sorry about the confusion. It helps to have more input when creating a validation tool like this.

Here's an example error with case sensitivity on references. This error says it can't find a file matching the name CapitalShip_colonialBattleship.mesh. Now this file does actually exist but the name is CapitalShip_ColonialBattleship"

Description Resource Path Location Type
missing reference [.mesh]:  meshName "CapitalShip_colonialBattleship" CAPITALSHIP_TECHBATTLESHIP.entity /Sot13T/GameInfo line 251 Entity Problem

If I turn on "Ignore Case on Reference Files" then I do not see this as an warning.

Note: changes to "Sose Preferences do not take immediate effect currently. You will need to select Project/Clean... to perform mass re-validations. This step is not necessary when saving an individual entity file.

Ok, I think I see what part of the problem is (thanks for the screen shot). You have uncovered one of the alpha features

Basically, the tool is expecting the mod folders such as GameInfo, Texture, Sound, String, etc to be physically in the project directory and not in a sub-directory or linked to a seperate directory outside of eclipse. When the tool attempts to locate a refereshed Entity in your mod it is looking in Sot13T/GameInfo, etc which doesn't exist. I think I have a way to fix this issue and might be able to test and upload it later tonight.

Although temporarily relocating the mod files to the Sot13T level should help the tool to locate references properly.

Here's an example of an eclipse project that shows the GameInfo, etc located in the project folder.

Ok, so just to clarify, this is what the file stucture should look like, right?

It certainly cut down on the number of errors and warnings, but I still get a bunch of occurances of the same problem as before but some of them went away.

Besides that, there is one thing I was hoping you could clarify for me. If I make a change with the tool, is it supposed to be changed in the actual mod files as well, or is there an additional step that I'm missing or something? Maybe it has something to do with how I load the files? I tried using the Import function originally, but it was tedious, and apparently no different from just copy/pasting. I suspect it probably has something to do with that, but I'm not really sure.

Ok, sounds good. And yes, the "Invalid" error you mentioned was a result of merging in a mod, one of the Sins Plus varients floating around. I did some checking though, and using "Invalid" isn't necissary, the Distant Stars mod doesn't use it for their planets, so at least in this case using "Invalid" isn't required. More research is probably needed before it can be said it is an error, lazy, or something else, though.

And I just figured out why I was getting all of those errors/warnings. It was the same folder inside a folder problem from before, but with the reference files. I was looking at the researchInfo section of the PlayerCol.entity file, and there were a ton of errors. I noticed that the only items that didn't have an error were "new" research that was introduced in the expansions. Turns out my vanilla reference files were in a \Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire_1.191\Sins of a Solar Empire 1.191 kind of thing. Fixed that and now I'm down to 8 errors and 34 warnings, and all 8 of those errors are the "Invalid" thing.

Ok... now after all this great feedback, I need to re-organize this post and compile some better how to setup documentation. Thanks to SuperZERO0 and kyogre12 for giving all this feedback and working through the installation process.

I will also continue to enhance this tool providing additional editing features (like hover help, content assistence, templates), views, perspectives and hopefully some wizards in the future.

In your version kyogre12 there is a Entity Definition View that you can open by selecting Window/Show View/Other.. then selecting Sose Category/Entity Definition View. When you open an entity file, it will display the meta definition defined in an expandable tree view including supported enumerated values.

I created this view as sort of a primer to start looking at content assistence and hover help when editing. Unfortunately you can't copy from it yet, but it might be useful if you just can't remember what the allowed values where or how they were spelled.

It's probably a little more than Windows Live Sync. It adds a source code repository, issue tracking, wiki support, and team development support. The repository is a powerfule feature as you can tag versions of code and compare current builds against previous builds. Such as my mods not working now, what has changed since the last build type of compares.

http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/GettingStarted

Downloads are supported but are limited to 100MB uploads which probably isn't enough for your mod.

This is a reasonable request. Although I would recommend splitting your development environment from the mod/deployment environment if you integrate a tool such as code.google.com for the repository support. Adding a repository is a powerful concept but it will add some extra stuff to the development environment that you wouldn't want when you package the mod which is where ant becomes useful. In regards to the complexity of ant, here is a really simplified build.xml that only copies modified files from the development environment to the deployment/mod environment (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5790092/SinsTools/copy_only_build.xml).

To support your request I have made a version that supports projects outside the eclipse workspace. To setup a eclipse project against the mod directory perform the following.

1. Download version 0.4 from http://code.google.com/p/soaseplugin/downloads/list
2. Create a new project with File/New/Project... When it asks for a project name choose "Create project form existing soruce" instead. Select the Browse... and navigate to you mod directory such as "C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Diplomacy v1.011\Sot13T v0.96"

The only extra files you should end up with are a .project and .classpath in the root mod directory following this approach.

It's only for the download section. 100MB uploads upt to a 2GB limit.

The repository is a seperate 2GB limit so they can host their whole mod there.

In that case... Here is are the instructions I provided to SuperZERO0...

1) Open the build.xml into an eclipse editor.

2) Locate the outline view. (Upper right in Java perspective, lower left in resource perspective). Perspectives can be changed by selecting Window/Open Perspective. (See reply 28 for a visual).

3) Right click in the "Outline View" the line saying "deploy_mod".

4) Select Run As/Ant Build.

If you want to use the Manifest Generator you will need to include the lib directory and the sins_build_tools.jar listed above. This jar is separate from the eclipse plugin currently and automates the Manifest file creation. You may already have an Entity Manifest generator so this is optional to use. (Here's an example with the manifest tasks in the build.xml http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5790092/SinsTools/sot13t_build.xml). If you don't have a manifest generator this will work whether you are coding directly in the mod directory or in a separate development directory. If you just want to regenerate manifests follow the step above but right click on "generate_manifests" versus "deploy_mod".

Here's a visual of executing the Ant build.xml from Eclipse: