New SWAF plugin

[Inge]

I see SWAFs being discussed at MATY a lot.  If anyone is interested in trying it, there is a brand new SWAF plugin in the latest QA version of SimPE.  As I don't do anything with SWAFs myself, we'd be interested to have comments from people who do.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, it becomes very unhappy if you order it to load a SWAF containing custom wants, complaining it is unable to read the file containing the definition for said custom want, despite that the file is already on the filetable. Why exactly SimPE insists on opening all files with locks in general, instead of simply READING them like SANE program should, is beyond me.

[Inge]

This is with the new SWAF editor, yes?   I agree about the file locking, it's annoying.  But of course most files SimPE opens are for editing, not readonly.  Did you know there is a setting in Extra/Preferences to tell SimPE not to hold files open after reading them?   I wonder if that might help in this case.   Please let me know as it will be helpful info - there might be something else wrong otherwise.

[J. M. Pescado]

It looks like the bug is in the PJSE XWNT reader plugin. With this plugin, SimPE errors to death if a custom want package is even opened. The original CPF editor has no problems reading this file or resource. Disabling the XWNT plugin and falling back to the original results in the SWAF reader dying from "dictionary" errors.

[Inge]

Thanks I'll send Peter a link to this thread.

[Inge]

It looks like the bug is in the PJSE XWNT reader plugin. With this plugin, SimPE errors to death if a custom want package is even opened. The original CPF editor has no problems reading this file or resource. Disabling the XWNT plugin and falling back to the original results in the SWAF reader dying from "dictionary" errors.

Peter says:
Could you please supply (examples of) the following:
1) A custom want (base game compatible preferred to start with)
2) Details of how to install it so that the game understands it
I'll then try to find out what the new editors are doing wrong.

I say:
I have no experience with wants at all let alone custom ones, so we can't do any internal testing at all without the help of people who *do* want to use a SWAF editor.  That's why it's out in a completely untested state

[J. M. Pescado]

1) A custom want (base game compatible preferred to start with)
2) Details of how to install it so that the game understands it
I'll then try to find out what the new editors are doing wrong.

1. I'm not sure custom wants ARE compatible with the base game, as the functionality simply didn't exist then. I didn't start dabbling with this until Seasonsish. Extract a want from the Seasons wants.package somewhere.
2. To install it, simply take the file, modify it, and stick it in downloads somewhere.

That's basically all the information that I have right now, so if it's not useful, just ignore it and leave it broken. The dictionary error if the XWNT plugin is disabled is reproduceable under any config, though.

[Inge]

Ok, see I told you "I know nothing" (Manuel - Fawlty Towers)

But don't I have to actually make a sim have that want before trying to open it in the editor?  Isn't SWAF a list of wants that sims already have in the game?

ETA: Sorted in chat

EETTAA: Fix uploaded