Messages

I think we're progressing nicely - just most of the communication goes through our IRC channel nowadays.

Yeah, that sounds great, you can post them for viewing in a thread. If anyone notices something out of place, they can just comment on the thread

I don't think offloading work like that would be effective. There's no "higher ups" here to do all work. If we all did it like that, then in the end, one guy at the top of the chain would have it very rough, since all the work piled on top of him.

If you do your SVN checkout, you can open the text description files such as RTR/data/text/export_units.txt, the entries should already be in there. For coordination, you can always talk to ahowl11 about what you added, or simply link up the unit descriptions into export_descr_units.txt yourself and then SVN Commit.

I think the best solution would be to submit your descriptions directly into the correct files inside our SVN Repository. This way the changes would be immediate to everyone

Yes, the new launcher patches RomeTW-BI during runtime to have all fixes and features from ALX. This means our launcher now supports both RomeTW-BI.exe and RomeTW-ALX.exe

I also took a look at the Steam version and right now it looks like we won't be able to support the steam version of the game at all. The steam version's executable image is encrypted, so we can't even take a look at it before we manage to somehow decrypt it. Even so, it still requires the SteamAPI, which means it can't work with our launcher.

RS2 Clouds are now modfoldered. My next task is trying to get steam version of the game working with the launcher.

I changed my name for the IRC, and that seems to have been the problem.  I can stop by there under "aqui1a".

Could someone please enlighten me on what I am supposed to do with this SVN thing?

http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-guide-to-version-control/

[C:\Games\RTRGame]

Updated the symlink. Instead of the RTR folder being in Games/RTRGame it needs to be in Games/RTRGame/Rome - Total War

I kept having to drop the symlinked RTR folder into my RTR mod folder to update the game.

It may have been my fault with installing but hopefully now everyone can be on the right page.

I think you got it wrong somewhere ahowl11 C:\Games\RTRGame is supposed to be your RTW folder. It's just a clean copy of RTW. Of course we don't really need it to be like that, but if you want to change it for yourself, please make a private copy of "CreateSymLink.bat" and add it to SVN Ignore list.

Also, you only need to create the symlink once, so I don't see why you had to keep dropping the symlink folder? Symlink is a hard shortcut, so as long as the target is valid (RTR Project\RTR), everything works as expected.

I have no idea why you deleted the entire RTR folder and committed it to SVN? If you need to revert something there's SVN Revert. If you lost your folder somehow, there's SVN Update. I strongly suggest you go over the SVN guide here: http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-guide-to-version-control/

Last but not least, please, please and again I say please write a Detailed Comment to every commit you make. I have no idea what happened last night with /trunk/RTR deletion and that's mostly because there is absolutely no comment why it happened.
http://code.google.com/p/rtr-project/source/list

If you need to undelete a folder, use SVN Repository Browser and use Update Item to Revision... on the folder. That will apply the change for the entire repository.

Aquila might be an already taken name. Try simply logging onto freenode and see what message the server gives you:
https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net

I updated the Developer walkthrough with an additional section of setting up a symlink to a clean RTW installation. This makes development seamless.

The game is launched via RTRLauncher.exe, which handles all extra work.

I commited your changes to SVN. Hopefully you can commit the files directly to the repository next time, so we don't have any overhead.

Like ahowl11 stated, IRC webchat doesn't require any further input. As for SVN, it's a Subversion management system used by pretty much every software project nowadays. Without it, projects like this are pretty much impossible.

SVN allows multiple developers to edit the same files at the same time, with automatic merging and conflict resolving. Furthermore, with SVN you can always stay up-to-date with the latest version of the mod by simply doing "SVN Update".

An additional benefit is that any harmful changes can always be reverted or an interim version of the mod can be extracted from the repository at any given time. If you don't edit any script or txt files and don't want to be up-to-date with the latest version of the mod, then you needn't download TortoiseSVN client.

[RTR Developer Walkthrough]

This thread is for getting new developers integrated into our development cycle.

RTR Developer Walkthrough

• Log on to our IRC chat: https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/rtr-dev
  (Bookmark the link)
  
• Contact ahowl11 on IRC and request for your SVN+Trac User/Pwd
• Download TortoiseSVN (64-bit if possible):
  http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.html
  
• Create C:\Projects\RTRProject\ and SVN Checkout:
  URL of Repository: https://rtr-project.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
  Checkout directory: C:\Projects\RTRProject\
  
• User/Pass is your google code account:
  Link: https://code.google.com/hosting/settings
  
• How to use SVN:
  What is SVN: http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-guide-to-version-control/
  
• Install a clean copy of RTW to:
  C:\Games\RTRGame\ (like this: C:\Games\RTRGame\RomeTW-BI.exe)
  
• Launch C:\Projects\RTRProject\CreateSymLink.bat
  SVN [RTR] modfolder is now symlinked to C:\Games\RTRGame\[RTR]
  
• Launch C:\Games\RTRGame\RTR\RTRLauncher.exe
  You can now start testing and developing!
  

Development Cycle (daily)

• Log on to our IRC chat: https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/rtr-dev
• SVN Update the RTR Repository
• Make changes, test, discuss on IRC
• SVN Commit when finished

Creating an Installer package (Full or Test)

• Download latest Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
• Create a shortcut of makensisw.exe into C:\Projects\RTRProject\
• Drag and drop RTRInstaller-Full.nsi or RTRInstaller-Test.nsi ontop of the shortcut
• The installer package will be compiled. Full package compression can take around 10-15 minutes.

Debugging GameEngine.dll (Advanced)

• Any version of Visual Studio 2013 is required
• Ensure you have compiled RTRLauncher.sln and the following files exist:
  RTR\GameEngine.dll - Debuggable external GameEngine.dll
  RTR\GameEngine.pdb - Debug database for the debugger
  
• Start C:\Games\RTRGame\RTR\RTRLauncher.exe
• Tick the checkbox "Attach VS JIT"
  A new instance of VS 2013 debugger is launched and attached to process
  The debugger starts with an internal breakpoint - so click Continue
  RTR\GameEngine.dll is injected
  If any of the steps fail, the launcher reverts to an internal GameEngine packed resource instead and the Launcher will continue without debugging enabled.
  

This list will be updated with more information in the future. You can contact me on the aforementioned IRC webchat if you have any questions: https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/rtr-dev