Thief Fan Mission Manager Now a Mission Loader

tolsen64 on 5/5/2016 at 04:49

Quote Posted by fxdwg

Tolsen, I missed those days of your work on TFMM.

I do too. But stuff happens and I had to focus on more important things. If R Soul is working on a new loader, i'm excited to see it. I'm probably going to put mine on the back burner and wait for his. I kinda wish I would have thought of the name "NewDarkLoader" :).

R Soul on 5/5/2016 at 17:59

Quote Posted by tolsen64

When do you expect to have something ready to reveal?

I think in about a week.

Quote:

The only difference is after unzipping, using the IBT dll to rebuild any IBT files to CBT files. Not hard to do. I think you should be able to support everything from SS2 to T3 easily.

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it once I'm happy with the T1/T2/SS2 side of things.

Quote:

I added support for 7z files in one iteration of my loader (never released), but since they are solid files, you can't scan the file easily to get info out of it. So you would have to effectively extract each file (even if just into memory), to get to the ones you need to read info from. That can take quite a long time if the mission is a big one. My plan was to use a background thread and run through all the zip files first to get them parsed and then move on to the 7z and RAR files (there are a few).

NDL does exactly what Darkloader does. Shows all the archives in the table, but only scans each when the user clicks on them.

Have to go now. I can answer your other question: I use C#.

Ricebug on 5/5/2016 at 18:18

FMSel is like a Jeep, reliable and sturdy. I prefer something with more color, text, and air-conditioning, however. Glad to see you working on it, R Soul. I'll beta-test if you like.

snobel on 6/5/2016 at 07:11

Hi tolsen - it's been a while. :) IMHO the best feature of TFMM is the built-in FM downloading.

Quote Posted by tolsen64

However, with NewDark and the Sneaky Upgrade on Thief 3, they are almost identical in how to launch (passing the path to the folder to the game exe). The only difference is after unzipping, using the IBT dll to rebuild any IBT files to CBT files.

The SU handles CBT-to-IBT and other T3-specific stuff so all you need to do is extract the archive and supply the -fm=<folder> arg.

Quote:

I added support for 7z files in one iteration of my loader (never released), but since they are solid files, you can't scan the file easily to get info out of it.

That's unfortunately true for most files. The trick is to first do the compression excluding any text or image files that should be readily available, then add those files to the archive. They'll get a separate compression block that way. (If you ever want to make a recompress-zips-as-7zip function, please remember this...)

Are you (tolsen64 or R Soul) using the (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135810&p=2197244&viewfull=1#post2197244) NewDark DLL interface for your loaders?

tolsen64 on 6/5/2016 at 07:46

Quote Posted by snobel

Hi tolsen - it's been a while. :) IMHO the best feature of TFMM is the built-in FM downloading.

The SU handles CBT-to-IBT and other T3-specific stuff so all you need to do is extract the archive and supply the -fm=<folder> arg.

I did not know that. That makes things easier.

Quote Posted by snobel

What I mean is, in a zip file, you can read the main directory of the zip and iterate through filenames until you find one you want, then go straight to that record and extract that data to memory. With a 7z file, you can't just skip a bunch of unneeded files in the archive to get to one you want. You have to walk the entire file, and throw the extracted data away until you get to a file you want. That kinda sux. I remember reading somewhere here that it was recommended to use zip's instead of 7z and RAR for that reason; which is why there are so few of them.

Quote Posted by snobel

Are you (tolsen64 or R Soul) using the (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135810&p=2197244&viewfull=1#post2197244) NewDark DLL interface for your loaders?

Unless I read the api doc wrong, the loader has to be written as a C++ DLL, correct? I know we're both using .NET and I don't believe we can create a DLL with C style exports. My plan was to extract the mission and pass the folder to the game exe.

snobel on 6/5/2016 at 09:08

Quote Posted by tolsen64

With a 7z file, you can't just skip a bunch of unneeded files in the archive to get to one you want. You have to walk the entire file, and throw the extracted data away until you get to a file you want.

I don't know the details of working with 7zip files but extracting a file from a small compression block in a large 7zip archive is very fast - which is what the user would care about. (It may simply be because the new block is added to the front of the file.)

Quote:

Unless I read the api doc wrong, the loader has to be written as a C++ DLL, correct? I know we're both using .NET and I don't believe we can create a DLL with C style exports.

Right, you'd need something like an intermediate DLL to translate the calls. Probably not worth the bother, then.

Yandros on 6/5/2016 at 12:34

Quote Posted by tolsen64

I remember reading somewhere here that it was recommended to use zip's instead of 7z and RAR for that reason; which is why there are so few of them.

I think it's more the fact that there are still players who use Darkloader even today, and it doesn't support 7z or RAR archives.

tolsen64 on 6/5/2016 at 15:44

Quote Posted by snobel

I'll have to do some more experimenting with this. But from past experience, if the file you wanted was at the front, it was fast. But if you wanted that text file that was behind all the big binary files, it took quite a while.

Quote Posted by snobel

Right, you'd need something like an intermediate DLL to translate the calls. Probably not worth the bother, then.

I came here for the purpose of asking if you'd be interested in writing that intermediate dll. :)

R Soul on 6/5/2016 at 16:42

During my own research I found this:
(https://sites.google.com/site/robertgiesecke/Home/uploads/unmanagedexports)

I didn't do much with it because there are some things about C++ that I'm not familiar with, and I'm aware that a little knowledge can be a bad thing.
:o

tolsen64 on 6/5/2016 at 17:48

Quote Posted by R Soul

Holy crud! It works! I followed the instructions at the link you posted and came up with this:

Quote:

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports RGiesecke.DllExport

Public Module fmsel

Public Enum eFMSelReturn
kSelFMRet_OK = 0 ' run selected FM 'data->sName' (0-len string to run without an FM)
kSelFMRet_Cancel = -1 ' cancel FM selection And start game As-Is (no FM Or If defined In cam_mod.ini use that)
kSelFMRet_ExitGame = 1 ' abort And quit game
End Enum

<StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack:=4)>
Public Structure sFMSelectorData
' sizeof(sFMSelectorData)
Dim nStructSize As Integer

' game version string as returned by AppName() (ie. in the form "Thief 2 Final 1.19")
<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)>
Dim sGameVersion As String

' supplied initial FM root path (the FM Selector may change this)
<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)>
Dim sRootPath As String
Dim nMaxRootLen As Integer

' buffer to copy the selected FM name
<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)>
Dim sName As String
Dim nMaxNameLen As Integer

' set to non-zero when selector Is invoked after game exit (if requested during game start)
Dim bExitedGame As Integer
' FM selector should set this to non-zero if it wants to be invoked after game exits (only done for FMs)
Dim bRunAfterGame As Integer

' optional list of paths to exclude from mod_path/uber_mod_path in + separated format And Like the config
' vars, Or if "*" all Mod paths are excluded (leave buffer empty for no excludes)
' the specified exclude paths work as if they had a "*\" wildcard prefix
<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)>
Dim sModExcludePaths As String
Dim nMaxModExcludeLen As Integer
End Structure

<DllExport(CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.Cdecl, ExportName:="SelectFM")>
Public Function SelectFM(<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)> ByRef data As sFMSelectorData) As Int32

MsgBox("nStructSize: " & data.nStructSize & vbCrLf &
"sGameVersion: " & data.sGameVersion & vbCrLf &
"sRootPath: " & data.sRootPath & vbCrLf &
"nMaxRootLen: " & data.nMaxRootLen & vbCrLf &
"sName: " & data.sName & vbCrLf &
"nMaxNameLen: " & data.nMaxNameLen & vbCrLf &
"dataSize: " & data.GetType.ToString
)

Select Case MsgBox("Start the game?", MsgBoxStyle.Question Or MsgBoxStyle.YesNo)
Case MsgBoxResult.Yes : Return eFMSelReturn.kSelFMRet_Cancel
Case MsgBoxResult.No : Return eFMSelReturn.kSelFMRet_ExitGame
End Select

Return eFMSelReturn.kSelFMRet_Cancel

End Function

End Module

I copied the compiled dll into the thief gold directory and started the game. The MessageBox popped up and if I click the Yes button in the MessageBox, it starts the game. If I click No, it does not start the game...

I'm sure i'll probably have to Marshal those string variables to make it work completely, but this is a good start. [EDIT]: I changed the code above to what ultimately worked. I now have a boilerplate to build something using the FMSEL API.

So you can use .NET to write a fmsel.dll. Thanks for that link!

[EDIT]: Feel free to take the code and use it. Just remember to use NuGet to install the Unmanaged Exports package to your project.

The one thing that i'm disappointed with is that the sGameVersion variable always says "Thief 2 Final 1.21", even if it's Thief Gold that's running. I was hoping to use that to determine which game i'm running in.

[EDIT]: I just verified it worked in SS2, T1, T2, and T3. For T1 & T2, it reports as "Thief 2 Final 1.21". For SS2, it reports as "System Shock 2 Patch Final 2.42". And for T3, it reports as "Thief 3 1.1.5.2"