Trying to find the container class for contacts

cryptoknight · August 11th, 2011, 06:22 PM

Again trying to get all the RC qualities in. If I manage to get them all in and working and the races all setup, I'll email the file to Mathias if he wants and then turn around and buy it when WolfLair releases it.

So I'm adding Black Market Pipeline

I've got everything working more or less, except that you're supposed to pick a contact on your character and then pick a category of gear and get a discount and bonus to sell/find it.

I wanted to set Menu #1 to give a drop down list of contacts on the character so I set

Menu Array Options ->Typed in some categories

Menu #1 Source to : All Picks on Hero
Menu #1 Tag Expression:

I've tried
pick.socContact
hero.socContact
picks.socContact
pick.resContact
picks.recContact
hero.resContact

None of these work, even though I have two contacts on the character. I would seriously kill for either intellisense or a documented object model... I've been staring at all the little debug windows trying to guess which Tag expression to use. So far no luck.

Why is this so flipping hard? It's not like I'm unfamiliar with coding. I've been a DBA now for 12 years and developed in several languages for 15. Why is this so hard?

Mathias · August 11th, 2011, 09:44 PM

Code:

 
component.Contact

In the list of debug tags, you'll see that each tag is defined by both a group Id and a Tag Id, which is referenced as GroupId.TagId - what you're looking for here is an expression that will only match the tags on the things you're looking for, and not anything else.

cryptoknight · August 12th, 2011, 02:59 AM

Ok that's great and I can tell you that I don't see that in any debug window.

The only place I could find a bartender (one of the contacts) was

conBartender under canAdvance
conBartender under socContact
And if I went into the editor...

So I copied the only other Quality I could find which is Incompetent.

Which is also component, but it was using all things and then component.SkillAct since it wasn't something like component.Skills, I had to guess what the second half was. After trying component.resContact and component.socContact and getting very nasty errors, I figured it had to be something on the hero or in picks (after looking at the xml document of a portfolio).

I'm sorry to keep whining about this... It's just very frustrating when I feel like I need to guess.

cryptoknight · August 12th, 2011, 03:07 AM

On a bright note, thanks to your help, I've so far managed to get 12 Qualities, 2 Races, 1 modified resource script, one augmentation patch, and a ranged weapon in.

I'm now contemplating the script that needs to sit on the back of Black Market Pipeline, to provide a 10% discount for the category. And I'm wondering a couple things.

1. Where can I get a debug window in the editor?
2. I see weapons, vehicles, equipment, Ammo, etc are in their own tabs, with their own variables/fields. Is there an overall generic that they inherit from that might have a category field that I could use to find and then give the 10% discount? I see several different category checkboxes under the various items, but not an overarching category type of thing.

Thanks for all your help and patience.

Mathias · August 12th, 2011, 08:19 AM

To find all the tags on a thing, or all the fields, add it to a character, and right-click on it. Choose "Show Debug Tags for XXXXX" to see the list of tags on it, or choose "Show Debug Fields for XXXXX" to see the list of fields, and their final values.

All the scripts on a pick that are running in the background are within elements in Hero Lab called components - and the components can be mixed and matched to create "component sets" - what you see in the editor. So, the component tags are usually the best way to identify a category of things.

What sort of information are you looking for in the editor when you say debug?

I don't think there's a way to implement Black Market Pipeline at this point. That's going to need to be built into the purchase mechanisms.

cryptoknight · August 12th, 2011, 01:34 PM

Something like all the debug windows we get all over the place in developer mode to explore a character.

Except I'd like those when working my way through in the data editor.

I'd like to have been able to find things like Component.Contact, I had no clue it was there from what I could explore.

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Mathias Senior Member Lone Wolf Staff Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 13,213 August 11th, 2011, 09:44 PM	Code: component.Contact In the list of debug tags, you'll see that each tag is defined by both a group Id and a Tag Id, which is referenced as GroupId.TagId - what you're looking for here is an expression that will only match the tags on the things you're looking for, and not anything else.
#2

cryptoknight Senior Member Volunteer Data File Contributor Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 523 August 12th, 2011, 01:34 PM	Something like all the debug windows we get all over the place in developer mode to explore a character. Except I'd like those when working my way through in the data editor. I'd like to have been able to find things like Component.Contact, I had no clue it was there from what I could explore.
#6