Hi, I'm from Z-G

[poof at mindspring.com]

Hey guys, I'm Freeman, and I'm with atomoton, and we're in charge of
the game Z-G. It's an action figure game where the only bits needed
for playing with the toys is the CCG. I was looking for a deck-
building program that was open-ended enough to support a game that
was as different as ours is, and when I tried your program and
checked out the authoring kit, I immediately drove up to the War Room
(My local hobby shop) and purchased the last copy of card vault.
hehehe.
Anyways, I'm excited about trying to author a data file for Z-G. The
game itself moves pretty quick, but creating a character is tedious
if you aren't familiar with the advanced rules.

Plus, After I purchased a copy I've spent a few hours with the
documentation. The use of XML looks to be an artistic way of
organizing the card data, and simple at that. I've been through a
few CS classes, so I'm not afraid of it, but it's alot of power to
think about. quite intoxicating, actually.

Now, for my question (yeah, I know, the caveat)
I was wondering if there was a good way to convert a .XLS containing
all the card data to XML? I noticed that bit in the authoring notes
and remembered that one of our yahoogroup members compiled that data
earlier last year. I know it's a very subjective question, because
it really depends on how the data is gonna be used. I'm just
interested in getting started as quickly as possible and sorta still
fumbling with newbieness and RTFM, but rest assured it's just
enthusiasm... (squinty eyed) Or is it... Oh, wait, yeah it is.
-Freeman
zMarshal #000 022


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[exegamer at plansofmice.c]

...I was wondering if there was a good way to convert a .XLS containing all
the card data to XML?...

This is kind of an ugly solution but it does work and does not require any
specialist knowledge:


Set up your spread sheet so that ALL the card information for each card is
in a single row and that each element is in a separate column.

Open a 2nd sheet and ADD (ie. +Cell Ref) each of the boxes from the top row
of the previous sheet to every 2nd Column.

(You could achieve this by inserting blank columns into the existing data
but I find it better to have a "clean" page of data because it is much
easier to read and edit. Referencing Cells on a previous page also allows
you to change the order of the data, as the logical order for reading it
across a line and the order required by Card Vault are unlikely to be the
same).

Add the TAG defintions into the columns in between (nb. this will always,
except in the first and last instance, be two "half tags" closing one and
opening the next).

If you COPY the top row all the way down the spread sheet it should update
all the cell references importing each card into a new row.

COPY AND PASTE all of the resulting data into a plain text file. (Wordpad
uses the "Edit - Paste Special" function to paste spreadsheet data).

Add the couple of lines of XML to the top and bottom of the file (or copy
them from an existing file).

Find and Replace any TABS with NOTHING.

SAVE.

Eg.
[ 1000 ][ Adira Tyree ][ blurb ]
... [ 1000 ] ... [ Adira Tyree ] ... [ blurb ] ...
[ <card id=" ][ 1000 ][ "name=" ][ Adira Tyree ][" deck="deck1"
description=" ][ blurb ][ " ...

There are a couple of drawbacks in that it means you get every stat defined
for every card and the resulting XML will be very untidy. However, if you
already have the data in spreadsheet form it will produce working results
without ever using anything more complex than Copy, Paste, Search and
Replace, requiring no specialist software or knowledge.

Once you have a working XML document you can always tidy it up (you'll
probably have to), removing all the redundant terms, and you will probably
find that you make individual card corrections directly into the XML file.

One thing you will need to watch for is that there are no " or = (and a few
other) symbols in the original card data as these wil be misinterpreted by
Card Vault.

Start with the info for a single card to get the format right. Consider
adding the rest of the card info a few cards at a time so that if there are
any problems you don't have to search the entire sheet for it.

---Steven

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[jim at timewarpcomics.com]

boomertly wrote:

> Hey guys, I'm Freeman, and I'm with atomoton, and we're in charge of
> the game Z-G. It's an action figure game where the only bits needed
> for playing with the toys is the CCG. I was looking for a deck-
> building program that was open-ended enough to support a game that
> was as different as ours is, and when I tried your program and
> checked out the authoring kit, I immediately drove up to the War Room
> (My local hobby shop) and purchased the last copy of card vault.
> hehehe.
> Anyways, I'm excited about trying to author a data file for Z-G. The
> game itself moves pretty quick, but creating a character is tedious
> if you aren't familiar with the advanced rules.
>
> Plus, After I purchased a copy I've spent a few hours with the
> documentation. The use of XML looks to be an artistic way of
> organizing the card data, and simple at that. I've been through a
> few CS classes, so I'm not afraid of it, but it's alot of power to
> think about. quite intoxicating, actually.
>
> Now, for my question (yeah, I know, the caveat)
> I was wondering if there was a good way to convert a .XLS containing
> all the card data to XML? I noticed that bit in the authoring notes
> and remembered that one of our yahoogroup members compiled that data
> earlier last year. I know it's a very subjective question, because
> it really depends on how the data is gonna be used. I'm just
> interested in getting started as quickly as possible and sorta still
> fumbling with newbieness and RTFM, but rest assured it's just
> enthusiasm... (squinty eyed) Or is it... Oh, wait, yeah it is.
> -Freeman
> zMarshal #000 022


I think most of us have used the solution of writing a program to
convert the data. I wrote a converter in visual basic for starwars tcg
and warcry.


--
Jim Williamson <jim@timewarpcomics.com <mailto:jim@timewarpcomics.com>>
TimeWarp Comics & Games
(973) 857-9788
www.timewarpcomics.com <http://www.timewarpcomics.com>



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[kuni_tetsu at yahoo.com]

--- Jim Williamson <jim@timewarpcomics.com> wrote:
> I think most of us have used the solution of writing a program to
> convert the data. I wrote a converter in visual basic for starwars tcg
> and warcry.

I actually used VBA in an Excel sheet so that I could use Excel to manage and
manipulate the data.


=====
---

Kuni Tetsu
Clan War rules guy
Moderator of ClanWar-l

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[emperor799 at earthlink.n]

First, you should run the updater and make sure you have the most recent versions of CV and the Authoring Kit.


--Kyle Turner
emperor799@earthlink.net


"We'll put that in your biography. General Antilles was so good he couldn't fail when he tried to." -- Tycho Celchu
----- Original Message -----
From: boomertly
To: cardvault@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 10:37 PM
Subject: [CardVault] Hi, I'm from Z-G


Hey guys, I'm Freeman, and I'm with atomoton, and we're in charge of
the game Z-G. It's an action figure game where the only bits needed
for playing with the toys is the CCG. I was looking for a deck-
building program that was open-ended enough to support a game that
was as different as ours is, and when I tried your program and
checked out the authoring kit, I immediately drove up to the War Room
(My local hobby shop) and purchased the last copy of card vault.
hehehe.
Anyways, I'm excited about trying to author a data file for Z-G. The
game itself moves pretty quick, but creating a character is tedious
if you aren't familiar with the advanced rules.

Plus, After I purchased a copy I've spent a few hours with the
documentation. The use of XML looks to be an artistic way of
organizing the card data, and simple at that. I've been through a
few CS classes, so I'm not afraid of it, but it's alot of power to
think about. quite intoxicating, actually.

Now, for my question (yeah, I know, the caveat)
I was wondering if there was a good way to convert a .XLS containing
all the card data to XML? I noticed that bit in the authoring notes
and remembered that one of our yahoogroup members compiled that data
earlier last year. I know it's a very subjective question, because
it really depends on how the data is gonna be used. I'm just
interested in getting started as quickly as possible and sorta still
fumbling with newbieness and RTFM, but rest assured it's just
enthusiasm... (squinty eyed) Or is it... Oh, wait, yeah it is.
-Freeman
zMarshal #000 022


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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[rob]

Bob suggested using VBA. Since I'm not very knowledgable of VBA, I use an
alternate method, so I thought I'd throw it out in case it helps....

An Excel spreadsheet can be readily saved to a tab-delimited text file. You
can then use virtually any programming language to easily parse the text
file and output it appropriately. This is the method we use for various
game systems here at Lone Wolf Development. Since this method entails going
from one text file (the tab-delimited file) to another text file (the XML
file), the code is relatively simple to write. Consequently, given that
you've taken a few programming courses, the process should be well within
your skills. Pick whatever language you feel most comfortable with and just
ask questions here when you run into them.

Hope this helps,
Rob

At 02:37 AM 4/25/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>Now, for my question (yeah, I know, the caveat)
>I was wondering if there was a good way to convert a .XLS containing
>all the card data to XML? I noticed that bit in the authoring notes
>and remembered that one of our yahoogroup members compiled that data
>earlier last year. I know it's a very subjective question, because
>it really depends on how the data is gonna be used. I'm just
>interested in getting started as quickly as possible and sorta still
>fumbling with newbieness and RTFM, but rest assured it's just
>enthusiasm... (squinty eyed) Or is it... Oh, wait, yeah it is.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (559) 658-6995
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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