question for IR about reports

[naxo]

Hi;

This question is targeted for IR staff, Long time ago I tested for trial mode SUF9 and I am rememberid that software has a feature called "project report" or so I opened AMS and it does not have this option to export the code you did, Where can I find that feature or are you planning to add this option for ams?
Thanks
Naxo

[Ulrich]

The software tools aimed at software publishers (Setup Factory, TrueUpdate, Visual Patch) have reports because they allow to work with multiple build configurations. These build configurations may control the target platform, as well as conditions on files, which can define which components should be bundled into the final package - and even what name this executable should have. As AutoPlay Media Studio does not have any of these features, would be little use for such a report, as all files in the current state of the project will be included into the build.

Ulrich

[naxo]

hi:
Ah okay, I though it was also included in ams, is there any way to export to a lua file or lua files automatically all the code in a project? I was searching a way to doing this operation instead clicking on blank area to pop up the advanced menu to export the code which it does perfectly but no for the whole project's code.

[Ulrich]

There is no such tool available, but you certainly could build something like this. The project file is XML, and AutoPlay Media Studio provides all the functions you need to parse the XML, and extract the code. I have built such a tool for Setup Factory project files, and named it SUF Script Explorer. This was built using only AutoPlay Media Studio. This utility works in a similar way as the Script Explorer provided with AutoPlay Media Studio, listing the screens (instead of Pages), and their event scripts, showing which ones have code and with events are empty. Of course, the structure of a AMS project is not the same as a SUF project, so you can't reuse any of the code in my tool, but it shows that what you want isn't impossible. Saving the scripts into a single or multiple *.lua files also shouldn't give any trouble.

Ulrich

[naxo]

Hi Ulrich I downloaded your app, once installed I tried to open an autoplay project but when I click on open command it pop up a browser dialog only allowing *.suf, sf7 and sf8 files.

How can I open a autoplay project with this app or I misunderstood something in your explanations? Are you referring to the script explorer featured within AMS (I just saw that option in ams? right now I didn't know there was that option

[Ulrich]

I think that you misunderstood. I said that what you need still does not exist, but you can build it yourself, in AMS.
As an example, I linked my tool, which does not work with AMS projects, because it was designed for SUF. It is just a proof that you can build this.

Ulrich

[naxo]

Hi Ulrich I saw the helpfile for ams and I located several ams functions in it that it could achieve the making of a script explorer similar with the app you linked me, but I have the doubt if I create a doalog.filebrowse searching for *.autoplay files once is it loaded how can I get the tree hierarchy included in the selected project, I mean how do you read that file for events, actions and son on?

[Ulrich]

This involves a lot of coding, and research. You need to analyze - and understand - the XML file of the project. There is no documentation, because this isn't something that should be done by the end user of AutoPlay Media Studio. Also, it is possible that a newer release of AutoPlay Media Studio changes the structure of the project file, and that the program needs to be adjusted to reflect these changes. Well, it already took me a few hours to get here:

The image above shows what is already working:

• extraction of the global function and project event scripts;
• list of all pages in the project (this sample has 76 pages);
• list of all object on each page (21 types of objects, each with a different icon in the tree);
• list of all event scripts of each object;
• the display of the code of any of these scripts in the right hand window;
• possibility to search of a certain string, which will be highlighted - and the script icon will feature a green check mark if the string can be found in the script.

What is not working yet:

• DialogEx are (yet) not listed;
• editing the scripts (via Replace function, or external text editor);
• the save / export function for all scripts to hard drive.

How do you image this script saving procedure should work? Saving all scripts - from all pages, all objects, and all events would create a lot of script files for each project. Not only could the naming of these files be a problem, but I am not seeing yet how this would be useful in real life. Please explain a little better what exactly you need.

Ulrich

[naxo]

Hi Ulrich, I see the hardeness coding a application like this I tried to make same thing like you did but I couldn't get the xml path to the dialogs the normal path and head tag for pages is <page> then I search for events at event/name but for dialogs is something confusing when looping with tables, instead pages is sugdialogs then the path goes to pagedialog/page...

Maybe could be this the problem? Is reusing the page tag again, there's no way to differenciate which windows are pages and which are dialogs. Maybe the xml formatting for the ams projects is wrong (Im not xml coder, so Im not really sure what the problem is...)

As for whether exporting or editing project's scripts, I am used to save (with lua files) a plain text's code with not formatting as a backup if a hdd disk failure ocurrs (which it was my case) I lost several projects with a lot of number of lines on it, so they could be printed to reuse, restore or study codes I did in the past and scan them with software to recognizes their fonts to save in txt files. Another way was backing the projects up but that did fell reliable for me cos it could be lost if failure occurs. I think it's a way of thinking (for me), for me I see easy working in this way. Another reason is to export all project in a files or files to print in A3 sheets to read and work the code because I have view problems with my tired eyes so I prefer not to spend many hours at screen only when its required.

I see you spent many hours making a sample to get a idea of the issues you detected, I did not pretend you make to work your code, anyway I see that huge effort with the suf script explorer so I decided to make some donation to you (early two days past this weekend) for your hard work. Maybe in some near future for AMS you could achieve this goal (with dialogs).