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Frogbot Editor Help File [version 1.8]

Contents

About The Frogbot Editor
Using The Frogbot Editor
The Main Screen
The Settings
The Menu System
The Name Editor
The Options
The frogbot.cfg Creator
Frogbot Edit Is Freeware
Contacting Me
Revision History

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About The Frogbot Editor

It is a Win95 program and needs Visual Basic 5.0 Run Time files to operate. The Run Time files are available from the QNM website at http://qnm.telefragged.com, with a handy install program if you are missing them, or if you experience the error "unexpected error". If FBEdit fails to load, I highly suggest downloading and installing the Run Time files first before contacting me.

Frogbot Editor was designed to make bot files for the Frogbot mod for Quake. Frogbot created by Robert Field, and is available at the Metropolis website at http://www.telefragged.com/metro.

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Using The Frogbot Editor

This does not require a degree to use. It allows you to make bot files. I was asked to program this so you can easily make "fun names" for the bots. It is very easy to use, and the GUI was designed to be as error free, and clutter free as possible.

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The Main Screen

This is the Main Screen. All Settings are displayed including the bots name in this easy to read GUI. This Main Screen  has several areas and are broken down into 3 areas.

The Menu System
The Name
The Settings

Here is a list of Hot Keys for the Main Screen. You may TAB between all of the settings and use the keyboard to set them. For explanations of the various Settings see the next section in this help file The Settings.

• [ALT+N]: Performs the same action of clicking the Name button.
• [ALT+S]: Performs the same action as clicking the Shirt button.
• [ALT+P]: Performs the same action as clicking the Pants button.
• [ALT+H]: Performs the same action as clicking the Teamshirt button.
• [ALT+A]: Performs the same action as clicking the TeamPants button.
• [ALT+K]: Performs the same action as clicking the Skill button.
• [ALT+I]: Performs the same action as clicking the Skin button.
• [ALT+Q]: Performs the same action as clicking the QWSkin button.

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The Settings

FBEdit handles all of the settings for the Frogbot up to and including Frogbot Version 0.11. The settings that are read and written to the bot file are:

name: The bots name is actually a string of impulse commands, but FBEdit allows you to edit just like QNM, displaying the name just like Quake, and allowing you to change the name with the Name Editor.

shirt, pants, teamshirt, teampants: The colors for all of these settings are impulse commands, but in FBEdit the color is displayed graphically, and the approximate color is displayed. Valid colors are listed below in the Color Chart.

skill: The skill value is between 0 and 200. 0 being the least amount of skill, 200 being the maximum, and 100 being the default and average skill setting.

skin: The skin value allows you to choose the skin for the bot. Valid values are between 1 and 254, and a player model is needed to utilize the skin variable.

qwskin: This allows you to type the name of the qwskin that you wish to use for playing the bot in QuakeWorld. Length of the name is between 1 and 9 characters long.

Color Chart for Shirt, Pants, TeamShirt, and TeamPants

Value Color

0 WHITE
1 BROWN
2 LIGHT BLUE
3 GREEN
4 RED
5 GOLD
6 ORANGE
7 LIGHT BROWN
8 PURPLE
9 LIGHT PURPLE
10 LIGHT GREY
11 AQUA
12 BRIGHT YELLOW
13 BRIGHT BLUE
14 ? RANDOM ?(see note below)

Note: Choosing Random will allow Frogbot to choose any of the valid colors 0 to 13.

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The Menu System

Each Menu option has a Hot Key associated with it. In the following breakdown of the Menu, the Hot Key is next to each option.

The Menu     

• File
  • New [CTRL+N]
    • Create a new bot. Will prompt you to save if you have made changes to the currently loaded bot.
  • Open [CTRL+O]
    • Open a previously saved bot file.
  • Save As [CTRL+S]
    • Saves the bot file. Give it a dos compatible names (no long file name).
  • Delete [CTRL+D]
    • Deletes the currently loaded bot
  • Exit [CTRL+X]
    • Quits the bugger!
• View
  • Loading Log [CTRL+L]
    • If Log File Writing is enabled this will allow you to see what FBEdit is doing. See Debugging Your Bots below for more info!
  • Refresh [F5]
    • Refreshes the bot loaded, and prompts you to save any changes or not.
  • Options [F12]
    • Shows the Options window for FBEDit.
• Create
  • frogbot.cfg [CTRL+F]
    • This scans the bot directory and makes all of the alias statements for every bot file you select from the list.
• Help
  • About [CTRL+A]
    • A few words about this program and its purpose.
  • Help File [F1]
    • Loads this file, with lots of words about the program and its purpose.

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The Name Editor

The Name Editor is accessible by clicking on the name on the Main Screen or by hitting the ALT-N key. All of the characters and symbols are valid for the bots name. Below is a screenshot of the Name Editor followed by a full description of the Hot Keys and Format options.

Also notice in the screenshot that their is a large character displayed. This character is what the mouse is over, and if the mouse is clicked it will place the character are the current cursor position. There is also a yellow box that surrounds the character the mouse is over. If the yellow box disappears it means the character the mouse is over is not available.

The Name Editor fully utilizes the keyboard using the following keys.

Hot Key: Description

CTRL - Holding the CTRL key and hitting any of the keys will cause the letter type to be displayed in the Gold text.
Arrow Keys - This will move the cursor back and forth in the name. The cursor is the Green box.
Delete - The Delete key will remove the current character the cursor is on.
BackSpace - This removes the character that is before the cursor.
Enter - Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next name.
Home - Moves the cursor to the beginning of the name.
End - Moves the cursor to the end of the name.
Escape - Quits the Name Editor and returns to the main screen.
CAPSLOCK - Toggles the CapsLock and causes all keys pressed to Capitalized.
INSERT - This toggles Insert and Overwrite mode. Inserting characters will insert a character at the cursors position, moving all remaining characters to the right.

The Name Editor Menu

• Format
  • Case
    • Lower Case
      • This converts all of the characters in the name to be converted to their lower case equivalent.
    • Upper Case
      • This converts all of the characters in the name to be converted to their upper case equivalent.
    • Switch Case
      • This converts all of the characters in the name to be converted to their lower case equivalent if the character is upper case, or upper case equivalent if the character is lower case.
  • Color
    • Color1
      • This converts all of the characters in the name to be converted to their color1 equivalent. Color1 characters are at the top of the character grid.
    • Color2
      • This converts all of the characters in the name to be converted to their color2 equivalent. Color2 characters are the characters at the bottom of the character grid.
    • Switch Color
      • This converts all of the characters in the name to be converted to their color1 equivalent if the character is color2, or color2 equivalent if the character is color1.

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The Options

Below are all of the available options that are currently available for FBEdit. And to the right is a description of each option. The options are stored in the INI file, fbedit.ini, which is written to the directory where FBEdit.exe is located.

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The frogbot.cfg Creator

The creation of the frogbot.cfg file has 3 steps. FBEdit has a built in Wizard to take you step by step through the steps. The steps are:

1. Selecting the directory to scan for bot files.
2. Selecting the location of the frogbot.cfg file to write.
3. Selecting the bots to include in the frogbot.cfg file.

The frogbot.cfg should be in the frogbot directory. Its purpose is to list all of the bots you wish to spawn in Quake by typing addbot. It is a list of aliases which spawn any of the bots in the cfg file randomly. For further explanation of the frogbot.cfg files purpose, please see the documentation that comes with the files for the Frogbot modification mod.

Below are screen shots of the wizard. Pretty self explanatory, so I don't need to give any details on how to use the wizard.

Step 1.

Step 2.

Step 3.

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The Loading Log

If the log file writing is enabled in the Options of FBEdit, the log file can be viewed internally by FBEdit. You can also view the file by loading in NotePad, or any text editor. Below is a example of the loading mechanism that FBEdit goes through.

Notice in the screenshot the Opening [] and Loaded [] comments. If Loaded [] is not present the bot file did not load properly, and there is a conflicting impulse assignment in the bot file.

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Frogbot Editor is Freeware

You can do whatever you want with this program, as long as I get credit for it:}
Total Time Programming this sucker: about 40 hours

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Contacting Me

QNM, Q2NM, MOTD Edit website:
http://qnm.telefragged.com
Email Me:
bspbuild@telefragged.com

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Revision History

• Version 1.8
  • August 4th, 1998
    1. Added file associations for bot files as an option! Double-click and FBEdit loads the bot file. All bot files will be little frog icons :} Need to make a better icon though, to small and blurry!
    2. Added Options window to set all options on the fly. Including MessageMode (mouse over hints in status bar), LogFile (writes Loading info to the fbedit.log file), and AssocBotFile (bot file association).
    3. Improved overall key board handling, including hot keys, tabbing between buttons, and setting focus on scrolls when enabling them.
    4. Added Case and Color formatting options to the Name Editor. Including Upper, Lower, SwitchCase, Color1, Color2, SwitchColor.
    5. Separated all windows and improved the overall code for potential bug killing.
    6. Added steps to the frogbot.cfg creation. It now prompts for the directory, then the location of the cfg file, then allows you to select the bots that are in the bot directory to be included in the cfg file.
    7. Placed name of the current bot file in the title bar, and added a * if it has changed since it was opened (dirty flag). No more guessing what file is loaded!
    8. Opens 1 bot file at a time. Much faster and less complicated for me!
    9. Added lots of ShortCut keys to the menus. I.E. CTRL & O is the same as File-Open.
• Version 1.7
  • July 20th, 1998
    1. Added QWSkin option.
    2. Added Scrolling color bars. No Separate window.
    3. Added Save As dialog box so you may save the frogbot.cfg where ever you wish to.
    4. Added Drive selector for the Drive-Folder selection of where the bots are.
    5. Added MessageMode for mouse over messages. Debugmode was used, but set to False last time :{
    6. Other internal work, should be bug free now!
• Version 1.6
  • June 18, 1998
    1. Removed drop down list of colors.
    2. Added separate window to select colors.
    3. Added LogFile to the INI file. This enables-disables FBEdit from writing a log file when loading.
    4. Added a window to view the Log file.
    5. Added status bar messages for the mouse as it travels over the window instead of using tool tips.
• Version 1.5
  • June 7, 1998
    1. Added allot of internal checking for valid values of bot file stuff.
    2. Fixed Skill-Skin error.
    3. Improved loading speed by eliminating the temp file creating. 20 times faster.
• Version 1.4
  • June 5, 1998
    1. Added the Bot List showing all bots in the Frogbot Directory.
    2. Added updating to the Bot List in Save As, and frogbot.Cfg creations.
    3. Increased the size of the characters for readability.
    4. Added other char that are available in the "fun name".
    5. Added Random the New Drop Down List for color selection.
    6. Lots of other changes internally.
• Version 1.3
  • May 25th, 1998
    1. Moved the Name Editor portion of Frogbot Edit to a seperate Window.
    2. Added Full keyboard support.
    3. Removed bogus characters from the character grid.
    4. Added Status Bars to see whether or not changes were made, and the keyboard status.
• Version 1.2
  • May 24th, 1998
    1. Added error checking for blank lines.
    2. Fixed spelling error.
• Version 1.1
  • May 23rd, 1998 (same day as Initial Release?)
    1. Added extensive features, Like Delete, Create frogbot.cfg, Bot Directory, Bot List Box.
    2. Removed Load from the menu. There all listed in the List Box! No need for it now. I hope.
    3. Added IsDirty flag and BotLoaded flag. Helps allot to know if you did anything with the program.
• Version 1.0
  • May 23rd, 1998
    1. Initial Release

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