[Dark Hunter]

Just so everyone knows: I'm using the latest CVS build of FRED2.

OK then #1: Why is it creating .bak files? I know these have a use, but they are annoying the hell out of me, since whenever I save, it creates one, then, when I try to play the mission to test the changes, it loads the BAK data rather than the new data. End result being that I must delete any and all .bak files to test any changes i make to my missions. 

#2: When selecting the wav file that it plays in a message, how do you get it to play something out of a VP file? For some reason it played the Shivan Comm node noise, but not the Vasudanmess1.wav from my own VP. And if I say Browse, then it WONT LOOK IN THE VP FILES!!!! How are you supposed to get sounds out of them then? It seems too much trouble to put every sound you're using outside the VP file, and kinda defeats the purpose of having the file in the first place.


I lied: three questions.
#3: While I'm at it, why in Open FRED's do you have to manually select whatever SEXP you wish to use? Why does it not count it if you just type in the SEXP?

[Shadow0000]

Some Answers, to:

1 - Welcome to the FRED2 world, this annoying....I know. *.BAK Files are just BAKup files, so if your mission gets broken for an unknown reason that you don't know how to fix or what broke it, you can just rename that to *.fs2 and have it to work again.

Anyways FRED2 should not by loading the BAK instead of the FS2, but if that's the case it must be a bug you should search in Mantis, and if it is not there report it...

2 - I am not too sure, but doesn't you need to have in the sounds.tbl or messages.tbl, like with hud.tbl for icon's reference I found it unnecesary, this has been changed for icons, but maybe sounds still need the entries....

3 - FRED2 is almost a code language, yes I usually gets the impression that it's very slow to select everything, if you are careful, then maybe you can use notepad or a editor program to write, and copy SEXPs faster. I usually don't use too much FRED2 for editing.......

It would be nice if we could just type the SEXP, more than traveling the menus

[karajorma]

OK then #1: Why is it creating .bak files? I know these have a use, but they are annoying the hell out of me, since whenever I save, it creates one, then, when I try to play the mission to test the changes, it loads the BAK data rather than the new data. End result being that I must delete any and all .bak files to test any changes i make to my missions. 

Are you absolutely certain that FS2 is loading the bak files? It absolutely shouldn't be doing that. Empty your folder of everything but an .fs2 file, edit it in an immediately obvious manner in FRED and then save it. Now try the mission and tell me what you've got. I can't count the number of times I've seen something similar because I was loading the wrong mission
 
If it really is loading the .bak then you can always simply save twice in FRED. The second save will overwrite the .bak with the most recent version of your mission.

#2: When selecting the wav file that it plays in a message, how do you get it to play something out of a VP file? For some reason it played the Shivan Comm node noise, but not the Vasudanmess1.wav from my own VP. And if I say Browse, then it WONT LOOK IN THE VP FILES!!!! How are you supposed to get sounds out of them then? It seems too much trouble to put every sound you're using outside the VP file, and kinda defeats the purpose of having the file in the first place.

FRED can't search through the VPs It never could. This is something that would be nice to have but I don't know when anyone will ever get around to doing it.

#3: While I'm at it, why in Open FRED's do you have to manually select whatever SEXP you wish to use? Why does it not count it if you just type in the SEXP?

Hmmmm. You used to be able to do this. Very odd. I just tested it and it is indeed broken. Personally I've always prefered to select as that prevents the possibility of typos so I didn't spot it. Have you any idea how long this bug has existed? Last time I think I typed in the name of a command was when using retail!

[Black Wolf]

Hmmmm. You used to be able to do this. Very odd. I just tested it and it is indeed broken. Personally I've always prefered to select as that prevents the possibility of typos so I didn't spot it. Have you any idea how long this bug has existed? Last time I think I typed in the name of a command was when using retail!

It's been like that for the vast majority of the SCP.

[Dark Hunter]

Are you absolutely certain that FS2 is loading the bak files? It absolutely shouldn't be doing that. Empty your folder of everything but an .fs2 file, edit it in an immediately obvious manner in FRED and then save it. Now try the mission and tell me what you've got. I can't count the number of times I've seen something similar because I was loading the wrong mission
 
If it really is loading the .bak then you can always simply save twice in FRED. The second save will overwrite the .bak with the most recent version of your mission.

I have and I did. it works like this:
Step 1: I have a mission, filename "E-m3", in which there is a problem: it is not playing part of a message I thought I had typed. I exit game and turn on FRED.

Step 2: I type in the remainder of the message, notice a ship is in the wrong position so I adjust it. I hit "Save". I minimize FRED.

Step 3: I run FS2, and nothing has changed in the mission whatsoever. The message is untyped, and the ship is in the wrong place. I exit game.

Step 4: I bring up main FS2 folder, look in data/missions and there is E-m3.fs2 along with a file right next to it called E-m3.bak. The .bak was not there before. I delete the BAK data and run FS2 again.

Step 5: The mission works now, the message is typed, and the ship is in the correct position.

So we see that it is in fact, doing something with the .bak files to avoid changes I make to the missions.


Also, if it can't look in VP files, then why when I build a mission off of Inferno's VP, can it play wav files in the VP? My VP is essentially Inferno's with a couple added ships, weapons, and a new stars.tbl. The sound data I copied directly from INF-Main (or the SCP Patch, if it was on there) and put in my own VP. Logically, nothing should have changed. Yet playing the same mission off of my own VP does not yield the wav file playback it did when using Inferno's.

[Dark Hunter]

Just bumping to make sure nobody forgot about this topic.

Anyway, my main question is: why does it play stuff out of Inferno's VP, while it doesn't out of Echoes (mine)?

[Sesquipedalian]

Since your problem revolves around typing a message and part of it not playing, I suspect that your message might contain a semicolon ( ; ) in its text.  If it does, that is the problem.  FS2 interprets semicolons to mean that the line of data is ended and everything after that is just a comment.

As for Inferno's VP versus yours, I expect that they used loose files while creating the missions, and then packed them into the VP file when they were done.  You'll just have to use loose files in your data folder until you are done creating the mission(s).  It may also work if you manually type in the filename of the wave file in your VP.  I'm not sure about that though.

[Dark Hunter]

I had quotes ("") but no semicolons. I changed it to this: ('') using apostrophes, and that seems to work.

[CP5670]

If you want to use quotes, there is a $quote tag that was added into FSO at some point. (although it's basically useless, as two apostrophes look exactly like a quote in the FS2 font)

[Goober5000]

If you want to use quotes, there is a $quote tag that was added into FSO at some point. (although it's basically useless, as two apostrophes look exactly like a quote in the FS2 font)

It's not useless; it's redundant.

Besides, taylor is working on getting additional fonts working.

[taylor]

So we see that it is in fact, doing something with the .bak files to avoid changes I make to the missions.

FS2 will never load a .bak file so that's not the issue.  Unless there is some issue with FRED saving or some caching issue then I don't know what the problem might be, but the game is deffinitely not loading the .bak files by mistake.