Bay 12 Games Forum

A first step to doing this would be so DF would allow the parsing of `.df` or `.dfraw` files (as if they where `.txt`).
This does not harm anyone and allows people to use the new extension if they would like to.

Although, with the steam release, and the bundling of a mod in a zip, this would be the ideal time for a change like this.
Because the mod files are not really 'txt' files anyway. They are a special format that follows certain rules. (what plain text files do not have)
Every type of file that even has some (limited) formatting to it would use a different extension. Like: `.md` for Markdown, `.log` for structured log files, `.rtf` for Rich text format, `.py` for python code (similar for every other programming language), `.xml`, `.json` (these are just structures in files and are so similar to df raw files in there structure), ...

There are also a lot of other benefits for having a different extension then `txt`. You might want to open normal text files (on your pc) with notepad.
But you want to edit dwarf fortress mod files using an other editor (Vim, VSCode, Atom, Notepad++, ....).
People can also create stand alone application that open `.df` files. (think for things like "Raw Explorer", "DF Diagnosipack", ...)

I think there are almost no downsides to this change.

• Old mods don't work after steam release for most part anyway (because of restructuring and graphics changes). So need to be updated anyway.
• If people want to edit mod files they can still just open them and you could even include a `README` file with some basic info and links to wiki, because they will need that anyways.
• Changing they extension would be a small change, updating the content of the file would be a bigger change.

In short I think adding support (or replacing `.txt`) for `.df`or `dfraw` would be a very good thing. Especially for the modding community in DF.
It is a change, but would allow so much more.

I'm happy to announce that after working on this project for quite a while I'm finally here to release it.

I uploaded my code for generating DF worlds on Linux (and maybe Mac OSX).
I posted it on GitLab as I have some other projects in the works that this can live under.

https://gitlab.com/df_storyteller/df-worldgen

I put a lot of documentation/comments in the code so you should be able to see how it works.
Feel free to ask questions and suggest changes to get it working on your end.
The lua script should work without any problem. (maybe the detecting if it is ready is a bit harder.)

The basics come down to:
# Generate world
./dfhack "df -gen $WORLDID RANDOM \"$SIZE $WORLD_TYPE\""

# Open DFHack + load legends
./dfhack +load-legends-mode region$WORLDID

# Export legends
./dfhack-run exportlegends all

# Close DFHack
./dfhack-run die


That'll be quite nice. Seriously, thanks for your interest, and helping to improve it like this!

Thanks, and you are welcome! Getting some feedback and interaction when you are creating something is ways nice!
And my other project I'm working on uses the legends to do some nice things
It would be nice to have this script to create some worlds and test my app out on windows.

Keep up the good work! Would like to see how you incorporate the display of world info!

I had been working on this yesterday. (although for linux, but same rules apply).
I created a new lua script that allows you to load the legend for a particular region and you can use that from the command line like this:
  echo "Generating World: $WORLDID"
  ./dfhack "df -gen $WORLDID RANDOM \"POCKET ISLAND\""
  echo "Exporting legends"
  ./dfhack +load-legends-mode region$WORLDID
`load-legends-mode` is the name of the script. (it is not yet in DFHack)
It will use the select menu support from DFHack to move around the interface.
Because of loadscreen timing there was not an easy way to set a trigger for when it is done loading. But figured something out, a bit of a dirty hack but it works
So I had to add the dfhack.run_command("exportlegends all") to the file once that is done loading.
I might be able to set this in a second script.

The only problem I found now is that part of the `exportlegends` script uses `script.start(..)` This spawns a new process to export the detailed maps.
And the main application does not know when this is finished. Because I have to kill/exit df after it is done.

I have not found any 'join()' command that lets the main process wait for the script to finish. Maybe someone else knows this?
If I can get the main process to wait this then I got all these steps working.

I'll put the code out there once I got that part working. Then you can use the same lua scripts in the windows commands.

I just found that if you are using dfhack you can also use it to do some extra things.
This way you can create a world, use the exportlegends
to create all the legend files and do even more.
This might be interesting to take a look at.

More info here: https://docs.dfhack.org/en/stable/docs/Core.html

That git repo looks good!
And the MIT License is a very good choose.

It'll be my first post there, so forgive me if I did it wrong.

We are all here to learn And you did it very well!

Already some updates

If you want to go to next level , maybe add a 'README.md' to the repo with a small description and an example of how you might run the script/example output of the script.

A week ago I made a small proof of concept to see if Rust can be used to create a DFHack plugin.
And the short answer is yes, maybe...
You can check it out here: https://github.com/ralpha/DFHack_Rust_plugin
I don't have plans right now to use it, but it is here for the taking if someone want to use it.

Rust has support for C++ binding. It took me some doing to get cmake to handle the build process.
It is not the best implementation and DF values might not be the easiest to export to Rust.
But I'm not so familiar with DFHack and its plugin build system.
If someone could help with the build system that would be cool!
So Rust might not be the right tool to use, but you can if you want.

I'm currently working on another new standalone application (it is a nice tool for legends ) that is written is Rust ❤️.
That should be out in a month I hope. (most of it is working already)