Hack Manual Generator

[akanevsky]

Common courtesy to give people all the info before you get them excited though

Hmm.. Maybe. But if do so, I will not get a clean feedback that was not marked by "I gotta pay for this" emotions

No problem I should warn you though, most people will hack that out, so you should either Zend or IonCube some of the core functions of the hack along with the call home function. Granted, you will sell less because either will require either Zend installed or Safe Mode disabled, but at least no-one will be using the script without you knowing it

I know. That's why I am not going to do it

Yet that didn't stop me from releasing the RPG for free, and keep doing so. I have spent close to a full year on the RPG by now. Granted, I haven't spent 24/7 on it, but still a fair amount of my time.

You probably don't know it, but you are talking to a perfectionist.

Nope, I did not know it. Good. Me too. I was actually speaking of an average coder, who does not have a lot of time to waste If I was like that, I would be making html manuals by hand. However, IMO, it takes too much time - more than it would take to write the hack itself..

[Revan]

Originally Posted by Dark Visor

Then what made you release it for free?

The fact that there's already 2 paid RPGs out there, neither of which IMO is worth the price tag they have.

Originally Posted by Dark Visor

Hmm.. Maybe. But if do so, I will not get a clean feedback that was not marked by "I gotta pay for this" emotions

True, but you would save having your stuff being called anal when you do reveal it

Originally Posted by Dark Visor

Nope, I did not know it. Good. Me too. I was actually speaking of an average coder, who does not have a lot of time to waste If I was like that, I would be making html manuals by hand. However, IMO, it takes too much time - more than it would take to write the hack itself..

Making templates ain't that hard, really Here, I'll show you an example of a template I have:

// ##################### DEFINE IMPORTANT CONSTANTS ##########################
$script_version = ;


// ########################################################################
// ######################### START MAIN SCRIPT ############################
// ########################################################################

if ($current_version < $script_version)
{
	if ($DO_UPGRADE_SETTINGS === true)
	{
	}
	if ($DO_UPGRADE_TEMPLATES === true)
	{
	}
	if ($DO_UPGRADE_PHRASES === true)
	{
		print_description_row('Skipped Phrasegroup: <b><i>' . HACK_NAME . '</i></b>');
	}	
	if ($DO_UPGRADE_QUERIES === true)
	{
		print_description_row('<center>Updating tables......</center>');	
		print_description_row('<center>All tables updated OK.</center>');
	}
	if ($DO_UPGRADE_DONE === true)
	{
		$vbulletin->db->query_write("
			UPDATE `" . TABLE_PREFIX . "setting` SET
				value = '" . intval($script_version) . "',
				defaultvalue = '" . intval($script_version) . "'
			WHERE varname = '" . addslashes('rpg_versionnumber') . "'
		");
		print_description_row('Updated Setting: <b><i>Version Number</i></b>');
	}
}

(Header/footer comments omitted).
This is a template upgrade file for my RPG. Whenever I make a new version number, I simply add the 4 digit version number to the first var, then place my queries whever they are supposed to be.
The same can be done with HTML manual templates. I can have one snippet of code for each possible part of the installer, be it adding templates etc, then simply copypaste them x times according to how many steps I have, and delete the ambiguous stuff.
Unless you used ghey nesting of tables, this is hassle-free
I do the same for my phrases XML file. I make "blank" phrases, and simply fill out varname/text, then cut and paste it under the correct section
Takes very little time, and is very much free XD

PS: I dloaded your manual, and I didn't like the colour scheme much, sorry
I suggest you have settings a-la vBOptions where you allow users to define their own hex code for stuff like bgcolor, table head and table cat classes, etc. This can be either a global vboption stored set, or per-manual definition.
This way, not all manuals are too "default"

[akanevsky]

Unless you used ghey nesting of tables, this is hassle-free

Source is not encoded... Duh.
What you showed me is PHP script, not a HTML template...

PS: I dloaded your manual, and I didn't like the colour scheme much, sorry

It has a CSS file which can be edited. So are the templates which are stored separately from the script.

[Revan]

Originally Posted by Dark Visor

Source is not encoded... Duh.
What you showed me is PHP script, not a HTML template....

Hence the part of my post you quoted: The same tactic can be applied to HTML manuals, unless you used some tricky nested tables that would make copy/pasting difficult.

[akanevsky]

Oh, I see.