Arma Dialog Creator - A WYSIWYG Approach to Dialog Creation

[K-Town 128]

Version 1.0.7 (Released October 25, 2018)

 

 

Index

1. About

2. Feature Spotlight

3. Media

4. Download

5. Control Support

6. Wiki

7. Source Code and Bug Reporting

8. Donate

9. Discord

10. Celebrate

 

1. About

Arma Dialog Creator is a fresh take on making dialogs for Arma 3. Instead of editing header files, you are directly manipulating the dialog.

Instead of reloading Arma 3 over and over again for hours trying to get that perfect alignment, load up the Preview mode and edit at the same time.

This project is open-source and licensed with MIT license.

 

2. Feature Spotlight

Below are some features that make ADC great. More detail is available in the wiki.

 

Macros

In ADC, you can assign properties to Macros, which are passed by reference. This means that when you assign a property's value to a Macro, any changes to a Macro's value will also then be forwarded to the property's value.

 

Mini SQF Evaluator

Built into ADC is a standalone small SQF evaluator. You don't need Arma 3 running to use it, there's no shady "hacking" involved, and it's integrated with ADC's header PreProcessor, meaning you can import header files that have SQF inside of them.

Also, because the developer got carried away, there is also a Mini SQF Evaluator Popup so you can evaluate multiple expressions. Not sure if the popup is actually useful though. :)

 

"How does it work?"

• It uses ANTLR and lots of Java code to evaluate the SQF. All of the evaluating is done with ASTs (Abstract Syntax Trees) built by ANTLR and evaluated in Java.

"How much SQF is supported?"

• Very, very, very, very little. Probably less than 0.1% of all SQF commands are supported. If you wish to see a full list, you may visit this link.

Spoiler

 

String Table Support

A String Table editor is built in with ADC. Besides just being able to edit keys and values, you can pass them around as Macros throughout the program so that when the String Table changes, so does your dialog.

You can also change the language in ADC to check if different localizations will go out of bounds of a control (this is shown in the trailer above).

 

Learn more about the String Table editor here.

Spoiler

 

3. Media

• Here is a trailer for Arma Dialog Creator. It's a really short, but dense, video showing many of the implemented features. You can watch the video here (same video as above).
• Here is a longer, slower paced video that shows ADC's features pretty well. The video was made in November 2016, so a lot has changed. Here is the doobly doo.

 

4. Control Support

Not every control is supported, unfortunately. You may view the how much is supported here. In the future, I hope to support more controls and preferably have less bugs. :)

 

5. Download

You may download Arma Dialog Creator here.

 

6. Wiki

Want to read lots of text? The wiki may be for you. You can find it here.

 

7. Source Code and Bug Reporting

You may find the source code at the GitHub page. You can also report bugs at the repo's issues page (please report them there).

• Source Code
• Issues Page

 

8. Donate

If you wish to donate to me personally, you may do so here. Please only donate if you have the money because I won't give refunds.

 

9. Discord

I have created a Discord server for Arma Dialog Creator and Arma IntelliJ Plugin. Here is the invite (remove the spaces in the link - they are to prevent bots): https://discord.gg/K d u 8 c q e

 

10. Celebrate

Arma Dialog Creator has been out for more than a year now (time has flown by holy cow). And I'm still screaming.

 

[Guest]

It might be I just need more coffee, but where is the downloadlink? Point 4 is missing as far as I can see.

[K-Town 128]

3 hours ago, foxhound said:

It might be I just need more coffee, but where is the downloadlink? Point 4 is missing as far as I can see.

Oh shoot. lol. Download link added.

[Guest]

An Armaholic mirror is now available:


Arma Dialog Creator v1.0.0

[kerozen 187]

holy crap! amazing! 

[A3_Stickie 12]

This is the next best thing since sliced bread.

 

Seriously though, I thank you, sir.

[djotacon 190]

The dialog creation in Arma is one of the most horrible undeveloped things that this engine never has.

 

I refuse - until today - back to the RM-COBOL days for free to create a single dialog.

 

Sadly I believe that if this tool dont have a proper support until the unfinished state of development of the game will be broken in the next update.

 

But this tool - Arma Dialog Creator - is a great effort and I'm pleased with it.

[HazJ 1289]

Very nice release! LOL @ "Salty Testimonials" haha! :D

[.kju 3244]

AWESOME 

 

Edit: Java is always a bit tricky to the right one.

Would be useful to link the right package/download page for windows at least (and use the exact same wording oracle uses on their pages).

[K-Town 128]

It appears there was very trivial bugs that surprisingly didn't get caught. My bad. The newest version is available that fixes errors when creating macros and editing display properties.

Thanks for ya'll support. 

 

[Guest]

An Armaholic mirror is now available:


Arma Dialog Creator v1.0.1

[djotacon 190]

On 15/8/2017 at 8:51 PM, HazJ said:

 LOL @ "Salty Testimonials" haha! :D

 

Waste ten hours to make a horrible form with two colors or spend one hour to making a good looking form with a proper paa background?

 

A very diffcult questing to answer.

 

I dont like spend my time in a "salty" nonsense sorry.

[Matthijs 40]

This is awesome, I love it! Great work!

 

However, I can only run it by doubleclicking the adc.jar file, after downloading the adc_installation.zip

The .EXE files are useless for me. I am running Java Version 8 Update 144 on Windows:

• The installer fails to run,
  stating "This application requires Java Runtime Environment 1.8.0_51", redirecting me to the download page of Java Version 8 Update 144 
• The executable from adc_installation.zip fails to run,
  stating "This application requires Java Runtime Environment 1.8.0_51", redirecting me to the download page of Java Version 8 Update 144

 

 

 

[K-Town 128]

11 hours ago, Matthijs said:

This is awesome, I love it! Great work!

 

However, I can only run it by doubleclicking the adc.jar file, after downloading the adc_installation.zip

The .EXE files are useless for me. I am running Java Version 8 Update 144 on Windows:

• The installer fails to run,
  stating "This application requires Java Runtime Environment 1.8.0_51", redirecting me to the download page of Java Version 8 Update 144 
• The executable from adc_installation.zip fails to run,
  stating "This application requires Java Runtime Environment 1.8.0_51", redirecting me to the download page of Java Version 8 Update 144

 

 

 

The .exe files are wrappers that check for compatibility and minimum Java versions. Executing the .jar's doesn't check for compatibility, which in theory can create problems. Java 8 is an absolute must for ADC as I'm using features only available in Java 8 and newer. I would just uninstall your current Java and install the newest version that is on the Oracle page.

[Matthijs 40]

The .exe files are wrappers that check for compatibility and minimum Java versions. Executing the .jar's doesn't check for compatibility, which in theory can create problems. Java 8 is an absolute must for ADC as I'm using features only available in Java 8 and newer. I would just uninstall your current Java and install the newest version that is on the Oracle page.

I wrote: "... I am running Java Version 8 Update 144 on Windows ..."
This is the latest Java version AFAIK.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-T580 met Tapatalk

[K-Town 128]

6 hours ago, Matthijs said:

I wrote: "... I am running Java Version 8 Update 144 on Windows ..."
This is the latest Java version AFAIK.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-T580 met Tapatalk
 

I just looked into the library I'm using that creates the .exe wrapper. Apparently this is a bug on their end and they fixed it like 4 months ago. I'll have to update my build system to acquire that fix for the next release. Thanks for letting me know.

[A3_Stickie 12]

@matthijs What resolved this for me was this link.

After the fix, open up cmd and type java -version as seen in this screenshot.

 

 

[soolie 189]

Great job! Such a welcome addition to the available tools. I've never even bothered with the ingame ui editor and have always done mine with just a calculator and maybe a rough draft in ms paint.

 

Would love to see more controls added. Specifically rscTree, and active text. Also, I may have missed it(only messed around with it for a few mins) but I noticed when exporting that the loc and size vars (x,y,h,w) are only integers and don't include safezone, pixelGrid, or gui_grid (they take into account resolution and interface size). The ability to pick whichever you want when creating would be amazing. 

Thanks!

 

[K-Town 128]

39 minutes ago, soolie said:

Great job! Such a welcome addition to the available tools. I've never even bothered with the ingame ui editor and have always done mine with just a calculator and maybe a rough draft in ms paint.

 

Would love to see more controls added. Specifically rscTree, and active text. Also, I may have missed it(only messed around with it for a few mins) but I noticed when exporting that the loc and size vars (x,y,h,w) are only integers and don't include safezone, pixelGrid, or gui_grid (they take into account resolution and interface size). The ability to pick whichever you want when creating would be amazing. 

Thanks!

 

You can edit and export in safeZone. pixelGrid and gui_grid aren't supported though.

[Muecke 114]

I need to wait for next release cause of the java thing.

Cant wait to try this...

great idea keep it up

[K-Town 128]

13 hours ago, Muecke said:

I need to wait for next release cause of the java thing.

Cant wait to try this...

great idea keep it up

You can just double click adc.jar. I suspect your issue is having the newest version of Java and the exe complaining.

[Muecke 114]

7 hours ago, K-Town said:

You can just double click adc.jar. I suspect your issue is having the newest version of Java and the exe complaining.

Yes just saw this, right works. My interest is to rework old dialogs and make them more funky.

Do you plan to make it able to load in hpp files in future ?

 

 

[K-Town 128]

Version 1.0.2 has been released. This release includes the bug fix for Java compatibility problems where the most recent Java version was mistaken for being too old.

• Added "Check for Update" functionality
• Fixed https://github.com/kayler-renslow/arma-dialog-creator/issues/5 (apparent infinite loop when selecting some custom control classes)
• Fixed https://github.com/kayler-renslow/arma-dialog-creator/issues/6 (include "" //comment was throwing errors)
• Fixed https://github.com/kayler-renslow/arma-dialog-creator/issues/7 (ADC's Language resource wasn't being found)
• Fixed https://github.com/kayler-renslow/arma-dialog-creator/issues/8 (Launching ADC with a JVM that doesn't have an English locale was breaking EVERYTHING :O )
• Fixed https://github.com/kayler-renslow/arma-dialog-creator/issues/9 (Java compatibility issue with .exe)

I'm feeling like taking a week break from anything development related to collect some thoughts and work on some Machinima projects. After that, I'll be focusing on the Arma Intellij Plugin. As usual, if a catastrophic bug is found during my hiatus, I'll take a hiatus from my hiatus to fix it. :)

-------

3 hours ago, Muecke said:

Yes just saw this, right works. My interest is to rework old dialogs and make them more funky.

Do you plan to make it able to load in hpp files in future ?

 

 

I would like to support Mods that have dialogs, if that's what you're asking. I'm expecting to have to change very little code, but I need to learn the modding framework before I can dive into that. Any tips would be appreciated. :)

[Guest]

The Armaholic mirror has been updated with the new version:


Arma Dialog Creator v1.0.2

[Andrew_S90 92]

Just stumbled across this today, awesome work !