Punctuation in scripting (ini files)
Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 8:24 pm
I just thought I would share a couple little FYIs for players who are new to using scripting programs like MQ2/E3 and are not familiar with some of the small yet annoying aspects of them.
Using the Grave Accent: [ ` ] this is ascii character 39...to older people like me who learned cursive writing in school this looks like an apostrophe. On English keyboards, it sits next to the 1 key, under the tilde [ ~ ]. I recently had an annoying time trying to type this in a notepad file that was to be an ini. Every time I tried, my EQ would step in and yank the active window status away from Notepad and have one of my toons Target Nearest NPC...cause thats what I have that key mapped for. Ugh. The only two ways around this (that I know of) is to either temporarily reassign that function in Alt-0 Keys, or log off all your toons (and shutdown MQ2 if running). I assume that this would happen for ANY key that was assigned to that function, and that that function is not the only one that could be a problem while you have a toon loaded. Btw, the item I was entering was necro robe Drak`Tzu's Bone Lined Robe.
Comma: while trying to enter item Vulthrix, the Warden's Whip, MQ2 would say it could not find item Vulthrix. It appears that MQ2 thought the comma was denoting the end of the name. To get around this, I enclosed the item name in double quotes "Vulthrix, the Warden's Whip".
Apostrophe: [ ' ] this is ascii character 96, next to the ENTER key. My only problem here is that, years ago, some items in THF would use the above mentioned Grave Accent as an apostrophe and this was hard to catch because it can be difficult to visually see the difference depending on your EQ window size and your monitor resolution. But I think Lillu fixed all those inconsistencies. I'd also like to point out that, in case anyone wondered, that "yes, on the English ascii keyboard, the original ascii developers decided to make the open single quote, closed single quote and the apostrophe all the same keyboard character". Which means the following sentence "Alice's son says 'I'm 6'0'' tall.'" is punctually ascii correct. 8-\
Using the Grave Accent: [ ` ] this is ascii character 39...to older people like me who learned cursive writing in school this looks like an apostrophe. On English keyboards, it sits next to the 1 key, under the tilde [ ~ ]. I recently had an annoying time trying to type this in a notepad file that was to be an ini. Every time I tried, my EQ would step in and yank the active window status away from Notepad and have one of my toons Target Nearest NPC...cause thats what I have that key mapped for. Ugh. The only two ways around this (that I know of) is to either temporarily reassign that function in Alt-0 Keys, or log off all your toons (and shutdown MQ2 if running). I assume that this would happen for ANY key that was assigned to that function, and that that function is not the only one that could be a problem while you have a toon loaded. Btw, the item I was entering was necro robe Drak`Tzu's Bone Lined Robe.
Comma: while trying to enter item Vulthrix, the Warden's Whip, MQ2 would say it could not find item Vulthrix. It appears that MQ2 thought the comma was denoting the end of the name. To get around this, I enclosed the item name in double quotes "Vulthrix, the Warden's Whip".
Apostrophe: [ ' ] this is ascii character 96, next to the ENTER key. My only problem here is that, years ago, some items in THF would use the above mentioned Grave Accent as an apostrophe and this was hard to catch because it can be difficult to visually see the difference depending on your EQ window size and your monitor resolution. But I think Lillu fixed all those inconsistencies. I'd also like to point out that, in case anyone wondered, that "yes, on the English ascii keyboard, the original ascii developers decided to make the open single quote, closed single quote and the apostrophe all the same keyboard character". Which means the following sentence "Alice's son says 'I'm 6'0'' tall.'" is punctually ascii correct. 8-\