MCG Ship Builder's Toolkit in CC3+

Pseudonymz · December 2016

I've been getting a lot of use out of the Ship Builder's Toolkit from Mysaniti Cartographer's Guild ( http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/19770/Ship-Builders-Toolkit?it=1 ), but I'm having trouble using it in CC3+. (The toolkit is actually built for CC2, but works fine in CC3 as long as you sort out any conflicts with custom toolbar settings in fcw32.imn)

I've tried going through (my understanding of) the steps outlined in http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=6260 for converting annuals from CC3 to CC3+ (converting '#' to '@' in the toolbar file, running FFIX etc), but without success (the toolbar buttons don't show up properly, and most of the tools don't work).

So I was wondering whether someone else might already have converted this toolkit to CC3+, and could offer me some guidance? Or, if not, whether there's a comprehensive guide somewhere on porting third party add ons from CC2 to CC3+?

Thanks for any help you can give!

Monsen · December 2016

I don't have that particular toolkit, but in general, if you can get it to work in CC3, it should work for CC3+ as well (Unless it has custom dll's included)

Since it was written for CC2, there shouldn't be any raster artwork or fills, so running FFIX and such doesn't really do anything.

Toolbars works the exact same way in CC3+ as they dis in CC3 and CC2, with the exception that they live in the CC3+ data directory instead of the installation directory, and that everything that used to be placed in the installation directory should now go to the data directory. (Which is why you need to replace the #-references (installation directory) with @-references (data directory). Just make sure to not replace the starting # for the toolbars, that is just there for button positioning, and doesn't have anything to do with the #/@ references.

Pseudonymz · December 2016

Thanks, that was helpful.

And I think I have it working now. There were a couple of problems I'd overlooked:

1) I'd missed a number of files which contained # references which needed to be converted to @ ones (.scr files in Scripts and System \ Drawtools and .mnc files in System)

2) The custom menu icons for the toolkit don't appear unless I disable "Use large toolbar buttons" from the Select Screen Tools (hammer) dialog (which I think is enabled by default) and then restart CC3+.

So the full list of things I had to do to get the toolkit working is:

1) Inflate it to the CC3+ data directory (C:\ProFantasy\CC3Plus in my case) rather than the program directory.

2) Resolve any conflicts with custom toolbar settings in fcw32.imn (the default values supplied with the toolkit conflict with the Symbol Toolbar in CC3+).

3) Search all the files in the toolkit for # references and change them all to @ except for the # symbols at the start of lines in fcw32.imn (so I have e.g.
#500,@Bitmaps\Icons\SBTools.bmp:[All SB Drawing Tools]{|CMENU SYSTEM\SBRestore.mnc;}|DRAWTOOLSM;SB*; )

4) Turn off "Use large toolbar buttons" in "Select Screen Tools".

(I also made another couple of changes which seemed reasonable, but don't appear to be necessary:

1) Load the toolkit template file in CC3+, open the drawing properties, put TEXT* in the text sheet field and save and close the template (as suggested in this thread about converting annuals from CC3 to CC3+).

2) Change the toolkit directory hierarchy so it matches CC3+ (i.e. move "Documents" to "Documentation" and "Icons" to "Bitmaps\Icons", modifying fcw32.imn to match the new icon file locations)

Hopefully this will be of some use to anyone else trying to convert third party add ons from CC2 to CC3+

Monsen · December 2016

Great that you got it working. Resources aren't necessarily useless because they are old, so getting them working in the newest version is always a good thing.

And thanks for posting your steps, I am sure people in similar situations will find it helpful.

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MCG Ship Builder's Toolkit in CC3+

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