English SDK documentation

[K4thos]

Hi,
I'm considering using FOnline for my project. After checking directories in latest SDK I didn't find English documentation that would explain all the basic things about this engine. There are BuildEn.cmd and BuildEnCHM.cmd files in 'Documentation/Source' directory that can generate HTML files in English (not CHM file due to errors during generation) but the output is incomplete compared to Russian version (there is untranslated stuff in English files and some things are left without any explanation even though FOnlineRu.chm has additional text there). Any chance for updating English documentation for international modders to match the Russian one content wise? (I'm aware that full documentation is not available yet)

[devis]

Functions don't behave as expected, parameters use magic numbers, naming is wrong and the source is closed. The real English documentation only exists in the minds of the few fodevs. Are you sure you want to be here?

[cthulchu]

devis, you're overcomplicating it a bit. Not all of the methods in the documentation work as one would expect, but the vast majority work exactly how it's documented and the best thing about the doc is that it's stuck near the 2238. Something like rev 412. So no vital documentation updates on newer releases since what like early 2014 pbbly.

Google translate should make the documentation a bit better.

[kompreSor]

learn russian, blyat

[K4thos]

Are you sure you want to be here?

That depends on what this engine really has to offer when it comes to Follout like games. First intuition was to check the documentation...

Google translate should make the documentation a bit better.

If this is the only way to get up to date documentation without Cyrillic than please upload docs to some server officially. For test I've converted CHM to HTML and uploaded it on my Github in order to translate it on the fly to English with Google Translate (via rawgit.com HTML preview) but google can't handle it. I don't have access to other servers in order to host it normally.

btw. I find it amusing that the documentation is available only in Russian and yet this forum asks me each time questions like "Drug that increases your Strength in Fallout 2" before I can post. How would I know the name of this drug - English is not my first language and I never played Fallout 2 in English.

edit: I assumed that this forum was created by FOnline author, and was hoping for reply from Cvet regarding his plans to update the documentation. Since he is not participating in international community discussions (can't find any of his posts written in English) the chance for proper documentation is slim. I think using FOnline engine for my project is not a good idea. Thanks for all the answers.

[Slowhand]

Make sure you keep logged in and get rid of captcha.

[Wipe]

Best and only documentation is SDK commit log, period.

FOnline documentation always has been outdated, even russian one, so you can imagine how behind english one is What you'll get from BuildEn* are basics really; good for start but sooner or later you'll reach stage "there's no way X is not implemented" - that's when you should switch to commit log. I've been there, started with english .chm, then translating russian one, and log as last step.

As cthulchu mentioned, Google Translate is your only sane option (beside fellow russian-knowing dev, ofc), and let me tell you, it improved a lot when it comes to translating code-related stuff. There is still some gibberish around -checked random commits few months back- but it's just few words/sentences overall, you don't have to decipher half of entry with two other devs

[cthulchu]

If people are interested, they could start translating the russian documentation ( http://docs.fonline.ru/ ) first with google translate, adding their comments somewhere in Google docs (cuz it's editing and "version control" capabilities are amazing). The russian doc is, basically, a manual to 2238's codebase. Helped me a lot. I found solutions I wasn't expecting initially.

Meanwhile, we could have a thread here where the translators could ask questions about google translate mistranslations and those who know russian (like me or compressor, I guess) could help with particular difficulties. In some cases when something just "doesn't compile" although it should and we can't debug it properly, we could go ask cvet's devs and then translate the solutions so that our doc would be even more noob-friendly.

But it's up to you. I'm not gonna commit too much time to this just cuz I don't have it.

[devis]

Can someone reverse engineer and deliver us the source code to the executable while we're at it preferably with english comments too?

But it's up to you. I'm not gonna commit too much time to this just cuz I don't have it. 

[Koniko]

Can someone reverse engineer and deliver us the source code to the executable while we're at it preferably with english comments too?

But it's up to you. I'm not gonna commit too much time to this just cuz I don't have it.

Why don't you ask Cvet why is nobody doing a full reverse engineered copy of his work. Oh yeah. License. Rigggghttt.

But to be honest there are already few reverse engined sources but they're never complete and only revealed some parts of game aspects.

[cthulchu]

he was making fun of me. Dude, I don't rly need the doc cuz I have it. I believe it would be nice if someone who needs it would work on it and I offered my help with it.

[K4thos]

If people are interested, they could start translating the russian documentation ( http://docs.fonline.ru/ ) first with google translate, adding their comments somewhere in Google docs (cuz it's editing and "version control" capabilities are amazing). The russian doc is, basically, a manual to 2238's codebase. Helped me a lot. I found solutions I wasn't expecting initially.

So there is at least online version of the docs. Thanks for the link.

What scares me off is this part:
"Актуальность документации: ревизия №396 SDK." which translates to "Relevance of the documentation: revision number 396 SDK.". Is this really the case? We are at SDK revision 791, there's no way I will opt out from few years of engine improvements, if I'm going to start a new project.

Best and only documentation is SDK commit log, period.

FOnline documentation always has been outdated, even russian one, so you can imagine how behind english one is What you'll get from BuildEn* are basics really; good for start but sooner or later you'll reach stage "there's no way X is not implemented" - that's when you should switch to commit log. I've been there, started with english .chm, then translating russian one, and log as last step.

As cthulchu mentioned, Google Translate is your only sane option (beside fellow russian-knowing dev, ofc), and let me tell you, it improved a lot when it comes to translating code-related stuff. There is still some gibberish around -checked random commits few months back- but it's just few words/sentences overall, you don't have to decipher half of entry with two other devs

sounds like a madness to me o,O There's not even a demo that could be used as a base to understand the SDK (TLA seems to be stacked on REV 412 codebase). Based on the info in this topic it looks like the engine has been created with TLA and now Last Frontier in mind, not as something for community projects.

[devis]

[cthulchu]

devis, stop offtoping please.

K4thos, 2238 stopped around 2013. it uses around 396th rev. The last stable rev is 412, I think. So the documentation is all about the 2238 engine everyone seems to be using.

Maybe except a few russians, who use cvet's help in developing pretty sad ptw projects mainly for poor russians.

[Ghosthack]

Based on the info in this topic it looks like the engine has been created with TLA and now Last Frontier in mind, not as something for community projects.

This is correct. While 2238 was still in development (2009-2013) we had some limited input on Cvet's development for things that we needed/wished but we pretty much had to follow along with all the engine changes as they came, resulting in a ton of work merging changes. And since we had a lot of different ideas from TLA, that's why the code bases diverged so much from each other.

As for docs in general, yes, they were never great, neither 2238 docs or FOnline SDK docs. Looking at the code and trying stuff have always been the way forward. Making good docs and keeping them up to date is a lot of work and probably not the most fun thing you can do with a non-profit hobby project.