[General] First step to mod triggers in WC3 Editor

[plumsy460]

Hello everyone!
I've recently joined the forum and I'm going to take my warcraft-editing to the next step.

I've had years of experience with the regular editor, creating triggers and such. But now I wanna start using jass. Or do I?

I'd like to know what I should approach first, because I noticed there's a lot of different jass mods as well as other mods not even called something with jass.

Please let me know how I approach this the best way, what should I download and tryout first? What differences should I be aware of compared to regular triggering? I appreciate anything worth to know

Also, I realize there might be a thread about this but I've had troubling finding my way in here :/

 

[GreeN!X]

I don't know jass myself but I think the best way to start is to create your own GUI triggers or download some and convert them to jass (This convertion could be found in the menus of the Trigger editor) and learn from the resulting code.

 

[jonhysone]

JASS = Just another scripting system/syntax

Well jass has mods : vJass , cJass , pJass ...

To start with jass , You should learn what Globals ,Natives , Constants , How actions are made , How loops are made , How events and conditions are made , Look at tutorials, But I probably have noticed most important things that you should search for .
YOU SHOULD KNOW ALSO Gui = JASS
Jass is better than GUI
JASS is more efficient than GUI
GUI is slow
Jass is fast

 

[Rheiko]

JASS = Just another scripting system/syntax

Well jass has mods : vJass , cJass , pJass ...

To start with jass , You should learn what Globals ,Natives , Constants , How actions are made , How loops are made , How events and conditions are made , Look at tutorials, But I probably have noticed most important things that you should search for .
YOU SHOULD KNOW ALSO Gui = JASS
Jass is better than GUI
JASS is more efficient than GUI
GUI is slow
Jass is fast

short, learn the syntax

 

[plumsy460]

Very well. Thanks a lot for the fast and informative replies
One last thing: Is there a specific download link you can recommend? Or is it okay to go with whatever jass program they've listed here on the Hiveworkshop?

 

[chobibo]

Look for mayackx's JNGP, that's the latest one.

 

[Malhorne]

JASS stands for Just Another Scripting System.

GUI is good to begin and to understand how work the warcraft coding style...
Then you can go on to JASS and then to vJASS (or an equivalent) if you like coding like this...

 

[T. D. W.]

1. JNGP is a must-have to start easily with JASS since some functions used in JASS are automatically suggested in the JNGP
2. to really have a great beginning at JASS you MUST first try your own GUI triggers, convert them to custom script and analyze each and every line that appear, by frequently doing this, you will get used to JASS easily
3. After training on convertings, you can upload your triggers at Triggers & Scripts so that people can help you to make your triggers better or even if you made a spell in JASS, upload it to the Spell Section you will surely get replies like :

You do this wrong

You should go back to GUI

if you were really a beginner, but don't worry, many people will enjoy helping you at HIVE

~~Inspired by my own experience

 

[WaterKnight]

YOU SHOULD KNOW ALSO Gui = JASS
Jass is better than GUI
JASS is more efficient than GUI
GUI is slow
Jass is fast

Yes, no need to learn jass, just know that is ultimately super duper superior to infantile GUI.[/sarcasm]
Using jass does not automatically mean you write efficient code.

Triggers you create in GUI are actually converted to jass when the map is compiled. The wc3 game only understands jass as map script. The normal editor does allow you to inject jass parts. That is, you can insert single lines via the Custom Script action (3rd from top) in GUI or convert a page >Edit >Convert to custom text.

You should still download the JNGP because the normal editor crashes on some syntax errors, does not provide an overview of the API (what functions and constants you can use within jass), only grants limited access to the jass output and has some other benefits. JNGP also comes with a compiler for the artificial extension of the jass language called vJass. It was designed by modders and holds formal advantages to jass (it transforms to jass when saving). You can still use normal jass.

I agree with Hera_ that it's good starting practice to convert some triggers you know from GUI and for yourself interpret some pattern into it.

 

[Rheiko]

Yes, no need to learn jass, just know that is ultimately super duper superior to infantile GUI.[/sarcasm]

sir, your sarcasm tags doesn't seems working properly

 

[chobibo]

I think he intended that.

 

[Rheiko]

yeah, maybe

 

[deathismyfriend]

JASS is actually just another scripting syntax not system.

@TO
You should look at my tutorial converting GUI to efficient JASS. I use JNGP in the tutorial to show you how to inline (get rid of junky GUI stuff)

 

[Daffa]

The difference between Plain Jass and GUI is one thing string. /Sarcasm

Well, Jass is really superior to GUI, but there's no need for everyone to master Jass [I rarely uses Full Jass Trigger, only in Custom Script, and mostly they're just leak cleaning or activating additional function to my triggers].

YOU SHOULD KNOW ALSO GUI = JASS
Jass is better than GUI
JASS is more efficient than GUI
GUI is slow
Jass is fast

I couldn't disagree more with the bolded part, why? As WaterKnight said :

Using jass does not automatically mean you write efficient code.

It's possible for people who are Jass Newbies to have their codes more inefficient than GUI Masters who only uses GUI.
Mass is more efficient if the user really manage their codes well.

Also, what DIMF said, check http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...80/converting-gui-into-efficient-jass-233227/ as it contains a lot of info for starters.

 

[muzzel]

The problem with converting GUI triggers is that they are often very confusing. Its a good way to find jass natives, but for learning jass from scratch id say you should just find a tutorial (there is one around somewhere on the hive, i tihnk daelin wrote it).

And you should use the old JNGP (jassnewgenpack5d) simply because its still the default for wc3 scripting. Its quite stable and everyone uses it, subsequently the support is very good.

 

[T. D. W.]

@muzzel
JNGP 5d is a little bad for a quite big reason:
hashtables, native hashtables aren't there

 

[Xonok]

I originally reached a very high level at GUI. I understood most of the logic behind it and this simplified moving to JASS.

At first I tried using tutorials, but failed miserably. They simply explained the wrong things and/or in a very confusing way.

Eventually the breakthrough came from taking some very very simple GUI triggers and converting them to JASS.

I made a simple trigger that only contains 1 event.
Then I converted it to JASS and looked how it was formatted.
I understood that triggers are set up once at the start of the game(usually) and that this was pretty much all the code that I had in front of me.

Then I used undo to change the trigger back to GUI.
I added a single action(create unit(s) at location)
Then I converted it to JASS again and saw, that the action was made with just one line(since the function existed earlier). Furthermore, I saw that it took the exact same information in when creating the unit, just in a different format.

Then I repeated similar steps with many actions, conditions, events.
Very soon I moved onto vJASS(partially, cos I still find most of it pointless)
I understood what a library actually does(moves some code to the top of the map script, so that the functions it has could be used elsewhere)
I understood quite fast what a globals block is, it was pretty much like creating local variables, except that they don't have the local keyword.
I also understood that a globals block is pretty much like the variable editor in GUI, just easier to use in most cases.

I hope I was helpful.

 

[chobibo]

@Jad
It's there, I used it to debug your script...

 

[Malhorne]

The natives depend of your tesh folder, native list in JNGP not in the JNGP's version.

 

[Rheiko]

Xonok, you are awesome man

Jad, you only care about hashtable don't you? ._.

 

[T. D. W.]

@malhorne, chobibo
In the 5d i had, hashtable natives weren't there :/, in the 2.0 beta, they were
@rheiko
XXD
@both 3
Lol why you 3 just like jumped on me at the same time!

 

[Malhorne]

@Jad i had 5d and i used 1.26 and all natives were there.

 

[T. D. W.]

Dunno, Lol

 

[Rheiko]

lol, two against one
who will win? who knows

tutorial about jass is somehow make me confused, i read them again, again and again
i still don't understand it.. i learn Jass from converting GUI to Jass, well i'm still learning and not good at it

 

[Xonok]

One thing to note is that with JNGPE 1.5e you can easily use hashtables. Yes, they are still broken in GUI, but in JASS they work well.

 

[moyackx]

And you should use the old JNGP (jassnewgenpack5d) simply because its still the default for wc3 scripting. Its quite stable and everyone uses it, subsequently the support is very good.

What???? since when that version is the standard?? JNGP 2.0 setting it with Vex jasshelper does the same as JNGP 1.5d.

 

[Rheiko]

moyack is stepping in and...

 

[chobibo]

@Jad, I don't jump on people, I hunt them, I swear this in the name of Barry, the avatar of the almighty Malhorne.
I just mentioned that the JNGP I downloaded 2 years (2011) ago from wc3c.net has hashtable support.

 

[Malhorne]

It don't depend on JNGP version but in your warcraft 3 version guys ^^

 

[Xonok]

The problem with hashtables in so far any JNGPE that I've seen, is that they lack the function part in GUI(can't get key of triggering unit or anything like that without custom text)

 

[Vinz]

I originally reached a very high level at GUI. I understood most of the logic behind it and this simplified moving to JASS.

At first I tried using tutorials, but failed miserably. They simply explained the wrong things and/or in a very confusing way.

Eventually the breakthrough came from taking some very very simple GUI triggers and converting them to JASS.

I made a simple trigger that only contains 1 event.
Then I converted it to JASS and looked how it was formatted.
I understood that triggers are set up once at the start of the game(usually) and that this was pretty much all the code that I had in front of me.

Same with me, but for me I stopped converting them and just.. stopped. Then I saw some JASS post. Then I understood.