Creating .plist files and reading them.

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Creating .plist files and reading them.

(7 posts) (6 voices)

Started 1 year ago by Omegas7
Latest reply from dcthatch

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Omegas7
Member

Hello there! I am creating some kind of side-scroller. The levels have tiles, that are 48x48.

The problem is, that I need a convenient way to create my levels. All levels are quite unique in their tiles placement. And quite large.

So I have decided to create a level-creator scene. Where I can use the mouse to place tiles and edit other settings.
At the end, the scene should let me "export" my level.

I need:

1. NSDictionary for saving tile types & positions. I heard they have a capacity limit. Is it true? Can't I have unlimited space?
2. A way to export the NSDictionary to a .plist file in my Mac. Which I am unsure if such is possible.
3. A way read .plist files to create my game levels. Which I'm sure I can do just by searching for a tutorial.

Thanks.

Posted 1 year ago #
Benihana
Member

Any reason you aren't planning to use CCTMXTiledMap? It handles everything you just mentioned.

There is probably a limit on the capacity limit of an NSDictionary, but it's very unlikely you'll hit it.

http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:tiled_maps
http://www.raywenderlich.com/1163/how-to-make-a-tile-based-game-with-cocos2d

Edit: added links

Posted 1 year ago #
cocos2dbeginner
Member

If still don't want to use a CCTMXTiledMap and can show you some code how to create a plist and read and edit it in code ;)

But I'd recommend a TMX tiled map

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Is good practice in software developing to look at the language reference:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/cocoa/reference/foundation/Classes/NSDictionary_Class/Reference/Reference.html

see initWithContentsOfFile: and writeToFile:atomically:

EDIT: no limit space on NSDictionary apart from memory limitations.

Posted 1 year ago #
dcthatch
Member

Reading and writing plists is a useful thing to be able to do, and apple have recommended it before for game programming if you are working with an artist. This is because it means that the artist can easily change values in the code without having to learn to program, and can therefore see what their art looks like instead of having to guess. For tile maps, I would recommend using CCTMXTiledMap, and the Ray Wenderlich tutorial that @Benihana posted is a brilliant one.

Posted 1 year ago #
Birkemose
Moderator
First you add a new file to your project. Select a OS-X -> resourcefile ->property list

You then open a dictionary based on the filename. This goes something like
```
dictionary = [ NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:[ [ [ NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath ] stringByAppendingPathComponent:filename ] ]
```
Then you simply read keys
```
if ( [ dictionary objectForKey:@"angle" ] != nil ) angle = [ [ dictionary objectForKey:@"angle" ] floatValue ];
```
Subdirectories are openeed simply by making a new dictionary
```
subDictionary = [ dictionary objectForKey:@"subdir" ];
```
This is a good aproach, as it data driven design, and we like that.
However, unless you want to end up editing plist's for the rest of your days ( and the editor sucks ), you will want to build a strong framework around this, and keep the plist's as small as possible. If you load data, you will need to have default values, so trivial data don't need to be in the plist, and if you are using the same data over and over again ( you probably will due to OOP ), you will need to have default plist's, that loads if a plist is empty, otherwise, changing ex explosion color to "slightly more red", will force you to go through all plist's for all classes.

Some time ago, the was a book series called "Game Programming Gems". They had an excellent section on data driven design.
Posted 1 year ago #
dcthatch
Member

Thank you, this will save me and my artist a lot of time for updates

Posted 1 year ago #

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