AB file support, data files availability, etc

[aleph]

Hi,
in the past couple years, I've developed a web tool for army list building, for the game Infinity by CB ( http://anyplace.it/ia/ ).
Althought the tecnology is quite different from yours (all client-side javascript+css+html), the open-source and free-for-everyone philosophy is the same.

Recently I've thought about reusing part of the code and knowledge I've got from this project to create a more universal tool . . the major obstacle, for me, is the creation and maintaining of all the data files for the games I wish to support . .I've got neither the time nor the resources to handle that all by myself . .

In my search of a solution I've come here, and I've a couple of questions:
- you've designed your own file format, for game-specific data, right? How many game systems do you cover, and are/how are you maintaining them up-to date?
- I've seen that you're trying to reverse the AB file format . . I'm very interested in this (since AB supplies up-to-date data files for many game systems) . .

I'm, of course, willing to support either your data file format or your effort in interpreting AB files, in order to secure a game data source for my to-be tool . .

thanks, bye!

[IBBoard]

Yes, we have our own data file format. At the time I started on WarFoundry then there was just Army Builder (with a closed format) and Rollcall (with an INI-style format), and I wanted something both open and extensible.

In theory we can cover any game systems. In practice we've only really had Snowblizz making files so we've got partial coverage for Games Workshop games and a few other bits submitted to the community.

I always planned to break down the .ab file format, but never got very far (due to limited time, a focus on features and a lack of supporting devs). Feel free to use any of the information on the file format from the wiki (it is public as a reference for people to break a proprietary format) but we've not got much code to do anything useful with.

As it stands then WarFoundry is open and available and everyone is welcome to contribute, but there hasn't been the interest that I was hoping for in a non-ugly, non-proprietary, non-expensive army creation application. As it is an open source project then it isn't dead as such, just dormant.

[snowblizz]

I haven't been popping in so I kinda missed this. But yes datafile availability is based mostly on what I have had time/inclination to do.
Note that AB doesn't supply anything, users do and there are dedicated datafile maintainers. Basically there is the demand and consequently the population of someone willing to step up is potentially much larger. Trying to kickstart something new has been slow going and hampered by a relative lack of additional effort. It's a lot easier to to continue maintaining further updating something that creating everything from scratch. Especially since WF is kinda still under development.
I for one wouldn't mind if the datafiles were used, but I would hope there was an encouragement for others to provide files too in that case.

I've been trying to get back into updating files and creating more but real life... and now I hear I have a dealine for my PhD thesis I've been to some degree pushing up.