turtleisaac / PokEditor

Multifunctional in-depth editor for Pokémon Gen 4 game data.

DEVELOPMENT NOTICE:

PokEditor has now been replaced by PokEditor v2! The new GitHub repo for it can be found here! The repo for this version of PokEditor is now archived and will no longer recieve any updates or changes.

PokEditor

Author: Turtleisaac

Multifunctional in-depth editor for Pokémon Gen 4 and 5 game data

Written entirely in Java and is completely OS-agnostic. Java 8 or greater is required.

Note: This is a Command Line Tool. You can't just run it by double clicking the .jar file, as this has no GUI. You need to run it through Terminal (macOS/ Linux) or cmd (Windows). For those of you who do not know how to use a Command Line Tool, this is a friendly reminder to make sure that you navigate to the PokEditor folder that the .jar is in before trying to run it using the instructions in the Usage and Arguments sections of this README.

Note: Code from the Universal Pokemon Randomizer ZX is adapted for LZ decompression purposes under the rights provided by the GNU General Public License v3.0. If there are any complaints related to this, please create a new Issue in the Issues tab here on GitHub.

Usage

java -jar PokEditor.jar <arguments>

Arguments

• <editor name> <name of rom> (This is used to run the different editors/ tools for each data type)

• help <editor name> (This is used to view information on each editor/ tool)

• random <editor name(s) (each separated by a space)> <name of rom>

Examples:

• java -jar PokEditor.jar personal HeartGold.nds

• java -jar PokEditor.jar help personal

• java -jar PokEditor.jar random personal learnsets Platinum.nds

List of Spreadsheet-Based Editors/ Tools

• personal

• learnsets

• encounters

• evolutions

• growth

• items

• moves

• tutors

• babies

List of Command Line-Based Editors/ Tools

• starters

• intro

• opening

• narc

• random

• arm9

• arm7

Help Command

To use the help command, either run PokEditor with no arugments, run PokEditor with the argument "help", or run PokEditor with the argument "help", followed by the editor you wish to view information on (one of the entries on the bulleted lists above).

How to edit (Instructions here are for the spreadsheet-based tools only)

The recommended method of editing is to use the PokEditor Google Sheets templates, which will require that you have a Google account. Double click on the template for the game you wish to use (note: not all Pokémon DS game templates are currently available due to work still being carried out on them), then wait for the spreadsheet to load. Click "File", "Make a Copy", then choose what to name the copy and where in your Google Drive you want the copy to be placed.

When you are ready to turn your edits into an edited rom, you can run the PokEditor.jar file through cmd using any of the arguments listed above, and it will output new .csv files that contain the data read from the rom (NOTE: you need to have a rom placed in the PokEditor folder, and its name should not have any spaces in it). These files represent which spreadsheet(s) you need to download off of Google Sheets, and are named what you need to change your downloaded file(s)'s names to, with the addition of the word "Recompile" with no spaces in between (The program outputs a file called "personalData.csv", so the spreadsheet you download for that becomes "personalDataRecompile.csv"). Go to the spreadsheet(s) you need to download, click "File", "Download", then "Comma-separated values (.csv, current sheet)". This will download the spreadsheet as a .csv file. Repeat until you have every sheet you need for the editor you wish to run downloaded. After this point, simply move these files to the PokEditor folder and rename them to match the scheme explained above. This is the message that the program prints out when it is time to make sure that the edited and properly renamed files are in the PokEditor folder:

(You may need to press enter twice)

If you did not add new entries (this is usually the case), the program will prompt you to type in a name for the output rom. Be sure to include .nds in the name, or else the file will not have a file extension. If you did add new entries, such as additional personal data files for new pokemon/ forms, the program will instead output a narc file and instructions on how to insert it into the game, as PokEditor is currently unable to rebuild roms when a larger/ smaller narc is recompiled. (NOTE: If you did not add new entries/ remove old entries and PokEditor exits and tells you that your narc is of a different size than the original, that means that there is a bug in the program. Please report this error to me using the Issues tab here on GitHub or on this Discord server).

How to generate spreadsheets containing data you have already edited in another tool

First off, I recommend using the help commands to see what running each editor will allow you to edit. Once you know what it is that you want to edit, run PokEditor utilizing the proper arguments. The program may ask you to type some information in to help it carry out the operations. Once you go through all of the prompts, you should eventually reach the point where the program prints out the following message:

After using the program to generate the spreadsheet(s), import the .csv files into any spreadsheet editor like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. The recommended method is to use the PokEditor Google Sheets templates (see information on this further up in the readme) and use "File" + "Import" on whatever sheet you want to overwrite with new data, choose the sheet output by the program, then select "Replace current sheet" (repeat for each sheet the program produced). Edit to your heart's content, then export/ download the spreadsheets as a .csv, place them in the same folder as PokEditor.jar, and make the name of the file match the name it originally had, but with "Recompile" appended to the end of the name (ex: personalDataRecompile.csv). You can then either run the program a second time using the same arguments as before, or if you never exited the comand line, simply press enter for the program to continue doing its work.

If you did not add new entries (this is usually the case), the program will prompt you to type in a name for the output rom. Be sure to include .nds in the name, or else the file will not have a file extension. If you did add new entries, such as additional personal data files for new pokemon/ forms, the program will instead output a narc file and instructions on how to insert it into the game, as PokEditor is currently unable to rebuild roms when a larger/ smaller narc is recompiled. (NOTE: If you did not add new entries/ remove old entries and PokEditor exits and tells you that your narc is of a different size than the original, that means that there is a bug in the program. Please report this error to me using the Issues tab here on GitHub or on this Discord server).

File Randomizer

The File Randomizer is a never-before-seen kind of randomizer that I came up with a few months ago, but implemented fully only recently. The basic concept behind it is that you can take any narc (a file that is used to contain many individual files of the same type) and randomize the order of the files within it. This will result in the same exact set of data still being used, but in a random order. This concept can be applied to narcs such as the personal, learnsets, evolutions, encounters, growth, and moves narcs to recieve very fun results. For example, applying the randomizer to the personal file and the learnsets file will result in the data of one species being inside of the sprite of another. It must be noted that using the File Randomizer, unlike all of the other editors, will overwrite the rom you provide instead of prompting you to make a new one. This is a limitation due to how PokEditor was programmed, so please make sure to have a backup of the rom before applying changes.

For the best randomized experience, it is recommended that you use the arguments "random personal learnsets <name of rom>". Running PokEditor with these arguments will result in the personal and learnsets narcs being randomized. While you are randomizing the rom, you may be prompted to create a new random order. It must be noted that when you are using the randomizer, you may be prompted to create a new random order. What this means is that it is asking you if you want to create a new randomization seed. If you want to have the same exact randomized order used on multiple files, say no to this prompt. Some narcs do not contain the same amount of files and therefore can't use the same randomized order, but all of the pokemon-related ones can. These include personal, learnsets, and evolutions. Trying to randomize encounters, moves, growth, or any other narc without making a new randomized order will cause the program to throw and error and not complete the task. Please keep this in mind when using the program.

If you want to share the randomization seed with someone else, go into the "temp" folder and send them the file in there called "random.ser". If they put the seed file in their "temp" folder, then they can randomize their narcs to be the same order as long as they don't choose to generate a new order when running the program.