nFringe FAQ

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Installation Setup

What do I install?
Section applies to: modders

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5: More info coming…
  • Visual Studio: nFringe (also called UnrealPackage on the installer for now) is compatible with several versions of Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. If you already have a licensed copy of the either Standard or Professional editions of Visual Studio 2005 and/or 2008, nFringe will work with that install. If you do not have Visual Studio, or you only have one of the Express Editions, you will need to install the free Visual Studio 2008 Shell before installing nFringe.
  • nFringe: Download the latest installer for nFringe from the Releases page. If you want to upgrade an existing version, simply download and install a newer version and your existing install will be automatically updated.
  • SamTools (optional): More info coming…

What is the Visual Studio 2008 Shell?

Section applies to: modders

The Visual Studio 2008 Shell is a bare-bones version of Visual Studio 2008 that Microsoft is offering for free. The key change they made was removing support for all the “normal” Visual Studio languages, including but not limited to C++, C#, and Visual Basic. By making sure nFringe supports this version of Visual Studio, we were able to offer a truly free version of the editor to the mod community (in particular, to non-commercial users).

Users only need to install this version of Visual Studio if they do not already have a copy of Visual Studio Standard or Professional edition 2005 and/or 2008. Also, you only need to install the Visual Studio 2008 Shell one time. After you have the Shell, if you want to update nFringe to a new version, you only need to download the latest nFringe installer and install it.

The installer for the Visual Studio 2008 Shell is available for download here. This installer may take a significant amount of time to complete, depending on your system’s configuration (I really mean this).

What is SamTools and why would I install it?

More info coming…

Getting Started

Most of this info was moved to the UnrealScript Projects section

UnrealScript Projects

*Do I need to create an UnrealScript Project?

Section applies to: modders and commercial users

Generally, only modders need to create UnrealScript Projects. Commercial users working with an UnrealEngine license generally do not need to make an UnrealScript project. If you are a commercial studio with designers that work with UnrealScript scripts but do not have a full copy of Visual Studio, then you are the exception and need to contact us for special instructions.

Creating a Project (UDK)

Section applies to: modders using UDK

For full information about using nFringe with the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), please visit the UDK Projects page.

Creating a Project (UT3)

Section applies to: modders

After installing UnrealScript editor, select File > New > Project…

To start from scratch on a new project, or to import your existing work into nFringe, select Empty Project. Name your project the same as your package (this is often the name of your mod with only letters: without any spaces, numbers, or special characters). Unlike other layouts, nFringe allows you to save the project anywhere on your computer. I keep mine under C:\Dev, so my New Project menu might look like this:

New project window

Setting up IntelliSense

Section applies to: modders

Before full IntelliSense support will work, you need to obtain a copy of the reference script source code for the game you are modding. For Unreal Tournament 3, you may either download the scripts directly from Epic, or use the Batch Export feature in the editor.

After you have a copy of the reference scripts, right click on your project in the Solution Explorer and select Properties (see image below). On the general tab, configure the Reference Source Path to point to the Src directory where you saved the reference scripts. For example, when I work on a UT3 mod, this is set to c:\dev\UT3Source2\Src.

Project Properties

Adding a File to a Project

Section applies to: modders

To add a file, right click on your project and select either Add > New Item… or Add > Existing Item…

If you are adding a new item, Select the type of file you want to create, give it a name, and click Add.

If you are adding an existing item, select the file you want to add and click Add. Important: if you add an existing file that is not in your project folder, a copy of the file will be added to the project folder, and that copy will be added to the project.

Editing

*IntelliSense and Class View are not working for UnrealScript (at all)

Section applies to: modders and commercial users

Symptoms

  • Syntax highlighting either doesn’t work, or works but appears to think a C++ file is open
  • IntelliSense does not function at all
  • Class View does not have any UnrealScript classes listed

Cause

  • UnrealScript (.uc) files are configured to open in an environment other than nFringe

Solution

  • If you have Visual Assist installed (if you are unsure, then assume you don’t have it), set it to ignore .uc files: Select VAssistX > Visual Assist X Options > Projects > Extensions and add .uc and .uci to the Extensions to Ignore list.
  • In Visual Studio, select Tools > Options... > Text Editor > File Extension, and make sure uc is NOT listed as an extension

*IntelliSense is only partially working

Section applies to: modders and commercial users

If you encounter IntelliSense problems and cannot solve them, whether in accuracy, performance, or usability, we need to know. We are working hard to resolve these to provide the very best editor we can.

Implementations of UnrealScript 3 sometimes vary over time and based on customizations for various studios. The UnrealScript language module for nFringe has built in support for specifying allowed modifiers for several items, including vars and structs. To customize the modifiers for your game, check in the Src\Core folder for the file ScriptModifiers.xml. If the file is not present, you can download a default version here.

After making changes to the XML file, you may need to restart Visual Studio for the changes to take effect.

To easily share the keywords among your team of developers, the ScriptModifiers.xml file may be checked into your source control system.

IntelliSense is annoying me, what can I do?

Section applies to: modders

For now, the best thing to do is describe the situation(s) where you encounter problems and send them to us via the forums. There are some known issues where the IntelliSense dropdown behaves improperly. We’ve fixed several, but there are surely more of them. When you report an IntelliSense issue, try to categorize it into the following categories:

  • Wrong items shown in the suggestion box. Either extra invalid items are appearing, or valid items are excluded.
  • Suggestion box behavior. The suggestion box either:
    • Shows when it shouldn’t show
    • Doesn’t show, or disappears before it can be used
    • Shows up, but doesn’t insert the exact text you expected when you pressed some key

*UnrealScript-related items do not appear in the Fonts and Colors settings

Section applies to: modders and commercial users

This is a elusive bug (and highly irritating to someone like me that insists on easy to use software) that affects more products than nFringe, including some from other companies. To fix it:

  • If you have Windows Vista, you will need to run the following command with elevated privileges, or it will fail with the message “The operation could not be completed”.
  • Open the Visual Studio command prompt by selecting Start > All Programs > Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (or 2008) > Visual Studio Tools > Visual Studio 2005 (or 2008) Command Prompt.
  • Run: devenv /setup

Compiling

Enabling script compiling within Visual Studio

Section applies to: modders

nFringe seamlessly integrates the UnrealScript compile step into Visual Studio. To use this feature, you need configure your UnrealScript project with the paths of:

  • UCC Path: Path to the script compiler. This is probably the game executable; e.g., for Unreal Tournament 3 the compiler is UT3.exe.
  • UCC User Path: Path to your user configuration directory for the game. For UT3, this is in the My Games directory, for example: c:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\
  • UCC Game Prefix: Prefix used for the game’s INI files. For UT3, this is simply UT.

More info coming…

Running commands before/after a build

Section applies to: modders

Build Events are configured in the project preferences.

More info coming…

Debugging

nFringe includes the first usable (in our opinion) debugger for UnrealScript 3. By integrating our debugging support directly into Visual Studio, the user experience is so familiar next to say, C++, that programmers could almost forget they’re working in UnrealScript. By including debugging support for retail UnrealEngine 3 games to the modding community, we have gone a step farther into what everyone thought was an impossibility.

More info coming…

*Debugging is not working

Section applies to: modders and commercial users

First, verify the following steps which fix most problems we’ve seen in this area:

  • For retail game modders
    • At this time, the debugger only supports UnrealTournament III retail, or with the official Patch 1, 2, or 3.
  • For UnrealEngine licensees: after you follow the steps in the instruction packet,
    • Make sure you built your scripts with <game>.exe make -full -debug
    • Make sure you launched the game by setting the C++ project as the startup project, then selecting Start UnrealScript Debugging from the Debug menu
    • Make sure you are NOT calling any exec functions such as toggledebugger to control the debugger state from the game itself. This will completely disable nFringe debugger until the game is restarted, and quite possibly crash the game.

If you are still unable to debug, try the following things and post the result on the forums to help us figure out the issue.

  • When you launch the game in the debugger, are you seeing the script log output in Visual Studio’s output window? Do the messages stop at a particular point before the game closes (can indicate the connection to Visual Studio broke)?
  • Clear all your breakpoints, then start script debugging. Once the game is up and you see output in the log, select Debug menu > Break All. The game should halt as if you hit a breakpoint, and the locals & watches windows should work.
  • If you are a commercial user and the above step is working, we have another step for you to try so please contact us.

Licensing

The non-commercial version may only be used in developing non-commercial products. Much of the modding community falls under this category. If you are working on any form of an UnrealEngine-based commercial product, you must license nFringe before using it on your project.

Are there any functional/feature differences between the non-commercial and licensed versions?
Currently the script debugging features are only available to commercial nFringe licensees.

Questions?

[faq-ask-questions]

| datetime July 28, 2013 8:41 am