File loading

[flyingwombat]

I gave a friend some GCA files to use for my game. The traits, usually equipment, aren't coming up as expected. He sent me a screen shot of the files he is loading. He had nine files one of which is my version of a GCA worldbook file as well as the original GCA file that comes with the standard data file.

The files aren't in the order I recommended. Is there a reason why some files are read others aren't?

[Armin]

GCA will load all the files in a set; it doesn't skip files.

But, be aware that if you change the files in a data set, and then go back to working in GCA, it won't necessarily reload the changed data set. You can change multiple data sets without affecting the current load. If you click the Load Now button to immediately load the selected files, or clicked the Change & Load button to make the changes to the current set, then GCA will reload the current files.

If you quit GCA, then come back, it'll reload the current data set, assuming changes were made to it.

There's no way to even tell GCA 'don't load this file' for a data set; if it's in the list, it'll be loaded when something triggers a reload.

There are ways to have one data file remove data from another, however, so maybe something being loaded is removing the traits in question. This is very common in worldbooks. I'd estimate that about 95% of the time, when users complain about missing traits that they've seen before, they're loading another file in the set that removes those traits.

Have the player use the Change & Load Files button to reorder the files in the intended order, wait patiently while GCA reloads, and then see if those traits are still missing.

[ericbsmith]

In addition to what Armin said, I'll note that if your file is making changes to an existing file it needs to be loaded after the existing file in the Data Set. GCA loads files from top to bottom, with subsequent files overriding changes from earlier ones; so if you load your "changes" data file before the existing file the changes will simply be overridden by the existing file when it loads.

[flyingwombat]

Thanks guys.