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                      --== Westwood Rules Selector ==--
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I.    Installing/Uninstalling
II.   Features
III.  How to Use
IV.   Customising Rules files
V.    Known Problems
VI.   Credits
VII.  How to Contact the Author



--===========================================--
          I. Installing/Uninstalling
--===========================================--

To install the Rules selector, simply unzip into a folder. Then, instead of
running Red Alert, or Tiberian SUN directly, simply run TSRules.exe instead.

To uninstall, just delete the folder. As of yet, I haven't figured out how to
remove registry information via a script, so you will need to delete the
registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Fry\Rules Selector

To do this, simply run RegEdit.exe (make a backup first if you are unsure what
to do), find the key name in the explorer style list on the left, select the
key, and hit the 'delete' key (or select from the menu). Then close Regedit.exe
to save your changes.



--===========================================--
               II. Features
--===========================================--

This program will autodetect whether you have Tiberian SUN and/or Red Alert
installed. If you have any of these games installed, a tab will appear to
allow you to select that game.

The program will allow you to run either game without rules, or lets you
select one you like.

There are some sample rules files for both games supplied. Both originals, and
modified files are included for you to look at.



--===========================================--
            III. How to Use
--===========================================--

When you first run the program, if no games supported are installed, then you
will be faced with an almost blank screen with a simple message saying you do
not have any games installed. The only thing you can do here is click the
'about' button, or quit.

If you have one or more of the supported games installed however, when you
first run the game, you will be presented with a list of tabs at the top to
select which game you wish to run.

The program layout is the same for whichever game you have, but the details
will change depending on the tab selected.

The text box at the top will tell you where the program found the currently
selected game installed. If you have more than one copy of the game installed
(such as you installed various upgrades for red alert into different folders)
then only the latest install will be found as this is the information placed
into your system registry. As of yet, there is no way to force it to detect
a different directory, although I hope to include this in the next version if
it is neccessary.

Next you will see a text box, and a 'browse' button. This allows you to enter
the directory for each game where the 'rules' ini files are found. This is
because you might not neccessarily have your rules files in your game directory.
However, when you first run the program, the rules directory will default to the
location of the game in question. To change this directory, simply type in the
new one, or use the 'browse' button to select the directory where they are
located.

For example, if Tiberian SUN was installed in the 'D:\Games\TibSun' directory,
and your rules files are the samples provided here, located in the
'D:\Rules\TSRules' directory, then when you first start, the tiberian sun tab
will have selected 'D:\Games\TibSun'. Simply type in 'D:\Rules\TSRules' and the
program will find 6 sample files and add them to the list.

The list below the selected rules directory shows any currently found valid
rules files for that game. Depending on the game in question, certain
information will be show here. For Tiberian SUN, a valid rules file will
contain under the [general] group, the tag 'Name=Tiberian Sun'. This can be
followed by a descriptive text - the default is '- Official Rules of Engagement'
but I recommend changing this to describe the file in question. The list will
show the name of the file found (without the .ini extention) plus the text
afterwards. So, for example, for the default rules file provided 'Official.ini'
the text shown to describe this is 'Official - Official Rules of Engagement'.

For Red Alert, a valid ini file does not have the 'Name=' tag, and so I search
for the 'CrateMinimum' tag under the [general] heading. This has been moved in
Tiberian SUN to a different heading so it will not conflict. I chose this value,
because it *has* to exist for Red Alert to run properly, so therefore any ini
file without this value is invalid anyway. Normal Red Alert ini files *only*
show the file name, and not a description. However, for your convenience, I
have coded the program so that if the 'Name=' tag is present, it will detect
and use this instead. The presence of this tag will not effect Red Alert in any
way. Valid values for this are 'Name=Red Alert' followed by a descriptive
string exactly like in the Tiberian SUN rules files. Some of the Red Alert
sample ini files show this value in place.

Once you have any rules in the listbox, you may select any of them you wish,
and click the 'run' button at the bottom. This will start the game with the
selected rules file.

NOTE: IF YOU HAVE ANY RULES FILES CURRENTLY PRESENT IN YOUR GAME DIRECTORY,
      THEY WILL BE OVERWRITTEN BY THIS PROGRAM. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO LOSE YOUR
      RULES DATA, THEN PLEASE BACKUP THIS FILE BEFORE RUNNING THIS PROGRAM.
      ANY LOSE OF DATA WILL NOT BE THE FAULT OF THIS PROGRAM.

If you wish to run the program in its original state, you may click the
'Run no rules' button at any point, even if no rules are available. This will
remove any rules currently present in your game directory, and run the game.

To stop any conflicts, if you have a rules file in your game directory, and you
select this file, the 'run' button will not be enabled, as you can not copy the
same file onto itself. This is an issue I hope will be fixed in the next version
so that selecting this file will just run the game with current rules.

When you quit the program, the rules directories for all supported games will be
saved so they are there when you next load up.



--===========================================--
          IV. Customising Rules Files
--===========================================--

Several sample rules files have been included for Tiberian Sun, and Red Alert,
in the TSRules, and RARules subdirectories respectively of where you install
this program to.

The files are simple to edit, as they contain the standard ini file format of
[heading], and 'item=value' tags. The files are well documented by Westwood,
and the item names are all intuitive.

To create new rules files, simply copy an old one (suggest using the 'official'
unaltered ones as a basis) and change its values. You can then save this file
as any filename to any folder, so long as it has the '.ini' extension.

I recommend changing the 'Name=' tag on the Tiberian SUN rules to describe the
current rules file, so that when you run this program, it will be easy to know
which file does what. Saving the files as a descriptive name will also help in
the case of Red Alert, although I also suggest adding the 'Name=' tags to these
files. If you dont know how to set this tag in the Red Alert files, simply look
at one of the demonstration files for Tiberian SUN, and copy that out. Remember
to change the Name= value to 'Red Alert' though instead of 'Tiberian Sun'.

Once you have saved your files, simply selecting that directory in this program
will make them available for use. You may have as many files as you wish in one
directory, and so long as they are valid filenames, and contain valid data,
they will show up in the list for you to select.



--===========================================--
               V. Known Problems
--===========================================--

There aren't many here. However here are the few I have come across. If you find
any more, please contact me via email. (see 'How to Contact the Author')

- If you have a previous install of this program, I have changed a couple of
  the registry keys this program uses. If you have any problems running this
  program, try removing the previous registry key and running this program
  from fresh (see 'Uninstalling' at the top of this file).

- Multiple installs of any game wont be detected - only the last one, as this
  is the latest information in the registry.

I _think_ that's it ;)

Although knowing windows, it probably wont work on all systems, and will give
some bizarre 'library xxx not found' error. I have tried to include all the
files it needs to run in the program directory, in order to stop this from
happening, but there are always file version clashes etc..

If you encounter any problems please let me know. Thanks.



--===========================================--
                  VI. Credits
--===========================================--

Idea and Conception : Chris Fry
.............Design : Chris Fry
.............Coding : Chris Fry
............Artwork : Tiberian SUN Icon File

Thanks to Westwood studios for providing the superb games that this program
uses.

Command & Conquer, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Counterstrike, Aftermath,
Command & Conquer: Tiberian SUN and Westwood Studios are all trademarks of
Westwood Studios, Inc.

Copyright (c) 2000, Christopher Fry. All rights reserved.



--===========================================--
           VII. How to Contact the Author
--===========================================--

To contact me, simply email me at 'fry@sucs.swan.ac.uk'.
Please try and keep your subject headings relevant like 'Rules Selector',
or 'Tiberian SUN' or something, cheers.

You can also visit my website at 'http://www.sucs.swan.ac.uk/~fry' although
it is a year or two out of date, doesnt have anything about this program on it,
and is mostly only coding stuff, so probably isnt interesting to you at all ;)

Email: fry@sucs.swan.ac.uk
  Web: http://www.sucs.swan.ac.uk/~fry
