Playmaker Forum

PlayMaker Help & Tips => PlayMaker Tutorials => Topic started by: djaydino on November 27, 2015, 03:42:08 AM

Title: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on November 27, 2015, 03:42:08 AM
Hi,
At last ! Here are some Datamaker tutorials :




The Tutorial Package you can find from now on, on my web site here (http://www.jinxtergames.com/playmakertutorials/playmaker-tutorial-series/)
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on November 27, 2015, 03:42:22 AM
At last the samples are there!!

"Xml Set Node Properties" will not be updated, but instead of using the set inner text you need to use a property and use a "." (dot) as property and in value set your new inner text value.
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on November 27, 2015, 03:42:41 AM
-reserved
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: jeanfabre on November 27, 2015, 06:01:45 AM
Hi,

 few comments already

- Is there a place where viewers will be able to download them scenes to further study your examples?

Part 2:

For the event "go", instead of trigger it via the fsm canvas, simply have it as a global transition over the state and mark the event "go" as "show in inspector, and then you can trigger processes right from the Unity inspector of that PlayMaker component.


Part 3:  Why using a breakpoing on each state instead of stepping through with the debugger? just set a breakpoint on start state and then simply step through.

also, for catching errors, a vers good trick is to have a state with its name set to an empty string ( as many spaces as you want to have them uniquely named) and then put a breakpoing there, it will always be available if the error is triggered amd won't affect trouble free processes.

(http://i.imgur.com/fxLLNj6.png)

---------

in general, if your xml turns out invalid, simply use online xml checkers to find where you have a typo or a wrong structure, it's very easy to mess an xml file when you edit it without a dedicated editor :)

http://www.xmlvalidation.com/ (http://www.xmlvalidation.com/)

for testing xpath, I often use http://www.xpathtester.com/xpath (http://www.xpathtester.com/xpath)


I'll be editing the datamaker wiki and put links to your videos and all. Thanks again for your work on this!

Bye,

 Jean
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on November 27, 2015, 01:32:49 PM
Hi,
Indeed it was on private  :o
it should be visible now :)

i was planning to add the sample files,
but i need to clean them up a bit and add some information on it.
i will add them asap :)

For the event "go" i never noticed the show inspector  ::)
thx to point it to me, that's very useful.

Also the debugger i have never used yet, i just played around with it now and that will indeed be easier.

on the next tutorial part i will show those websites for testing xml and xpath
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: mdotstrange on November 28, 2015, 06:03:44 AM
Awesome! Thanks so much for making these- I really want to learn Datamaker  :)
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: mdotstrange on December 09, 2015, 03:13:30 AM
I watched all the tutorials- I'm in the process of trying to use Datamaker to use the data from an xml file to populate an Arraymaker hash table-

The tutorials start at sort of an advanced place-with FSM's that are already made-

What would be really helpful for true beginners would be a tutorial that would start with a blank FSM and an XML file- then go step by step to grab some data from the xml file and save it in a variable-

I think once someone sees this process once- getting data from an XML file into variables in Playmaker they can easily do much more-

If you do any more datamaker tutorials would love to see something simple like that-

Thanks for your time and nice work on the tutorials  :)
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: jeanfabre on December 10, 2015, 10:22:50 AM
Hi,

I made links to your videos guys on the wiki page.

 I can't thank you enough for these! This really helps us a lot. There is so much to do, it's going in all directions at once, between Unity crazy pace, all the requests for assets bridges, etc etc.

 To see members playing an active role in educating is really giving energy to do even more!

 Bye,

 Jean
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on December 14, 2015, 03:12:11 AM
@mdotstrange

I don't really think that datamaker is for beginners, that's why i prepared everything so that i can keep the video short...
If i do everything step by step then the duration of the video will be more than double and i personally don't like long tutorials :)

I will try to upload the samples this week.

@jeanfabre

I am happy to help out :D
if there are other things to help with just let me know :)
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: jeanfabre on December 14, 2015, 05:41:39 AM
Hi,

Thanks, I'll let you know. Currently working out the issues with dataMaker to release an update that works with Playmaker public Beta.

Bye,

 Jean
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: CharlesMiller72 on January 05, 2016, 07:24:20 AM
Thx for tutorials. They are very good for beginner like me :)
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on February 03, 2016, 06:23:01 AM
Hi,
At last i uploaded the samples.

sorry that it took a bit long.
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: sebaslive on February 11, 2016, 09:34:56 AM
Oh nice, I will definitely check these out. Thanks for making these.
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: orangegoose941 on March 02, 2016, 03:34:31 AM
Great tutorials! I've watched all parts and I think my skills improved thanks to you. Keep doing good job!
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: GeorgeObrien83 on April 20, 2016, 03:49:19 PM
I love these tutorials! Thanks to you I've improved my knowledge and skills so much. Maybe some day we will play together :)
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on April 21, 2016, 01:18:09 AM
Hi,
thanks guys,
i am happy to hear that :D
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: MObrien78 on April 24, 2016, 01:59:09 PM
This seems really hard and complicated but I will try to do it anyway. How long are you doing this already?
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on April 24, 2016, 05:08:11 PM
Hi,
I learned datamaker to make this tutorial :)
So not so long (a couple of days including learning about xml)
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: Anna57 on May 09, 2016, 01:25:02 PM
This is the best series ever. Thank you so much!
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on May 11, 2016, 05:36:01 PM
Hi,
I am happy you liked it and took time to say thank you  :D
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: play_edu on August 26, 2016, 01:04:52 AM
love it
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: Riffel on August 27, 2019, 03:09:54 PM
Hi! I need some help with "Convert Json string to Xml Node" action. Can't find tutorial. I need to read and write JSON files. Thank you!
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: jeanfabre on August 29, 2019, 07:00:12 AM
Hi,

 Can you explain or give a sample of your json?

What doesn't work for you?


Bye,

 Jean
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: Broken Stylus on July 28, 2020, 05:17:11 AM
Bumping this.
There is the Store Reference field that remains always empty. Yet I checked  and it's supposed to store a string. I still manage to obtain results with the property of a node being correctly extracted and stored to a variable. Is this normal?
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on July 28, 2020, 05:25:03 AM
Hi.
In what part of the tutorial is that?
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: Broken Stylus on July 28, 2020, 05:36:53 AM
Thus far went through part 1.
There is the Xml Select Single Node action.
In the video, the string field for Store Reference stays empty too. Now, aside from storing whatever should appear here in a string variable to reuse it later on in an action like Xml Get Node Properties, I'm not sure this field to be that useful but still, I wondered if I was doing something wrong.
I may push this issue into a general Datamaker thread because it's not really about the tutorials although this thread is often the first result one gets in a search engine for this forum.
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on July 28, 2020, 05:50:28 AM
Hi.
Reference is stored in memory and xml result in a variable.

A case where you would Set properties and get properties regular could be a use case.

But as xml is slow i usually convert to hash tables @ start and use those to reference, load / save.

here is a tutorial video on that (its not yet public as my unity asset was declined, as apparently i need to update my images to make it look better -.- )

Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: Broken Stylus on July 28, 2020, 06:27:28 AM
Reference is stored in memory

That's what I thought but then I don't see the point of having this field since it's not filled with a string. It's confusing because you expect it to be filled with some string data but it remains empty.

You can either leave it as it is by default, or decide to use a string variable, but the FsmString var remains empty nonetheless too.

Well, I think I got a eureka moment. That string is used to actually give a name to the reference, so that name can be used in other actions.
Being in the result area of the action led me to think it would actually store some text generated by the action.

The description of that field is confusing:

Quote
The result of the xPathQuery stored in memory. More efficient if you want to process the result further

You then expect a result to actually be displayed in this field.
When it should be:

Quote
Name of the reference that will be used to point to the result of the xPathQuery stored in memory

It's not perfect but I find it more explicit, especially since the code does this:

Code: [Select]
DataMakerXmlUtils.XmlStoreNode(node,storeReference.Value);
And we can see that a node is stored, attached to that specific reference.

Could be reworded:

Quote
Name of the reference that corresponds to the resulting node found with the xPathQuery. This node is stored in memory and can be called with this reference in other actions

A bit more wordy but at least it clearly explains what is going on and what is to be expected.
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: djaydino on July 28, 2020, 06:46:59 AM
Hi.
Maybe you should suggest this on the datamaker thread :
https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=2583.0
Title: Re: DataMaker Tutorials
Post by: Lucielu on May 27, 2021, 06:09:09 PM
Your tutorials helped a lot ! Thank you so much  ;)