Editing *string.txt

Is there a way to edit ,for i.e., itemstring.txt and let the map still load?

In that file there are the items descriptions for every item in wc3 and lots of those I do not use. So I thought that maybe editing it could make my map smaller and load faster, but it never loaded and the map got bigger :/ (used to be 4.00Mb and ended 4.02Mb)

There are also descriptions of lots of default wc3 skills that could be deleted.

Has anybody tried this before?

Reducing the size of that text file won't be noticeable in you current map size. But I'd suggest to work in reducing the custom skins and models.

For blps: [1] [2]

For mdx: [1]

It's not that easy, to delete items and other stuff you have also to remove them from the .slk files, the .slk files define the object data and the .txt store only a part of the actual values.
Deleting some objects from the .txt files doesn't actually remove them, deleting them from the .slk files does.

Also, why are you using .txt files instead of the .w3* stuff that is normally in the maps? the various .txts and .slks files are bigger than those and the said .w3* files store only the custom data anyway.

I'm pretty certain that a map only stores the strings that you've edited. All the default ones shouldn't be in any map file, and so won't impact the filesize (hence the enlargement when you've reimported?).

But as stated, strings are the least of your file-size worries. Focus on audio, then models and textures.

@moyack: Thanks for the links, you reminded me i haven't messed with textures and other images yet. but i've already used mdx squisher and worked great =D

@Michael Peppers: Those are the txts i found in my map. Could they be there because of widgetizer? I haven't replaced anything on porpouse :P. I'll see what happens if I delete those from the slk too. At least see if the map loads

@Rao Dao Zao: Nop, that file has the info about every item in wc3 object editor (including this one that doesn't exist

Hidden information: Name=Medusa Pebble Hotkey=P Tip=Purchase Medusa |cffffcc00P|rebble Ubertip="Turns the targeted enemy non-Hero unit into stone when used. A unit turned to stone by the Medusa Pebble is removed from the game permanently." Description=Turns target unit to stone.

I suppose that's something blizz forgot there :P coz i haven't created an item with such a name)

And i have all of my audio very compressed (unfortunatelly i did that on WAV diminishing quality to its bottom :/, when i release a new version I'll try to use mp3 with WAV header for 3d sounds... music is already mp3)


...


i thought that maybe the map compresses the txt when saving, as I used mpq master to extract them and later reimport them, i could've missed that compression

Ah, yes, it's the Widgetizer's "fault". Actually, it's one of its main features; I'm sure that, not generating those files, loading time of Widgetized maps would be almost the same as normal maps.

i can tell you that it is not. I have a map that takes a nice time to load and after widgetizing it the loading time decreases pretty much

Here is the changelog of the version i released back then when i first used widgetizer

Hidden information: Loading time version 5.1d: 0:00:26.19 <- just optimized Loading time New version: 0:00:11.30 <- widgetized+optimized

Without converting normal object data, the Widgetizer would basically do nothing to optimize a map, that's what I meant

lol, now i get it :P

I'll see if i can do something deleting at least 1 or 2 items from slk and txts (and importing the files before saving and not after :P)