Anyone know what slk editor blizzard uses? most corrupt the files.

After tinkering with the excel settings, it doesn't add too much junk, but it still adds some and occasionally changes the format enough to make it unreadable by warcraft.

If anyone knows an editor that saves slk files like blizzard's does, please post it.

For those that don't know about the problem, try this: open unitUI.slk in Excel, move some lines around or type something in a cell, then put it back exactly the way it was and save it. Put it in war3patch.mpq and presto, corrupt file, game crashes during loading screen. Openoffice is even worse; it makes the files about half again as big with junk data.

Microsoft excell does the job, maybe you have a different version
I use version 9.0.0.3822

You probably didn't save it as a tab-delimited text file.

there should be a few boxes that pop up when you save, click yes, no, then save with a different name, it will do what you want.

Yea, Excel should work fine. I can edit ALL slks besides UnitBalance .slk. Its weird, I used to be able to edit UnitBalance.slk and it would work fine but if I edit it and save it then reopen it, excel crashes. I found out it added an extra line after I save it:

P;EArial;M200

So if you ever have problem with UnitBalance with it crashing Excel after you saved it and tried to reopen it, just open it with notepad and remove a line like that.


However your problem sounds like its effecting all SLK. What version are you using? I use 10.2614.2625 and it works fine.

I have excell 10.2614.2625 and I tell you it sometimes changes the format slightly. The problematic one is where it replaces a little piece of each entry.

This version of excell at least is pretty pathetic at saving slk files. For example, if you copy part of a column with some bold entries from another file and paste it into your slk file, then save, it doesn't just make the slk unreadable to war3; it makes a junk file that crashes excell if you try to load it up again!

I also tried to save it as a text file, then open it fresh from that and save. No good; corrupt.

UnitUI seems to be the pickiest one.

It always adds a "..P;EArial;M200" whenever you do anything by the way; in fact, the default files already have a huge string of them, and you can leave them in or delete them all with a hex editor without causing any problems.

It is possibly one of my settings still causing trouble. For example, if you set it to fixed decimal places, it will immediately make the slk corrupt on save. Are there any settings I should look out for?

I'll try to get another version of excell.



PS: I'm getting a strange crash where whenever you click on a building that builds heroes the game crashes. I thought it was related to the corruption problem but maybe not.

I can copy all hero entries from the unitstrings, unitfunc, unitbalance, unitui, unitdata, unitabilities, and unitweapons from my mod to default files and it won't crash; likewise I can copy these entries from default to my mod and it will still crash; this happens even if I take out all modified files except the 7 I listed.

Grrr Now I have Excell, Openoffice, and Excell97, and none of them will save without changing a file.

You guys who think your Excell works, I challenge you to open unitUI.slk and:
1) cut the night elf units and insert them at the bottom, then return them to their position
2) insert a row, then delete it again
3) type something in one of the boxes with an *, then copy a * from the row below and paste it over your typing to return it to the way it was.

Save it, put it in War3Patch, and try to play a single player game.

For me, it always crashes during the loading screen; if anyone succeeds at this, please tell me what spreadsheet you use.

Your right. It didn't work. It added an extra P;EArial;M200. It does this with UnitBalance for me also but I never noticed it effecting anything else...

I use OpenOffice, and I've had the same crashing problem with UnitUI.slk.

I think I was wrong about being able to delete the P:EArial stuff too. I tried it again and it didn't work, so I was confused about that somehow.

You cannot just cut the file and paste it somewhere else.. if you do, then the pointers of that file will get incorrect - at least if you let Excel do it.

Explain that part about cutting and pasting the file... It changes something the hex editor doesn't show? Can I edit whatever it is changing in the properties window for the file?

I finally experianced a UnitUI.slk screw up - DAMN YOU EXCEL!

At least mine was for the WE - I loaded a map, and it said all my units were unrecognisable. Tried placing somethign, and all every race had was a start location :D

Now I have to redo my slk though :(

Someone plz make an editor!

Thing is..I don't know if a community created .slk editor would be any different than the professional existing ones.

ive found that open office will cut out the header at the top of the slk file, which makes it unreadable by warcraft. what i did was open a modified and an unmodified .slk file with wordpad t osee the difference. then i copied all the header stuff and comment from the top of the unmodified slk and put it into the modified one. one of the lines in the header will say something like
B;Y466;X44;D0 0 465 43
where the x and y are the boundaries of the cells. so if youve added a line, be sure to change the y value.

the problem im having now is that even though the game no longer crashes when the map is loaded, im not seeing any of the changes ive made. ideas anyone?