Readme File for TLR.Freelancer.Utility library

Bug Reports:
Please send bug reports to alexangelopoulos@hotmail.com

What is the TLR.Freelancer.Utility library?
The TLR.Freelancer.Utility library is a collection of routines and classes that may help with Freelancer modding. It is intended for use in programs or scripts, not direct use by end-users; this is a component, not a specific solution.

Why the long name?
Microsoft suggests using namespaces in .NET classes to minimize collision risks and clearly distinguish components which may have similar base names. Since this component is being released via Lancer's Reactor (and the information primarily came from there), and since the content is utility procedures for Freelancer modding, TLR.Freelancer.Utility made sense as the namespace name. The final file name (TLR.Freelancer.Utility.dll) is also fairly explicit and unlikely to collide with other names already in use.

How do I use it?
If you wish to simply use the DLL in your own projects on your own machine, you must have the .NET 1.1 runtime installed.
Installing the DLL: You can simply copy-install the DLL wherever you want to keep it.
Using it in your own .NET projects: just reference the DLL as you would any .NET DLL.
Using it in VB5/6 projects or other COM environments: You need to export and register a type library for the DLL. You can do this from a command line in the folder where the DLL is located, by doing this:
	regasm TLR.Freelancer.Utility.dll
Recompiling/modifying the DLL: full source code is provided with the DLL. You can reuse and modify this freely.

What is in it?
Currently there are 5 core classes, as outlined below. More detailed information is contained in the source code and comment XML files; the details are readable in any .NET namespace browser such as the Visual Studio one or Luitz Roeder's .NET Reflector.
Note that ALL of this is very simple stuff at this point; I'm still starting a general accessible framework for working with this. If you have modifications or edits you believe are important, please share them.

SavedGame
Designed for savegame manipulation; currently just decodes a game and returns the data as text, given the path to a file.

RegistryData
Provides quick access to some registry-based data important for modding/manipulation - Freelancer, FLMM, and SDK install path at present.

IniChunker
Reads a Freelancer INI file and chunks it into tokens, returning a queue of strings that may be easier to quickly manipulate than raw text parsing.

Miscellaneous





This is a demo of a simple INI parsing library for Freelancer INI files. I haven't run across a tool that does this specific task in a simple generic fashion, and decided to write one in C#.
The download includes the full Visual Studio 2003 project source code, the compiled DLL, and an exported typelib to make it usable from VB5/6 or other COM consumers.

Who Is It For?
A
