Any knowledge/info on any new/upcoming XPATH possibilities?

[doughphunghus]

I'll try to keep it short

Are there any new/upcoming XPATH capabilities anyone's heard of that TFP might add or is thinking of adding, other than what's been documented in the tutorials section?  Basically "any news/rumors/plans to add to the richness of XPATH or current XML modding capabilities, as of a19.2"?

 

I heard some forum discussions about certain things never planning on being synced from servers to clients from within a modlet (like full maps), but I'm hoping someday graphics/icons will sync.

 

I know its not a full blown language, but I often find myself wishing for:

- An "if/else" type of switch in the XPATH modding capability. Or at least just an "if".

- Some way to have an external configuration file for an XML modlet, like to set "flags" that the above "if" statements could read, or just to put commonly used variables/numbers in, or something.

- A way to "read" a value from the already loaded configs, before modding that value (sort of like an "if" but used against the game configs)

 

For example: If these were implemented, it might make a few things easier to do:

- You could make a single modlet with many different settings, like 1 set of configs for single player, another for PvE, another for PvP, or even just "hard mode" and "easy mode"

I see a lot of people talking about balancing a mod, and this could be a way to do it so a mod author can have 1 mod with all the balancing things configurable (as needed) for different playstyles.  Example: in the config file you have "difficulty = 1' and in the XML modlet you would have if(difficulty=1) { <all the normal XML> }

 

- If you could read the "XML" in from the loading/loaded configs, it might make it a lot easier to resolve conflicts in modlets or handle warnings where you tried to mod something that another mod changed/removed.  Like "check if a well known XML tag say, for sorcery is loaded, if so, then do not include this XML that would overwrite it". Or: "check if this property exists, if it does not, then do not attempt to apply this XML".