paw·ned²: All-In-One Team Build & Template Editor

paw·ned² is a tool for editing team builds and both types of Guild Wars templates. Its German version was released on March 28th and an English version was created because the original tool gained popularity among German players. Recently some English-speaking players started using the German version without actually speaking German just to use the unique features and up-to-date skill descriptions.

Most of the new features can be found when editing team builds. In paw·ned², team build characters can also have Equipment Templates, a name, a brief description and attributes assigned to them. When using attributes paw·ned² will calculate the effects of primary attributes while hovering over skills, e.g. Weapon Spell duration, Fast Casting and Expertise. To use all these features with your guild mates, we added the ability to connect to our server. Due to all the new features, we had to create a server software and set up a server for paw·ned². The paw·ned² server cannot be accessed via Team Builder but you can connect to any Team Builder server to at least use the skill descriptions from paw·ned²'s databases which are included for both modes, PvP and PvE. paw·ned² can connect to more than one channel and more than one Team Builder server. Nonetheless, there are other reasons to have your guild use paw·ned²: All your channels stay password protected for one week and the current build is saved on the server for this time.

paw·ned² has a tabbed multi-document system so that you can open as many files as your system resources can handle. This can be a lot because paw·ned² only needs little system resources and has short start-up times because it's a real Windows application. It does not need any additional software so you can put it on a flash drive and use it anywhere you like. Being a Windows application also means that it will require Wine to run on a Linux system. paw·ned² can be run with any Wine version starting from 0.9 except 1.1.24.

To always have your templates and team builds at a glance, there is a browser included. It looks like the Windows Explorer but is optimized for Guild Wars: It has profession-specific file icons as well as a preview feature for all supported file types including Guild Wars templates, Team Builder files and paw·ned²'s own file format PWND. It will automatically find your Guild Wars template folder in most cases, but you can specify any path you want and import or copy files from other folders as well. paw·ned² automatically finds Team Builder's folder to import and copy files. It can read the old and new GTB format and also write the new one.

After some time, you will find a lot of details, for example the feature that allows you to automatically upload team build screenshots to ImageShack and the overlay icons for Enchantments, Hexes, Weapon Spells and Assassin combo skills.

To keep the application up to date, there are two types of auto updaters included: One for the application and one for the skill databases. The latter can be extended by community-created databases as well. paw·ned²'s databases are CSV files which are supported by most spreadsheet applications such as Excel. Both updaters do not need administrator rights. There is a MotD system included which will keep you informed about updates each time you connect to our server.

System requirements:
- Windows: Windows 2000 or newer (compatible with Windows XP x64 and Windows 7)
- Linux: Wine 0.9 or newer
- Mouse with mouse wheel
- 10 Megabytes of free disk space



For those who are curious about the name: It is a German abbreviation but is pronounced English. The “²” is pronounced just like “two”. The “·” is not pronounced but splits the word into two syllables. The long form of the abbreviation means something like “Plus+ application for template management, editing and creation“ in English. Plus+ refers to an application of which paw·ned² was meant to be a part of. That application was a status tracker for displaying titles, money and location of a character to other people. The information were automatically received from the memory which caused ArenaNet to not allow that application. paw·ned², which does not interact with Guild Wars in any way, was then released as a stand-alone application.
paw·ned² had a forerunner called paw·ned which was only an Equipment Template editor. paw·ned² was created almost from scratch with only the Template reading and writing functions taken from its forerunner.

Very very nice,amazing work there.
I'm still checking out the features and its really nice,tyvm!

This is pretty amazing I must say. Only just downloaded but seems extremely good

I was using GWfreaks but this paw-ned^2 looks brilliant! GG and ty for sharing.

This looks fantastic. I was looking for a program like this the other day and have never really got on with GWFreaks.

Shame there's not an iPhone app like this, that would be cool.

This look realy nice, this is the best b-day ever! xD
Thanks

Is there a way to add template code directly to paw·ned² coz so far i must save it as .txt file and then load it to paw·ned² , for me its too much time consuming and frustrating .
aside from this its very good work thx .

It costs $99 to acquire a license to publish an iPhone app. That's too much. Additionally, I'd have to learn Objective C.

I'm doing a version for Windows Mobile, because that's free and you do not have to use a certain programming language, but sadly, Windows Mobile is not so popular. The WM version will only support team builds with the features from Team Builder, for everything else, the screen is usually too small.
Another way to create a mobile application is a browser-based version but I can't say if we are doing one.

There is a 'paste' feature to paste template codes and chat codes from the clipboard. It can be found on the toolbar and Edit menu.

Thx , i'm totally blind , wasted time looking for load option and template field like in GWFreaks.

Android one would be cooler.

Dibs on making it!

paw·ned² ....nice name

http://spywaredlls.prevx.com/RRDHBC2.../IMG4.DLL.html

All DLLs do not contain any code. They only contain the resources. I could have used my own package format but I thought people would like to modify the application so I used a common file format. That's also the reason why it uses Excel files as skill databases.
If you want to modify the application, use ResHacker. But don't cry if you break it or your changes are overwritten by an update.

I scanned with Kaspersky, no issues...then I figured you would have something to say about it not bieng this (little known)Prevx program, so I went and got that and scanned...no problems...

In case you find something that needs fixing and numma_cway isn't available during US times, you can also relay that to me, i'll pass it on.

But nice to see that his hard work is received that well. Good job Janni

Very nice program, thanks for the hard work.

Very smooth, beats teambuilder with its sucky java.

I know it's not needed, but there should be an option to make fun builds like 12 attributes in everything and 8 elites on your skill bar :P

Nice proggy though

Very nice program, will def use.

It IS possible to make fun builds by disabling the "Check skills" button below the skill bar. The option is saved but if you want to open a fun build, create an empty build, disable the button and close it (you do not need to save it). Then, you can open your fun builds.
Anyway, you cannot have skills from other professions than the selected two, because Guild Wars will not display those templates at all.

Incredible work, uninstalling team builder now.

i'm using this for a couple of month because i checked it out at a german site and it simply amazes me... i used gw teddy before but this one is just of the hook

Does it update right after skill changes?

can you add more export functions, like BB code, bot GWBBcode as its down here, and there are a lot of forums that does'nt use GWbbcode
so export like this:

@mathiastemplar: Updates are not automatically installed. You have to run the updater and confirm the update. You will find the updater in the help menu.
The reason for this is that the application was intended to be run without internet connection. Additionally, I don't think most people with firewalls like an application that likes to connect to a server everytime they run it.

@riktw: Yes, I'll add this.

Just what I needed
Awesome program :O

Great Program

Like GWFreaks, does this have the option too locate where the skills are on the map and where to get them?

No, but there are links to GWW and GuildWiki in it.
This tool targets more experienced players who have already captured most skills.

ive had a recent bug, at least on my computer. every time i was on a gwtb server and then opened a new server to show a second build my internet crashed and had to restart my pc. could you look into this and see if its jst me?

This bug is not known yet. I cannot think of a reason for this and do not know how to test what leads to this bug. Therefore, I don't think I'll be able to fix it.

This is amazing, very very very good work, thanks a lot!

Bye bye teambuilder!

So I've spent the past few days with this, and I have nothing but praise. This program is flawless, it works perfectly, and I don't really have any complaints about it.

I do think you should be able to right click on the tabs and close them in addition to double clicking etc. and also maybe add an option check if there's an internet connection and quickly check for updates automatically, if there isn't than it just loads into offline mode.

Otherwise, great program, recommend it to anybody who likes tinkering with builds but might not want to open up GW (or can't for whatever reason), 10/10.

Excellent program. The fact that you even bothered with a WINE compatibility mode makes you one of my new favorite people.

I love this thing... gonna come in handy on that Mallyx team build I posted about in NFEL.

Is there a way to auto download and import EVERYTHING from pvx.wikia?

Wow, I just gave this a spin and am really, really impressed. I had been using another program, but it has not been updated in over a year, so this new addition to the ranks of template programs is more than welcome. Beautiful work.

Thoughts, as I mess around with it:
- When browsing the template folder in "report" view, the columns (name, profession, secondary, etc) can be dragged and resized, but these settings do not persist once the application has been closed and reopened. Possible to make those tweaks stick? (Note: the views themselves persist, it is only the column resizing in report view that seems not to).
- It may also help to change the icon description for "paste as new document" to be more clear that it will import the build template code from the clipboard. Love the feature, just took me a bit to find it because it wasn't conspicuous enough.
- In "small icon mode" sometimes the columns don't align quite right - one or two rows will be off and compacted. Just a minor aesthetic problem. All told, the simple "list" view seems to do the same thing as "small icon mode" without any glitches.
- In "large icon mode" the icon for the primary profession is on the right. It's larger than the secondary icon, but it still struck me oddly, because it's on the left in all of the other views.

I am really nitpicking here obviously, and that's because the program is sooooo good. Please please please keep it going!

First: Thank you all for your feedback.
I'm glad to see that you are happy with it, because this project took a lot of time.

It's funny to see that (according to comments) most Germans see the tool as a Team Build editor while non-German players seem to focus on the Skill Template editing features.

No, sorry. Formatting can vary, so it would be hard to do that.
Ideas who this could be done are welcome, anyway.

1. Some of the columns automatically scale with the window up to a maximum. As the text in each column cannot become very long, I did not think it would be important to adjust the widths.
   Dragging columns must be a windows feature added in Vista. At least, I did not add it and it's not available under XP. I don't even know how to ask Windows where a column has been dragged to, so I don't think I can save it.
2. I don't understand you.
3. This is a bug in the Windows List View API. I'm using a workaround in the source code, which once worked for Vista, but at least does not work under Windows 7 and maybe the error did now reappear under Vista.
4. I was not going to write a whole new List View, so I used the Windows feature to assign small icons to List View entries. Windows does only offer a feature to put them to the left of the large icon (at least I did not find a way to change this).

List View's quite buggy in the version of the GUI library I used (VCL 9.0) which is, additionally, a little outdated (November 2004). I have a license for a newer version (VCL 12.0, August 2008) but they changed the charset which can have heavy impacts on sourcecode. As not all errors will be found instantly, this may also cause instability for some time, so I'm sticking with the current version of VCL and the few List View bugs. I hope you understand that.

In #2, I was talking about the same feature Qcho mentioned earlier, the button that allows you to "paste as new document." It took me a while to 1) find that button and 2) figure out that it would do something extremely useful in the GW world, that is, paste template code from the clipboard to a brand-new template within the program. I recall that the other template toy I used formatted that feature as a text entry box, rather than a paste button, and the mouseover-text was specific; it said something like "paste template code here", so it was extremely obvious what it did and how it worked. Your version works perfectly fine, I was just wondering whether it could be tweaked to be more in-your-face, more obvious about how it works.

I am no coder so I had no idea how much of the stuff I was noticing was really a native Windows problem! Thanks for letting us know. Great job, again, I am already using this new toy to play with builds.

How do you go about changing the skills after a skill update? Will you release the next version per skill change or is there another way?

Very fine work. Thanks a ton, I've been looking for something like this for awhile. I never liked GWFreaks.

Help -> Online Update

Go to the Help menu and use the Skill Database Updater (just click Update there).

The system is based on two wikis, guildwiki.de and wiki.guildwars.com.
It downloads eleven files from guildwiki.de. The files are available within 24 hours after an update. These files are then converted into a German skill database update (which is not available in the English version).
The English update is based upon the German update, but the texts are replaced with the text taken from two files. These files are generated by gwshack.us from the GWW articles, which are usually updated within a week.
People using the paw·ned² server are shown a message when the database updates are available.

Update files are CSV files. If you want to open them, you have know that there are not escape characters or quantifiers and semicolons are used for columns.