Okay we’ve just uploaded the Middle Earth mapping program, called Palantir. It’s available on our website, via the Library and Links page.
Please download the INSTRUCTIONS and READ them… Standard PDF and nice to read. Download Palantir as well and play with that.
Any questions - I’ve gone to lunch… (Seriously please read the instructions first, we’ve tried to cover everything there and they are very comprehensive and hopefully helpful). If after reading them and maybe chatting to a few players (or on the MEList or MEForum) you can’t get it to work get in touch with us.
I was able to get the site loaded and then download both files (.zip and the .pdf).
I read the .pdf and went and tried importing the turns. Got 2 turns imported and thought I would look at the map (those were the only .xml files I had available at the time). It looked great but for some reason I was freezing the program looking around the map.
Restarted the program a few times before it seemed a bit more stable.
Got the file downloded fine, but I can’t import turn data.
My xml files work fine with Automagic, but wouldn’t work for some reason when I tried to import the turn data. Initially I got an error message saying there was somthing invalid about the file. I then tried the tip from Appendix B, and the file input seemed to work (no error message this time), but when I tried to “draw map” the program claimed to have no turn data.
You should be able to load a game w/o a turn file. If you don’t load a turn file, the program should use the default values (Turn 0) for everything that is fixed (basically everything except character locations).
Sometimes, you just want to browse the map, and don’t need to have your turn data available. For instance, when designing a FA1000 setup.
The updates don’t seem to take into affect Scry Spells nor ScoArmy information. Is this a future enhancement?
Yes I’ve specified the ones that do work but 930, 925 work the others generally don’t work. This is very much a work in progress and as long as you are aware of that it’s fine.
Error importing turn gXXXnXXtXXX.xml, error was: An invalid character was found in text content Line: 0 " That’s the error message I get too. (from a file which works fine for Automagic) From Gingerprince
I need your XML to investigate this - please send this to me with a note about what the problem is.
My xml files work fine with Automagic, but wouldn’t work for some reason when I tried to import the turn data. Initially I got an error message saying there was somthing invalid about the file. I then tried the tip from Appendix B, and the file input seemed to work (no error message this time), but when I tried to “draw map” the program claimed to have no turn data.
I think you’ve not imported the file. Try again? Are you a Yahoo user? If so it’s likely you’ve not saved the XML correctly.
You should be able to load a game w/o a turn file. If you don’t load a turn file, the program should use the default values (Turn 0) for everything that is fixed (basically everything except character locations).
For security reasons we don’t allow that.
For some reason the main page you guys have setup loads only 1/2 the time for me at work (tends to time out).
No idea - maybe lots of players downloading files. Try again when less busy as there’s no technical reason at our end. Feel free to contact me directly on
Here’s what I’ve figured out so far about these XML’s that won’t work with Palantir…
Right click on the XML file, and select edit. If the file has spaces between every character, then it won’t work. That is usually what you have when you see that message about an invalid character at position 0. You can fix a file that is corrupt in this manner.
In Notepad (which is where it should have opened to edit on a Windows system) select Edit, then Replace. In the first box (what you’re replacing) type two spaces. In the second box (what you’re replacing it with) type $. Select Replace All, and let it go to town on it. When done, edit and replace again, but this time the first box should be a single space, and the second box should be nothing (don’t type anything into that box). Do a Replace All, and it will grind for a while taking out all of the spaces in the file. When done, Edit and Replace again, this time replacing all of your $ with a single space. This method will get all of the extra spaces out of the file, while putting the necessary spaces back in.
Your next problem with this file will be the non-standard characters. Any name that has a weird character in it will not allow the file to be read. I don’t know why this is just yet, but it only happens in a file that is corrupt in the manner I described at the top. You’ll have to find and replace all of those characters with something standard, like a letter instead of a letter with a whatever hovering over it (you get the idea). An easy way to find these characters is to double click on the XML file and let Internet Explorer try to open it. It will give you an error and the line will be displayed. The line stops where the character is. Go back and edit the file again, change that character, save, then try to open it again by double clicking. You will eventually see the entire file displayed correctly with no errors. Once that happens, Palantir will accept the file. The names won’t be perfect, because you had to adjust them, but at least the map, numbers, etc. will be correct.
Of the people on my grudge team, only the guy using AOL got a file that was corrupt in this manner. Everyone else’s worked just fine.
I hope all of this actually helps someone. Palantir is a fine program as long as the file you try to feed it is correct.
That’s 2 turns in each of 2 games that won’t work for me. Am I alone? This makes the program virtually useless.
But I have an idea. Could it be the way that different programs handle the xml file? Different email programs handle it differently, etc. Downloading them from yahoogroups using Explorer vs Netscape, etc.
If a team requested it of the company, would it be possible for MEGames to send ALL the xmls of an allegiance to a single player directly?
Download Palantir as well and play with that.