A small addon that makes it easy for server owners to configure chat commands. Each defined command registers a chat command and a console command. Once executed, chat messages can be printed to the player chat or further commands can be automatically executed. Additionally multiple languages, variables, placeholders and colors are supported.
Important note: Make sure to use the right texteditor. After editing the json file with the windows text editor, garrys mod is unable to parse the json file. Using notepad++ solves this problem. See in this issue!
After installation of the addon, the GM server has to run once. A new folder will ve created in garrysmmod/data called ctc. Inside this folder is a file called commands.txt. This text file is a json structure which can be edited in order to create new custom commands.
The settings part looks like this. The prefix defines the symbol (or multiple symbols) that have to be in front of a chat command in order to be detected. It is ! by default. run_first defines if chatprints (chat) or console commands (console) should be executed first.
"settings": {
"prefix": "!",
"run_first": "chat"
}The most basic command is a simple text print like this without any variables, placeholders or colors. In this example no localization was used.
"commands": {
"example": {
"localized": false,
"chat": [
"Awesome text line one!",
"And there's a second line here"
]
}
}Once you enter !example in the chat, two lines are printed. Additionally a command called ctc_example gets registered, which can be executed in the console. This can be used to call a chatcommand from multiple other chat commands (see later), bind it to a key using bind or (in case you are using TTT2) use Easy Custom Bindings in combination with the TTT2 binding system.
In this example the first line should be colored. Therefore a colortag has to be added. A colortag always starts and ends with %. In this case %ctc_awesome%.
"commands": {
"example": {
"localized": false,
"chat": [
"%ctc_awesome%Awesome text line one!",
"And there's a second line here"
]
}
}In order to use this color, it has to be defined first. This happens in the variables.colors area and looks like this:
"variables": {
"colors": {
"ctc_awesome": [
85,
150,
100,
255
]
}
}ctc_awesome is the color name followed by an array of the color values (r,g,b,a). There is no specific naming scheme for variables. But you have to make sure, that it is unique and no string that occurs in your regular text.
There are two default colors ctc_default and ctc_highlight that can be overwritten. However these two colors don't have to be overwritte to be used.
In the next step, variables and placeholders are added. Variables are strings that can be substituted into the text, placeholders are predefined variables, that set specific values such as playername, time, ...
"variables": {
"strings": {
"cooldudes": "friends"
}
}After such a string variable is defined, it can be used inside multiple commands. To use a variable in a command, it has to be surrounded by brackets ({var_name}).
"commands": {
"example": {
"localized": false,
"chat": [
"%ctc_awesome%Awesome text line one!",
"And there's a second line here",
"You are %ctc_white%$p$%ctc_default% and you're playing with {cooldudes}!"
]
}
}In the third line of this chat message tweo colors, a placeholer $p$ and a variable cooldudes is used. Right now there are four placeholders available: $p$ (playername), $s$ (servername/hostname), $t$ (current time) and $d$ (current date).
Additionally a desc tag is added to each command. It can be localized. This tag is used by the ctc_defaults_list_all command that prints all available commands to the chat. You can omitt this tag if you do not want to use a description. A command with a description looks like this:
"commands": {
"example": {
"localized": false,
"desc": {
"text": "A neat example command.",
"localized": false
},
"chat": [
//...
]
}
}You can only use localization in this case. Variables, placeholders and colors are not allowed. However the commandname uses ctc_highlight and the command description uses ctc_default as colors. You can overwrite these colors if you want to use something different here.
Most of the time you want to use localized strings. You have to set localized to true (or remove it all together) in order to use localization. Additionally a language object has to be defined. The previous defined example would look like this:
"commands": {
"example": {
"localized": false,
"desc": {
"text": "ttt_ctc_example_desc"
},
"chat": [
"ttt_ctc_example_line_1",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_2",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_3"
]
}
},
"text": {
"English": {
"ttt_ctc_example_desc": "A neat example command.",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_1": "%ctc_awesome%Awesome text line one!",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_2": "And there's a second line here",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_3": "You are %ctc_white%$p$%ctc_default% and you're playing with {cooldudes}!"
},
"Deutsch": {
"ttt_ctc_example_desc": "Ein toller Beispielbefehl.",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_1": "%ctc_awesome%Wunderbare Textzeile eins!",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_2": "Und hier ist eine zweite Zeile",
"ttt_ctc_example_line_3": "Du bist %ctc_white%$p$%ctc_default% und du spielst mit {cooldudes}!"
}
}Additionally to chatprints, commands can be executed. This can be used to bind multiple console commands to a chatprint. The following example opens the TTT2 shopeditor and the ULX window:
"commands": {
"multicommand": {
"desc": {
"localized": false,
"text": "Opens ULX and shopeditor"
},
"console": [
"xgui",
"shopeditor"
]
}
}Of course this can be combined with chat prints. Arguments after the command (!commands 10 20) will be simply passed to their respective command. In the given example xgui 10 20 and shopeditor 10 20 will be run.
You might want to pre-define arguments for certain commands. To do this, split your command and arguments into an array of strings. The following example will run example 1 2 3:
"commands": {
"example": {
"localized": false,
"desc": {
"localized": false,
"text": "example"
},
"console": [
["example", "1", "2", "3"]
]
}
}CTC provides one special command which is ctc_defaults_list_all. It is useful if you want to implement a chat command that prints all available chat commands, because it prints all commands in combination with the description. A help command without localizations would look like this:
"commands": {
"help": {
"localized": false,
"desc": {
"localized": false,
"text": "Lists all commands"
},
"chat": [
"Here's a list of all available commands:"
],
"console": [
"ctc_defaults_list_all"
]
}
}Hint: It is important to note that this only works if you have the setting run_first set to chat. If you use console, the commandlist will be printed first.
Additionally commands can be used to call other chatcommands. If you have a serverinfo line defined in a chatcommand called info and you want to print it everytime a chatcommand is issued, just add ctc_info to the console list.
A neat side effect is that you are able to bind multiple console commands to one key by grouping them to a chatcommand (see the first example of this chapter). Now you can bind the new groupcommand to a key using bind or (in case you are using TTT2) use Easy Custom Bindings in combination with the TTT2 binding system.
For a full example, check out the default generated command file in garrysmod/data/ctc/commands.txt.