Random Starcraft Map Chooser


I'm not going to lie, I play a lot of Blizzard Entertainment's Starcraft. My friend and I usually like to change things up a lot by choosing a random map to play on before every game. This was getting annoying (and a little unfair. What can I say, I like some maps better than others). So, I quickly made a simple program that would search through Starcraft's maps directory tree and show a list of all the maps that are currently on the computer, then randomly choose one. The following code was used to find the maps:

//THIS FUNCTION WILL GET RID OF THE ROOT DIRECTORY PATH
string parseRootPath(string path)
{
return path.Remove(0, rootSCPath.Length);
}
//THIS IS A RECURSIVE FUNCTION THAT WILL DISPLAY FILES
void getMapNames(string curDirPath)
{
string[] subDirs = Directory.GetDirectories(curDirPath);
foreach( string dir in subDirs )
getMapNames(dir);
string[] fileNames = Directory.GetFiles(curDirPath, "*.sc*");
foreach( string name in fileNames )
{
//UPDATE THE LIST OF MAPS
lbMaps.BeginUpdate();
lbMaps.Items.Add( parseRootPath(name) );
lbMaps.EndUpdate();
}
}

A recursive function was used in this process. If the file was a subdirectory, getMapNames() would call itself using the subdirectory as a parameter. Very simple. The main feature of my program was to choose a random map. This was a simple function to do so:

public void btnChooseClick(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//MAKE SURE THE LIST OF MAPS ISN'T EMPTY!
if ( lbMaps.Items.Count != 0 )
//SET A RANDOM MAP AS "SELECTED"
lbMaps.SetSelected( rand.Next(0, lbMaps.Items.Count), true );
else
MessageBox.Show("No maps in list. Populate the list.", "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
}

I also added a couple of features that would allow me to view the map and run starcraft directly from my program. To do this, I just used a Process to run a command. In the view map, this command was to just run a command with the filepath and filename of the selected map. Since Mapeditor.exe was the default program to open SC maps with, the maps were opened with it. The code is:

//OPEN THE MAP UP IN THE MAP EDITOR TO VIEW IT
public void btnViewMapClick(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if ( lbMaps.SelectedItem != null )
{
System.Diagnostics.Process proc =
new System.Diagnostics.Process();
proc.EnableRaisingEvents =
false;
proc.StartInfo.FileName = rootSCPath + lbMaps.SelectedItem.ToString();
proc.Start();
}
else
MessageBox.Show("No map selected. Please choose a map.", "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
}

And for the running of Starcraft.exe, we just make a process that runs starcraft.exe:

//RUN STARCRAFT.EXE
public void btnRunSCClick(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
System.Diagnostics.Process proc =
new System.Diagnostics.Process();
proc.EnableRaisingEvents =
false;
proc.StartInfo.FileName = rootSCPath + \\starcraft.exe;
proc.Start();
}

Lots of little bits of code that could be helpful to you. This is (sadly) one of my most useful programs that I have made. But, as I was once told, Keep It Simple Stupid.

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