How to write news files

• How to create a news file
  • Name convention and syntax
  • List of tokens
    • Basic tokens
    • Team tokens
    • Stats tokens
    • Miscellaneous tokens

Last updated: 12/22/2008

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How to create a news file

A news file is a file used by Bygfoot to create short newspaper articles. You are strongly encouraged to read and understand the howto about live game commentary, since this howto contains a lot of references to the techniques used there.

Articles in the game consist of

• a neutral event description which is created automatically (e.g. the result of a match)
• a title which shouldn't be too long
• a subtitle which should elaborate on the title

However, in the news file titles and subtitles are given independently and Bygfoot picks a random title and a random subtitle (more or less).

You can get an archive with the current news files here.

Name convention and syntax

News files have to have a file name like news_lang.xml, with lang being a language shortcut, e.g. en or de.

There are only a few tags in the file (see also the tags reference):

• <news> is the root tag
• <news_article> groups a bunch of related titles and subtitles
• <type> gives the type of the article; currently, only match is used, but later more types will be added
• <condition> is a condition for the article (see the relevant section in the live game commentary howto)
• <priority> is a priority for the article (see the relevant section in the live game commentary howto)
• <title> and <subtitle> are structured the same way; they contain article titles and subtitles, respectively, and may contain the attributes condition and priority to make more fitting news possible

To write a new news file it might be best to copy one of the existing ones and replace/translate/extend the articles in the file.

Let's have a look at a minimal news file:

  <news>
    <news_article>
      <type>match</type>
      <title>_TW_ beats _TN_</title>
      <subtitle>_TN_ succumbs to _TW_ in _LEAGUECUPNAME_.</subtitle>
    </news_article>
  </news>

No magic here. This will yield very boring and repetitive news articles, though, so let's add some variation with the trick known from live game commentaries:

      <title>_TW_ [beats|overcomes|defeats] _TN_</title>

Like with the commentaries, if a token can't be filled (e.g. when there's a draw in this case), the title or subtitle gets ignored by the news selection mechanism.

What if the match was lopsided?

    <news_article>
      <type>match</type>
      <title>_TW_ [beats|overcomes|defeats] _TN_</title>
      <subtitle>_TN_ succumbs to _TW_ in _LEAGUECUPNAME_.</subtitle>
      <subtitle condition="GD > 2">_TN_ concedes _GOALS_TWN__ goals in crushing defeat.</subtitle>
    </news_article>

Of course, it makes more sense to have such a condition on article level and add several titles and subtitles that are fitting:

    <news_article>
      <type>match</type>
      <condition>GD = 1</condition>
      <title>_TW_ [beats|overcomes|defeats] _TN_</title>
      <title>Tight match between _T0_ and _T1_</title>
      <subtitle>_TW_ edges out _TN_ in _LEAGUECUPNAME_.</subtitle>
      <subtitle condition="_GOALS_TWN__ = 1">One goal enough for _TW_ to win against _TL_.</subtitle>
    </news_article>

If you're very fond of a particular title, subtitle or even a whole article section, you can prioritize it (see the live game commentary on priorities):

    <news_article>
      <type>match</type>
      <condition>GD = 1</condition>
      <priority>10</priority>
      <title>_TW_ [beats|overcomes|defeats] _TN_</title>
      <title>Tight match between _T0_ and _T1_</title>
      <subtitle>_TW_ edges out _TN_ in _LEAGUECUPNAME_.</subtitle>
      <subtitle condition="_GOALS_TWN__ = 1">One goal enough for _TW_ to win against _TL_.</subtitle>
      <subtitle condition="_GOALS_TWN__ = 1" priority="20">_SCORERS_TWN__ scores lone goal in an exciting duel.</subtitle>
    </news_article>

And that's it, more or less. The more articles, titles and subtitles you create, the more varied the newspaper in the game will become.

Note that you mustn't use <, >, >= and <= in article conditions, since < and > are XML characters. You have to use L, G, GE and LE instead. You may use them in title/subtitle conditions, however.

List of tokens

Basic tokens

Tokens ending with a 0 refer to the home team. There is always an analogous token ending with 1 for the away team.

Team tokens

Stats tokens

Miscellaneous tokens