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The workbench

The workbench is where you write a mod: its files and its config fields side by side, with the install form, a preview of what changes on a server, and the problems dzbot finds. Creator mods and organization mods use the same workbench.

Navigation paths:

  • Creator Space -> a mod
  • Organization -> Mods -> a mod

Layout​

  • File tree (left) — the mod's files in folders by their target path, each with its operation: Replace, Merge · Add, Merge · Match or Delete (see File changes). One path can have several files; they apply from top to bottom, and you drag them to change that. Files with unsaved changes are marked.
  • Editor (middle) — one tab per open file. The head of each file shows its path, its operation and the Dynamic Variables switch. Ctrl+S (Cmd+S) saves; leaving with unsaved changes asks first. Clicking a {$variable} jumps to its config field.
  • Configuration (right, can be collapsed) — switches between Fields and Form preview:
    • Fields lists the config fields with their sections. Open one in place to edit it, drag to reorder, add new ones. Each field shows where it is used (file and line, clickable) and warns when no file uses it. See Configurations.
    • Form preview is the install form as a server admin will see it. What you enter there are the test values the preview renders with.
  • Panel (bottom):
    • Problems — template errors, undefined variables, and conditions that leave a field empty where a file still needs it
    • Preview — the real diff your draft produces with the test values, against the vanilla mission of one of the mod's maps or against the files of your test server. New and unsaved files are included
    • Logs — what happened on the test server's last transfer

Drop files from your computer​

Drag files from your computer onto the workbench:

  • onto a file in the tree — replaces its content (if the file has unsaved changes, you are asked first)
  • between files or onto a folder — adds a new file at that place, named after the dropped file, with Replace as its operation (change it right away if needed)
  • onto the open editor — replaces the content of that file

Several files at once work too. If the format does not fit — a JSON file onto an XML file — you are asked before anything is replaced.

Changes from elsewhere​

Whatever saves a file of the mod — the workbench in another tab, a collaborator, the AI Companion or a connected AI app — shows up in every open workbench of the mod right away.

  • Without your own unsaved changes, the open file updates by itself.
  • With unsaved changes, you choose: take the other version, compare both, or keep yours.

Nothing is overwritten silently: saving over a version you have not seen is refused.

Draft and older versions​

Only the draft can be edited. An older version opens read-only from the version switch in the header, with a diff to the draft. Publish in the header publishes the draft with a changelog, see Versions and publishing.

Build it with AI​

An AI app connected to dzbot, or the AI Companion, can edit the draft directly: files, config fields, a check for problems and a preview with values of its choice. Its changes appear live in the workbench. For a plain AI assistant, the Mod Builder agent reference describes the file operations, the template syntax and the field types.

Edit in the game with dzStudio​

dzStudio, the object editor inside DayZ, can open a mod's object spawner files directly from dzbot and save back into the draft — no export and import. You connect it once: dzStudio shows a code and opens dzbot.de/editor/connect, where you sign in with your own account and confirm the code, but only if the game shows exactly that code and you are connecting it yourself right now. The connection then appears on your Profile under Connected apps. Disconnect in dzStudio ends only the connection of that computer; Disconnect under Connected apps ends every dzStudio connection of your account.

dzStudio opens the mods whose content you may edit and the placements of servers where you hold admin.mods.manage; editing needs dzbot Pro on the organization or server. It saves all changed files together, or nothing, and changes made in the workbench meanwhile show up in the game. dzbot stores each file exactly as dzStudio wrote it and checks before saving that it arrived unchanged; a file damaged on the way is not saved, and dzStudio says so.

Object spawner files dzStudio creates are listed in the server's cfggameplay.json by dzbot itself whenever the mods are transferred, each once, next to what the server's file and other mods list already. A spawner file you delete or rename, also in the workbench, drops out of the list at the next transfer. dzStudio never writes cfggameplay.json. A delta file of dzStudio's that a save leaves without entries is deleted, not kept as an empty file.

If somebody copies dzStudio's connection from the game's profile folder and uses it, dzbot ends that connection for both, and dzStudio asks you to connect again; your other dzStudio connections stay.

A shared dzStudio session​

Several people can edit a mod together in dzStudio. While such a session runs, a notice in the workbench says so, and the mod's files, config fields and publishing can only be changed from inside the session — the workbench, the AI Companion and connected AI apps are refused until it ends. A session that loses contact lets go of the mod after ten minutes by itself. Whoever may edit and manage the mod can also release a session that is stuck; what the session has not saved stays in dzStudio and is no longer protected against being overwritten.

dzStudio can also create a new project in dzbot from a session (Save as with dzbot as the target), if you may edit at least one mod or placement in dzStudio. It becomes a private mod of your own, named as you entered it, for the map of the session, and appears in your mods once the session first saves. Its object spawner files (.json) are saved into the mod; loot files of the project are not.

Friends for shared sessions​

Your dzbot account keeps a friends list for dzStudio, at most 200 accounts. You keep it at dzbot.de/account/dzstudio: search for an account by its name or the name of one of its players (three characters or more) — you find only accounts that have a player on at least one of your servers — and remove it there; Manage dzStudio friends under Connected apps on your Profile leads there. Changing the list needs your own Discord sign-in, not a sign-in link. In a dzStudio session you can also add the other participants as friends, including somebody who came in with a code. The list is yours alone: whoever you add is not asked and not told, and it changes nothing in their list.

Your friends are listed when you invite somebody to a session. A friend with may always join comes into sessions you start with a local project without an invitation and may invite others, but not manage the session; switching it off keeps them in a session they are already in until they leave. The switch gives nothing on mods and placements: there only the rights on the mod or placement count. Whether a friend is online or in a session is shown only when they list you as well.