GXT Editor (GTA2)

A GXT Editor is used to edit *.gxt files, in which all texts of GTA2 are stored. This includes all mission texts, car names, area names, ingame texts, but also the text used in the menu and even the GTA2 Manager.

To alter these texts, you'll need a text editor. There are several editors to do this, but they're all more or less the same. It doesn't seem to be possible to add lines to a *.gxt file, so original texts have to be replaced which means there is a limited number of lines that can be used in GTA2. This shouldn't be much of a problem since the files contain a very high number of lines and there even are unused lines.

Opening a text file

After you've started the editor, choose 'open' and navigate to the gta2\data folder. This folder contains 10 *.gxt files, but you can only open two of them: the ones of the language you've installed.

e	English
f	French
g	German
i	Italian
s	Spanish

If you installed GTA2 in English, you'll only be able to open the files 'e.gxt' and 'e_bob.gxt'. The single letter file contains all ingame texts and the '_bob' file contains the GTA2 Manager texts.

Open one of the files. A long list of texts will appear. In front of each text line, you'll notice an unique ID. This ID is used to refer to the text in the script.

Altering text

Changing these texts is very easy, although the method may differ slightly between editors. Normally, you can just remove old text and type your own.

Mission texts

The IDs 1001 through 7235 are reserved for mission texts (both messages and briefs).

Messages

Messages are the big texts that appear in the middle of the screen, like mission titles or the text "Frenzy passed!". They are created in the script with the following command:

DISPLAY_MESSAGE ( ID )

It's only possible to use texts with numeric IDs.

Briefs

Briefs are the instructions that appear at the bottom of the screen. They are created in the script with the following commands:

DISPLAY_BRIEF ( ID ) // displays a brief when all other active briefs have passed
DISPLAY_BRIEF_NOW ( ID ) //immediately displays a brief, regardless of other active briefs 

Again, it's only possible to use texts with numeric IDs.

You can clear all waiting briefs with

CLEAR_ALL_BRIEFS ( )

This terminates all briefs waiting to be displayed, for example, when a DISPLAY_BRIEF_NOW got priority. You don't have to add anything between the brackets.

You may want to use some extra features. Text between two # symbols (#text#) will be blue instead of yellow and is used to emphasize important words. With x!, you can add a face which appears next to the text:

n!	Generic face
z!	Trey Welsh, Red Valdez or Uno Carb (Zaibatsu Corporation)
y!	Johnny Zoo (Yakuza)
l!	Elmo (Loonies)
r!	Billy Bob Bean (Rednecks)
s!	Doctor LaBrat (SRS Scientists)
m!	Jerkov (Russian Mafia)
k!	Sunbeam (Hare Krishna)

Area names

The names of areas are linked to special codes. To give an area a name, you must create a navigation zone in the map editor and name it one of the following codes:

m31 through m44	Downtown District	17 zones
w01 through w03	Downtown District
m16 through m30	Residential District	24 zones
s01 through s09	Residential District
m01 through m015	Industrial District	39 zones
B01 through B025	Industrial District

Now find the code in the text file and alter the name to the name you want to give to the area.