I know it's intended. It should not be intended was my point.
I understand that the editor generates .txt from .stats, but that one-way mechanism has gaps in the design:
- The .stat files are not distributed with mods; therefore, if anyone wants to load a distributed mod into the editor, they can't see the data in the .txt files using the editor, further pushing them to work with files outside the editor.
- Few users know about the .stat files, so backups either include only the Mods/Projects/Public folders or only the PAK archive. This means that when they reinstall the game and toolset, or indeed simply install the game and toolset on another system, they can't work on their own mods in the editor.
- Many legacy mods (i.e., pre-editor mods) cannot be viewed in the editor because they lack .stat files.
In addition, without any way to import .txt files into the Stats Editor, this results in these outcomes:
- the user thinks their data has been lost, so they spend the time to rebuild that data in the Stats Editor and effectively overwrite the existing data;
- the user thinks their data has been lost, so they post false bug reports; and
- the user does not understand why the Stats Editor cannot see their existing .txt files, so instead of using the Stats Editor, they continue editing the .txt files manually.
