When debugging worlds, I occasionally find that I want to open a save from outside CW3, as one would a script for editing or a more normal document.
Is it possible to associate the file extension ".cw3" with CW3?
If not, it's a footnote. If so, it's mildly useful.
My best guess is "No", followed by "It wasn't worth doing", or (just) possibly "Yes, it was useful while creating the game".
I don't think it's possible. As for whether it could be implemented in theory... Making it load the save to play could be possible if Virgil had the time to add this (though I question whether the 5 seconds it would save players would be worth it). Making it open in the editor would be a massive can of worms.
The 5s saved is far from worthwhile if it's not already there.
It should work just like any file association in Winders. If you do a search for files with the extension cw3 you get a lot of files, Then you can select the file, Right click, Open With, More apps, scroll to the bottom, click on Look for another app on this PC and then search for the CW3 executable. The only problem I can see is that if you have steam, the CW3 Icon points to "steam://rungameid/280220" so I am not sure if there is a CW3 exe file on any pc that is bought CW3 from Steam.
The steam version also has a CW3.exe. Still there would be the choice of opening the map in the editor or not (I'd rather have it in the editor), and I have seen occurances where it isn't as easy as it seems for a developer to implement this. Not only does clicking the save have to open the game, it also has to load the save.
Note that it could be more than 5s in case someone downloads a map from the internet and just clicks 'open'.
Well, CW3 has on option to load from the main menu, which was why I asked.
I asked more from interest than need.