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View Full Version : Some ideas improving the applications to consider



cys
09-08-2009, 07:04 AM
1. name search filter.
2. spawn/kill log or direct file-log feature.
3. fix (or allow self customization) of what is actually read when you use "Speak" options for nameds in filters.

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ad. 1 name search filter.
In the spawn list window there is on the top a place to type in a partial name of a mob which is interesting us. When you will it in, a first mob matching the partial name is targeted. This is great already. However would be even greater if you add a button like "filter". Pressing it would crop the spawn list to the mobs which partial name fits the current search criteria. Example: You search for player named "Darky" (you want to check class and level since he is /anon). When you hoover mouse cursor over the map you would only hilight the mount/familiar 1st. So you search on the list. But if you have your list sorted e.g. by level you will first find "Darky's familiar" and you will not be able to actually find "Darky" himself. He is located screen or 2 below and since you cant actually type anything more to narrow your search... you are out of options. If you had a button like mentioned "fiter", the list would hide temporary all mobs and display only 3 lines:
* Darky
* Darky's familiar
* Darky's mount
and their appropriate data like levels etc. And then the "Reset" button will have double function. Will clean the name from the filed as well as resets the spawnlist to display complete list once again.

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ad. 2. spawn/kill log or direct file-log feature.
When I am trying to figure out a rare named spawn/respawn I usually use the voice alarms in Option/Filters. This is really great feature. But it seems it only works ok if you are nearby. If you need to go shopping, go work or do somewhere else away from your PC for a longer time you are lost. The wanted mob will spawn, will get killed eventually by someone and when you come back home you have no idea what time did he spawn at and what time did it get killed. You have actually also no idea IF he spawned meanwhile your absence or not. There is a window called "Spawn Timer List" but it seems it does not record the rare mobs 1st spawn. As far as I understand it only start displaying once the given mob popped at least 2 times (so it can calculate repop time). But if it was 1st pop, you will not even know it ever happened.

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ad. 3. fix (or allow self customization) of what is actually read when you use "Speak" options for nameds in filters.
I use that feature recently and I must say it is marvelous! Brilliant! However I have noticed there are some different voice engines. Some "smaller" ones do not spell special characters like "/" (slash) etc. Some on the other hand do. So in my case with a nice voice I use these days when a rare mob pops (e.g. Sontalak) I receive a following voice message: "Rare mob Sontalak slash I M P H is up" and my question and request are: - why is there that "slash" actually? :) Can we get rid of it? - i am not sure of the meaning and purpose of these "IMPH" letters as well. So if you could fix these unnecessary characters sent to the voice engine would be really nice. And even greater would be if you could put the additional option in config so you can actually customize the string yourself.

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Well that was my 3 suggestions I was thinking of. I really like the program as it is. I think you guys did and still are doing great job developing and supporting this tool! And therefore I hope that my "little" suggestion improvements will also be considered to be implemented soon. Or maybe you can even improve my suggestions to something more sophisticated and useful? What do you think about my ideas? :)

Razzle
09-08-2009, 06:25 PM
1. Doable. I can easily make it so that if you hover it will preferentially show the player over the mount or familiar. I will look more at these kind of options.

2. Adding a logging option is something I was looking at. It would be nice to pull up a history for a spawn point. Or let you browse the spawn files. I know what I would like for it to look like, but I haven't learned how to do that yet. Maybe I will spend some time learning to code some interface stuff again.

3. I didn't know there was some (slash) + other junk going on. I will look at that more too. There were a few things I was considering on the voices. There are more options that could be done with the alerts, but keeping the compatibility with the old filters was something I was trying. I can come up with a new schema that would suffice though. It would be nice to add to the filter itself how you want the alert sounded. To designate specifically on a per filter basis, rather than having to break it up to filter types. This is also one of those interface thigns I was looking at, to create a totally new interface for adding/editing filters, but changing how they are handled too.

Razzle

cys
09-09-2009, 01:24 AM
Great to hear from you so soon and in such a positive way! :) I cant stand waiting to get it implemented then! :)

/fingers crossed

cys
09-09-2009, 06:49 AM
Oh and one more thing I recalled just now which should be easy to fix for you and which is pretty annoying for users.

4. Rare/Hunt/Caution/Danger mobs do incorrect name search.
When a mob is already categorized as one of these e.g. on your spawn list you see:

[R] Sontalak [R]

and when you right mouse click on that mob and select "search" to see the loot/additional info it redirects you to allakhazam. However the automatically entered name in the alla's search engine looks like:

R Sontalak R

The square brackets are lost but the type of mob not. Which obviously will not get you correct search results.

The search finctionality works great aside of that. All the "non marked" mobs (not rare/hunt etc.) are transferred ok. The mentioned issue applies only to the marked mobs. Small issue and I hope it will be easy to fix, but on daily use annoying :)

Razzle
09-09-2009, 06:18 PM
Oh if you only knew how little of this is actually "easy" for me.

Razzle

Razzle
09-09-2009, 08:10 PM
Fixed the extra prefix and suffix info that was being added in the search.

Fixed the extra stuff in the voice alerts.

When hovering or selecting with mouse on map, fixed it so mobs and pcs will be identified/selected over pets, mounts and familiars.

Pushed the changes to cvs (for those that don't want to wait for a release).

Will work on more as I get time.

Razzle

cys
09-09-2009, 11:22 PM
Wow that was fast, I am impressed! :)
And btw approximately when is the next release scheduled to be at if I may ask?

Hidron
09-10-2009, 04:25 AM
There are no scheduled release dates. Razzle pretty much just releases a new version when he is done with his current ideas for the program.

Razzle
09-18-2009, 09:31 PM
I got busy with work and life, so haven't got back to this. Probably will be after my test in school next week before I can give it some serious work.

Razzle

cys
09-19-2009, 02:29 AM
Ok, thanks for heads up. Waiting even more impatiently for next release than usual :)

Razzle
10-17-2009, 08:13 PM
Yep, I am slow. When I was adding the logging, I broke the spawn timers. So I am finishing up my testing to make sure everything works well. I rush to do things sometimes, and break more than I fix. Maybe tomorrow I will be done.

I also added so it shows the primary and offhand items. I spent a bit of time adding more weapon info, pulling in as much info as I could put together. For common item id's, I used best description I could figure out using the least amount of effort. It was a database of over 100k items, so it took me a few hours to trim it down.

It will use the same info for lookups as it does ground items, so I moved it to load into a hash table for speed. I was suprised that ground items were all still loaded from the ini file when hovering the mouse over the item on the map.

I still have to pull the new offsets from MQ2 for the live, since my account isn't active. EQEmu just got a whole lot more fun, since the new Project 1999 server went active this month. They tried to reproduce EQ as close to its state as they could back in 1999. Old models and everything. It has that classic feel, and they plan to follow the timeline with nerfs, additions, expansions, up thru velious. It really is an example of what Sony should do for a classic server. Not looking forward to hell levels again tho.

Razzle

Oggre
10-21-2009, 11:36 AM
Oooohhhhh Razzle, I'm interested in this 1999 project, and haven't heard of it. Where can I find more information?

Thanks much. Glad I read this thread.

O

Razzle
10-21-2009, 12:21 PM
You can find info about the server at www.project1999.org