The SE4 companion - Why the long wait?.

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by alarikf:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ruatha:
If you hear the Audio Alert, it's Mrs Ruatha speaking (Or actually, we have lived in sin for 12 years but are getting hitched in three weeks!)

Congratulations!

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Thanks!

[Aiken]

Request:
1. Option to hide Recent games and Favorite games dropdown lists from the main page.
2. Show turn deadline in pbw games status dropdown list (on the main page), ie:
--------------------------------
Space Empires 101
2410.3
Ready
Turn due: Jun 9, 2:00:05 PM MSD
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Small bug: the clones of existing favorite games appeared in my Favorites list (main program page). When tried to choose the clone fav (it's lower in the list than true fav, usually) I've got error:
"When trying to determine savegame Version of the file:

doesn't exist!"

After restart they're disappered.
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I'd like to say many many good words to you Ruatha for your work. You'll henceforth be known as the Great Ruatha, The Magnificent Creator of the SE4 Companion, The Powerful Master of the History Files, The Intrepid Coder for Overbloated Interfaces, etc etc.

[Ragnarok]

Ruatha,

Great job on this utility! I am loving it so far. One thing I cannot seem to get working is getting it to open a mod. Is this feature enabled? I noticed in the favorite settings it has a used mod text area but you cannot put anything there. There is no "change" button like the others. It trys to open the turn just fine but it will not use the mod directory to do so.

Kudos for the "A new turn as arrived!" I like the sound of the voice.

[Ruatha]

Thanks Aiken.
Will put in those checkboxes and see about those bugs.
The clones is propably just a missed CLEAR.
Adding the deadlines is harder but it will come, along with the deadline alert feature.
the IMAP mail seems more questionable though, I still haven't found out how to do it.


Ragnarok> You shouldn't be able to set a mod manually, it should take the mod from the path tha you have choosen the game in.
Say that you chooses a game in "SE4\Mods\Mymod\savegame\fungam.gam" it should set the mod to MyMod and use that mod folder when running SE4.
Doesn't it do that?
(Only favorite games can use mods)
If not, what does the Manual command line in the bottom of the favorite page look like?
That you can always set yourself, so that it can run the game with all the commands that are needed.
But it should grab the right mod.
I'd appreciate if you could post the commandline from the favorite page and the modname.

When I try it here at work with a dummy file structure it sets the command line to:
"C:\TEMP\companion072\Mods\Special\savegame\ngc3_pl r_2_events.txtngc3.gam" "PASSWORD" "2" "Special"
and the mod to Special
as it should. Except from the wrong path bit, a bug !

I guess you haven't put the mod savegames under the mod subdirectories.. I didn't think of that.
Will make an option to change that manually!.

[ June 08, 2004, 22:16: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Ruatha]

Bugs:
-Wrong path in favorite settings. (When setting favorite after choosing manual event edit file)(fixed)
-Cloned Favorites in Favorites box. (fixed)
-Internal browser busy to often.
-Readme file button doesn't work.
-Combobox first line empty after change.(fixed)
-It can say that the SE4 font is installed but still use the wrong font (anyone else seen this? a blank event edit grid) (bad fix)? set option "Force font install at each start" to fix.
-Doesn't work on NT 4.0, (Can't find flaswindow start in user32.dll) (Make another titlebar alert routine?) (fixed)?


Suggestions:
-Manual setting of mods. (90% propability)
-IMAP mail support (Help!) (20% propability)
-Deadlines in PBW combo box list. (75% propability)
-Alert if login to PBW fails (i e wrong password) (95% propability)
- Improve music playlist page with ID3 tag and volume settings (45% propability)
-PBW Scan for temporary player substitute. (60% propability)
-Make dynamic menuitems in Sidenotes for easy entering of empire names (50% propability)
-RTC wrapper. (Third mode for access to PBW, make a dummy SE4.exe that passes parameters to the Companion from the RTC) (5% propability)
- Option to hide first page "Recent" and "Favorites" lists and autoLoad checkbox. (85% propability)
-Bloat the interface some more (110% propability)
-Make it a tee wee bit more complicated (234% propability)

To Do
-Deadline alert
-Setup wizard.
-help files.
-Delete downloaded turn mails.
-Enable backups in Favorites.
-Enable text boxes for "downloaded at" and "sent in" in Favorites.
-Enable PBW button in Favorites.
-Delete nag mails.
-Show PBW individual game news
-Make edit boxes in favorite page direct editable instead of change buttons. (fixed)

[ June 09, 2004, 09:38: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Ed Kolis]

Wow, great work!

I just can't figure out how to get it to launch SE4... I hit the launch button and either nothing happens or I get an Access Violation in SE4.exe Is the program perhaps not waiting long enough for the game to finish loading, so it aborts the process? Be nice to my poor hard drive!

[Aiken]

Ruatha, I'm not familiar with coding, but if you're looking for delphi components to provide imap support, look here:
http://www.indyproject.org/Indy.html