Does WPP need a "Tracker"?

[larryfulkerson]

We may need a Tracker for WPP if only because you can sort the columns using it.

No it's not the National Afgan Army, but they perform that way:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a look a the saved game file from WPP. It looks a lot like XML but different. I have no idea where one data block starts and ends
and where the next one begins. This is the file I need to use as input for the WPP Tracker so I'll have to figure it out somehow.

[eskuche]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

We may need a Tracker for WPP if only because you can sort the columns using it.

No it's not the National Afgan Army, but they perform that way:

Just for the record, I completed applaud your efforts! The difference for WPP is that the developer is here and responsive. If a lot of the necessary functions could simply be done by him, then it saves you a lot of time. Perhaps it would be helpful if Alvaro dropped in and clarified how much work he is planning on doing for the current unit lists and how much he is willing to explain the code, for example.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: eskuche

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
We may need a Tracker for WPP if only because you can sort the columns using it.

Just for the record, I completed applaud your efforts! The difference for WPP is that the developer is here and responsive. If a lot of the necessary functions could simply be done by him, then it saves you a lot of time.

Perhaps it would be helpful if Alvaro dropped in and clarified how much work he is planning on doing for the current unit lists and how much he is willing to explain the code, for example.

That might be very useful. If I could hazzard a guess, I would guess that Al is busy working on something all the time. He's probably got more than one project on his plate. I've never met him face to face but I like him a lot. He has my respect for what he's done and what he's doing. Maybe we should start a thread containing a wish list of things we'd like to see as features, or things we'd like changed?

[larryfulkerson]

Hey you guys: Alvaro and I talked about it at length and came to the mutual agreement that there's no need for a Tracker at this time. There would be a lot of work that Al would have to do to make it work and he hasn't the time for that just now. Plus, very few people would use it, probably. And I have no idea how to do database programming, yet. So it's been moved to the back burner for now. I'll find some other way to be helpful.

[FirstPappy]

If it ever is made please make it work with the latest Java version. It was a PITA to have to have a version that was way, way old in addition to the latest version for everything else.

[larryfulkerson]

Actually I was planning on avoiding Java altogether. I'm in the process of learning how to make Unity ( C# ) do some cool stuff. And it's my understanding that the Microsoft .Net framework is involved and almost everybody has that on their windows machine. It comes with the WIN10 OS after all. I plan on making it very easy for the user to use. No fancy cutting and pasting, no renaming of files, no confusion about directories, etc. Just download it and run it. Something like that.

[eskuche]

I’ve been screenshotting my unit info. You could probably automate that and then use a text detector to mine the data.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: eskuche
I’ve been screenshotting my unit info. You could probably automate that and then use a text detector to mine the data.

I have no idea what it is that you are doing or how I might be able to automate it. What in the world is a text detector?

[eskuche]

Here's me taking screenshots of the entire list of units piecemeal (by scrolling down multiple times). This can be automated using programs that perform set actions, e.g., take screenshot of a certain screen area, scroll down with the mouse, repeat x number of times.

Edit: oops I didn't unstack them here, but you get the point

There are programs or algorithms that you can run on images to extract the text in them. Doing so here would get you raw data that you can import into a CSV file through some programming magic. Hence you could create a sortable tracker every turn.

[FirstPappy]

Perhaps a discussion of a WITP AE port to Unity might be in order?

[larryfulkerson]

That sounds like a very good idea because WITP-AE looks and feels like an OLD game. And there are things that need to be changed/tweaked. But who's got the time to do it? I'd like to be one of those that helps out.

[eskuche]

Here is a proof of concept: I screencapped the units screen, saved as jpg, and used any of a billion online image to text/table converters. This one seems reasonably good and lets you copy as a table into excel from the website directly.

What I cannot do: automate this. Autohotkey, a common scripting program to convert inputs into a series of outputs (such as taking screenshots, moving the mouse wheel, etc.) does not work in WPP for some reason, probably due to administrator rights. I also do not have the programming skills to automate this into a website and then compile it every turn, nor do I have the expertise to collate data automatically as in the WitP tracker.

[eskuche]

If Alvaro could just let us pretty please export the unit data as a csv it would make everything a whole lot easier