Matrix Games Forums

combatreport 1.0 - b1.01

It should be pointed out that the date required is the Real Time Date of the save, not the Game Date.
For the benefit of our international friends it also should be made clear what that Time Format really is.

The default (during initialization) simply says 04/01/2010 12:00 AM which means
Month/Day/Year or MM/DD/YYYY

So you enter in this field the earliest real date from the save you want the reports to begin with.

Say you have a save dated March, 23, 2010 and you want the reports to start with that save.
Then you would enter in the date field: 03/23/2010 12:00 AM
Make sure your entry looks exactly like the example above including the time.
Otherwise the utility will fail (the exact time doesn't seem to matter but the entry must be there and it must be in this form).

If the utility fails to start delete the file named combatReport.properties (or all files in the tool's directory) and restore this file (or all files) from the zip file.
Then try again.
Tip: To enter the save files home folder it may be best to use cut and paste in order to avoid typoes.


EDIT: The file combatReport.properties seems to be a plain ASCII file, and thus can be edited with any ASCII editor, like Wordpad. Just make sure to save the file as a plain text file, and also make sure there is NO extension after the save. Meaning the file is still named combatReport.properties (and not combatReport.properties.txt).

combatreport 1.0 - b1.01

As an afterthought to my last message: if the date/time given is invalid it would be great if the tool would default to the last save in the save folder (looking it up there).

In fact, there should be a selectable default (start up switch?) to always load only the last save. But of course not exluding the current way to load all saves from a given date if so desired.

combatreport 1.0 - b1.01

1) Does it run on XP?

Yes, it does (WinXP 32 SP3 US version)

Thanks for the feedback on this. I will make this change to help with this issue. I also plan to add a browse button to help people with selecting the file location directory.

On my list of To do's.

Please use forward slashes in the directory name for the AE diretory. If you use backslashes, you will need to use \\ as this is a java string requirement, so forward slashes are preferred.

ex: E:/Matrix Games/War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition/SAVE - preferred way

or
E:\\Matrix Games\\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\\SAVE

If you save with double backslashes it will return with single backslashes and you will have to edit the string the next time you make a change. I will correct this, but if you use forward slahses "/" you don't have to worry.

I have updated the first post to make this clear and I will update the user guide.

Thx,

Bret

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

Seems to be a nice tool. Is there a way to zoom closer into the map with the next build?

Yes, I have actually restricted the zooming to these two levels because of the included map resolution. The current resolution on the map I included with the Beta version is only 1024 x 768 and gets grainy as you zoom in I can increase the map resolution to full WITP AE resolution and then you can zoom in quite far, but it will take a little longer to load the map during startup. It will also increase the size of the download. I think the current map is 20 MB and will go to 50MB. Not a big issue in size, but it does take about twice the amount of time to startup the app. The good news is that once the program is running there is no additional penalty.

I can also allow the map to zoom out much further as well.

Thoughts from the community?

Good tool. I would be happy to have a bigger download for a bigger map. Used the reporter last night on a few turns. XP OS. The 20 second refresh kept refreshing the reports list displaying just the turn directories so I had to continually open a turn I was going through and select the next detail. I changed the 20 to 120 and the problem disappeared. This was just a quick test of the tool and the only problem I encountered. Very useful. The map links are great.

Great tool!!!! bigger download for larger more detailed map no problem for me!

ORIGINAL: DarkestHour

Good tool. I would be happy to have a bigger download for a bigger map. Used the reporter last night on a few turns. XP OS. The 20 second refresh kept refreshing the reports list displaying just the turn directories so I had to continually open a turn I was going through and select the next detail. I changed the 20 to 120 and the problem disappeared. This was just a quick test of the tool and the only problem I encountered. Very useful. The map links are great.

Yes, this problem may occur on slower machines because WITPAE actually writes to those files several times while a turn is taking place and CombatReporter (CR) will see the change in the file modification date and refresh the tree. Your solution is the correct one by adding more time to the monitor interval. 120 is 120 seconds or 2 minutes. The only downside to that duration is that you may have to wait for a minute or so after the turn before CR updates. I'll set the default up to 60 and see how that works for everyone. The good news is that you can change it to whatever works best for you. [:)]

Thanks for the feedback.

P.S. not to imply that you have a slow machine [8D]

ORIGINAL: captskillet

Great tool!!!! bigger download for larger more detailed map no problem for me!

When I release the next version of the beta here shortly, I'll include the higher resolution map and let everyone give it a shot. I'll allow zooming all the way out and in and see how everyone likes it. If the feedback is positive, I'll leave it in for the final release.

Thanks for the feedback.

Bret

Yes, I have actually restricted the zooming to these two levels because of the included map resolution.

(from your post #26)

How does one zoom the two levels you mentioned with the current version (1.0 b1.01) and how with the updated version soon to come?

Nice utility here.

It should be possible to define the root installation directory for this application and then build the map image from the bitmaps already installed with the game. I believe Tracker does this. This way you can keep the download small.

A nice feature would be to see collated data per location like Bohdi's Utility does for WiTP. This way I could select a hex where a battle had been taking place over the past few days to quickly check progress over a period of time.

Nice tool.  It's better to look at compared to text files and the on-screen report.
But I see reports for all the running games.
Is there a way to limit it to a particular save?

CombatReporter Beta 1.02 is available at the link in the first posting here.

Fixes: Info menu now works properly.
On startup, the WITP AE SAVE directory is not populated and the preferences dialog will ask you to add it.
Added a browse button on the preferences dialog to help you navigate to the WITPAE save directory
Added the high resolution map so you can now zoom way in and out.
Added a splash screen so you know the program is loading.
Updated the user guide
Fixed a few bugs that have been reported
If you have an invalid save directory configured, you will see a message in the command window telling you to correct it. No more file not found exception.

Let me know if you have any problems with it. [8D]

Cheers,

Bret

ORIGINAL: jomni

Nice tool.  It's better to look at compared to text files and the on-screen report.
But I see reports for all the running games.
Is there a way to limit it to a particular save?

I'll look into this.

ORIGINAL: OSO

Nice utility here.

It should be possible to define the root installation directory for this application and then build the map image from the bitmaps already installed with the game. I believe Tracker does this. This way you can keep the download small.

A nice feature would be to see collated data per location like Bohdi's Utility does for WiTP. This way I could select a hex where a battle had been taking place over the past few days to quickly check progress over a period of time.

I thought about doing this as well and I'll take a look at that as an enhancement. Any suggestions for how this should be represented on the screen?

ORIGINAL: bretg80

ORIGINAL: captskillet

Great tool!!!! bigger download for larger more detailed map no problem for me!

When I release the next version of the beta here shortly, I'll include the higher resolution map and let everyone give it a shot. I'll allow zooming all the way out and in and see how everyone likes it. If the feedback is positive, I'll leave it in for the final release.

Another way of doing this would be to post the hi-res map separately and leave it it to the player whether they want to download the large map file or not.

This also has the advantage of making the download for a program executable update much smaller...

Best of luck with this utility, it looks great!!

While playing as Japan (Japan is also selected in the settings), I also noticed that I can see reports for the US side.
I'll try the newer version.

ORIGINAL: jomni

While playing as Japan (Japan is also selected in the settings), I also noticed that I can see reports for the US side.
I'll try the newer version.

Hmm, this sounds like a bug, I'll take a look at it.

B1.03 is out. I fixed the issue with the Japanese player having access to the allied sigint and ops reports. I also fixed a bug whereby if you use an archive directory the files in there were being picked up too.

I was asked if I can filter reports from different games and right now I'm not sure how to do that. If you save them in separate directories, you can point CombatReporter to the saved directories to view older reports, but to monitor game activity, this isn't possible. The developers did not put any identifiable information in the files for me to discern which files point to a specific game instance.

So... If you have any ideas on how to solve this, let me know.

Dev's could you maybe add this as a future enhancement?