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alvieboy

Timer timestamp for chat

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Hey,

 

One cool thing I'd love to see in EL is a "timer" timestamp in the chat system, depicting the time offset between now and the time that message got received by the client.

 

For example, instead of having:

 

You started to harvest Sapphire.

Too heavy, you are overloaded.

You stopped harvesting.

 

we would have something like this ( the [] represents a different color )

 

[5m] You started to harvest Sapphire.

[10s] Too heavy, you are overloaded.

[10s] You stopped harvesting.

 

And the timers are updated on-the-fly. So after two minutes you'd see (even in history):

 

[7m] You started to harvest Sapphire.

[2m] Too heavy, you are overloaded.

[2m] You stopped harvesting.

 

This would give everyone a pretty good idea of when those messages have been issued.

 

The counters would be from XXs (seconds), to XXm (minutes) and XXh (hours). More than 24 hours ago it would display "~~" or something like.

 

Álvaro

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That is not a bad idea, but it requires some work. Especially for previos sessions (after you restart the client).

One other potential problem is the fact that some people have multiple characters which they sometimes use at the same time, from the same directory.

If you can come up with a way on how to do this properly, I'd be interested.

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One other potential problem is the fact that some people have multiple characters which they sometimes use at the same time, from the same directory.

Instead of using the file "chat_log.txt", what about using the character name? So for me, it would be "bkc56_log.txt". That way every char being used will have it's own chat log file (doesn't matter if they're being used at the same time or not).

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One other potential problem is the fact that some people have multiple characters which they sometimes use at the same time, from the same directory.

Instead of using the file "chat_log.txt", what about using the character name? So for me, it would be "bkc56_log.txt". That way every char being used will have it's own chat log file (doesn't matter if they're being used at the same time or not).

That is an option as well, although some people might not like it (harder to find stuff if you have many chars).

Actually, I like the idea. It isn't new either, there's a patch floating around which does just that, but it's probably about 3 years old now.

 

I'd like to implement it (shouldn't be too hard, I hope), but would like to see some consensus on it first.

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Why not make the filename chat_log_name.txt (that'd be chat_log_ermabwed.txt for me) that way, it'd be as easy to find as it is now.

 

And by the way, you can already manually time stuff from the chat log:

[10:04:23] You started to harvest Dung.
[10:16:57] Ermabwed was stung by a bee, losing 5 health
[10:16:57] You stopped harvesting.

That makes 12 minutes and 34 seconds of dung harvest :(

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There are patches on berlios for adding the name (when set in ctrl+o) and/or the date (as above) and/or the channel number (ditto). It's handy stuff in some cases, but some people would have trouble searching through the files to find something someone said between 2 and 3 weeks ago :(

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*posted on my phone in a field*

There is already precedent for the naming convention - spells_name.dat

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Tnx labrat. counters_name.dat as well.

 

I'm starting to think if we shouldn't just create a separate directory for data like this. There's also notes.xml and quest.log to consider.

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Data like what?

If you split logs on date or channel then there's enough for a logs dir, otherwise just sticking it all in $HOMR/.elc/ is generally enough.

I doubt there's enough per-player files that splitting that out will make much of a difference (those who can find the files can handle sorting those few, I would at least hope).

If NEW_FILE_IO is enabled, then even windows users have a home dir used as well (and a subdir of that for map marks and minimap data).

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Data like spells, counters, quest logs, exploration maps, and perhaps notes, all of which are per-character data.

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I doubt there's enough per-player files that splitting that out will make much of a difference (those who can find the files can handle sorting those few, I would at least hope).

Well given I've logged into EL with 7 characters on my old linux box, and the list of files that grum gave. I can see it could get crazy.

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Data like what?

If you split logs on date or channel then there's enough for a logs dir, otherwise just sticking it all in $HOMR/.elc/ is generally enough.

I doubt there's enough per-player files that splitting that out will make much of a difference (those who can find the files can handle sorting those few, I would at least hope).

If NEW_FILE_IO is enabled, then even windows users have a home dir used as well (and a subdir of that for map marks and minimap data).

Splitting it up and organising things makes a lot of sense. Right now, running multiple characters can be troublesome (especially when chat_log comes into play).

 

I doubt there's enough per-player files that splitting that out will make much of a difference (those who can find the files can handle sorting those few, I would at least hope).

Well given I've logged into EL with 7 characters on my old linux box, and the list of files that grum gave. I can see it could get crazy.

Exactly.

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Yes, I think a new directory is a good idea. I just hope that there won't be problems with permissions and stuff like that, especially with supporting multiple operating systems.

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Well given I've logged into EL with 7 characters on my old linux box, and the list of files that grum gave. I can see it could get crazy.
7? Hmm, yeah, I don't think that's a common occurance, but I can see the issue.
Data like spells, counters, quest logs, exploration maps, and perhaps notes, all of which are per-character data.
Well, apart from exploration data (which in the old system is stuck in data_dir/maps IIRC, and with NEW_FILE_IO is moved with mapmarks into config_dir/maps) the number is limited... However, if there are many characters played on the one computer then it may be quite handy.

I think the big problem you'll face is how much to split out.

Exploration data? Probably (with newer options, it's stuck in a directory only with mapmarks, and I think it'd be somewhat rare for users to have any reason to mess with any of those files, apart from maybe looking up coords in a mapmarks file, so a clump there isn't as bad (the number of mapmark files is already a large clump)).

Data already split is easy enough.

Logs? If so, which ones (chat_log, but not srv_log, connection_log or error_log? Is there a reason to split those as well?)?

Notes? (of course, you could have it made so the notepad has both all-users and this-user notes, if you want the added complexity).

Ignores and filters? I'd be inclined to leave them global.

el.ini and el.cfg? Probably global (although it could also check a player-dir to see if one exists there first, so a user can manually create a new location for their config; when saving it checks if the file exists before saving to ~/.elc)

I just hope that there won't be problems with permissions and stuff like that, especially with supporting multiple operating systems.
I don't think thered be, as long as we only use config_dir and not data_dir (which we should be doing anyway).

We won't be able to run on system without directories (some old filesystems...) anyway, I can't think why we would be able to create normal files but not directories (although having code in place for a can't-happen isn't that bad either), and apart from non-NEW_FILE_IO on windows, we already created data_dir/.elc, and change the files there or even add new ones regularly, so it'd be suprising if we couldn't make a new dir.

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Logs? If so, which ones (chat_log, but not srv_log, connection_log or error_log? Is there a reason to split those as well?)?
It would probably be a good idea to fix the bugs with how messages are logged before deciding just which files will be character specific and which ones won't.

 

For one example of the problems that need to be fixed, see: http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=34870

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It would probably be a good idea to fix the bugs with how messages are logged before deciding just which files will be character specific and which ones won't.

 

For one example of the problems that need to be fixed, see: http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=34870

Actually, I just checked in a patch yesterday that should fix issues 1 and 2 in a clean way. el.ini is still out of date though, I'll have a look at it today.

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