New Trading Tool - Cmdr's Log v1.1!

[Marikc0]

Later down the road it might even be neat to have a feature where you can record asteroid belt locations and the type of commodity that they contain at those locations. Just something I was thinking to myself earlier as I was typing them in a spreadsheet.

Random thought. Not technically a "trade" feature persay (well, sort of).

 

[pgriffith]

Hi, great tool. But I have one question.

Why do you have all these weird variants of Government types:

"Anarchy"
"Democracy"
"Dictatorship"
"Corporate State"
"Confederacy"
"Patronage"
"Religious Cult"
"Independent Democracy"
"Federal Democracy"
"Theocratic Dictatorship"
"Autocratic Dictatorship"
"Communist Dictatorship"
"Feudal"
"Imperial Colony"
"Imperial Protectorate"
"Prison Colony"

Instead of how they are listed in the station info panel and the Galaxy Map filters ?

"Anarchy"
"Colony"
"Communism"
"Confederacy"
"Cooperative"
"Corporate"
"Democracy"
"Dictatorship"
"Feudal"
"Imperial"
"Theocracy"
"Patronage"

I often don't know which of the 3 dictatorships to choose for example.

Cheers, keep rocking the updates !

Also............ any Android gurus out there ...... this would be any awesome tablet app <hint hint>

 

[HunterTX]

I like it!
You are right I hardly use the commodity screen, what I really use is the station list and its station data as well as notes and the most important for me is the Need/Have.

I think if you go this vision it would be very good.

Ok after staring at this thing for an hour...

I think perhaps getting rid of the commodities list in the middle and going only data entry mode for them. While commodity data is important; entering it is really the only time you interact with the commodity list. Now this depends somewhat on the trade tools getting beefed up. If the trade tools were more awesome, you'd use that primarily instead of looking through the commodities list.

Also, since I'm hoping the trade tools become a powerful interface, it will need it's own window in order to have room for all the complicated buttons and knobs and lists

So, now, we are faced with: Commodities is a window, trade tools is a window. The only thing that's left is Stations, and if they are alone on the main interface because there's nothing left, stations are effectively just a window as well.

Now I could attempt to make them all modeless dialogs, which means they can all be opened at the same time, but for the most part, you won't NEED them all open at the same time.

Let's see if you can follow this vision:

You run the app, and you only see a window with the Station List (and maybe notes on the side)

You Right-Click a station, and there will be a Commodities... button. Also probably a button directly on the main interface.

Clicking the Commodities... button opens up the commodities window (currently data entry mode). You could leave the window open, and click through Stations on the other window to see commodities change (just like you do now).

There would be a separate button, not related to commodities for Trades

Hitting the Trades button will open the Trades window (which will be an entirely new thing that's not created yet).

The Trades window will have all the tools for listing trades, best trades, round trip trades, etc.


All this accomplishes a couple things. The footprint of the app is smaller since everything is broken up into windows. Each major component having it's own window allows for more flexibility in adding controls and stuff without running out of room.

Might be worth a shot...

 

[Marchief]

Hi, great tool. But I have one question.

Why do you have all these weird variants of Government types:

"Anarchy"
"Democracy"
"Dictatorship"
"Corporate State"
"Confederacy"
"Patronage"
"Religious Cult"
"Independent Democracy"
"Federal Democracy"
"Theocratic Dictatorship"
"Autocratic Dictatorship"
"Communist Dictatorship"
"Feudal"
"Imperial Colony"
"Imperial Protectorate"
"Prison Colony"

Instead of how they are listed in the station info panel and the Galaxy Map filters ?

"Anarchy"
"Colony"
"Communism"
"Confederacy"
"Cooperative"
"Corporate"
"Democracy"
"Dictatorship"
"Feudal"
"Imperial"
"Theocracy"
"Patronage"

I often don't know which of the 3 dictatorships to choose for example.

Cheers, keep rocking the updates !

Also............ any Android gurus out there ...... this would be any awesome tablet app <hint hint>

I have wondered about this as well.
Also I have pm'd ArchV1 regarding an iOS and android app as I am a mobile dev. It's his baby and I don't want to do it without his permission.

 

[Chalto]

I'd like to say a big thanks to you ArchV1 for this wonderful tool. It's so much easier than pen & paper (and good for the environment too). Not sure if it's been mentioned in other posts, but would it be possible to have a dark layout option? Asking because I have it open on my 2nd screen, and the brightness of it all is a little distracting, plus I'm photo-sensitive and prefer darker backgrounds where possible. If it's not,then no biggy, I'll still enjoy using it
Another thing is that if you do remove the check boxes below the data entry section, could you maybe add shortcut keys for them in the menus so we don't have to keep opening them etc.?

Keep up the most excellent work, but don't forget the important stuff of still playing & enjoying ED when you can

 

[Nijal]

Just a quick word of appreciation for this tool, it made me stay up all night LOL !!
Made a small donation.

 

[Greyheart]

Might be worth a shot...

I didn't quote the important stuff, but I really like your ideas

I see Notes and Journal being in the same window, maybe with the last few lines of the journal and travel log showing so you can scroll up and see more if needed, and if the window highlights the station it is showing data for and you have an option to stay on top it could become a very handy in-game notepad / journal, especially for those without a second monitor.

 

[Bingeling]

Need some help here for you all that actually get to PLAY game

Population Sizes
- Tiny
- Large

I won't pretend to have seen them all, but I have the impressions that there may be a scale that is: (some population examples added).

Wealthy, huge population (2 billion)
Wealthy, very large population, 139 million
Wealthy
Large population. Population like 8 million. And a single station in a 1.2 million system.
<None>
Small population. A system of just above 100k population and 1 station may be this.
Tiny population. A system with 110k pop and two stations may be this.

One problem in finding limits, is that I can not see that there is population listed on the stations. There is population listed for the system, though.

I am quite sure there are stations that say nothing of size, the <None>, but finding a single of them with no other station in the system was unsuccessful. The problem with the "smaller than large" systems is that they are unexplored unless visited, so no system map for me to check the station.

There is a population filter in the galaxy map that is nice when hunting for them. You can set max and min populations by sliders. So if you made the tiny ones disappear, and increase the max a fraction, those that turn off (and back on when you go a bit back), are those that are a bit larger. But you need to have explored a lot or bother to visit them, to actually see the stations inside.

I would be quite happy with:

tiny, small, normal (none), large, wealthy.

There is no "poor" that I have ever seen, I think it is just wealthy on and off. So it is just a "very large indeed" sign.

 

[gravedodger]

It really is a terrific program and getting better with every update, some really good suggestions here and I'd like to add to the suggestions if I may regards UI design.

Would it be possible to have a choice of colours, or more precisely a darker UI panel, similar to the UI options in Slopey's perhaps?
I have Cmdr's Log open on a second screen when playing Elite and like to play in a very dimly lit room for the added atmosphere and the only draw-back is the UI is the standard bright grey, this effectively turns the monitor into a light.

Thank you for all your hard work ArchV1, it's really appreciated, I never play Elite without your program running now.

 

[Seonid]

You hate code that's like this eh?

If you really want to hate code, use Hungarian Notation.

 

[Njos]

Station Types
- Coriolis (the hexagon)
- Orbis
- Ocellus
- Asteroid
- Platform
- O'Neill Cylinder

Fill in others!

First, I didn't know about the O'Neil Cylinder. I've seen many, almost all of em are like that where I am, but it's listed as Orbis Station in the contact list. I used to call them Compact Orbis but that's just my way to tell them from fully fledged Orbis.

As for Outposts, I have met: civilian, industrial, commercial and unsanctioned. Prolly this last one is the "military" type but I'm just saying how they are listed in game. Than there are some other random names that doesn't necessarily mean to describe the type of the station, like "station, dock, port, terminal, ring, city, hub, platform, holding, horizons, enterprise......." although some of those I only found on real stations other for outposts only, but I couldn't be 100% sure about that. I would say: city, station and hub for proper stations all the others random for both types? v0v

 

[Dralamir]

I, too, would vote for implementing what was proposed in the two screenshots. Only the most important buttons should stay, right-clicking and the window menu should compensate for the less user features/options.

 

[Woolfy]

Any chance of seeing this on YT. I've had a look for it and can't find it.

 

[Kramster]

Need some help here for you all that actually get to PLAY game

Population Sizes
- Tiny
- Large

One man and his dog?
.
I like the drop down menu system, not so keen on separate windows opening beyond what we already have i.e. the data input window.

 

[I_am_Jon]

Really like the look of this tool, need something to replace all the paper on my desk. Only problem is it's a pain switching between windows and my wife wants to use laptop

 

[grae3107]

Just discovered this. Great tool

 

[Kramster]

Really like the look of this tool, need something to replace all the paper on my desk. Only problem is it's a pain switching between windows and my wife wants to use laptop

Set your in game graphics options to frameless and then you can alt tab it. It just pops on top leaving your game screen visible below.

 

[AKoM]

This is a great and very useful tool. Keep up the good work.

Noted a little typo in the Journal: The button for Journal inside the Journal window is labeled Jounral

 

[Christopsy]

typedef boost::tokenizer<boost::char_separator<wchar_t>, std::wstring::const_iterator, std::wstring> tokenizer;
boost::char_separator<wchar_t> sep(L"\r\n");
tokenizer tok(str, sep);

That looks like some kind of weird gobbledegook to me. I'll stick to my VB.net.

Yes, IMO that sort of thing is a real weakness of C++, although it's extremely specific and in theory lets you do some very clever manipulation of data... You'd probably write the same thing as:

Dim lines as String = str.Split( New String() {Environment.NewLine} )

...which I'll grant you is a lot easier to understand! ;-)

 

[ArchV1]

Hi, great tool. But I have one question.

Instead of how they are listed in the station info panel and the Galaxy Map filters ?

"Anarchy"
"Colony"
"Communism"
"Confederacy"
"Cooperative"
"Corporate"
"Democracy"
"Dictatorship"
"Feudal"
"Imperial"
"Theocracy"
"Patronage"

I'll totally use these! First time I've even seen a list like this. Problem is going to be people will have to go back through each station and reassign the government type. That shouldn't be a problem though it will still show their old type; they just need to reselect the new one in the drop down.

For example it would still show Cooperative State even though it is no longer in the list. So they would just reset that one to just Cooperative. They shouldn't have to revisit the station or anything.