Elite Observatory - Search your journal for potentially interesting objects, or notify you of new ones on the fly while exploring!

Vithigar

Vithigar
Voice, Lua Criteria, and general polish!

github.com

Release Voice, Lua Criteria, and general polish! · Xjph/ObservatoryCore

Quite a few changes in this release, with the major ones being the complete overhaul of Explorer's Custom Criteria into a Lua-based format, and the return of voice notifications. For details on the...
github.com github.com

Quite a few changes in this release, with the major ones being the complete overhaul of Explorer's Custom Criteria into a Lua-based format, and the return of voice notifications.

For details on the Lua Custom Criteria you can find the documentation here: https://github.com/Xjph/ObservatoryExplorer/wiki/Lua-Custom-Criteria

The voice notifications are a re-implementation of the same speech synthesis libraries used by the original Elite Observatory, so expect the same very artificial sounding voice for now. A higher quality voice notifier is planned still as a plugin at a later date.

Other changes in this release:
  • Added new built-in check in Explorer for "diverse life" (8 or more bio signals)
  • Tidied up settings panel a bit more. Should look better now when several plugins are loaded.
  • Gave window size a more sensible default
  • Application size and location now remembered between sessions
  • Improved method used to save plugin settings. Will no longer be lost between different build versions.
  • Missing application icon when alt-tabbing fixed
  • Extraneous taskbar window icon for notification popup removed
Obviously the big focuses in this release are the new custom criteria and voice notifications, but I'd still like to hear about people are feeling about the installer, the popup notifications, and last and... to be fair probably least as well... the new icon. :D
 
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GraphicEqualizer

GraphicEqualizer
Looks great, nice icon, and love Zira as my new Spock-like science officer. Yay -- donation heading your way for a well deserved coffee or two
  • I could not get the popup window to appear over my game window, but I don't normally use that anyway - possibly needs game to be in windowless mode?
  • Botanist plugin is showing log entries but not announcing them, is that intended?
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
GraphicEqualizer said:
Looks great, nice icon, and love Zira as my new Spock-like science officer. Yay -- donation heading your way for a well deserved coffee or two
  • I could not get the popup window to appear over my game window, but I don't normally use that anyway - possibly needs game to be in windowless mode?
  • Botanist plugin is showing log entries but not announcing them, is that intended?
Click to expand...
Correct about borderless mode being required for the popups. Drawing on top of a true fullscreen application requires jumping through significantly more hoops. It's something that might come in the future, but no promises.

As for botanist, it populates its grid to serve as a kind of checklist but sends no notifications by design. If you have suggestions for what should be notified and when they should be sent I'd be happy to hear them.
 

GraphicEqualizer

GraphicEqualizer
Vithigar said:
As for botanist, it populates its grid to serve as a kind of checklist but sends no notifications by design. If you have suggestions for what should be notified and when they should be sent I'd be happy to hear them.
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Possibly if it could notify that I'd found something that either I had not logged before in my personal codex for that region that would be cool, and if I'd found something that had not been recorded by anyone for that region those would be great to notify for - i.e. as a prompt to hand in your discoveries before anyone else does to get your name immortalised. But not sure though if that would be a limitation of the kind of info that can be pulled out of the logs.
Either way. great work - this and the upcoming Update 7 will really encourage me to go back further out to do my exploring "knitting"
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
varonica said:
There was a radio button in the old version that once pressed allowed it to start monitoring when the program was started, I suspect this eventually make it into the new one.
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Yes, I'll get that in soon.

That setting was originally added by another contributor (@iain666 if memory serves) and had actually slipped my mind!
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
GraphicEqualizer said:
Possibly if it could notify that I'd found something that either I had not logged before in my personal codex for that region that would be cool, and if I'd found something that had not been recorded by anyone for that region those would be great to notify for - i.e. as a prompt to hand in your discoveries before anyone else does to get your name immortalised. But not sure though if that would be a limitation of the kind of info that can be pulled out of the logs.
Either way. great work - this and the upcoming Update 7 will really encourage me to go back further out to do my exploring "knitting"
Click to expand...
The first is possible, but finicky. Basically the only way to know conclusively what you've scanned is to read your entire journal, which means a mandatory "read all" before you do anything.

The second I don't think is possible at all. Whether or not a particular entry was reported by someone else isn't recorded to the journal.

That said, after some thought I think there are a couple of things that might be worth having as notification options for Botanist. A progress notification ("3 out of 7 signals scanned/analysed") and a completion notification ("all bio signals scanned") in keeping with its purpose as a scanning checklist.
 

Reise Lang

Reise Lang
Downloaded and installed fine. Minor issue. Enabled Voice, Did not select a Voice, Clicked Test, app closes (no error message). Did this several times to confirm. Selected a Voice. clicked Test and heard the voice with no app closure. Looking forward to digging into LUA.
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
Reise Lang said:
Downloaded and installed fine. Minor issue. Enabled Voice, Did not select a Voice, Clicked Test, app closes (no error message). Did this several times to confirm. Selected a Voice. clicked Test and heard the voice with no app closure. Looking forward to digging into LUA.
Click to expand...
A couple of people have made me aware of this now. Not going to rush out a fix since there's a very simple and obvious workaround, but will be resolved for the next release.

I'm definitely interested in getting people's impressions of the Lua custom criteria, and the documentation for it which I spent four hours writing yesterday. :D

edit: Also, the maintainers of Lua specifically and emphatically request that people not write "LUA", if you care about such things.
1631034057645.png
 
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LifesAJourney

LifesAJourney
Testing the new build now, some first remarks:
  • request: ability to set the monitoring on once the app is started
  • request: an auto-clear-after-jump option
  • bug (?): got a "non-locked body with fast rotation" on a lone Herbig star, no planets
  • question: when is the criteria file refreshed? on file save? monitoring start/stop? application restart?
Anyhow, I like it very much so far!
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
LifesAJourney said:
Testing the new build now, some first remarks:
  • request: ability to set the monitoring on once the app is started
  • request: an auto-clear-after-jump option
  • bug (?): got a "non-locked body with fast rotation" on a lone Herbig star, no planets
  • question: when is the criteria file refreshed? on file save? monitoring start/stop? application restart?
Anyhow, I like it very much so far!
Click to expand...
In order:
  • Frequent request, expect it soon
  • Good idea, shouldn't be difficult, likewise
  • Might be journal weirdness, might be an issue with the check, I'll look into it
  • The modified time of the criteria file is checked before each scan event is examined (or only at the start of a Read All process), if it has changed then the file is re-processed. (edit: and yes of course on application restart when the first scan event is read :D )
 
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LifesAJourney

LifesAJourney
Some more remarks:
  • two stars on fast orbit, both voice messages are played at the same time
  • I can't get a simple criteria to work :( I have:
1631134739624.png


and all I get is:

1631134670759.png


I'll appreciate any advice.
 
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Vithigar

Vithigar
LifesAJourney said:
Some more remarks:
  • two stars on fast orbit, both voice messages are played at the same time
  • I can't get a simple criteria to work :( I have:
View attachment 261489

and all I get is:

View attachment 261488

I'll appreciate any advice.
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I copied your script exactly as written in your screenshot and had no issues. Your error script is different than the one in your first picture though, do you have other attempts at the script in your file?
 

LifesAJourney

LifesAJourney
Vithigar said:
I copied your script exactly as written in your screenshot and had no issues. Your error script is different than the one in your first picture though, do you have other attempts at the script in your file?
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Yeah, I also tried "if scan.TerraformState then...", in both cases the error message was the same. It's the only criteria in my custom file at the moment.

MIght it be a file codepage issue? Or CR/LR character issue?
 
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BL1P

BL1P
Can this alert me if I jump into a system and there is a Listening Post, Unregistered Coms, or other Items not related to astronomy so much but more on Human and Alien signals ?
 
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