Release [Explorer's Application] Captain's Log

Genar-Hofoen · Dec 18, 2015

Sneak Peek : Colour Customisation

Ziljan will like this

Here's a little sneak peek of the currently-being-worked-on colour customisation window.

Selecting colours is working, and you get a live preview of what the results would look like in the Preview section. The only things I have left to do now is to apply the changes, and also to save the colour schemes. So far this has about 1.5 days of work - 2 days if you count the change I've made to the configuration file format (I'm moving from a clumsy binary format to a text INI format. The next version of CL will automatically convert the old CFG file format to an INI format). There are a LOT of stylesheets being used to style each of the GUI widgets, and I'm about 90% there on figuring out a way to update each widget with their respective types of stylesheet. Anyway here're some screenshots...

Ziljan · Dec 19, 2015

Fantastic!!! Not sure why frontier hasn't implemented this yet in the standard UI, but I'm so very glad you're here to pick up the slack

Navynuke99 · Dec 19, 2015

OK, I've updated the location for the new Log folder for Horizons, but Captain's Log is still not recording any jumps I've made since before I installed Horizons. The only thing I'm seeing is what was previously scanned from the previous location for my log file.

SnugglySocks · Dec 19, 2015

Navynuke99 said:
OK, I've updated the location for the new Log folder for Horizons, but Captain's Log is still not recording any jumps I've made since before I installed Horizons. The only thing I'm seeing is what was previously scanned from the previous location for my log file.

did you touch both the log location and the db file setting. This is what you need to do in order to save the changes. The button does not appear on the config screen until you 'update' both settings. Also, please confirm that you have chosen the log folder in the new 64 bit game location (..\Frontier_Developments\Products\elite-dangerous-64\Logs). Thirdly, if you started ED first before changing the log location, verbose logs will not be on yet and the log parser won't have anything to catch until ED gets restarted.

Advice given based on me making all these mistakes myself when updating. if it is something beyond this, Genar will surely be along soon to save the day, but I thought I would help support as he is already doing so much for us explorers.

Blairvoyach · Dec 19, 2015

AArgh! foolishly, I deleted the 32 bit E: D from the launcher BEFORE pointing CL to the new Horizons folder so now the folder CL is looking for no longer exists and I get a Python error (file not found). is there a config file somewhere I can edit to point it to the new installation manually? Tried uninstall-reinstall

SnugglySocks · Dec 19, 2015

Blairvoyach said:
AArgh! foolishly, I deleted the 32 bit E: D from the launcher BEFORE pointing CL to the new Horizons folder so now the folder CL is looking for no longer exists and I get a Python error (file not found). is there a config file somewhere I can edit to point it to the new installation manually? Tried uninstall-reinstall

View attachment 88132

Have a look in %LOCALAPPDATA% in the CaptainsLog folder the config file 'captainslog.cfg' might be able to be edited. But your milage may vary, sign the disclaimer, take a backup, etc. etc. etc.

Previously Genar has advised to simply delete the config file and then go through setup again. Your DB file should be untouched and you can just point back to it.

Blairvoyach · Dec 19, 2015

Deleting the CFG file did the trick.

Many thanks, I'd be lost without my log

Genar-Hofoen · Dec 19, 2015

Thanks Mungler!

Note that the next version of CL will be more robust in dealing with missing AppConfig.xml files (e.g. CL was previously configured to work with a version of the game that is no longer installed) by simply bringing up the configuration window if it can't find it - rather than crashing

As stated in a previous post it'll also have colour customisation, and the configuration file format will be converted to a text INI file.

Regards o7

Steve Max · Dec 19, 2015

I'm having some issues with this program. I play ED on my laptop, with a 1366x768 screen. I believe the Captain's Log UI is fixed at a 1080p resolution, so I really can't see or use a big portion of the UI, making it unusable. Do you plan on adding a low-res mode? I probably won't be able to afford a higher resolution laptop until the Brazilian economy improves a lot, which should take at least until 2018...

SnugglySocks · Dec 20, 2015

Steve Max said:
I'm having some issues with this program. I play ED on my laptop, with a 1366x768 screen. I believe the Captain's Log UI is fixed at a 1080p resolution, so I really can't see or use a big portion of the UI, making it unusable. Do you plan on adding a low-res mode? I probably won't be able to afford a higher resolution laptop until the Brazilian economy improves a lot, which should take at least until 2018...

Although I don't speak for Genar, he has made this statement previously.

Genar-Hofoen said:
Not going to happen I'm afraid

I have already compromised on the window size, believe it or not

My monitors are both 1920x1080, and I had originally set the window size to basically fill that space up.

But then CMDR Psieonic - my first tester - mentioned his monitor was a lower res than mine, so I spent about an hour reducing the window size to what it is now

We really are at the limit of reducing the window size - and I don't want the text to become unreadable for people with higher resolutions - and I'm deliberately using a fixed layout too, as resizable windows are even more work to achieve good results with, and invariably they involve shedloads of compromises and look awful (to me) in the end.

Regards

Genar-Hofoen · Dec 21, 2015

Sneak Peek : Colour Customisation

So as of now, I have colour customisation fully operational. Here's an example...

As a result of this, I added further indication of bookmarked systems - those are the ones in the jump table with a grey background - I find it easier to spot bookmarked systems when scrolling up and down the table with this...

So this will please those folks who really wanted an ED Orange colour scheme

But now you can have any colour scheme you want.

More things to do before I can make a release, but a new release should be out some time this week - stay tuned!

(And perhaps some time I can get away from developing CL and playing the game

)

Regards o7

gooddoc · Dec 21, 2015

Steve Max said:
I'm having some issues with this program. I play ED on my laptop, with a 1366x768 screen.

Im also running ED on my laptop with a 1366x768 screen & have been doing it for a few months now. What I do to make it usable is....

When it's loading up the data I move the window across to the left then I can increase the window width, so that I can get the 'quit' button on screen (& also the NS button).

It doesn't show the last system I visited or the current one, cos it's too low down for my screen, but I can still add discovered objects on the system bodies screen.

Iv managed to adapt to not being able to see the full view & for what Im using it for it works really well.

It did take me a while to get CL up & running again for Horizon's. Having to delete the captainslog.cfg file was no problem. However on reloading & setting the destination again, the finish button on my screen was right at the very bottom of the system bar & took me some time to find it 'blindly' to be able to finish the setup.
I got it eventually & it's working well again.

Armored · Dec 22, 2015

Awesome work Genar-Hofoen! We all greatly appreciate all the work you put into this wonderful program. Also the color scheme looks a million times better in orange! I just switched over from EDDiscovery to Captain's Log tonight and i was just thinking, hmm if only this was orange. I go to the last page to see any "latest news" and guess what i find....Lol was amazing!

I have one question, with these "logging" application is there a way that they can add to their logs the systems i visited while the application isn't running? Sometimes i forget to start it up and it seemed that EDDiscovery would never add the last few systems i visited while the program was not running, i don't know a great deal about these things but i figured the logging was being made even while the program was not running??

Genar-Hofoen · Dec 22, 2015

Armored said:
Awesome work Genar-Hofoen! We all greatly appreciate all the work you put into this wonderful program. Also the color scheme looks a million times better in orange! I just switched over from EDDiscovery to Captain's Log tonight and i was just thinking, hmm if only this was orange. I go to the last page to see any "latest news" and guess what i find....Lol was amazing!

I have one question, with these "logging" application is there a way that they can add to their logs the systems i visited while the application isn't running? Sometimes i forget to start it up and it seemed that EDDiscovery would never add the last few systems i visited while the program was not running, i don't know a great deal about these things but i figured the logging was being made even while the program was not running??

Hi there o7

Have a read of the documentation

In there it mentions I have a "scan all netlogs and import" feature - you could use that to import all previous jumps into a database.

If you have a lot of netlogs though your database will soon be populated with lots of jumps - it might be possible to do what you're asking, so, give that a try.

Regards

Arnoldo · Dec 22, 2015

Hey Cmdr G-H, are the DBs accessible / searchable outside of the application?

Genar-Hofoen · Dec 22, 2015

Arnoldo said:
Hey Cmdr G-H, are the DBs accessible / searchable outside of the application?

They're in sqlite3 format, so use any application which can open and explore sqlite databases.

You can always export to CSV as well.

Regards

Arnoldo · Dec 22, 2015

Thanks GH

Armored · Dec 23, 2015

Can't wait for the next release! I figured out my issue, i always forget to add the VerboseLogging to the AppConfig. To bad Captains log couldn't detect that the line isn't in the file and warn you or add it itself that would be awesome.

Would that be possible? Like point Captains Log to where your AppConfig file is located, and it would check and see if the line VerboseLogging="1" is in the file or not upon every loadup?

Genar-Hofoen · Dec 23, 2015

Armored said:
Can't wait for the next release! I figured out my issue, i always forget to add the VerboseLogging to the AppConfig. To bad Captains log couldn't detect that the line isn't in the file and warn you or add it itself that would be awesome.

Would that be possible? Like point Captains Log to where your AppConfig file is located, and it would check and see if the line VerboseLogging="1" is in the file or not upon every loadup?

Well that's weird - because it already checks for this every time it starts - and it creates a file called AppConfigLocal.xml if verbose logging isn't activated

It gets the location of AppConfig.xml from the location you set of your Logs directory - AppConfig.xml on the Windows version of the game is always one directory level up from Logs.

Make sure to run Captain's Log before running the game - that'll ensure verbose logging is on.

Regards o7

Armored · Dec 23, 2015

I see the AppConfigLocal.xml but it was not logging any of my jumps until i placed the VerboseLogging="1" into the AppConfig.xml file. Even when i started it up prior to loading Elite. Even when i tried running the scan it was stuck at the last amount of jumps for awhile there until i checked the AppConfig.xml and added in the VerboseLogging line then it started to record my jumps again.