Release [Explorer's Application] Captain's Log

Aura Lorell · Oct 26, 2016

Genar-Hofoen said:
Well quite. CL starts a number of threads for monitoring, screenshots and stuff. I wouldn't expect CL to survive a PC going to sleep to be honest

Besides which - that's not exactly a fair test, as you wouldn't put the PC to sleep whilst playing the game would you?

Do you get a crash window (not the WIndows one - a Python crash would be handy to track down where the crash occurs).

Thanks for the reports o7

No report, just the dialogue telling me that CL has stopped working. I usually leave everything to sleep except Elite. I never had this problem so maybe it's a python thing? Anyway I'll adapt my routine and close CL when I shut down Elite.

Straha Yeagar · Oct 26, 2016

VerticalBlank said:
I'm think I'm actually going to miss the manual entry a little bit.
I would like to retain a way to enter the star classes of stars that you can see in the system map but are too far away to be worth flying to for a scan.

Haven't really dived into this app at all, but with the new 2.2 logging, Captain's Log now records the planetary bodies automatically?

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 26, 2016

Rhea Lorell said:
No report, just the dialogue telling me that CL has stopped working. I usually leave everything to sleep except Elite. I never had this problem so maybe it's a python thing? Anyway I'll adapt my routine and close CL when I shut down Elite.

I'll see if I can replicate that here by turning debug on (which stops the stdout/stderr redirect to the console in the Config Manager's Miscellaneous tab).

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straha20 said:
Haven't really dived into this app at all, but with the new 2.2 logging, Captain's Log now records the planetary bodies automatically?

It does.

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 26, 2016

Rhea Lorell said:
I get a consistent crash. Repro steps (with the caveat that I don't know if all of them are relevant). Windows 10 latest update.

1. Quit Elite while the CL is still running.
2. Put the computer to sleep.
3. Wake up the computer.
4. Start Elite.

CL will crash as the game loads the initial logo screen. Upon restarting CL everything is normal.

You'll be pleased to learn that I've tracked the cause down

It was a running thread which was not being shut down cleanly during a change of running state of the game as above. It now gets shut down cleanly.

Not shutting threads down cleanly makes bad things happen

Regards o7

Aura Lorell · Oct 26, 2016

Genar-Hofoen said:
You'll be pleased to learn that I've tracked the cause down

It was a running thread which was not being shut down cleanly during a change of running state of the game as above. It now gets shut down cleanly.

Not shutting threads down cleanly makes bad things happen

Regards o7

Brilliant news, thank you for fixing this.

disorganise · Oct 26, 2016

Looks great. But I miss the estimated values - will that come back eventually?

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 26, 2016

disorganise said:
Looks great. But I miss the estimated values - will that come back eventually?

Eventually. Sneakily enough I already have star/planet values in the db schema, I just haven't had the time to do stuff with them - yet

Straha Yeagar · Oct 27, 2016

First time playing around with this app last night, and it is fantastic!

Now on to my questions...I have a 2 monitor setup...my 34" ultra wide running ED in borderless mode, and a secondary 24" for my utilities. It looks like Commanders Log has a fixed window size, and can not be resized...is that correct? Also, in overlay mode, it snaps back to my primary monitor...again, is that correct? I would love to be able to resize it for my secondary monitor so I can have other things running with it, and also, would love to have it in overlay mode on my secondary monitor.

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 27, 2016

straha20 said:
First time playing around with this app last night, and it is fantastic!

Now on to my questions...I have a 2 monitor setup...my 34" ultra wide running ED in borderless mode, and a secondary 24" for my utilities. It looks like Commanders Log has a fixed window size, and can not be resized...is that correct? Also, in overlay mode, it snaps back to my primary monitor...again, is that correct? I would love to be able to resize it for my secondary monitor so I can have other things running with it, and also, would love to have it in overlay mode on my secondary monitor.

Glad you like it

Which version of the app? 'Current' version is 1.4.1 - which does work for even ED 2.2.x, and there's a beta version of 2.0 out now which is specifically for 2.2.x and above of the game (read up a few posts for a link).

CL's window size is fixed - I have some ideas on how I can get it to resize according to the screen it's on (found out how to detect multiple monitors the other day), but this won't happen for a few versions yet.

You can move the overlay window by dragging the DB name label located at the bottom left of the main window. This is for both 1.x and 2.x.

Depending on how you have your dual monitors set up, you can then drag the overlay window from one screen to the other, and it should rollup to an icon on the primary monitor, and unfurl on the screen it was dragged to.

Also, the position to where the overlay-mode CL window was dragged to is saved, so it should be persistent between runs of the application.

I am going to be releasing a beta 2 of CL soon - probably tomorrow sometime, as I want to play the game for a bit and test out the bugfixes I've made to beta 1

Regards o7

Straha Yeagar · Oct 27, 2016

Genar-Hofoen said:
Glad you like it

Which version of the app? 'Current' version is 1.4.1 - which does work for even ED 2.2.x, and there's a beta version of 2.0 out now which is specifically for 2.2.x and above of the game (read up a few posts for a link).

CL's window size is fixed - I have some ideas on how I can get it to resize according to the screen it's on (found out how to detect multiple monitors the other day), but this won't happen for a few versions yet.

You can move the overlay window by dragging the DB name label located at the bottom left of the main window. This is for both 1.x and 2.x.

Depending on how you have your dual monitors set up, you can then drag the overlay window from one screen to the other, and it should rollup to an icon on the primary monitor, and unfurl on the screen it was dragged to.

Also, the position to where the overlay-mode CL window was dragged to is saved, so it should be persistent between runs of the application.

I am going to be releasing a beta 2 of CL soon - probably tomorrow sometime, as I want to play the game for a bit and test out the bugfixes I've made to beta 1

Regards o7

I am using the 2.0 beta, and will give the overlay a go tonight.

Yeah, visually, this tool really adds alot to the ambiance of my closed cockpit setup, and the functionality is spot on.

ValianktCrick · Oct 28, 2016

Great to hear about the changes. I have similar issues with my multi-monitor setup. Resizing isn't so much a problem for me but I do have an issue with how the text is scaled. Is this tied to my text scaling options in Windows? I use a 27" 4K monitor as my main screen which requires me to scale up text to 150% in order to make it readable for everyday use.

I've tried adjusting down to 100% to see if it helps but I still find the text is too large to fit in the fields and often gets cut off. Is this something you're aware of/working on/know a fix for? I'm actually running a weird monitor setup so that could be part of it. One is at 3840x2160, one at 2560x1600 and one at 800x600 - I use this last one for Elite Apps exclusively as a little screen that sits in my home made console, but not for CL due to the current lack of resizing features.

Absolutely love the program and the new 2.0 version is amazing, goodbye manual entry! It's so much easier to track my progress now. Is there an official way we can report bugs to you? I'll be using it for the upcoming C3E expedition in the core so I'm sure to find a few issues here and there and would love to help out anyway I can.

Once again, excellent program and I can't wait to see what else you do with it

o7

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 28, 2016

ValianktCrick said:
Great to hear about the changes. I have similar issues with my multi-monitor setup. Resizing isn't so much a problem for me but I do have an issue with how the text is scaled. Is this tied to my text scaling options in Windows? I use a 27" 4K monitor as my main screen which requires me to scale up text to 150% in order to make it readable for everyday use.

I've tried adjusting down to 100% to see if it helps but I still find the text is too large to fit in the fields and often gets cut off. Is this something you're aware of/working on/know a fix for? I'm actually running a weird monitor setup so that could be part of it. One is at 3840x2160, one at 2560x1600 and one at 800x600 - I use this last one for Elite Apps exclusively as a little screen that sits in my home made console, but not for CL due to the current lack of resizing features.

Absolutely love the program and the new 2.0 version is amazing, goodbye manual entry! It's so much easier to track my progress now. Is there an official way we can report bugs to you? I'll be using it for the upcoming C3E expedition in the core so I'm sure to find a few issues here and there and would love to help out anyway I can.

Once again, excellent program and I can't wait to see what else you do with it o7

Yeah the font scaling thing is a MASSIVE headache for me ;.;

As I'm poor, I can't splurge cash on 4K monitors and the likes, so I can't test what it looks like on much higher resolution screens.

Also, the Qt4 GUI toolkit is starting to get really long in the tooth. I can't yet move to Qt5, as the Python bindings I use (PySide) is currently being ported from Qt4 to Qt5 and is not production-ready at this time. Qt5 should go a long way to improving the font scaling.

I will try (again) to solve this one, but it's a really huge PITA with Qt4.

And thanks for your awesome comments

Feedback and bug reports are great in this thread, thanks o7

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 28, 2016

Captain's Log 2.0.0 Beta 2 Available For Download/Testing/Swearing At

As per post title, CL 2.0.0 Beta 2 is available for download/testing/bug reporting.

Changelog (from first Beta) ...

- Added a trip odometer which accumulates your db trip in LY
- Added a Distance To Sol indicator
- Make sure the qt4 imageformats subdirectory is included in the setup distribution, otherwise things like the Windows application icons don't show
- Try and make check_for_updates a bit safer by catching an error
- use True and False for IsEliteRunning instead of 1 and 0
- make threading even safer
- added a Fuel Scoop parsing and signal to the journalparser
- Jumponium widget changed dimensions and now has a fancy flash animation to bring attention to it
- tweak the star and planet table column widths
- make the screenshot thread safer
- star and planet tables now show full designation including system name part. It's easier and better this way.
- remove more dead code
- application colours now set a bit earlier
- scanning and importing logs should now trigger a jump/trip table refresh/reload
- hotkey thread made safer
- removed all of the print() debugging statements and kept DEVDEBUG==TRUE. Print() statements crash the program once it's been compiled into a WIN32GUI application. Also, if the program is going to crash, that crash window comes in very handy, as long as users remember to screenshot it. I will think of ways to capture the crash message in a more convenient manner for a later version.
- Version bumped to 2.0.0 Beta 2

Download Link : https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2zs6h2u8o91h4o/Captain's Log 2_2.0.0 Beta 2_setup.exe?dl=1

Obligatory Screenshot...

UPDATE 2016-10-29 : Have changed the layout and updated the screenshot...

Aura Lorell · Oct 28, 2016

Genar-Hofoen said:
As per post title, CL 2.0.0 Beta 2 is available for download/testing/bug reporting.

Changelog (from first Beta) ...

Download Link : https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2zs6h2u8o91h4o/Captain's Log 2_2.0.0 Beta 2_setup.exe?dl=1

Obligatory Screenshot...

http://i.imgur.com/2JM4A23.png

Downloading now. If I may make a UI usability suggestion? Put the Stars and Information windows side to side and increase the height of the planets window to take up the amount the Stars was taking. There is a lot of wasted space as it is now and the planets window only shows 3 lines at a time whereas if it was bigger it would be more useful for comparative operations.

Being able to resize the main window would be awesome too but I do appreciate the troubles it's giving you. I'd be happy with the planets section being bigger.

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 28, 2016

Rhea Lorell said:
Downloading now. If I may make a UI usability suggestion? Put the Stars and Information windows side to side and increase the height of the planets window to take up the amount the Stars was taking. There is a lot of wasted space as it is now and the planets window only shows 3 lines at a time whereas if it was bigger it would be more useful for comparative operations.

Being able to resize the main window would be awesome too but I do appreciate the troubles it's giving you. I'd be happy with the planets section being bigger.

Yeah that's an awesome suggestion. Something like that was being considered last week and I just rolled with the layout as you see it for now. Will try that out... right now in fact

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 28, 2016

Rhea, in fact I just did that and yes I think that works much better - it looks much more balanced now.

I had the planet table even taller but with a lot of landable planets all those colours and icons became a tad overwhelming, so I reduced the group height somewhat and I think the balance is about right now.

This will become available come the next Beta release...

Straha Yeagar · Oct 28, 2016

Rhea Lorell said:
Downloading now. If I may make a UI usability suggestion? Put the Stars and Information windows side to side and increase the height of the planets window to take up the amount the Stars was taking. There is a lot of wasted space as it is now and the planets window only shows 3 lines at a time whereas if it was bigger it would be more useful for comparative operations.

Being able to resize the main window would be awesome too but I do appreciate the troubles it's giving you. I'd be happy with the planets section being bigger.

Something along these lines...very rough done in paint...

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Genar-Hofoen said:
Rhea, in fact I just did that and yes I think that works much better - it looks much more balanced now.

I had the planet table even taller but with a lot of landable planets all those colours and icons became a tad overwhelming, so I reduced the group height somewhat and I think the balance is about right now.

This will become available come the next Beta release...

http://i.imgur.com/ArrfDgR.png

HA! We crossposted very similar pictures

Ok...how about this...making the white title bar more in line with the color scheme of the rest of the app?

Genar-Hofoen · Oct 28, 2016

straha20 said:
Something along these lines...very rough done in paint...

View attachment 112776

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HA! We crossposted very similar pictures

Ok...how about this...making the white title bar more in line with the color scheme of the rest of the app?

Great minds think alike

The title bar is part of Windows. I'd have to re-implement something purely in Qt - lemme have a look - and yeah the Windows border and title bar annoy the heck out of me as well.

At least in overlay mode I switch those off entirely.

BigZiggyHD · Oct 28, 2016

Excitement intensifies!

Aura Lorell · Oct 28, 2016

Genar-Hofoen said:
Rhea, in fact I just did that and yes I think that works much better - it looks much more balanced now.

I had the planet table even taller but with a lot of landable planets all those colours and icons became a tad overwhelming, so I reduced the group height somewhat and I think the balance is about right now.

This will become available come the next Beta release...

http://i.imgur.com/ArrfDgR.png

That looks really good, and functional. Thank you so much!