In-Development TradeDangerous: power-user trade optimizer

[Tromador]

Not super hard, but like Bernd said- backwards compatibility.

For what do we need to maintain backward compatible, other than TDH, for which we have the dev right here?

 

[gazelle]

For what do we need to maintain backward compatible, other than TDH, for which we have the dev right here?

You normaly don't break backwards compatibility. Do you have any specific reason why it should be removed other than "You can do it another way."? Think of it as an alias.

 

[MarkAusten]

Why not put "Age" in with the other limiting options, the prunes and max LS - Also move the Max LS and LS penalty to the top as they are more commonly used, perhaps with age above those.

Strictly they are all limiting options but I take your point and it would be a better place to put it.

If you wanted to then fill the Credits box to make it balanced along the rows with the ship stuff, you could maybe autofill the commander name in above credits, but that would be purely aesthetical.

Just possibly, I guess you could even put the "run" dropdown in the place of age (assuming you move age per my suggestion). Then you would have the query type just below the "RUN" button.

Speaking of the RUN button - that might possibly be confusing as "Run" is a query type. How about "Go" instead?

That has bugged me since I first started using TDH, I've just become used to it. Rename forthcoming.

Another place for the query type dropdown might be on the same row with the buttons, rearranging so it's next to the run (or GO) button.

There are two drop downs but the top line might be a better place for them.

Why can't "Local" just be on the dropdown and has to have its own tickbox? That doesn't make sense as all other basic query types are on the dropdown.

This is also a good point but is a whole heap of work in the code. I'll put this down as an enhancement.

Finally, I would suggest that IF IT WORKS then you could release it if you wanted, fiddling with the aesthetics/ergonomics is important, but I don't think it's that terrible so as to be worth stopping a release.

Indeed so.

Also, from your readme on Github, whilst it is of course in good taste to mention Oliver, including a link to his TD repository may be confusing. Can I suggest that you edit the "What is this tool supposed to do?" to reflect the current state of play.

I'll look into this as well.

 

[MarkAusten]

Then it is a bug you need to look into. The screenshot was taken after updating the profile, as you can see from the output.

Done. Should be fixed in the next release.

 

[MarkAusten]

Definitely better. I still wish it wasn't so wide, but meh.

TD is weird. It has a --planetary option, and a --no-planet option. Since '--no-planet' is the same thing as '--planetary N', why the redundancy Oliver? Why?

That was me. I first did the --no-planet option when I added the planetary column to the station. The --planetary came later and I just didn't remove the old one (backwards compatibility and what not), just made them mutually exclusive.

Theoretically we are on a feature freeze pending release, but how hard would it be to remove the --no-planet option, being as it is redundant?

TD is weird. It has a --planetary option, and a --no-planet option. Since '--no-planet' is the same thing as '--planetary N', why the redundancy Oliver? Why?

That was me. I first did the --no-planet option when I added the planetary column to the station. The --planetary came later and I just didn't remove the old one (backwards compatibility and what not), just made them mutually exclusive.

Theoretically we are on a feature freeze pending release, but how hard would it be to remove the --no-planet option, being as it is redundant?

Not super hard, but like Bernd said- backwards compatibility.

No reason to remove it.

For what do we need to maintain backward compatible, other than TDH, for which we have the dev right here?

You normaly don't break backwards compatibility. Do you have any specific reason why it should be removed other than "You can do it another way."? Think of it as an alias.

Backward compatibility is not an issue as far as I am concerned, I only partially agree with the principle in general and since TDH2 is not backward compatible anyway, the no-planet option is going to be removed. To my mind it's daft having an effectively redundant option there especially since it is confusing to have the two options.

 

[gazelle]

Backward compatibility is not an issue as far as I am concerned, I only partially agree with the principle in general and since TDH2 is not backward compatible anyway, the no-planet option is going to be removed. To my mind it's daft having an effectively redundant option there especially since it is confusing to have the two options.

I was thinking to add that there is also no reason why TDH2 can't remove it. No need to keep it in the gui.

 

[MarkAusten]

I was thinking to add that there is also no reason why TDH2 can't remove it. No need to keep it in the gui.

Ah, I see what you mean. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[eyeonus]

Hey Mark, does TDH2 have a way to run the plugin with 'all', or does it just do 'listings'?

 

[eyeonus]

In the latest news, I've added the 'solo' option to the plugin. This option tells EDDBlink not to download any market data, which means it will not import listings, ship vendors, or upgrade vendors. This is for people who for some crazy reason want to depend solely on their own collection of data.

 

[Tromador]

This is for people who for some crazy reason want to depend solely on their own collection of data.

Some people have a thing about it, but want something to help avoid excel spreadsheets of manually edited data. (which was fine in PBeta when we only had 5 stations, but rapidly got more horrible very quickly).

In other news, I have now finished the very last tweaks to the documentation and could go for a release, well right now.

What's your status. Mark?

 

[gazelle]

This is for people who for some crazy reason want to depend solely on their own collection of data.

I'm one of them. Only the System table is populated with more stars. Every thing else is self found. It's just a choice of playstyle. I didn't reset my savegame since gamma and have about 265m credits. I also made a trip to Colonia with an Cobra Mk. IV

 

[MarkAusten]

Hey Mark, does TDH2 have a way to run the plugin with 'all', or does it just do 'listings'?

At the moment it just does listings. I was not happy with the original TDH way of selecting the various update types by the use of ctrl and alt key modifiers and I'm thinking that the best way forward would be to make the 'Update DB' a drop down button that lists the available options, such as the 'Solo' mode you have just added. These options would be descriptive in either alphabetical order or ordered by likelihood of use, so 'Listings' would be at the top.

I'm not sure how many options are available in EDDBlink, I know of 'Clean', 'Listings', 'All' and 'Solo', then there is the 'skipvend' option that can be added to one or more of these and this in turn means that a drop down button may not be the best option but a new form that has buttons for the majority of cases and check boxes for the various additional parameters.

It gets more complicated the more I think about it and so I've been putting it off

 

[MarkAusten]

Some people have a thing about it, but want something to help avoid excel spreadsheets of manually edited data. (which was fine in PBeta when we only had 5 stations, but rapidly got more horrible very quickly).

In other news, I have now finished the very last tweaks to the documentation and could go for a release, well right now.

What's your status. Mark?

TDH2 can be release as is right now with a number of layout and other changes to be carried out as enhancements after the release. On the other hand, I'd like to get rid of the no-planet check box before the release if possible and that should be done later on today.

 

[MarkAusten]

More layout changes to try and get eyeonus a narrower form and incorporating some of Tromador's suggestions.

Spoiler

Spoiler

The location check box location is temporary. It will be added to the query selection list.

Comments?

 

[eyeonus]

At the moment it just does listings. I was not happy with the original TDH way of selecting the various update types by the use of ctrl and alt key modifiers and I'm thinking that the best way forward would be to make the 'Update DB' a drop down button that lists the available options, such as the 'Solo' mode you have just added. These options would be descriptive in either alphabetical order or ordered by likelihood of use, so 'Listings' would be at the top.

I'm not sure how many options are available in EDDBlink, I know of 'Clean', 'Listings', 'All' and 'Solo', then there is the 'skipvend' option that can be added to one or more of these and this in turn means that a drop down button may not be the best option but a new form that has buttons for the majority of cases and check boxes for the various additional parameters.

It gets more complicated the more I think about it and so I've been putting it off

The options that would be appropriate as checkboxes are 'force', 'skipvend', 'fallback', 'solo', although I think only 'skipvend' and 'solo' really need to be included (, and even then they could just be in the gear button settings).

As far as dropdown choices, I think 'all' and 'listings' would be enough, although feel free, other people, to pipe up if you have other ideas. (Maybe add 'clean' too...?)

 

[MarkAusten]

The options that would be appropriate as checkboxes are 'force', 'skipvend', 'fallback', 'solo', although I think only 'skipvend' and 'solo' really need to be included (, and even then they could just be in the gear button settings).

As far as dropdown choices, I think 'all' and 'listings' would be enough, although feel free, other people, to pipe up if you have other ideas. (Maybe add 'clean' too...?)

How about 'Listings' 'All' and 'Advanced' on the drop down list with 'Advanced' opening a new form that will allow the user to select whatever they want according to the rules of your parameters as you detail on the EDDBlink GitHub page?

I wouldn't want to put 'clean' anywhere that can easily be selected accidentally and I'd want a warning for this to confirm that the user wants to delete and recreate the database tables.

 

[eyeonus]

Sounds fine to me.

The only thing I would add to that is to maybe make it so that turning on options also turns on the options it turns on, for example, passing '-O listings' is equivalent to passing '-O item,system,station,listings'.

EDIT: Actually, I think 'skipvend' and 'solo' should be available to the non-Advanced ones as well, though.

 

[MarkAusten]

Sounds fine to me.

The only thing I would add to that is to maybe make it so that turning on options also turns on the options it turns on, for example, passing '-O listings' is equivalent to passing '-O item,system,station,listings'.

EDIT: Actually, I think 'skipvend' and 'solo' should be available to the non-Advanced ones as well, though.

I think that 'Solo' needs to be a persisted option, those people that use it will not want to be having to check this option every time they want to update things. The rest can be volatile.

So far I have the following:

all		unchecks solo, skipvend
clean		unchecks solo, skipvend
fallback		
force		
item		
listings	checks item,system,station	unchecks solo
ship		
shipvend	checks system,station,ship	
skipvend	unchecks all, clean
solo		unchecks all, clean, listings
station		checks system	
system		
upgrade		
upvend		checks system,station,upgrade

It gets a bit complicated after that. For example, you check 'listings' and that checks 'item','system','station' and unchecks 'solo'. Now you uncheck 'station'. Should that also uncheck 'listings'?

[EDIT]
Perhaps it would be better for the 'Checks' in the above table to be 'Disables'. In that case, checking 'listings' disables 'item','system','station' and unchecks 'solo'.

Now you cannot change 'item', 'system' or 'station' until you have uncheck 'listings'.

 

[eyeonus]

Nothing should ever uncheck solo or skipvend, except for the user. Checking solo and skipvend should uncheck and disable (that is, gray out in the UI) only what it overrides: 'solo' turns off 'listings' and turns on 'skipvend', meaning with '-O all,solo' everything is turned on, except for 'listings', 'shipvend', 'upvend'.

Checking listings should check and gray out item,system,station.

Spoiler

This is the code that determines which options are auto-enabled/disabled in the plugin:

        if self.getOption("clean"):
. . .
            self.options["all"] = True
            self.options['force'] = True
. . .
        #Select which options will be updated
        if self.getOption("listings"):
            self.options["item"] = True
            self.options["station"] = True

        if self.getOption("shipvend"):
            self.options["ship"] = True
            self.options["station"] = True

        if self.getOption("upvend"):
            self.options["upgrade"] = True
            self.options["station"] = True

        if self.getOption("station"):
            self.options["system"] = True

        if self.getOption("all"):
            self.options["item"] = True
            self.options["ship"] = True
            self.options["shipvend"] = True
            self.options["station"] = True
            self.options["system"] = True
            self.options["upgrade"] = True
            self.options["upvend"] = True
            self.options["listings"] = True

        if self.getOption("solo"):
            self.options["listings"] = False
            self.options["skipvend"] = True
        
        if self.getOption("skipvend"):
            self.options["shipvend"] = False
            self.options["upvend"] = False

Keep in mind, TDH2 doesn't need to actually pass the additional options, the suggestion was to provide visual assistance to the end-user as to what checking this option does without needing to actually explain it. (Which is why auto-enabled/disabled options would be both checked-if-enabled-by-other-option/unchecked-if-disabled-by-other-option and grayed out.)

 

[Tromador]

Unless it's terribly inconvenient for you Mark, I will write a post into the "released" section sometime on Friday evening, up and going for the weekend. Hopefully the last of the (important) tool listing sites will be updated by then.