Announcing "Whose Turn Is It?" a PBEM turn management program

[sfhand]

Thanks for your hard work Ian.

I am not a programmer, but I have to wonder if it is possible for a turn tracking utility to write files to either the incoming or outgoing email directories depending on whether the file number is even or odd and only notifying the user of a new turn when the incoming is the highest numbered turn of those copied. It seems like an if/then loop to me... but like I wrote at the top, I am not a programmer.

Thanks again!

edit: also if you put up a paypal link on your site I'd send you a little love to express my gratitude for your efforts...

[A Canadian Cat]

Thanks for your hard work Ian.

You are welcome thanks for the kind words.

I am not a programmer, but I have to wonder if it is possible for a turn tracking utility to write files to either the incoming or outgoing email directories depending on whether the file number is even or odd and only notifying the user of a new turn when the incoming is the highest numbered turn of those copied. It seems like an if/then loop to me... but like I wrote at the top, I am not a programmer.

Thanks again!

It turns out you cannot rely on that alone for figuring out whose turn it is. There are a couple of variables that trip that simple thinking up. One is the odd for you even for me pattern does is not guaranteed. For example, consider the case where your turn files are odd and mine are even. If I open turn 004 that you sent me and do some work on my orders but decide to save and come back to finish my orders the default file name will end in 005 then when I am done and produce the turn to send to you the default number becomes 006. Now suddenly your turns are now even and mine will be odd. So you cannot assume that one side's turns are even and one is odd. The other problem is some times people have two separate directories for turns like this

sfhand vs ian

/forian

/forsfhand

But some must have the one directory

sfhand vs ian

In one case you have two turns to compare in the other you do not. So what I do is look at what is in your game directories (Incoming Email and Outgoing Email). Then I look at the file sharing directory and see where the higher number is. Then I decide what, if any file copying needs to be done. After that the program can tell whose turn it is by looking between the game directory folders for the higher number.

So if you where to edit the turn numbers and reduce them you would confuse Whose Turn Is It?

Also you have to watch out for date time stamps too. It seems like Drop box does a good job with managing time stamps but I have seen negative turn ages in WTII? a few times. In those cases if I was using the time stamps it would have messed up the file copy.

edit: also if you put up a paypal link on your site I'd send you a little love to express my gratitude for your efforts...

That is a good idea. I had that on my to do list but forgot about it. I will look into that.

[sfhand]

...

In one case you have two turns to compare in the other you do not. So what I do is look at what is in your game directories (Incoming Email and Outgoing Email). Then I look at the file sharing directory and see where the higher number is. Then I decide what, if any file copying needs to be done. After that the program can tell whose turn it is by looking between the game directory folders for the higher number.

...

Thanks for digging into this, which brings up the question, if I set up each game in WTII with two directories, e.g., /forian and /forsfhand, would I then be able to play on 2 different machines without confusing WTII?

[A Canadian Cat]

Thanks for digging into this, which brings up the question, if I set up each game in WTII with two directories, e.g., /forian and /forsfhand, would I then be able to play on 2 different machines without confusing WTII?

No sadly it would not work.

Oh, I just realized that I never fully answered your question earlier. I did look into it. However because WTII? compares the turns in the game directories with those in the shared directories it gets confused on the second machine. It has no current logic to handle updating the game's outgoing folder. So what can happen is the new turn for your opponent on the first machine will look like a new incoming turn to the second machine because it interprets the outgoing turn as if it were a new incoming turn on the second machine.

It is something I could look at tackling in the future but it was not something I wanted to play with for the 1.0 release. I have a few more features I want to add but I will put supporting multiple machines on my list to keep it in mind.

Some of this could be alleviated if I did not have to support a single shared directory for multi machine support. In other words if I could require that there but two sub directories under the shared folder (i.e. a forian and a forsfhand directory) then it would be easier to figure out what is going on.

[sfhand]

Ian, I really appreciate the thoughtful response. Thanks!

[Yskonyn]

Hi Ian,

First and foremost, thanks for this utility. It makes managing games so much easier!

Question; is there a way to make it start automatically when windows loads?

Cheers!

[A Canadian Cat]

On 7/21/2019 at 9:14 AM, Yskonyn said:

First and foremost, thanks for this utility. It makes managing games so much easier!

Thanks, I am glad you like it.

On 7/21/2019 at 9:14 AM, Yskonyn said:

Question; is there a way to make it start automatically when windows loads?

Yes, the installer should have set that up actually. But it is pretty easy to do manually. Here is what you do (I used Win10 but similar steps will work for Win7 - just some commands might be in slightly different places):

1. Open the start menu and scroll to the Whose Turn Is It group and expand it
2. Right click on the Whose Turn Is It short cut and select More | Open file location
3. That will open windows file explorer showing the shortcut for Whose Turn Is It. Copy the short cut (select it <ctrl>c or right click copy)
4. In that windows file explorer click on the Startup folder - it is at the same level as the folder you are currently viewing likely a few lines above it on the left hand folder view
5. Paste the short cut into the Startup folder

Next time you restart WTII will start up as well.

[Bubba883XL]

i tried the combat mission helper tool, is this the same thing? i found it didn't work or recognise some of the games, and wasn't easy to set up. it would recognise CMBN, but nothing else with the different folder set ups

[A Canadian Cat]

11 hours ago, Bubba883XL said:

combat mission helper tool, is this the same thing?

Nope. CMHelper was written by @GreenAsJade.

[Bubba883XL]

ah! ....

[Yskonyn]

@IanL I am trying to install WTII , but it won't install unless I download Java 7 JRE from Oracle. 
I've migrated to the Adoptium Temurin branch of open source Java, due to the perceived security issues with older Java runtimes, so I was wondering if you can make WTII accept this runtime and stop it from forcing an old JRE download.

[A Canadian Cat]

16 hours ago, Yskonyn said:

@IanL I am trying to install WTII , but it won't install unless I download Java 7 JRE from Oracle. 
I've migrated to the Adoptium Temurin branch of open source Java, due to the perceived security issues with older Java runtimes, so I was wondering if you can make WTII accept this runtime and stop it from forcing an old JRE download.

Yes. The installer might force you to install the old Java. But once it's done you can uninstall it and tweak the launch short cut to use your newer version of the JVM. WTII? is fins with running on a different JVM as long as it's J7 or newer.