PBEMH - how does it decide AK vs, BB

[ramagel]

I am playing PBEM in a scenario set-up by my opponent from (I understand) a BB map converted to be AK.

CM knows it is an AK file and will not open it in BB .....

PBEMH insists it is a BB game when processing the incoming .txt file, but will happily let me play it in AK provided I manually put it in the AK PBEM folder.

Any idea how to tell PBEMH that it's an AK file?

PBEMH is really very useful, but it’s a bit nit picky ......

[Sergei]

You have to save it in My folders\PBEM Helper\CMAK for it to know which one it is.

[ramagel]

Thanks Sergei: that's what I (have to) do now with ONLY these files.

However, the question I'm asking is about how PBEMH distinguishes between AK and BB when the file is saved to the "Additional Working Folder".

If you save incoming files to that folder PBEMH mostly correctly identifies BB or AK and automatically puts them in the right folder for you*. Except not with the SPECIFIC instance I mention (and probably some others I have not yet come across).

So, my question is still open if anyone has the answer .....

* Meaning you can either just dump all incoming game files to one single folder without having to work out whether they are AK or BB, or – better – you could automatically dump all game files into that folder.

[Sergei]

Could it be that you have earlier had a game session for the other game under the same name? Meaning, if you have had a "RamagelvsSergei###.txt" before on CMBB and later have a new game under the same name "RamagelvsSergei###.txt" but this time for CMAK, then PBEMH might get confused?

[ramagel]

Good thought, Sergei but it isn't that this time. I'll look out for that in future tho. I'll check out some other possibilities along those lines too, like maybe I tried to open the file in BB first of all, and so forth, but it's unlikely as we are actually playing TWO different games using the same map, both of which PBEMH thinks are BB when they are AK.

I'm sure there has to be SOMETHING in the file that PBEMH looks at to determine AK vs. BB (maybe using the password decrypt a particular byte or so).

[ramagel]

I had need to find an answer after I accidentally deleted my CMAK PBEM folder! A partial answer seems to be emerging:

In the PBEM.ini file PBEM seems to record receipt and sending of files with timestamps under the game name (along with email addresses, password etc) e.g.

[CMAK]

Advance/R=2006-10-21 09:02:10

Advance/S=2006-10-21 09:54:29

This means it must have some way of identifying whether the game is AK or BB (perhaps from the game the user first opens the file with – even if wrong? This is what Sergei alluded to above)

In the two cases I was experiencing (and then when I tried to recover from deleting my PBEM folder a third) the entries were NOT under [CMAK] they were wrongly under [CMBB], and PBEMH had moved the files from its ‘additional working directory’ to the CMBB folder.

I (partly I think) managed to correct this by moving the entries in the PBEM.INI file and the actual files to CMAK folders. It now properly shows the stqatus of all three files. I don’t yet know how PBEMH will treat the next incoming files.

The question is still open, however: how does PBEMH initially determine whether a game files is AK or BB – only after which can it populate the .ini file and move the game files ....

This is a very handy program and I’d really like to be able to use it for all games, even when somehow it’s all got mixed up ....

[ramagel]

Well, now to answer my own question: "It doesn't, unless the file is a .pbm".

The 'problem' such as it was stemmed from installing PBEMH with the CDV versions of AK and BB. PBEMH didn’t find the games, and therefore didn’t create game-specific subfolders of the 'additional working directory' into which one must manually drop .txt or .zip files. Not having these subfolders after I manually configured BB and AK, I just assumed you could drop the files into the ‘additional working directory’ itself, and that is not the case. What I was seeing was PBEMH randomly getting the game right in some cases and wrong in others!

Something Sergei said, and a kind email from deiseltaylor followed by a reinstall of PBEMH now I am running the ‘pukka’ versions of BB and AK which did create the necessary subfolders, gave me the final clue to answering the question in the negative!

(Of course, in theory it could be possible for PBEMH to automatically process files once the user had ‘told it’ which game they were to be played in, but that’s the functionality of .pbm files, I guess).

Sorry to have troubled anyone with what was my problem .....