Handling the Files

[dieseltaylor]

I was wondering how other people managed. I am playing four PBEM games and Windows 7 is quite handy with saving the file direct to the main folder but I am finding it a tad confusing with 9-10 turns a day.

This is where I think I have not replied and re-do and send the move. An irritation. The other one is the build up in my saved games folder when I have to scroll through all my played games. Now of course I could manually remove the turns after I have played them.

However anyone familiar with PBEMHelper knows that this is exactly what it sorted out for you. Tracked the turns filed the used files etc. And after probably CM*1 5000 moves I have grown to expect this sort of utility.

Which brings me to the question why this was never sorted out by those who played CMSF... I suppose the answer is probably that all the players were solitary types so file handling was of no interest.

In case it helps the moving sequenes in CM*1 were far more complicated than in CM*2 so is anyone gifted enough to write a utility that does what PBEMHelper did so brilliantly.

File type recognised by utility

Places file in folder and removes preceding numbered file into archive folder

On sending utility records newly generated number and files sent file in archive folder

An interface showing live file name and number, date, and whether it is was incoming or outgoing. Compared to PBEMHelper it is incredibly simple. After all that does a dozen different games, auto-loading files, sending from wihtin utility etc.

[stikkypixie]

Sounds like a good idea. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

[dieseltaylor]

You will have great fame in your own lifetime : )

Thinks a - a famous Belgian!!! That will make 4

[Oddball_E8]

Actually i think the majority of CM:SF players were realtime players and didnt use pbem like us "oldies" do.

but of course im just pulling that speculation out of my bee-hind

[theFightingSeabee]

My mod manager has shortcuts to both folders. Windows explorer can then show you the times created and all that.

[stikkypixie]

I wrote something very very basic that has the same aim. If anyone is willing to play guinea pig, contact me via my email.

[xian]

Sounds like a good idea. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

If you do - can you make it cross platform to include us Mac owners? (Java perhaps)

[stikkypixie]

If you do - can you make it cross platform to include us Mac owners? (Java perhaps)

It is written in Java, but I don't know how practical it is to use, do you have Mac?

[Sgt Joch]

Which brings me to the question why this was never sorted out by those who played CMSF... I suppose the answer is probably that all the players were solitary types so file handling was of no interest.

Err, no, that is just another one of the silly anti-CMSF myth bandied about by the WW2-only-or-die crowd.

There is still a healthy CMSF PBEM community around. I have a couple of games on the go right now.

Regarding PBEMHelper, there was an old discussion thread about it a long time ago, IIRC it was incompatible with the new CMx2 program. I would personally love to have something similar for CMx2.

[dieseltaylor]

Well the file handling in CM*2 is infinitely simpler than CM*1 so in the 4 years since CMSF has been available I am astonished that no one addressed the issue.

It seems quite inconceivable that so many people wished to repeatedly type in passwords, track who owed who a file, and move old files to folders when there was an example of what could be done in PBEMHelper given the right scripting.

With the CM WW2 players arriving I expect a more rigorous, educated, practical, and helpful forum.! : )

PS I wondered how popular CMSF had been exactly, and I see 202,000 posts in 4 years whereas CMBN has 50,000 showing less than a month after release.

PSS There are 108 apparent Peng threads in CMSF each of around 300 postings so you can knock off 30,000 probably. Of course there may be mentions of the game in their but it will probably be accidental : )

[TrailApe]

PS I wondered how popular CMSF had been exactly, and I see 202,000 posts in 4 years whereas CMBN has 50,000 showing less than a month after release

This is what happens

CMSF comes out, 50,000 posts appear saying “This is not as good as ~~~ (insert your favourite CM1 game) or This is a bug, or where’s my armour only arcs etc etc. Then things settle down interspersed with peaks leading up to and following module release.

CMBN comes out, 50,000 posts sappear aying “This is not as good as ~~~ (insert your favourite CM1 game) or This is a bug, or where’s my armour only arcs, why did you take out #### (insert favourite CM1 feature) etc etc, with replies like – 'well it that’s what it was like in CMSF look at the forum'. Then things settle down interspersed with peaks leading up to and following module release.

Looking at the threads in the CMBN forum, there are a lot of scalded cat threads “OMG this is a bug because I got blew away in my halftrack rush on the objective dude. like man that’s not cool.”

I think CMBN and it’s follow up modules will undoubtedly sell more than the CMSF family (remember the dinosaurs ruled the world for a much longer time than mammals have so far ) but to try and compare it worth as a game by the number of threads raised on a forum is not very scientific.

We don’t want to start a League/Union type of shooting match here amongst us CM home boys do we?

[dieseltaylor]

I was trying to understand why CMSF had not the utilities, and in some respects is under-developed if CMBN is its successor system. And amount of messages, [not threads], may indicate players attention to a game.

I chose not to use threads as I agree it is the least scientific of the possibile ways to measure activity. AFAIR CMSF was even buggier than CMBN appears to be so thread count was never going to be that useful.

Its not a matter of League/Union but trying to understand why things are the way they are. There appear to be rough edges with CMBN which are being patched but I wonder what the beta-testers did find but that also left so much to be done in v1.01.

IF you were a manager and a division introduced a product with this degree of "completeness" after having a beta version running for 4 years you would be miffed. And as for customer documentation to ship with the product the design was a "surprise".

It is extremely easy to be picky and "wise" after the event but there is a germ of truth and that is what has to be looked at to see in each area if it were avoidable, could have been done better, would a fresh pair of eyes helped, or it just had to that way.

[TrailApe]

Dieseltaylor – you are not wrong about the File Handling. Although I don’t go there myself, it does seem strange that there is not a utility that makes it simpler.

I also can see your point about the amount of issues that are floating around even after 4 years of CMSF.

However in BF’s defence, the environments that the two games operate within are radically different. On the surface its New Kit in the Desert vs Old Kit in Normandy, so what’s the big deal? – just change the look of the tanks, swap out the Syrians with the Germans, dial down the target effects, bung in some European terrain tiles and hey voila CMSF = CMBN. Well not quite, totally different weaponry, MV’s, AT missiles, body armour, in short a totally different kettle of fish. Have you seen the flight profile of a Javelin ATM? Thing of beauty. So in my opinion, these issues are not unexpected.

I don’t think I’m being cynical, but I’m sure BF fully expected on release to flush out a whole new set of bugs that the Beta Testers missed, it’s a small scale operation and releasing the V 1.0 to such a discerning/demanding audience is one surefire way of finding problems to fix. I don’t mind this, got I’ve got my hands on a superb game, and I know it will only get better. Now if BF charged us for the patches I’d be a tad dis-chuffed, but they don’t so it’s all good from my perspective.

What I was commenting on was your poke at CMSF. Nothing more.

I was hurt (sniff).

[Sgt Joch]

There appear to be rough edges with CMBN which are being patched but I wonder what the beta-testers did find but that also left so much to be done in v1.01.

That is a matter of perspective. Compared to CMSF 1.0, CMBN 1.0 is a completely finished and polished game.

You are being overly picky DT, there are no game breaking issues in CMBN. The list of "real" issues to be fixed are mostly just tweaks to the existing game. Many had already been raised by the Beta testers, but for various reasons could not be addressed prior to release.

[dieseltaylor]

SSGT J. Glad to hear you were on the case. BTW I have just sent you ane-mail via the WeBoB address.

I see there is a thread on no elevation restriction on tanks which made me wonder whether town fighting takes on a new dimension. I am not suggesting anything is totally breaking the game BTW.

[Tarquelne]

Well the file handling in CM*2 is infinitely simpler than CM*1 so in the 4 years since CMSF has been available I am astonished that no one addressed the issue.

The fact that file handling in CM*2 is infinitely simpler could explain where there's no utility.

Taking you literally, for example, there's infinitely less need. Which isn't much.

[dieseltaylor]

Perhaps I did not make it clear enough. In all versions of CM there is only a single file being transferred. And of course , as in CM*1, I could delete and file the files myself every time I dealt with a turn. But as computers are designed for boring repetitive tasks why not use them?

I was talking of how much simpler the coding of a utility would be for CM2 as there is no need to split the incoming files to archive for later film playback. And I have a strong feeling that having a utility that fills the correct password into every game, as Helper does, is a useful time saver and means no need to remember or record a password.

[A Canadian Cat]

I was wondering how other people managed. I am playing four PBEM games and Windows 7 is quite handy with saving the file direct to the main folder but I am finding it a tad confusing with 9-10 turns a day.<snip>

I am using Dropbox for several games. I describe how here:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97839

But that is just for moving files around and it does not remove old files like you want. I'm not sure if I want to remove older files since I like to go back and take videos of older turns. I tend to delete only once the game is done (after archiving).

With the above Dropbox setup I can play my turns and press a button to copy files. No attaching files to emails (and picking the wrong ones) no waiting for the mail to be sent before walking away from the computer. Ah file micro managing is over.

The problem I have left is remembering whose turn it is? So, I spend to much time looking at file numbers in the Incoming Email and Outgoing Email folders. My plan instead of deleting the older files after a turn is played is to instead have an app that will show me the PBEM games I have in my folders and whose turn it is for each. I am in the middle of writing the app now when I have it I'll let people know. My plan is to keep things simple but I am also writing the code that looks at the email files and figures out what games are there and whose turn it is generic so others can use it in their PBEM apps if they want.

We'll see how it goes.

[dieseltaylor]

Do you think you can do the remembering of game passwords and the infilling when the file is opened? That really is a cute trick. I have at least 200 CM1 games on my hard drives archive! And when you play tournaments with passwords chosen for you it does mean you can end up with rather a headful.

PBEMHELPER is written in .vbs I believe and you can read the code - of course I read but do not understand.

[A Canadian Cat]

Do you think you can do the remembering of game passwords and the infilling when the file is opened?

Good point I have that problem too. I was thinking of a simple note system where you could choose to keep your pw. I do not have direct experience with driving another app with mouse and keyboard events so I'll have to look into that. Doing all that is not really in my plans. Frankly exposing command line options for launching the game and opening an .ema file and passing a pw is really something that the game author's should provide via command line.

With a simple set of command line options for starting the game while passing an .ema file and pw would allow all PBEM helper programs that would be really good.

[A Canadian Cat]

PBEMHELPER is written in .vbs I believe and you can read the code - of course I read but do not understand.

I just had a look at the code and it is pretty straight forward without all the error handling code:) The trouble is the code is clicking on the app blind (it has clever logic to figure out where to click) and then driving the standard Windows file open dialog box. But that only works with the old game where the PBEM system used the standard windows file open dialog box to pick the email file. The new game displays the name of the game in its own list. The VB program cannot read the screen easily since it is rendered with a custom graphics engine and not windows widgets.

This kind of draw it your self code is one solution to the problem of running on Windows and Mac and since they are already rendering the game it makes scene to use the same kind of code to render the rest of the UI. The trouble is I do not think that finding the game file name on screen will be easy. Nothing is impossible given enough time but the barrier to entry here is probably too high for someone who would rather be playing the game:)

[Scipio]

I can recomment http://www.dropbox.com very much, too, makes life indeed rather simple for the typical PBEM gamer.

Instead of WinSync or a program with a similiar name, I use Windows Double Explorer.. This program simple creates a splittet Windows Explorer window. One is pointed to my CM folder, the other one is pointed to my DropBox folder. DoubleExplorer even remembers this when you close the program.