Fork / Mod Kiss Assist Management Program

[riot]

Work in progress but I'm open to feedback/ideas/things that would be cool to have on this.

The program allows you to easily load and modify each ini file within your Macros directory without having to manually load up each one and scroll through endless lines of text just to edit one line or add a new spell. Simply click on the button that pertains to what you want to do and that section is loaded from the ini so you can make your changes and be on your way. The program is still is a deep alpha phase but I want ideas and suggestions on things to add before I get too deep in to it. If it is used enough I'll consider adding in options for modifying other MQ ini files (especially things like MQ2Melee). Hell even if no one ends up using this I'll still add it because I hate having to dig for files to modify one or two things all the time!

Anyways, here's a screenshot of what it is so far. Hopefully by this weekend I'll be able to give a copy or two out for some beta testing to make sure no ones ini files get eaten by mistake.

PS: I'm a minimalist and enjoy a clean and uncluttered UI hence the simplistic look of everything.

PPS: I didn't know where to put this but it deals with KissAssist so I put it here. If it's the wrong spot I apologize!

 

[Hihi]

Not sure on anything to add to it, but I'd be more than happy to beta test it (after making a backup of all my ini's).

 

[dr00d69]

This is an awesome idea. Would love to test it out for ya and provide some feedback. Thanks for doing this.

 

[Dretski]

I'll be in the beta if I may. Looks fantastic.

 

[yurimar32]

Great thing.

 

[nyghteyes]

Take a look at Notepad++ and steal some color coding schemes, it greatly helps with organization.

 

[ctaylor22]

I have thought about doing something like this, but don't have the time to invest. Some of the things I have considered are:

Create a config file that this program uses and loads to check for validity. An example would be when modifying the Buffs entries. Check to make sure you can only enter valid entries in the 2nd arg(Dual, Mount, Me, End, Mana, Aura, etc...). That way anytime KA is changed you don't have to manually change your program and recompile it you just change the config file and push it out.

I have other ideas so I will continue to update this post.

 

[riot]

Take a look at Notepad++ and steal some color coding schemes, it greatly helps with organization.

I can add some color to the variable names and a different color for user input to break it up and make everything easier on the eyes. It'll most likely be customizable later on to fit the user prefence.

- - - Updated - - -

I have thought about doing something like this, but don't have the time to invest. Some of the things I have considered are:

Create a config file that this program uses and loads to check for validity. An example would be when modifying the Buffs entries. Check to make sure you can only enter valid entries in the 2nd arg(Dual, Mount, Me, End, Mana, Aura, etc...). That way anytime KA is changed you don't have to manually change your program and recompile it you just change the config file and push it out.

I have other ideas so I will continue to update this post.

I was thinking about adding error checking too but I'd need a list of all the valid options for each section. The buffs and dps section on my personal inis are pretty terrible because I haven't been able to find a list of each available option. I like the idea of using an ini vs hard-coded tho so I'll definitely run with that.

 

[dannuic]

I think it would be a good idea to abstract the "ini edit" idea. Instead, create dropdowns or comboboxes for item options that are limited. If you think about the structure of the ini, each section has some limited-selection options to set, which could be done graphically, and then has a list of spells/AA/skills to execute. If you are ambitious, the spells can be referenced against lucy's or a localized db where you can select class and get options, and you could parse the inventory dumps already available to give clicky options (though that is less of an issue now that they made most of them permanent).

 

[riot]

Something like-

User selects class (and level)
Spells populate based on range given
User selects spell then options for casting spell
Input user options to program

I think that'd be nice but I'm just one person and compiling a complete list of every spell in game is going to take a longggg time. I had some ideas close to this with more in depth things to configure so there's a good possibility that it gets added in the future.

 

[ctaylor22]

Something else you could do is create a macro that you run on each toon that creates a file with all spells in spell book and AA's and combat abilities. Basically any info you need to use in your program to populate the combo/dropdown boxes. The output file could be named, so your program could look for the file based on the ini file that is selected. But still give the ability to manually enter the information for those of use to lazy to run the macro first.

 

[Sodpoodle]

At this point I don't have anything useful to add besides: That's an awesome idea and I'd really appreciate it.

 

[riot]

Macro would probably be the best idea and a nice middle ground between what both of you recommended.

Spell dump
AA dump
Combat Ability dump
Clicky dump (probably just be Chest + whatever is in bags since the rest have perm AAs for them)

I need to organize this info when I get home and make a to-do list with a priority system.

 

[ctaylor22]

The macro would cut down on errors, that will be made when manually entering entries. I know I have no room to criticize, but even EQ has stuff that is misspelled.

 

[riot]

I have an idea floating in my head on how to do this. The hardest part will be filtering out all the different spells and levels and putting them in to their own sub categories for easy selection.

Heals vs buffs
DD vs AoE vs Mez

 

[nyghteyes]

Spitball one....Maybe someone here has some skills to write a script to parse Lucy and create a library for for GUI to auto populate?

 

[minniemmee24]

I'd would give it a try once you put up a beta fore some us to test it out. Would save me a bunch of time with editing all my ini files!

 

[dannuic]

Spitball one....Maybe someone here has some skills to write a script to parse Lucy and create a library for for GUI to auto populate?

That's what I was thinking about with my suggestion.

 

[PeteSampras]

Spitball one....Maybe someone here has some skills to write a script to parse Lucy and create a library for for GUI to auto populate?

Lucy is dead btw. it rarely gets updates compared to changes. raidloot or eqresource for spell dumps. and eqresource has more accurate data fields.. but if all you care about is spell name and type.. then either works.

EDIT: although i just get the spells_us.txt and throw it all into excel. i have a worksheet to filter every field out that i want anyway.

 

[riot]

How many classes have different formats for their inis? Like enchanters and bards have an added Mez section, are those the only two that have an added section?

 

[ctaylor22]

Just look in the loadIni sections that start around line 182. There are a few things that are class specific, not just Enchanter and Bard.

 

[riot]

I think it's ready for a little bit of beta testing and some user feedback. If you're interested in testing it out let me know and I'll give you the link to download it. It automatically updates itself so you only have to download it once.

Only issue I'm having right now is the .ini formatting is ugly if you open the ini up with Notepad after you save it however if you open it with Notepad++ the formatting is just fine. It doesn't change the way the ini is read in game so it's not too big of a deal.

Now that the core of the program is done (hopefully) I can start adding new feature like spell selections and other features that were brought up within this thread.

This is how it looks so far, not much different than the original post lol.



- - - Updated - - -

Still working out some bugs so hopefully I get some feedback soon from the folks who asked to test this out for me. I'd like to do a release today if possible so we'll see what happens.

- - - Updated - - -

PS: If anyone wants to make me an Icon for the program that'd be great. I'd love to get rid of the default boring icon and replace it with something better.

- - - Updated - - -

Cleaned up the UI a bit and added a menu to replace the buttons on the bottom. Fixed the issue with Notepad formatting so it all looks normal now when saved. I'm getting quite a bit of positive feedback on this from my testers and no major bugs have been discovered yet so I'll make a few minor tweaks then release it later tonight.

Thanks for the help and suggestions folks!



- - - Updated - - -

Locking this thread - Official release is out so no more use for this one!

Thanks for all the feedback folks!