gnartsch on 7/7/2011 at 09:24

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Hmmm... besides the fact that I would rarely ever use it:
think about how to block spammers. Even on the Forums - where you need to register - some idiots show up from time to time. Posting nothing else but a couple of offers for viagra, pills, and other shit until they are detected and banned.
No really. I think there are chats already around with registered Thief-users.
If I ever would desire to join a chat, then I would log in there.
Blending in what others are playing might be interesting, though.

Anyway, I think there is enough work left in TFMM to make it my mission loader of choice. :angel:
I could compile a list later today if appreciated. :D
If not I will post it anyway ;)

tolsen64 on 7/7/2011 at 21:24

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Understood. My method would have been using XML documents that would be sent between hosts.



Post away...i've had nothing to do the last couple of days :)

gnartsch on 8/7/2011 at 19:27

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OK, I have a wishlist for you.

But first I need to report a problem with SS2:
For some odd reason I can choose to install all the SS2 missions with language german.
However, none of the missions I tried do actually have any german resources in the ZIP. And my SS2 is english. So, I have no clue why TTFM offers me such an option. Is it because my OS is german ? That wouldn't make any sense.
See Zombe, Dojo Level, Ancient, ....


Wishlist for TFMM

Main window
- Instead of forcing an initial size of the window to 800x600, no size should be specified at all in the code.
If I am not mistaken, then Windows would display it full size on initial startup and the user can resize it as he pleases. When the app closes then Windows will remember the size and restore the window with that size on next startup.
So, the user would not have to rearrange it every time he starts TFMM.

Fan Mission Files
- When adding or removing a FM directory, it would be nice if the 'Fan Mission Files' tab would automatically synchronize these folders. Preferably ONLY the added/removed directories should be refreshed, since with 1200 missions in the database an entire refresh would take a while.
- Whenever a 'Synchronize' is done, why not also retrieve the 'Mission Info' for those files where no info is availlable already ?
- It would be nice if the table in the first tab (Fan Mission Files) would adapt to the size of the window and columns would adjust to the required space.
Or TFMM could store the column size in % for each column and adjust/restore the ratio on restart or resize. Like this the user could still influence which column has 'priority' to be displayed.

Play Missions
- No idea what the 'Times Played' column is trying to tell me other then how often I launched that mission. I would this to be a flag where I can specify whether I completed it on Normal, Hard or Expert (Thief1+2) - or like Easy,Normal,Hard,Impossible (SS2)
- I would like to have an editable column where I can add comments.
With that I could mark awesome mission to be candidates for a replay.
Or take a note that I am stuck and need to revisit it once my frustration has worn off (in a year or so).
Or place a note that an update has been announced, but it would take quite some time for it to be published.
Or add a comment that this mission is part X out of Y missions which make up a campaign.
Note: While I would like to see this info in this tab, it should be stored where the FM info is located, because chances are pretty good that the mission isn't installed all the time and is worth being preserved for the time I want to revisit this mission.

Update procedure
- In order to prevent people from needlessly loosing their DB I would recommend the following:
a) The TFMM.mdb in the download should be named TFMM-org.mdb
b) On startup of the updated TFMM version it would check if a TFMM.mdb exists already.
c) If not, then simply rename TFMM-org.mdb and use it.
d) If an TFMM.mdb did exist already, check if the version of the database-schema has changed. (This would need to be stored somewhere of course.)
e) If not, then there is no need to use the new database-file
f) If it did change.... hmmm ... either export the data to the new one or ask the user if he is OK to replace his database with an empty one.
Like that the user would still have a chance to consider reverting to the older TFMM version in case there is something he does not want to loose rightaway...
Or simply also let TFMM check the database-version in the 'Check for newer version' dialog.
In case you are considering migrating the data from one version to the other, you could use the version string to identify if a migration is possible.
In case only columns were added then comparing the existing 1.0 version of the database to 1.1 of the new one would indicate a migration is possible without loss.
In case columns were removed/changed in type or shortened in lenght then comparing 1.0 to 2.0 would indicate that a migration can not be done without loss.

Not sure if a similar procedure would be worth being applied to Languages.txt or other files.


Hmmmm.... I guess that's it
... for the moment :cheeky:

tolsen64 on 9/7/2011 at 03:21

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Try this and let me know... When installing a SS2 mission and it presents you with a language choice, choose "default". This will dismiss the dialog without changing anything in the installed mission directory. Then look through the installed mission directory and see if there are any folders named "german". Here's the code that determines what languages (if any) are displayed in the dialog:



The "Languages" variable is an array that contains the languages read from the Languages.txt file. The method is called with the value of "di" being the root of the Installed Mission Directory. When finished, the object "al" is an arraylist that contains the names of the language directories or zip files found in the Installed Mission directory. This arraylist is used to populate the language chooser dialog. If the arraylist is empty, the language chooser dialog is not shown.

So, if you are getting the language chooser dialog, there is probably a folder somewhere in the Installed Mission directory structure that is called "german".

If there is not a german directory, then see if it only happens after you install a mission that DOES have a german directory (maybe the arraylist isn't being cleared???)

gnartsch on 10/7/2011 at 19:26

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I would like to request some changes for the 'Add multiple directories' feature.
Since I create a subfolder for each author, the list of directories contained in the folder that I need to select is rather long.
(e.g. ~ 300 authors/directories for T2)
Now, when some new missions have been released and I needed to create new folders for new authors it is a pain to get them added to TFMM in case you don't recall the names of the authors.
So, I would specify the top-folder and select all subfolders in the following dialog in order to make sure I get them all added.
But TFMM informs me with a dialog about each folder individually that had already been added before !

The request:
- please don't show the dialog reading 'The Directory XYZ has already been added' for each folder
- better show a single dialog at the very end listing all directories for which this was the case
- or even better: filter out all directories that are in the database already before the 'Select one or more Directories' shows up and list only those, which are not yet configured in the db.


From user-perspective, I would even prefer if there was an option to specify one or multiple 'Master-FM-directories' instead of dealing with all individual subfolders.
TFMM would automatically scan these 'master-directories' for new subdirectories and missions whenever 'Synchronize File List' is executed.
For the user this would mean that 1 Click on 'Synchronize File List' would update the entire list of missions.
As it is now, the user needs to double-check if he had included the desired folders or not.


'Download Missions' tab
Missions imported from CheapMisions are displayed with a size 10 times bigger then they should be:

This happens only if they are bigger then 1MB.
Like the number format issue that you fixed a couple of weeks ago, this is because of the different digit separators in german ? '.' vs ','

Since you allow to import missions lists from the download sites:
have you considered trying to correlate them (based on game, zip-name, mission-name, zip-size, ...) to what is found in the FM-folders ?
Even if such a correlation is hard to do and may not always be correct, it would still be very usefull in order to identify which missions one might have not downloaded yet !
With a new column displaying a coloured symbol it might look like this:

1. reasonably good match to to a mission found in the fm-folders

2. potential match, but with different version of the FM, different size, relase-date, etc. Maybe an updated version ??

3. no match found in the fm-folders! one would probably like to download this !



Could you also add support for the german TTLG.de site for the downloads ?
Currently it is more up to date then CheapThiefMissions and provides an XML file as well that could be analyzed:
(http://www.ttlg.de/de/download/navigation/FM-Download.xml) http://www.ttlg.de/de/download/navigation/FM-Download.xml


Keep up the good work ! :thumb:
(And let me know if you need more :cheeky:)