PK's Tools

[_NOPE_]

My various tools for the City of Heroes community can be found here:

 

http://www.cityofplayers.com/pks-tools/

 

Currently, they contain:

• Homecoming Dev Tracker - To track the Devs on Homecoming, and see what they're saying (also Arcanaville, who might as well be a dev!)
  
• BBCoder - A BBCode editor that makes it REALLY easy to make fun, colorful and long posts!
  
• Powers Checker - To see the EXACT effects of all player powers in-game. Static datasource currently, there's a future plan to move the data from an Excel sheet to a database and/or make a version that can import a Powers.def file from ANY server.
  

 

Future state - I hope to have the following running, but that depends on community support to support a dedicated server. If we don't get this support, these things can never happen:

• Project Spelunker - A searchable copy of the old City of Heroes forum. Project stalled due to insufficient server.
  
• Offline Mission Arc Editor
  
• Wentworth's/Black Market Out of Game client - to allow players to "play the market" from either their PC or phone when they aren't actually in-game.
  
• Personal Space for community members to have their own CoH related webpages and tools.
  

 

Any other ideas for community tools, I'd be glad to hear them. I want to find ways to give back to the community that's already given me so much!

[CaptainAmazing]

I've been looking for something that helps me manage salvage.

 

Terrified of throwing anything away but also struggle with storing it, I'm sure a lot of people use multiple storage racks but this is also awkward without some way of managing the added inventory.

 

Even a resource that offered information at your fingertips.

 

I'm probably not articulating this very well so im going to go away now and have a bit more of a think about it but the gist is managing salvage.

 

thanks in advance.

 

Neil.

 

 

[Redlynne]

• Powers Checker - To see the EXACT effects of all player powers in-game. Static datasource currently, there's a future plan to move the data from an Excel sheet to a database and/or make a version that can import a Powers.def file from ANY server.

 

Any other ideas for community tools, I'd be glad to hear them. I want to find ways to give back to the community that's already given me so much!

 

Build planner hosted on a website structured so that we can link to the page of the specific build ... kind of like what the old World of Warcraft build planners did ... so we don't have to keep mucking around in offline programs like Mids' (and its successors like Pine).

[Lazarillo]

Build planner hosted on a website structured so that we can link to the page of the specific build ... kind of like what the old World of Warcraft build planners did ... so we don't have to keep mucking around in offline programs like Mids' (and its successors like Pine).

Problem with that, websites can get taken offline.

[_NOPE_]

That's why you make an ASP. NET website that has a downloadable offline version that shares the same code base/logic ;)

[Maslow]

I am hoping to make a web version once the existing code is understood a little better. I heard that PK may be working on one also. Can anyone confirm?

[WanderingAries]

I am hoping to make a web version once the existing code is understood a little better. I heard that PK may be working on one also. Can anyone confirm?

 

Was about to post that the Mids/Pine group was hoping to get this pushed out eventually. The goal being web based in an effort to be more neutral/universal than app based.

[_NOPE_]

I am hoping to make a web version once the existing code is understood a little better. I heard that PK may be working on one also. Can anyone confirm?

 

You could just ask directly, you know. I had plans. But they are sidelined by Project Spelunker for now.

 

Speaking of which, no promises, but I hope to have a new methodology and new program release Soon ™.

[Bopper]

I was hoping when you said the Power Checker tool would have the EXACT effects of player powers it would include the summoned pets. For example, Defender_Buff Storm_Summoning Lightning_Storm, you summon a Pet_Lightning_Storm. I wanted to see those attributes (tick rate, damage, etc). Any chance you can update your tool to do this?

[_NOPE_]

I was hoping when you said the Power Checker tool would have the EXACT effects of player powers it would include the summoned pets. For example, Defender_Buff Storm_Summoning Lightning_Storm, you summon a Pet_Lightning_Storm. I wanted to see those attributes (tick rate, damage, etc). Any chance you can update your tool to do this?

 

When I have Time™, I'll look into it. I have bigger fish to fry right now. In other news, I've found the following GMs that have been added under my nose, so I added them to the Dev Tracker today:

 

• GM Amittai
  
• GM Gabriel
  
• GM_Silvanity
  
• GM Fiddleback
  
• GM NobleKangaroo
  

 

[Redlynne]

• GM NobleKangaroo

 

Sounds Canadian ...

 

/em ducks and runs

[OneShot23]

On 7/9/2019 at 10:33 AM, The Philotic Knight said:

Future state - I hope to have the following running, but that depends on community support to support a dedicated server. If we don't get this support, these things can never happen:

• Project Spelunker - A searchable copy of the old City of Heroes forum. Project stalled due to insufficient server.
• Offline Mission Arc Editor
• Wentworth's/Black Market Out of Game client - to allow players to "play the market" from either their PC or phone when they aren't actually in-game.
• Personal Space for community members to have their own CoH related webpages and tools.

 

I may be able to assist with providing you a dedicated server for this. I personally have a dedicated server hosted and a close friend that owns a hosting company. If you would like further details please let me know so I further assist you.

 

Thanks,

OneShot23

[_NOPE_]

@OneShot23, while I appreciate the offer, frankly, I don't know you from Adam, so I'll have to politely decline. To feel comfortable, I have to have final control over whatever server my tools end up on, as I wouldn't want to repeat @Leandro's situation with the first host that he attempted to assist.

 

Worst case scenario, if the Patreon doesn't succeed in the next four days, I'll be donating all those funds that I've accumulated thus far to Child's Play, cancelling the Patreon, and just biting the bullet and just pay out of pocket... I'll have have to find a way to finagle it so that I don't have to try to explain it to my wife... 😮

[sindyr]

I would suggest Kickstarter. While I am leery of Patreon, I am more than happy to fund a Kickstarter.

[Bopper]

@The Philotic Knight, do your tools still work? I have tried using the Dev Tracker, but with no luck. Possibly due to the forum changes?

[_NOPE_]

Yes, it broke when the forum changed. Frankly, I didn't ever fix it because:

 

1. I expected with the new software that the Devs would be able to make their own Dev Tracker
2. I haven't had the time really to fix it, due to a job change, and
3. Nobody seemed to care - until just now. 

[WanderingAries]

On ‎1‎/‎24‎/‎2020 at 9:02 PM, The Philotic Knight said:

Yes, it broke when the forum changed. Frankly, I didn't ever fix it because:

 

1. I expected with the new software that the Devs would be able to make their own Dev Tracker
2. I haven't had the time really to fix it, due to a job change, and
3. Nobody seemed to care - until just now. 

Not everyone's so loud with their forum stalking. ;)

[Redlynne]

And some of us will simply post anything that leaks out of our brains through our fingers ...

 

 

 

Yes, that happens to me.

A LOT ...

[_NOPE_]

15 hours ago, WanderingAries said:

Not everyone's so loud with their forum stalking. 😉

Well, why didn't you say so???

 

@Bopper, @WanderingAries, @Redlynne

 

The Dev Tracker is BACK, and is just as slow as ever!!!

 

 

 

Seriously though, I do want to revamp this thing and make it faster and more user friendly, I did just enough to fix what was broken, and maybe make it look a tad bit nicer than it used to.

 

@Jimmy Isn't there some sort of similar functionality built into Invision Community somewhere?

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by The Philotic Knight

[Jimmy]

There probably is. It's on a to-do list somewhere but not a massive priority at the moment. The above is good for now!

[_NOPE_]

 

I FINALLY figured out asynchronous processing in C#! What that means for you is that the Dev Tracker (http://www.cityofplayers.com/DevTracker/) is now substantially faster. From my tests of the non-async version vs. the async version, there was a change from about 60 seconds for page load to 30 seconds for page load!

 

Still super long, but it's about as good as I can do I think, unless a programmer smarter than me has a better idea than what I'm doing. Here's my process:

 

1. Go to the Staff page (https://forums.homecomingservers.com/staff/) and screen-scrape it for all staff member usernames and IDs - Takes just about 2ish seconds
2. Go through each staff member synchronously and start the following process on each staff member asynchronously:
3. Start a Do...While loop using an increasing integer to check every possible one of the staff member's pages from 1 to infinity until it can't find a new valid URL. Basically, until I pass a URL such as https://forums.homecomingservers.com/profile/5-cipher/content/page/99999999/?all_activity=1 into the server to process, and if it sends me back a response URL of https://forums.homecomingservers.com/profile/5-cipher/content/page/7/?all_activity=1, which is not what I was expecting, then I know I must be at the end of the list of possible URLs. This is what takes the longest, because I don't know ahead of time how many pages of activities there are! If I knew ahead of time how many pages each staff member had, I could start them all asynchronously without testing and seeking out the pages. This step takes about 24 seconds.
4. Process the data into dynamic HTML and built the list of posts to present - about 2 seconds.

Anyone smarter than me have any better ideas?

Edited February 2, 2020 by The Philotic Knight

[honoroit]

Do you have a public github repo for this?

 

It would allow for direct assist in task work flow / code optimization if you do. 

[_NOPE_]

Eh, not really. While I like the idea of open source code, I don't think I could ever bring myself into really getting into that type of community. Part of me needs the "attaboys" as motivation to keep me going, and the open source model doesn't fill my needs in that way for a pat on the head, frankly. Because everyone's work all mushes together, and it's hard to really know who did what at some point, which makes it GREAT for getting things done more quickly, but doesn't give me the warm fuzzies that I need to keep going. Just being honest here. I'll give credit where credit's due, and if someone offers suggestions and advice, I'll thank them for it and give them credit in any public displays of my code (because I'm ALL about credit and making sure it gets to the right places). But I also strongly believe in ownership of things, I can't really live in the world where I don't "own" my own work... if that makes any sense. I usually release MY source code publicly for people to take, but I have a hard time directly implementing large chunks of OTHER people's work into my own. I'll take tiny snippets, but I kind of like to take ideas and make them my own... does that make sense?

[honoroit]

It makes some sense 😀

 

Something to think on. 

 

You can maintain control merges with pull requests, everyone's not just committing to your master branch. 

 

You actually get better feedback, can discuss changes and how they're brought about etc. You'll actually gain more exposure, and gain resume portfolio fodder at the same time. 

 

If anyone is mean or doesn't like xyz about your project or coding style... Well they can go straight to hell via block user, and the OSS community as a whole has little tolerance for asshats who want to slander endeavor. 

 

Could someone clone the repo and make another city of tracker? Yes, but you've already outlined what you've done. 

 

There's some stuff I'm going to make public when I get finished moving cross country (in Minnesota, headed to Seattle)... specifically some aws stuff with Alexa and the like.

 

'Alexa, tell me about energy torrent', a flash briefing for forum posts here (hint, just grab and rearrange the rss feeds from this site into skillfeed items, clean trim text, and you done)... and so on. 

 

I'll also pack it with cloud infrastructure orchestration (cloudformation) so you can one click deploy it, and have CI/CD via AWS code pipeline once you do. That's not secret sauce, it's just helpful. 

 

Its fun for me, and I get the benefit of eyes on my work, and code review from folks who you'd normally have to pay quite hansomly for tutoring. 

 

Different perspectives are good, I'm sharing mine! If you do end up putting it up somewhere we can see, I'll bet you get all credit, as well as a better product. 

 

Good luck with it, however you move forward. And grats on figuring async await. 

 

 

[Carnifax]

4 hours ago, The Philotic Knight said:

 

I FINALLY figured out asynchronous processing in C#! What that means for you is that the Dev Tracker (http://www.cityofplayers.com/DevTracker/) is now substantially faster. From my tests of the non-async version vs. the async version, there was a change from about 60 seconds for page load to 30 seconds for page load!

 

Still super long, but it's about as good as I can do I think, unless a programmer smarter than me has a better idea than what I'm doing. Here's my process:

 

1. Go to the Staff page (https://forums.homecomingservers.com/staff/) and screen-scrape it for all staff member usernames and IDs - Takes just about 2ish seconds
2. Go through each staff member synchronously and start the following process on each staff member asynchronously:
3. Start a Do...While loop using an increasing integer to check every possible one of the staff member's pages from 1 to infinity until it can't find a new valid URL. Basically, until I pass a URL such as https://forums.homecomingservers.com/profile/5-cipher/content/page/99999999/?all_activity=1 into the server to process, and if it sends me back a response URL of https://forums.homecomingservers.com/profile/5-cipher/content/page/7/?all_activity=1, which is not what I was expecting, then I know I must be at the end of the list of possible URLs. This is what takes the longest, because I don't know ahead of time how many pages of activities there are! If I knew ahead of time how many pages each staff member had, I could start them all asynchronously without testing and seeking out the pages. This step takes about 24 seconds.
4. Process the data into dynamic HTML and built the list of posts to present - about 2 seconds.

Anyone smarter than me have any better ideas?

There's a pagination link on the content page. That tells you how many pages of content there is. Just hunt that element and parse the text in there to figure out how many pages there are (number after the last space in the element is total number of pages). Isn't that all you need?

 

See here