Intel Monkey Road Map - Comments Sought

[witpqs]

I would like some input from those of you looking at or using Intel Monkey. The items below help to explain what I see for Intel Monkey in the near to medium. No dates are mentioned because I don't know how fast I can/will make it happen. By getting through actually processing each of the four types of AE reports (SigInt, Combat, Events, operations) I hope to uncover the various nuances and head off any inconvenient surprises that might pop up later after designing advanced functions.

Planning Items/Road Map for Intel Monkey
2012-09-06

- There will be separate screens for SigInt, Combat, Operations, Events. At first the data for each will be kept in a separate file in the current style of the SigInt data. later on there will be additional separate screens/panels that are centered around the information a player is trying to obtain rather than just the AE report it was obtained from (e.g. find a certain enemy ship, and so on).


- Do some internal reworking of th ecode to accomodate the structure mentioned above. Start deleting the work files that are currently left on disk.

- Make a top level screen, initially with choices of screens mentioned above, but inactive for the ones not yet implemented.

- Parse the combat report to gain the whereabouts of LCUs and ships that were involved in combat and other information, such as troop, et al counts at that location. Make the screen for the combat report data.

- Parse the Operations Report to gain the whereabouts of ships sighted., as well as other useful data. Make the screen for the Operations Report data.

- Parse the Events Report for useful data. Make the screen for the Events Report data.



- Convert to a database file. This is intended to make some of the more involved reporting/analysis both easier to do and hopefully faster.

- Check for dates (going by discreet files) already processed and only pick up new dates. <---{ This item might be done sooner.



- Add a function to see the last known whereabouts of each a) LCU, b) ship.

- Add a function to help asses what LCUs might be at a base. Basically look for "located at" that base. Take only the most recent of records for each unit reported as located at that base. Then check each unit for more recent located at reports for other locations. Also display any "### men located at" reports for the base.

- Add a function to call up the combat rpeort for a given date. A bit sticky for 2 or 3 day turns.

- Add function to look at groups of bases, perhaps by Tracker region or other user-edited region.

- Read in the scenario data (a CSV file export) to make a complete list of opposing LCUs, bases, and ships. Those lists can be used for various features.

[rjopel]

I like where this is going.

[CaptBeefheart]

Witpqs: I just want to say thanks a lot for doing this and making our lives easier. I will try to test this this weekend and provide feedback.

Cheers,
CC

[RogerJNeilson]

Superb idea. Currently I am pulling lots of stuff into a database and its very clunky.

Will try this out and respond with feedback.

Roger

[RogerJNeilson]

Running Windows XP under Parallels on my Mac. Followed instructions and all install went fine. Ran one turn of AE with the -archive set and was then able to run IntelMonkey as suggested and it displayed the intel for that move.

All good so far.

Roger

[witpqs]

Thanks for the feedback, guys! The present functions are pretty basic but I figured a first release now was good because just having the various dates' items on one screen seemed to ease the task of finding info.

[Dan Nichols]

I use the Actor/Date sorting a lot to find all the info on a particular LCU. Your additions sound great.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Dan Nichols

I use the Actor/Date sorting a lot to find all the info on a particular LCU. Your additions sound great.

I'm making progress with reworking things into a good structure for adding that stuff and cleaning up the code as I learn some of the idiosyncrasies. Foundation work, if you will. Having that done right will allow the additions to go in more smoothly and work better.

In the meantime, if you want some additional sort orders I can easily add them and just increase the number of radio buttons.

[aoffen]

Thumbs up from me too. I run XP in Fusion on a Mac and I gave up on getting Tracker to work a while ago due to all the Windows upgrades required. This gives me the equivalent intel function in a very simple package. The future developments potentially take it beyond that. Thanks for all the work.
Regards
Andrew

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: aoffen

Thumbs up from me too. I run XP in Fusion on a Mac and I gave up on getting Tracker to work a while ago due to all the Windows upgrades required. This gives me the equivalent intel function in a very simple package. The future developments potentially take it beyond that. Thanks for all the work.
Regards
Andrew

Thanks - and that's a very timely comment. I've been cleaning up the internals to get ready for expanding the functionality, but also tweaking the current screen to be a bit better before basically cloning most of it for the first cut of the other reports. One thing I've been working with is the fonts. It turns out that it's easy to pick better looking fonts, but if they aren't present on another system then the alignment gets messed up. So I chose a different route to improve things and stuck with the platform-independent fonts.

Hearing what you are using this on validates that approach for me, and I'm grateful for that feedback!

[witpqs]

I'm digging in to Intel Monkey again. In this go around I intend to finish the basic functionality as a prelude to then tackling the implementation of a database. the database will then make it easier to put in the advanced functionality.

Meanwhile, Python 3.3.0 has been released over a week ago and is the version I will be writing to going forward. While most changes there should not have any effect, some things might and so I advise everyone to upgrade to Python 3.3.0. The current release of Intel Monkey works just fine with Python 3.3.0, which means that you can upgrade at your convenience while I work on the next release.

Python Releases:
http://www.python.org/download/

The 32-bit Windows version of Python 3.3.0:
http://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.3.0/python-3.3.0.msi

The 64-bit Windows version of Python 3.3.0:
http://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.3.0/python-3.3.0.amd64.msi

Python 3.3.0 contains significant performance improvements in areas that Intel Monkey uses. Those could make a speed difference as the number of days processed gets very large for long-running games.

Current work on Intel Monkey is addressing:
- Minor changes to the Battles tab in the Combat Report.
- Minor changes to headers on all the reports.
- Create the Troops tab in the Combat Report.
- Create the Air tab in the Combat Report.
- Examine LCU records captured in the Combat Report to see if additional LCUs can be captured at this time.

- Parse the Events Report files and create Screen for same.
- Parse the Operations files and create screen for same.

It is possible that I will release an interim version after completing the Combat Report items so that you can work with it while I deal with the Events and Operations reports.