Introducing Intel Monkey (Another New Version: 0.4.1b)

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

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witpqs
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Introducing Intel Monkey (Another New Version: 0.4.1b)

Post by witpqs »

Introducing Intel Monkey

Intel Monkey is a program for WITP-AE players to help facilitate digesting Intel provided in the various reports (SigInt, Combat, Operations, Events). Here is the link to the .zip file in Google Docs.



(Link in Signature below.)

Intel Monkey is written in Python, beginning with Python version 3.2.3 and requires that version of Python or higher be installed in order to run Intel Monkey. It is technically independent of the Windows operating system, but as AE is a windows only program I doubt that Intel Monkey will be used on either Linux or Mac OS.

The program reads in the player's report files that AE archives every turn. Those files are located in "save/archive" (in AE's main folder find folder "save", inside that folder find folder "archive").

Your AE shortcut must have the "-archive" switch for AE to create those files every turn.

Current State and Use Instructions

The program reads files from AE's "save/archive" folder. Make certain you play AE with the "-archive" switch or else those files will not be created and there will be nothing to read.

Intel Monkey is still very new and has a very small set of functions compared to what is intended. Currently Intel Monkey processes all of the player's SigInt files. Future versions will process with other files as well.

- When started, Intel Monkey will take several seconds to read in all the SigInt files.

- A GUI window will open, where the information is displayed.

- Each line from each SigInt file has been made into its own record with the date at the front, and parsed into fields containing the various information. Note that some of the line come with four pieces of information (including the date) while others come with six (including the date).

- Buttons in the lower left corner allow the report to be sorted according to the criteria noted next to each button.

- You can click in the "Enter Search Text" box and type in something to search for. The first occurrence from the top (in the currently selected sort order) will be found and positioned in approximately the middle of the screen. The search is case insensitive (upper/lower case does not matter).

- The report can be scrolled using the scroll bars, or just click inside it to use the keyboard (PageUp, PageDown, etc.) or the mouse wheel if your mouse has one.

- You can select text in the report and copy it a) to some other program or text editor (useful if you are making notes for yourself), or b) into the search text entry area (useful to search for something you see now that causes you to want to change the sort order and look at all similar things).

- When finished, click on the X in the upper right-hand corner to close Intel Monkey.

There are many additional functions planned for Intel Monkey, including reading in and processing the other reports. The present functions are very useful already as they allow a player to see SigInt reports for a specific base, or all reports for a specific enemy unit, and so on.


Screen Pic Sample
Below you see a capture of my screen when running Intel Monkey, and I overlapped a few things for you to see them clearly. In the upper right is my AE shortcuts folder. There you see my shortcut for running AE, my shortcut for running Tracker, and my shortcut for running Intel Monkey. In the upper left you see a window that opens when Intel Monkey runs, which is similar to the window that opens when Tracker runs. You never have to do anything with that window. The large GUI window below is the main Intel monkey window. There you see the report displayed, the buttons on the lower left for you to choose how to sort the report, and the search box to the right of those buttons.

Image

NOTE: Now working for multi-day turns.

Another new version:
The link is to a new version, V0.2.2e
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Andav
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by Andav »


I like to think my dazzling play and elaborate attempts at deception have forced witpqs to write programs to help keep track of it all. Really he was probably bored while I painted furniture and build my wife a felt wall ...

This really is a nifty little program. It really helped me see how often there was heavy radio traffic at places like Pearl Harbor. For the Allies, I think it would be an excellent tool.

Wa
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aprezto
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by aprezto »

Witpqs has made an awesome and easy to use tool. I thought having to install Python might be a hurdle, but that's as simple as download and choose run, then the downloaded Intelmonkey just goes.

Having the archive switch turned on would have been useful, but from here on, not having to keep a handle on what intel I saw on a potential target will be great.

Cheers
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Image courtesy of Divepac
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Dan Nichols
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by Dan Nichols »

It does not seem to work with multiple day turns. It works fine with my one day per turn game, but not with my 2 day per turn game.
I think that the two obligations you have are to be good at what you do and then to pass on your knowledge to a younger person
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Dan Nichols

It does not seem to work with multiple day turns. It works fine with my one day per turn game, but not with my 2 day per turn game.
I never did that. Seems to me like it would be a difference in the way the files are named. I'll fire up a 2-day turn game and have a look. Not sure I'll get to do it this afternoon.
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

OK, I ran the test. Multi-day turns produce files that are in a bit different format. Instead of one file per day, they have a break inside with the new date. I'll update the program to handle that. Later tonight or tomorrow I suspect.
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Dan Nichols

It does not seem to work with multiple day turns. It works fine with my one day per turn game, but not with my 2 day per turn game.
OK, done and tested for 2-day and 3-day turns. There is a new download link in the first post.

Let me know how it works for you!
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Dan Nichols
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by Dan Nichols »

Works fine, thank you.
I think that the two obligations you have are to be good at what you do and then to pass on your knowledge to a younger person
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dr.hal
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by dr.hal »

How does this compare to the program tracker???
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

Tracker is wonderful and I use it literally every turn. I find that after about 3 or 4 game months I have to wipe out the Tracker database and start over. This is because the Tracker database gets so large it begins to take geometrically longer to start up.

A small portion of what Tracker does is handle the SigInt files. It handles an enormous amount of other data and is amazingly useful. As far as I know it does not handle the combat reports, operations reports, or events reports.

Intel Monkey will stay devoted to Intel stuff. It was only born between 2 and 3 weeks ago so has only the first cut of functionality. Currently it handles the SigInt files, reading in all of them from the save/archive folder for AE. I'm working up a road map of additional functionality that I will share soon. Basically the notion is to process all of the report files produced by turn resolution/replay, and then provide functions that help a player look at useful views of that information.

BTW, 2 years ago IIRC the tracker team mentioned that tracker was then about 50,000 lines of code. I figure it must be 60 or 70 thousand by now with all the user requests they keep adding (including my requsts BTW! [:)]). Intel Monkey is currently 638 lines total, which includes blank lines and comments to make the code easier to read and maintain/change. So Tracker is on the order of about 100x Intel Monkey. Intel Monkey is aimed at a niche, and I hope for it to be very useful there.

Lots of players look or search through the SigInt files in save/archive to see what opposition they might face when conducting invasions, etc (this pertains more to the Allied player as the IJ SigInt is rather sparse). The current version of Intel Monkey combines all those reports into one and lets you sort the lines (records) in useful ways. You will never need to manually search through multiple SigInt files again.

And because Intel Monkey uses Python whereas Tracker uses Java, you will never have to worry about a needed update of one language affecting the other program.
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Skyros
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by Skyros »

Can I just copy the files generated in the save folder into the archive folder to cover the turns prior to adding -archive to the command line?
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Skyros

Can I just copy the files generated in the save folder into the archive folder to cover the turns prior to adding -archive to the command line?
Yes - but the "-archive" switch essentially does that for you each turn.

BTW, Intel Monkey looks for them to be named the way AE names them, so that it knows which ones to read.
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dr.hal
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by dr.hal »

This is outstanding feedback witpqs, thanks.... Hal
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

I've uploaded another version 0.2.2e (link in my signature and in the first post of this thread).

I noticed that the SigInt files are created with some variation in how they present map hex addresses. I see at least four different cases. Here are examples.
4/Kimura Det is loaded on a Ehime Cargo class xAK moving to Legaspi.
8th Engineer Regiment is located at Changchun(106,41).
Radio transmissions detected at Chumphon (52,66).
Radio transmissions detected at 204,68.
No hex at all, a hex in parentheses with no leading space, a hex in parentheses with a leading space, and a hex with a leading space but no parentheses.

These two cases would sort differently, messing up the display when the player had selected Target/Date sorting:
4th Engineer Regiment is located at Chumphon(52,66).
Radio transmissions detected at Chumphon (52,66).
Because of the difference between a " " and a "(", you would see all the "Chumphon (52,66)" records first, in date order, and then following them all of the "Chumphon(52,66)" records, in date order.

So, I have added more processing of any hex address present to ensure that all hex addresses have a leading space and are surrounded by parentheses. More or less in this style:
Radio transmissions detected at Chumphon (52,66).

One additional change, yesterday I rushed out a change to handle multi-day turn files. Today I noticed that Intel Monkey was indeed processing the records correctly but was miscounting the days as displayed in the top left corner of the screen. That has been corrected.
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by Canoerebel »

When I say the title of this thread, I mistakenly thought it might be related to the "Honey Boo Boo" thread.  I mean, "Intel Monkey"? 
 
I was wrong!  Witpqs, thanks for doing this.  I'll give it a try when I'm back on the game tomorrow.
"Rats set fire to Mr. Cooper’s store in Fort Valley. No damage done." Columbus (Ga) Enquirer-Sun, October 2, 1880.
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

Here is a new release of Intel Monkey, V0.2.2h. The functionality is basically the same as the previous release, but there is now a top level window in place with options for the first four basic reports, of which the basic SigInt report is currently implemented. All of the internal groundwork has now been laid and work now begins on the basic combat report.

This new version also cleans up the works files, currently leaving nothing behind when it finishes. At some point Intel Monkey will have a permanent database so it does not have to read in all files each time it is run.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByVleYydeDVcQ21wZW5JT3NNTkU
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RogerJNeilson
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by RogerJNeilson »

Ok copied all the sigint files stored elsewhere into the archive folder, run Intel Monkey and its picked them all up. Great.

Am I right in thinking that any new version is simply downloaded over the top of the previous one?

Roger
An unplanned dynasty: Roger Neilson, Roger Neilson 11, Roger Neilson 3 previous posts 898+1515 + 1126 = 3539.....Finally completed my game which started the day WITP:AE was released
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by RogerJNeilson »

Ok the new version looks nicer and I can see where the next reports are. And yes, i just downloaded it over the top of the previous one.

Roger
An unplanned dynasty: Roger Neilson, Roger Neilson 11, Roger Neilson 3 previous posts 898+1515 + 1126 = 3539.....Finally completed my game which started the day WITP:AE was released
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witpqs
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by witpqs »

Right! You answered that before I saw the question. The program file (or files in the future) should always be a copy over top of the prior one. I'm also being careful to not rely on storing data until I feel sure that's it's in a format that will not require the player to perform any special procedure for later updates.

Glad you like the look of it! I had a version with bold column headings, then changed them when I found it was difficult (at least for me at the time) to ensure they would behave properly on other people's systems and went with the different color for headings instead. It was right after that when aoffen mentioned using IM on a system that has very different specs indeed than my own Windows-7 environment!

JocMeister
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RE: Introducing Intel Monkey

Post by JocMeister »

This is fantastic work witpqs! Thank you for the effort! [:)]

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