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Jan-30-2007 12:13

Hello, fellow Sleuths!

Over the last two months, I've been working on a brand new Sleuth helper. You might not think that sounds all that special - after all, great helpers are already available - but what makes this one different is that it's automated!

What it does is monitor your progress in the game, and extract relevant information from the pages. The information is stored and analyzed, in order to help you determine who did it, and who didn't.

It's heavily inspired by Evita's JavaScript-based Sleuth Helper, so a special "thank you" goes out there.

The application is made with Delphi 2005, and should run on any machine with Windows NT/98/ME/2K/XP/Vista and Internet Explorer 4 or later. Additionally, source code is included (ZLib license) in case someone wants to port it to another platform and/or language (such as Java).

The program can be downloaded from http://download.birdiesoft.dk/SleuthHelper.exe (330 KB), and a screenshot of the program can be seen at http://download.birdiesoft.dk/sleuth_helper.png.

Please take a look at the help file before using the program (it's very short), so you are familiar with how the program works.

(Disclaimer: The application depends heavily on the current structure of the game pages, and changes to this may break the program. Although the application is designed in such a way that it should fail entirely if something goes wrong, this cannot be guaranteed. Use of this program is entirely at your own risk, and any cases lost because of errors in the program should not be blamed on the program or the author.)

Feb-2-2007 16:08

I have put the helper in a zip file for convenience and hosted it where it should be found for everyone:

http://one.fsphost.com/sleuth/Helper.zip

Feb-2-2007 20:39

Thanks for the zip file. I got it to install on my computer now!

Feb-2-2007 23:05

did any1 make a slueth helper i can dwonload that makes me know about the fictions and the questons? I will save it if you did. I went on that page but it didnt say nething about noreo wolfe and i only get to do the "littlejob" once in a signle day.

Feb-3-2007 07:28

Thanks for the link Adam and well done Pidgeot! This is a great helper and really speeds up the gameplay. I've just used it for the first time and flew through the case in no time!

Feb-3-2007 07:42

Ciara, if you check out the Sleuth Community Sites link in City Hall, some of the Agency sites listed there have some more information on factions that you should find helpful.

Feb-3-2007 12:21

Susie x has informed me of a bug in evidence handling, and I've now uploaded a fix.

For those curious, the bug was in identifying evidence - the helper needs to store the ID of each piece of evidence, but the game text forces it to skip those where it has a match for the evidence. However, the helper did not differentiate between finding a match by elimination of everyone else, and finding a match by having a townsperson tell you whose it is.

The fix is downloadable at the same address - http://download.birdiesoft.dk/SleuthHelper.exe - and Adam has also updated his zipped version for those who can't get to my server.

Feb-3-2007 12:25

I have updated the zip file for those who are unable to reach Pidgeot's site. You can now get the helper from:

http://download.birdiesoft.dk/SleuthHelper.exe

http://one.fsphost.com/sleuth/Helper.zip if the first link is unavailable.

If anyone has trouble getting hold of the helper from either of these sites, send me a PM with an email address which I can email it to.

Feb-3-2007 12:29

The zip files work fine.
thanks

Feb-4-2007 06:06

I used this and it worked fine for me . . . really saves a lot of time. Just one thing - the first time I used it, my PM's came through just fine, but today when I used it, they were blocked . . . Any ideas?

Feb-4-2007 11:07

Was thinking about this . . . I got PM"s yesterday that people sent me while I was online. The PM's that were blocked today were PM's that were sent to me while I was offline. Perhaps that has something to do with it?