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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.)

Jan-30-2007 12:53

It doesn't apear to be the link.

Jan-30-2007 13:08

if you mean the screenshot link amanda, it worked for me but the first time i tried i'd neglected to remove the final period from the end of the link. Worked fine when I did.

Pidgeot, I think the idea is interesting, I'm just very reluctant to download a program from an "unknown entity"--no offense, it's just that you've never posted here before, and you can't be too careful these days. Also, I see that you have around 12000 exp--have you ensured that this works with all levels of cases, like AI's? I'm intereted to see how/if this works, but I think I'll wait for someone else to download it first, and report back. :)

Jan-30-2007 13:41

I've just doublechecked the links, and as long as you leave out that final period in the screenshot link, everything works.

As for cases, I've used Evita's helper to get the data needed for the different levels, so unless THAT data is wrong, this should work for any regular case. It is correct that I am not able to take on the hardest cases for myself, but the structure of the content is the same, and I have even taken a case harder than I'd normally do to make detection of fled suspects work.
I've tried to test all possible aspects, and unless there's a very secret aspect of case solving, the only really major thing I have not been able to test is villain hunts. There are a few things that won't work- Featured Mysteries, for one, will likely fail as they don't fully meet the rules for regular cases, and depositing of cases is not detected when it happens - but pretty much everything else should work

No offense is taken, for the record - I can very well relate to the situation. It's one of the reasons I've included the source code - if people are skeptical, they can read it and (assuming they have the tools or know someone who does) compile it for themselves.

If there's anything in particular I can do that would make you feel a little more at ease with me, don't hesitate to ask (I don't expect there to be much *I* can do, but you never know ^_^).

Jan-30-2007 13:51

I've tried it. Good idea. I noticed that when you research, that info doesn't show up in the helper.

Jan-30-2007 13:56

Good point. That is purely because I don't have that particular skill, and thus can't know how the output looks :)

As I recall, however, the skill informs you about people's alibis, and that information should be picked up when you go to interview the suspects in question (or check their file).

If it's alright with you, I'd like to contact you in order to get some information on the skill in question, so I can add support for the skill.

Jan-30-2007 14:00

When you research, it doesn't show up in the suspects page or when you go to question them. It's just something you have to rember. Like Who've you checked on evidence and if they didn't match.

Jan-30-2007 14:06

I guess you learn something new every day :)

I'll happily add support for the Research skill, but it'll be a while if I have to get the skill myself (since I don't have the skill points to get it just yet), so I'll be contacting you in order to get a little more information about it. (No need to clutter the message board with all of that.)

Jan-30-2007 19:46

Drat, not compaitble with either Firefox or Mac. :(

Jan-30-2007 19:57

Is it compatible for Firefox with Windows?

Jan-30-2007 20:29

It starts downloading, but stops. It says that the website is unavaiable. Is there somthing wrong with my computer?