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Automated Sleuth Helper complete!
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Pidgeot
Pidgeot

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.)

Replies

flautim
flautim

May-13-2007 14:20

Hi - Got a problem with you fantastic Sleuth Helper. I go to my detective page and an access violation message comes up -

Access violation at address 0040297D in module 'sleuthhelper.exe'. read of address 008991E8

Downloaded it again from your site but still get the same message. Any ideas? Thanks.

Piccolo
Piccolo

May-14-2007 18:25

The problem I've got is that every time I click on a link the automated helper goes white/blank and as the page loads it also loads a white/blank PM text box. OK this box disappears as the helper loads the new sleuth page, but it is a major irritation - so much so that I've stopped using the helper.

Can you sort this? Thanks.

Pidgeot
Pidgeot

May-15-2007 09:22

The next release will go up either later this week, or early next week, depending on how much time I have.

Flautim: It's having trouble reading your detective page properly, and since I can't control changes to Sleuth, it's deliberately coded to fail when in doubt. I'll take a look at what might go wrong; I think I know what it is, though, so that should be there in the next release.

Piccolo: PMs are handled properly in the next version, which will make things look right. The problem was that the pop-up would open its own instance of Internet Explorer, which won't know of your session, causing the Sleuth server to close the window again (to prevent you from reading other people's messages). As for the window itself going white, that's due to IE's rendering engine having started without having enough data to actually render anything. It's therefore not something I can do anything about, but it shouldn't be happening very often.

Sir A. Conan Doyle
Sir A. Conan Doyle

May-15-2007 16:20

I think flautim's problem is related with not having any contacts. The same problem occured, when I tried the helper with no contacts.

fionaghal01
fionaghal01
Well-Connected

May-17-2007 19:17

Ive checked my settings I have the latest version of IE and I have windows xp and I get the same message as the others did..

page is either unavailable or cannot be found please try again later.

Piccolo
Piccolo

May-19-2007 06:07

I had "fun" yesterday! I have a poor internet connection - there's nothing I can do about that unfortunately, but it means that I get kicked offline periodically. I went back into the "aut help" and started hitting the suspects to get the info back onscreen. I'd only got a short way through the case and was far from the end. I clicked on one suspect to get the info back and it came up with you dun it wrong and you got a FA. !!!!!!!! Most upsetting! No idea how much the internet connection was to blame or if it combined with starting and stopping sleuth helper. Thoughts would be welcome. Understandably at the moment I'm very nervous of using Helper again but i'd love to cos it's so brill.

yoyofoshow
yoyofoshow
Old Shoe

May-19-2007 06:57

I'm not sure Piccolo, I think that might be more of a bug rather than anything else, but I'm not sure.

Pidgeot
Pidgeot

May-19-2007 07:42

Fionaghal01: Adam Carter has a mirror you might be able to use (www.rothwell-forum.co.uk/sleuth/Helper.zip). I'll also be adding an extra mirror for the next version.

Piccolo: I can't say exactly why this would happen, but I can guarantee you that it's completely unrelated to the helper (or closing and reopening it, for that matter) - the browser is just plain old Internet Explorer, and I don't manipulate the HTML shown in any way.

Piccolo
Piccolo

May-20-2007 10:37

No, i expect it was my internet connection. As I say, the phone line is very bad so it could easily have been that the wrong noises went down the line! Living in the Algarve is "wonderful" at times - most of the time it's fantastic!

Piccolo
Piccolo

May-20-2007 14:24

I've figured out a way of overcoming the PM problem - I open sleuth in my usual browser as well as automated helper. this means that when PMs come through they sort of attach themselves to the "real" sleuth allowing me to work in the automated helper window. works a treat!

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