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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.)

May-27-2007 23:52

The program crashed with pick locking reporting a no alibi

If i can suggest a modification the Knows column should be filled by ?
And become a NO when the townies say.. X doesn't know anything
and a YES when they say Y thinks to know who committed the murder

May-27-2007 23:54

I autodownloaded the patch that installed version 1.11 in the Help>About menu i still see version 1.10 is this normal?

Version 1.12 is not yet available for autodownload?

TY

May-28-2007 03:19

My mistake - I forgot to update the about box. If you hold your mouse over the actual executable, you should see the real version number, 1.12.

As for lockpicking, it would seem I still don't have no alibi detection working. I'll put up a fix as soon as I think I've got it working, but in the meantime, I believe that alibi is registered on his case file, so you should be able to see it there (optionally restarting the helper to make sure nothing's gone wrong).

I'm planning to make the Knows column work like that, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Jun-8-2007 05:33

Hi Pidgeot. Many, many thanks for all your hard work. The Helper is absolutely fabulous. I appreciate the memo box as well, it's very helpful.

Can I ask you to consider one more alteration please? The memo box - can it hold/remember the info when we quit please. It would be great to keep a bit of info there for when I next open up. Thanks. Piccolo

Jun-9-2007 14:53

The thing is that I want the helper to be flexible enough that multiple detectives can play without having to install the client multiple times, and until I make some kind of profile system, that prevents me from saving ANYTHING - if I don't stick to that rule, part of that ability is removed, and I'd really just be adding more trouble for myself when it's time for me to actually make the profile system.

While I realize auto-login might seem like it's doing the entirely opposite, that's not truly the case, as it only takes effect if you actually do something on your own - if you have multiple detectives playing from the same computer, you can simply choose not to use it.

To put it a little differently, I DO intend to save it eventually, but before I can do that, I need to decide on and implement a profile system, and I'm currently trying to figure out how I can make things work as well as possible.

Jun-9-2007 17:17

when I do favors, and i solve the case, I can't see what the prize is , that is I can't see what it's worth in Toughness or Charm or Smarts.
It's very frustrating. What can I do? Anything?

By the way, it makes the game a lot easier to keep track of what is going on. I've played about a dozen games so far and it's made all the difference at high levels of difficulty.

THANKS!

Jun-11-2007 04:48

Thanks Pidgeot. I understand your problem. I'm just in awe of what you've created so far!

Robbie Rose - you can click on the item in the same way as you can in the "real" sleuth format and a small window will come up in just the same way. Everything "clickable" is written in yellow and underscored.

Jun-11-2007 08:45

Robbie Rose's "Sister" here.
I/We are continuing to have the same problem with the favors or Almost impossible prizes--nothing pops up or opens.
Any suggestions what to do to fix it?
thanks

Jun-11-2007 09:09

I can't replicate the problem here. You should probably check your pop-up blocker(s) - the one built into IE6 SP2/IE7 should be set to Medium (or you can just hold CTRL+ALT while clicking the link). If you have another pop-up blocker, you may need to disable them, or add noir.playsleuth.com to the allow list.

You may also want to make sure you haven't disabled Active Scripting in the Security settings.

Jun-11-2007 16:54

thanks I'll check those things and see what happens