Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk


0 0
Automated Sleuth Helper complete!
  <<First Page  |  <Previous Next>  |  Last Page>>  

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

Cornelius Sledge
Cornelius Sledge

Aug-18-2007 18:51

Can't recommend this program too warmly! :)

One thing I noticed, the 'knows' column starts on No, and changes to Yes if a townie tells you that suspect X knows something. Could it start on 'Maybe' so it can change to either No or Yes if you get the relevant info? As far as I understand it (and all my own cases have corrobated this so far) if you are told that suspect xxx knows nothing, then he will never have any WE, so the distinction would make sense.

Pidgeot
Pidgeot

Aug-19-2007 11:28

It's already on my to-do list. If time permits it, I'll try to get this in for v1.14.

Sally Rose
Sally Rose
Old Shoe

Aug-21-2007 15:41

I can't get the prizes to pop up. I read the thread and I've checked and adjusted my IE to allow pop ups from this site and set it lower to medium. Still don't get the pop ups which isn't much fun.
I also get error messages when I pick a lock and there wasn't any info there, in other words the suspect doesn't have an alibi. I have to restart.

Any suggestions what to do about these issues?

this is a great tool. It really makes it easier to keep track of things. Sometimes it jumps ahead of me and eliminates suspects and I have to figure out what it saw that I didn't. Just amazing.
THANKS!

Pidgeot
Pidgeot

Aug-22-2007 10:22

Lockpicking should be fixed for v1.14, which I'm going to release later today.

As for prizes, do you have any third-party pop-up blockers installed? I really haven't seen any issues with the one in IE (when set to Medium), so I can't think of anything else that would cause it.

Dave Von Wave
Dave Von Wave
Well-Connected

Aug-22-2007 12:48

As for lockpicking in v1.13
what you want to do is go back in to the same suspect and check their alibi. It works, but you'll get an error message for every new page until you actually recieve the alibi.

It is amusing to see the list of people shrink down to two and then once you get the alibi, seeing it explode back up with all the information you had before.

Pidgeot
Pidgeot

Aug-23-2007 11:28

I know I said I'd release it yesterday, but we had a pretty nasty thunderstorm here, and I found it wiser to turn off and unplug the computer. Looks like it didn't make much difference, though, since no one got a new batch of cases :P

Having said that - here's v1.14! I've added a lot of things, as well as two mirrors. If you have v1.10 or later (and can access one of the original two mirrors), you'll be notified the next time you start the helper. Otherwise, you can download it from one of these addresses, all of which are included as official mirrors:

http://download.birdiesoft.dk/SleuthHelper.exe
http://n-touch.dk/download/SleuthHelper.exe
http://henrikossipoff.dk/birdiesoft/SleuthHelper.exe
http://sleuthhelper.sigma-hosting.de/SleuthHelper.exe

Please start from the top when attempting to download. If none of them work for you, send me a PM with your e-mail address, and I'll send it there.

Special thanks to Ashyja for hosting one of these mirrors.

Changes in v1.14 include bugfixes to lock picking and pre-matched PEs, a change of the Knows column to distinguish when they don't know anything, coloring of individual PE columns when a suspect doesn't match it, and allowing the helper to pick up the suspect ID on his interview page (in case you click away from the map screen too quickly).

A full changelog is available in the help file.

Dave Von Wave
Dave Von Wave
Well-Connected

Aug-23-2007 12:21

Thanks, you're awesome!
It works wonderfully, and I love this checkerboard effect!!!

Brasco De Gama
Brasco De Gama
Old Shoe

Aug-23-2007 13:13

Great stuff Pidgeot, The whole of TIA send their thanks for all your hard work! :)

Cornelius Sledge
Cornelius Sledge

Aug-23-2007 18:27

Excellent update, very nice work indeed!

lilangel
lilangel
Sleuth About Town

Aug-23-2007 22:07

I was happy with the one before, I'm happier with the version now... I can't wait to see what comes up in the next version.

  <<First Page  |  <Previous Next>  |  Last Page>>  

[ You must login to reply ]