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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.)

Aug-24-2007 18:20

Apologies for posting without having someone else in between, but several hours has gone by.

Anyway, I noticed something that would be useful to change. I am using 1.14 at the moment and I re-iterate that it is awesome. But I just had a left handed note among my PE and only one left handed person.

The thing is, it only says could match in that field instead of match and I've confirmed that I have everyone. Looking down I just noticed as I was writing this that the person also had a fake alibi, so an automatic match-up after finding everyones characteristics would be a good idea.

I'm going to go accuse her now. I re-re-iterate the awesomest awesome that is awesome!!!

Aug-24-2007 18:30

I apologize again and am confused. Am now on a new case where an evidence was automatically matched because there were no others who could match it. Evidently, what I found was a tiny bug probably related to the fourth evidence or the left handed note (if I remember correctly)
no worries.

Aug-25-2007 00:06

Lady Jas told me about this link. Thanks a lot! I've been using pieces of paper for my mysteries (yes I'm a newbie) and this one really helps!

Aug-27-2007 03:55

Well, I hardly even take notes for A.Is anymore but I do when tired.
However, this is so wonderful, I'm going to use it anyway! I love it.

I don't really care knowing on the thing if they are clammed or not or if they know stuff or even if they're dead or fled, once an alibi has proven fake, I don't even care who it was with.
So while there is a lot of suplus info on there for me, I still think it's damn awesome and EVERY newbie and oldie should try this out!!

I would like to see the twist come out though... I never pay much attention to them, then I am like, hmm, have I had a twist yet? Should I click around a few more times in case I haven't? (For example, when I WANT faction cases or a Lucy case, it's good to know).
The other thing is that it's a little true blue ocker* for me ;). Does it come in Black and White too??

Great job, glad I tried it out, you have my seal of approval and a million cool points! You rock. (Also, I will recommend it to anyone I talk to.)

*Ocker : an unsophisticated person ie. Aussie heh.

Aug-27-2007 04:08

(P.s the bit I love the most, is the part at the bottom with the suspects found. That was utter brillance!)

Aug-30-2007 23:16

It doesn't seem to work for me. After I download the program, and it loads, after it "Checks for Updates," The same-sized window, suddenly has no text on it. I have to use the Task Manager to close it. Am I doing something wrong?

Aug-31-2007 07:22

It's most likely your firewall that's blocking it from accessing the internet - double-check its settings.

It's most likely just Windows that thinks it's locked up, since the firewall is preventing it from continuing.

Aug-31-2007 12:25

I don't think I even have Firewall. Let me check again.

Aug-31-2007 13:31

Well for some reason, when I downloaded today, it worked. It's absolutely brilliant!

If it only had a step-by-step guide on how to solve each case without everyone clamming on me.... ~ dreams ~

Aug-31-2007 20:22

This program is great! However, there is a problem I have noticed. My character doesn't have the Thread or Hair Anaylysis, and I was doing a Hard, so I found was 1 piece of evidence (a note, but I don't think that really matters). A suspect by the name Barron (just to make things easier) clammed on me, so I didn't know his alibi. He had witness evidence, but the note didn't match him, and the program automatically turned him green. After days of playing with Dr. Watson, I knew that he could still be guilty, so I just quit the case. And there it was, Barron was the murderer! I think you might need to fix that part. Other than that, there it's absolutely wonderful to use.