My PacketCollector wish list

tbigg · #1 12-02-2003, 11:20 AM

I know the PC devs also work hard on Emu, but here are the things I'd love to see added to PC.

1. Ability to upload without exiting. Most items I capture are on characters I leave permanently in the bazaar. Whenever I upload I have to restart/zone.

2. Try to keep PC from going comatose in bazaar every few hours. I rarely lose sync, but after a few hours sitting idle in bazaar, PC starts repeating the message "=== cache size is N" (where N is usually 0-4), and it stops recognizing packets. Then I have to zone to resume collecting.

3. Lucy's web site had a list of people who contributed items. (rank list of usernames and number of new/updated items each uploaded in last 30 days) I think this is an effective incentive for people to contribute more, so they can see their contribution and try to move up in the rank list. Username could be a command line argument.

4. I'd love to see the dumpeditems.sql file updated daily. It would help me with several things I use the data for, including keeping track of items I still need to capture.

5. As an alternative to daily updates of dumpeditems.sql, increase the number of items listed on the web site "Newest" and "Updated" pages. e.g. The Lucy and 13th floor sites display 100 items on their "Newest" and "Updated" pages. Then I could write some perl to slurp the data from the HTML several times a day. I'd prefer the daily file update, however.

Thanks for all the work that goes into PC and for keeping the item database open for everyone!

Edgar1898 · #2 12-02-2003, 03:45 PM

Its actually updated every 8 hours. Just download it directly from our main site instead of sourceforge. Ideally it would be better to download it from sf, but sf is dying a little more each day, I dont think it will be around much longer. I'll update the download link to point to the file hosted locally.

tbigg · #3 12-02-2003, 03:46 PM

Excellent! Thanks for the info. I'll check the direct link.

Edgar1898 · #4 12-02-2003, 03:55 PM

All of you suggestions are great, the only one I would have a little trouble implementing is number 5. Our site is operating at near full capacity with all we are asking it to run. Displaying 5 times the amount of items per page would slow it down considerably. The rest I will gladly add in, although I might not have a chance this week. I will get it done something soon though.

Eglin · #5 12-02-2003, 04:59 PM

I'm sorry for compromising the integrity of an otherwise excellent post, but wonder if you would elaborate on the statement:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edgar1898

sf is dying a little more each day, I dont think it will be around much longer.

Sourceforge is going under? This is the first I've heard of it. I subscribe to the recent updates and site status RSS feeds and don't remember seeing anything about this.

tbigg · #6 12-02-2003, 09:54 PM

LE, item 5 is no longer important to me since you changed the link to allow daily downloads of the updated dumpeditems.sql file.

Thanks for the responses.

Edgar1898 · #7 12-03-2003, 01:58 AM

I just meant that they are getting worse and worse every day: The website goes down way too often, their cvs is constantly having problems, they ignore any support requests, their site is always lagging now days, their stats are never accurate, etc.

TC submitted a request to have a few of the folders deleted on public cvs a few weeks ago and it still has yet to be done. I wasnt meaning that it's being shutdown I just meant that at its current state I dont see it lasting very much longer, its getting worse and worse every day...

**Doodman** · #8 12-05-2003, 05:03 AM

1) Yes, I plan on making it actually do uploads real-time.. Been busy in RL, so haven't gotten to it.
2) Hmm.. I'll look in to it.. Looks like you are actually losing sync if it stops processing.

Edgar1898 · #9 12-21-2003, 05:35 PM

Sorry I have had my hands full lately, but I promise I will work on this when I'm on vacation this week. I wont be able to really work on the emu so I should have plenty of time to add these features in. Look for a new version when I come back! (Hopefully a nice gui)

tbigg · #10 12-22-2003, 09:52 PM

Thanks for not losing sight of this. Based on the responses so far, the items still open are:

1. Ability to upload without exiting
2. Try to keep PC from going comatose in bazaar when it has not reported having lost sync
3. Keep track on web site of people who have contributed items and how many, to encourage more collecting

Also, if the dumpeditems.sql file could include the "updated" field that appears on the raw data page, it would be very useful. I could use that to try to collect items that have not been updated in a while.

Great job to all who contribute to the collector, the database and the web pages!