Istaria Chatlog Backup (Redux)

[Akrion]

Note to the devs: This is a new version going in a completely different direction from the the other thread. So, if you want to do anything regarding the two threads, I'd probably request that the other be deleted and this be renamed to take its place, or just for the other one to be deleted. If anything, please don't merge them as the end result (chatlog backup) is the only similarity, the posts will have little relevance with eachother otherwise.


Alright, first I want to thank Steelclaw for a post of his that showed me a DOS command that did exactly what I was doing with C++. This allowed me to redesign my program to better and more effectively accomplish the goals I had hoped to achieve with the first design.

I'd also like to thank Hraefn, Raptress and Starstilanx for helping me test everything and Raptress for hosting the files.

Anyway, onto the program.
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What this program does is generate a batch file that will, when run, copy your chat logs from Istaria's \logs folder into a specified backup folder, and then start the launcher.

Links:
Istaria Chatlog Backup (Program)
Istaria Chatlog Backup (Source code) : You don't need this, it's just for the programmers out there.

Contained within you should find 3 files:
Batch Generator.exe
config.txt
Readme.txt

You should have all you need in the Readme file to get things working. But your basic steps are:
1) Set up information in config.txt
Istaria Directory: Path to the install folder (istaria.exe should reside in here).
Backup Directory: Path to a folder where your chatlogs will be copied to. (This can be anywhere.)
Istaria Launcher Name: File name of the launcher (Likely launcher.exe or launcher.jar).
2) Run Batch Generator.exe
3) Use ChatlogBackup.bat as your new shortcut to run Istaria.


Most of the errors that can be encountered with the Batch Generator should give you useful enough feedback to solve them (Such as a missing config variable).

If the batch file its self doesn't work, check to make sure your file paths and launcher name are correct. If it still doesn't work, then you've encountered something I haven't. Make a post about it and I'll try and figure out the problem.

Feel free to throw out any suggestions or questions.

[Akrion]

I've finally gotten around to.. (read: my C++ skillset has since enveloped Win32 programming and this old program has been nagging at me to improve it for over a year now) ..upgrading this poor thing to something that should, hopefully, be much simpler to use.

Like above this program will generate a batch file that you can use to make a backup of the chatlogs in your ..\logs folder to a backup folder of your choosing then start the Istaria launcher, except this time it's much easier to work with since it actually has a UI.

Dropbox Links:
Istaria Chatlog Backup - Batch Generator (Program) : v1.02
Istaria Chatlog Backup - Batch Generator (Project Folder) : You don't need this, it's essentially the source code.

Hovering over the "?" should give you tooltips informing you what each entry is for. Basically you need to select your Istaria folder, your Backup folder, and the Launcher (whichever one of the 4 Istaria currently has that you use). Once you've got the 3 entries filled you can push the "Generate Batch File" button and you will be given the choice to select where you want to save the batch file.

Once you have your batch file, running it should briefly display a black window (the command prompt) and then your launcher thereafter. From here you can just run the batch file instead of your launcher shortcut, but if you want to get a little more fancy with it you can make a shortcut to the batch file and change the icon of the shortcut to be that of the Istaria icon and it'll almost be like nothing changed. x3

[Steelclaw]

Wow, that's a lot of code for a small task! The meat of the program is only a dozen lines or so. The rest is to handle the GUI... but that's Windows for you.

Nice job with the C++. Keep coding things to keep your mind sharp!

[Akrion]

Wow, that's a lot of code for a small task! The meat of the program is only a dozen lines or so. The rest is to handle the GUI... but that's Windows for you.

Yeah, it is. xD But funnily enough once I understood the workings of the Windows API this one was easier to write since I don't have to do string format checking and other such things that I had to do in the previous one (invalid characters, existance of file paths, etc.) since the Windows API essentially does that for me. The code in AWC_Win&Dialog is a set of classes (not all of them are included) I wrote for the purpose of reusing, it wasn't written specifically for this.

Nice job with the C++. Keep coding things to keep your mind sharp!

Thank you. I'm always looking for criticism in my code, if anything caught your eye. I try to judge my code as critically as possible but lack of professional expeirence (or training, for that matter) surely puts a damper on my ability to be critical about my code.