Gauging interest: Automatic Chatlog backup

[Akrion]

To the devs: I apologize if this isn't in the correct forum in your eyes, I just figured that it's mostly roleplayers that care to keep chatlogs, which is why I placed this in the Order forum. Feel free to move it to Player Customizations if you feel it necessary.

Alright, so I've been thinking about making a simple program that will automatically copy your chat logs from the Logs folder to a folder of your choosing so that you don't have to do it yourself if you wish to keep them for whatever reason, else you'd lose them once the old logs folder is cleaned.

I'm making it for a few friends and myself, but the over-all interest in such a program will dictate how thoroughly I bug-test it and how user-friendly I try to make it.

The general idea on how I plan to have it run is as follows:

- Program is either launched in conjunction with launcher.exe via Istaria's shortcut, or is launched before Istaria is launched.
- It will then watch for istaria.exe to show up and get its process ID (So it could differentiate between multiple logins). From here it will sit and do absolutely nothing other than watch the state of said process.
- When this process shuts down (if you log out, or crash for example), the program will be triggered to make a backup of the chat log.
- The program will then ask if you wish to re-name the backup and wait ~20 seconds. If you either tell it no or the time elapses, it simply closes. If you say yes, it will ask you for a name, rename the file, and close.

Anyway, I'm just curious what the interest may be as I'm not going to spend more than a few days on this if only myself and a few friends use it xD. Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

[Hraefn]

+1 vote

lengthywordshere

[Akrion]

*Battle music suddenly plays and the screen goes blurry* A WILD HRAEFN APPEARED!

[Steelclaw]

Hm... since the logs get moved when you start the client, not exit it, why not use a batch file to:

1) copy everything from logs to a designated archive directory (try xcopy /y)
2) start the launcher

[Akrion]

That could work, however unless there's a way to make a specific copy of the chat logs (as I haven't really worked with batch files much), it could quickly clutter the destination folder with non-chat log related files. And also providing the option to re-name the files on the fly could be nice for those who like to better organize their chat logs.

I initially didn't consider doing chat log backups at start up because I had some other features that I thought about implementing but ultimately scratched most of those off as unnecessary and detrimental to the overall goal of the program. However, doing a copy at launch solves a few issues that I would of had to deal with assuming I did the copy at shutdown which makes me feel kinda dumb for not re-considering it after I no longer really needed to do so at shutdown. So thanks for that, Steelclaw.

[LungTien Temeraire]

I use to copy manually the logs I want to save from "logs" or "old-logs", but I approve the idea in this thread.

[Akrion]

So I've read up a bit on batch files and ultimately feel that I'm better off with an exe, and can make it completely portable at that. I'll post the code of the finished product so it can be modified/tweeked by others if they so wished, though the Boost library would be required.

Ultimate design may change drastically from the original post. May simply cut it down to being as efficient as possible (Short of doing it in assembly). Not sure yet.

Also, thanks for the reply Lung.

[Dakoren Ironhand]

Sounds interesting to me! Maybe make a chat log parser as well? I know there is one out there but it doesnt run on all systems.

Side note; Crimson Dawn doesnt mind hosting the files if your looking for a host.

[Akrion]

Sounds interesting to me! Maybe make a chat log parser as well? I know there is one out there but it doesnt run on all systems.

Side note; Crimson Dawn doesnt mind hosting the files if your looking for a host.

I might try making a chat log parser, one, but that will be far more involved.

I already have a host that I can use, but I wouldn't mind if you guys wanted to host the final product.


Speaking of final product..

-------------------------

New design is as follows (And I currently have a working program):

The program..
- Will only make a direct copy.Option to re-name has been cut. It's meant to be as fast and 'out of the way' as possible.
- Will only copy chat log files.
- Has no problem with multi-logging and can, if wanted, be used to copy all the chat log files from the logs_old folder.
- Comes with a small config file for you to provide source and destination folder paths. If it gets lost, a new one will be generated.
- Will close down by its self unless an error of some sort has been encountered, at which point it will wait for you to press enter so that you can read the error.
- Will ask the user if they would like the destination folder(s) to be created if they don't already exist.
- Should be completely portable. (Though this doesn't mean much as far as most would be concerned. xD)

A batch file will also be included that you'll be able to use to launch this program in conjunction with the launcher. All that would have to be changed by the user are the file paths.

Anyway, I'm testing it a fair bit across different machines and OS' (Thanks to Starstilanx and Raptress for helping me with that) and making a number of tweeks. Once I feel this program is 'ready' I'll post it (As well as its source) in the Player Customizations forum.

[Akrion]

First version is up!

http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=24604