SimSheet (a sim-tracking program) [Now with Aspiration and LTW tracking!]

[coralleane]

..I could have sworn I made an edit to my original post, but apparently I didn't, saying that once I altered the names slightly using the actual "Edit This Sim" button the changes took and they separated out.  (I did once try to make a tribalpages family tree, and in that case differentiated between them by appending "II" to the younger Martin and the married-in Alice acquired her maiden name in brackets, so I simply did the same here.)  I'm about to head out to work so I'll get the new version and test once I get back.  Those screenshots were also taken before I went back and fixed all the spouses of deceased Sims, so it's possible it looks marginally crazier now. 

[Inge]

Rufio!  I am shocked!  Any respectable database application has to have some sort of UID system.  They were only entering Sims by hand because SimPE didn't have suitable output at the time.  Even then they should always have had some UID system applied even if it was transparent to the user. You need to find a way of updating the manually entered Sims with the NID you can now find in the output, and from that time on indexing them by their NID.

It will also make your application faster to process.  Looking up a number and only using the name for display purposes is much more efficient than a string search.

[coralleane]

..not sure if this is just me or not, and I hope I can explain it properly.. I haven't reimported the list, simply opened my saved list.  When I select a Sim, and go to family ties, their list appears.  If I uncheck the "Show only living Sims" box, it seems to add a few more Sims in.  If I recheck the box, however, their entire list disappears, and unchecking it doesn't seem to bring it back (or only brings back one or two Sims, instead of the full list).  Even if I then go back to the main list, and select another Sim, when I go back to the family ties window the list remains empty.  The only thing that brings a list up again after that is reloading the sim list, and it only works until I check and recheck the box.  Fiddling around, it seems it even loads some Sims with blank or partial lists initially, although I'm not currently seeing any pattern about which it'll give a list to and which it won't.  I'm about to create a new list for my other large family so I'll see if the issue comes up again there or not.  The only thing I can guess at, given that I know very little about coding and programming, is that the checkbox hasn't picked up the changes you made to the way that family ties are found, so the search isn't running correctly? 

ETA:  Tried with a newly imported list, same problem I'm afraid. 

[rufio]

Rufio!  I am shocked!  Any respectable database application has to have some sort of UID system.

Within the application I use pointers, which is quicker than either a string search or a number search, with the added benefit that I don't have to pass the master list of sims around to all the tabs.  In the save file, the sims are output in a big list, and references to sims are made using the position of the sim in the list.  I do save NIDs that are imported from SimPE, in anticipation of an "Update from SimPE" function in the future, but sims entered by hand will still not have NIDs and I have no way of knowing that NIDs I randomly assign to them do not belong to some other sim that was/will be imported from SimPE, and I am not going to knowingly break that functionality just because most people are going to be importing from SimPE.

coralleane - yes, I realized this this morning: In the process of fixing a slight annoyance I completely broke the family tab display.  This is why we are in testing, I guess.  It has been fixed; redownload it.

[Inge]

You can look the NID up for the manually entered Sims.  Do you even need to support manual entry any more?

[rufio]

You can look the NID up for the manually entered Sims.

Not in any 100% reliable way.  I can associate manually entered sims with SimPE sims by their names, but some sims could have the same names.  I could test every single variable associated with the sim, but those might have changed slightly in the game since they were entered. 

Do you even need to support manual entry any more?

Yes.  If someone starts a new neighborhood with one playable sim, they are not going to want to wait for SimPE to load in order to import that one sim.  When I want to test my program, I do not want to be forced to go into the game and create actual sims that fit exactly the template I am looking for.  For example, there is an option to load a "debug list" containing one sim of each type which I used for testing the filters and event dialogs on the update tab.  Going into the game to create one sim of every type just so I can import them for testing purposes is ridiculous.

[tunaisafish]

For a manually entered sim, can you assign an 'obviously fake' nID?
AFAIK, the nID's start at the the bottom.  Not sure what the maximum value is.
If you use a larger integer.  Fake nID's will be out of the normal range.

[rufio]

All manually-entered sims are assigned an NID of -1, which, as long as legal NIDs start at 0 will be out of range no matter how many sims there are.

[coralleane]

At the risk of being the bearer of annoying news yet again.. having downloaded the new version, clicking on a Sim in the main list brings up a dialog box that lists a relative and their relationship to the Sim.  Then moves onto the next relative, then the next, etc.  And cycles back to the beginning after getting to the end.  I couldn't find any way out of the loop short of closing the program with Task Manager.  Screenshot of the dialog box:



Clicking okay simply moves onto the next relative, as does trying to close the dialog. 

[tunaisafish]

A config that doesn't seem to work

Installed to these folders...
C:/Documents and Settings/Linda/Desktop/SimData/SimSheet
C:/Documents and Settings/Linda/Desktop/SimData/SimPe_0_73_08-RufioTest

I ran SimSheet and used the browse option to locate the rufioTest SimPE.

I get the same error message about the missing file.
I've searched C: for 'exportedSims.txt' and 'rufio' and found nothing (apart from rufio in the SimPE folder name and downloaded zip).

ETA: Moved SimPe to C:\Program Files\SimPe_0_73_08-RufioTest
Same error message about missing file.
BTW, when no data is loaded pressing the 'Filter List...' button causes a crash.

[rufio]

At the risk of being the bearer of annoying news yet again.. having downloaded the new version, clicking on a Sim in the main list brings up a dialog box that lists a relative and their relationship to the Sim.  Then moves onto the next relative, then the next, etc.  And cycles back to the beginning after getting to the end.  I couldn't find any way out of the loop short of closing the program with Task Manager.  Screenshot of the dialog box:

Image

Ack, thought I axed all of the debug messages, but I guess the wrong version of the executable got uploaded instead.  I'm not doing well, am I?  I would make less annoying debug messages, but MinGW seems to have a problem with stdout.  Non-debug-message version should be up now.

[tunaisafish]

Found what the problem was.
The browse button returns the folder name without the trailing '/'.
You need to check for this before appending SimPE.exe to it.
Adding it manually works.

Was a PITA to find as the cmd.exe DOS box didn't hang around long enough to see the error message.

It's now importing all sims, townies and NPC's

[rufio]

BTW, when no data is loaded pressing the 'Filter List...' button causes a crash.

Thanks, will fix.  ETA:  I cannot reproduce this issue.  Are you sure?

Found what the problem was.
The browse button returns the folder name without the trailing '/'.
You need to check for this before appending SimPE.exe to it.
Adding it manually works.

Thanks for pointing it out, I've been typing it manually and did not realize that.


ETA: New version is up.  I have fixed the trailing / issue, an obscure issue with importing just sims from the very first page, and the sorting on the family page now works as intended, even if you marry your third cousin.

[Maireaine]

Prepare to be worshipped!  *worship worship*  Seriously, this is great.  I have spent countless hours trying to create my own database, spending more time doing that than actually playing.  This is absolutely fantastic!  Thank you!  *worship*

[rufio]

*does not know how to feel about being worshipped*

Do you want links to the test version?  The one in the first post does not have the new import feature.

[tunaisafish]

BTW, when no data is loaded pressing the 'Filter List...' button causes a crash.

Thanks, will fix.  ETA:  I cannot reproduce this issue.  Are you sure?

That was happening in the debug version you posted... latest download is fine

Like the way you've done it too.  If I don't want to rerun SimPE as I know the data hasn't changed, I can delete the trailing slash to reread the existing txt file.
Will save some time while testing.
Maybe at a later stage you can make the 'import' and 'update txt file with SimPE' different processes.

The path to SimPE is saved with the data?  Strange way of doing it 

The Newson family doesn't show as siblings... but this is because they have no parents and the sibling data is not in the txt file.
Not many families will be like that I guess.  I tried adding them as siblings but couldn't work out how to do it.
Being as you've had to reconstruct the family ties from just the parent links. Excellent job

I've got some problems trying to import all NPC's or townies.
I've tried using the 'select all' buttons with these.  Don't know if the program is still doing anything but after 20 mins I kill it.
I can add a random single sim from these groups, but it fails or hangs when selelcting all.
I can mail you the txt file if you can't reproduce this.

In Households, Firstborn Patel and all the sims in his dorm are showing living with his parents.  Using Family Instance should fix this.
Firstborn is also showing as a Freshman.  He's just graduated.  The data in the txt file shows semester '1' again.  Not sure if there's some other field to read to fix that.

Not sure if the Aspiration, Achievements and Careers tabs are meant to do anything yet.
Do you keep a changelog and know issues file?  Would help testers know what we're looking for

The data backend.
I know that you started this project as a manual entry program, but now that we can import the 'live' data via SimPE, the backend may need a rethink.
The nID's should not change, so each time an import is done the live data should overwrite what's there already for each sim.
If you keep the user-added data (notes, images and paranormals) in a separate record by nID.  It will streamline the update procedure and that import sheet won't look so daunting.

Requests:
In the 'days until lifestage' display, can you show Elders as days left to live?
Can you add Playables, NPC and Townies to the filter?
The 'At Large' family.  Would love these in their proper families so we can find all the dormies, jocks etc.

You've done an excellent job here so far.  I hope you can keep this up.

[rufio]

BTW, when no data is loaded pressing the 'Filter List...' button causes a crash.

Thanks, will fix.  ETA:  I cannot reproduce this issue.  Are you sure?

That was happening in the debug version you posted... latest download is fine

Ahh.  Can't think of why that would have happened, but it's all good I guess.

Like the way you've done it too.  If I don't want to rerun SimPE as I know the data hasn't changed, I can delete the trailing slash to reread the existing txt file.
Will save some time while testing.
Maybe at a later stage you can make the 'import' and 'update txt file with SimPE' different processes.

Probably a good idea - I'll stick it into the next update.

The path to SimPE is saved with the data?  Strange way of doing it 

The default location (i.e. the location that is there when you open the LM dialog for the first time in a session) is stored as a setting so that when you want to run SimPE from somewhere other than Program Files\SimPE\ you don't have to type it in again/browse again every time.

The Newson family doesn't show as siblings... but this is because they have no parents and the sibling data is not in the txt file.
Not many families will be like that I guess.  I tried adding them as siblings but couldn't work out how to do it.
Being as you've had to reconstruct the family ties from just the parent links. Excellent job

There is actually no field for "sibling" in the data - just for parents and children.  Sims are determined to be siblings if they share parents.  If there are no parents to share, they won't be listed as siblings.  Having a separate field seemed redundant and liable to cause problems - I'm imagining a situation where a sim has another sim listed as a sibling, while having different parents.  Different family-related algorithms would use different ways of determining siblinghood, thus resulting in inconsistent and unexpected results.  If you want the Newsons to be siblings, create one or two parents for them and just flag them as ghosts.

I've got some problems trying to import all NPC's or townies.
I've tried using the 'select all' buttons with these.  Don't know if the program is still doing anything but after 20 mins I kill it.
I can add a random single sim from these groups, but it fails or hangs when selelcting all.
I can mail you the txt file if you can't reproduce this.

Does selecting all playables and importing work?  It could just be the large number of sims, as in most of my hoods there seem to be a much larger number of townies than playables.  The only thing the select all buttons do is check all the boxes automatically; if importing a single sim works, than importing more should too.  I'll see if I can figure out how to put in a progress bar or something else to let you know that something is happening.

In Households, Firstborn Patel and all the sims in his dorm are showing living with his parents.  Using Family Instance should fix this.

But all the sims in the same dorm age at the same rate, so that should be right, right?  If you want sims to wind up in different households, you can also edit the household name before importing.

Firstborn is also showing as a Freshman.  He's just graduated.  The data in the txt file shows semester '1' again.  Not sure if there's some other field to read to fix that.

Is this in the text file generated by SimPE, or in the SimSheet savefile?  If the former, talk to Inge.  Does the import dialog say he is a Young Adult, or an Adult?

Not sure if the Aspiration, Achievements and Careers tabs are meant to do anything yet.

Aspiration tab is under construction, Career tab is still to come, and Achievements tab will display the text of all events you add in the Update tab, after you've updated there.

Do you keep a changelog and know issues file?  Would help testers know what we're looking for

I am sadly very unorganized about this.  I'm also not bothering with version numbers unless the savefile format changes.  Now that I am getting more testers, maybe I should think about it...

The data backend.
I know that you started this project as a manual entry program, but now that we can import the 'live' data via SimPE, the backend may need a rethink.
The nID's should not change, so each time an import is done the live data should overwrite what's there already for each sim.
If you keep the user-added data (notes, images and paranormals) in a separate record by nID.  It will streamline the update procedure and that import sheet won't look so daunting.

That's another thing I have in mind to do.  Images will actually not be necessarily user-added - if you look in the Rufio folder there is actually a subfolder containing images for all the sims by NID.  I have just been having a hell of a time figuring out how to get Qt's image plugins to actually work, and so images have been on the back burner for a long while now.

In the 'days until lifestage' display, can you show Elders as days left to live?

There's no way to know that unless the sim is imported from SimPE, so that would be kind of meaningless with manually-entered sims.  I could add that as a setting, but then I would have to save that data from the SimPE import, which doesn't currently happen (ages are stored as a single number, not as a lifestage and days until transition).  That means you'd have to reimport sims for it to be available, and there would need to be a new savefile format.  So, it's possible but I wouldn't want to do that until I have enough new stuff to justify another +0.1 and make everyone reimport their neighborhood.

Can you add Playables, NPC and Townies to the filter?

SimSheet doesn't distinguish between Townies and NPCs, but I can definitely add a Playable/Non-Playable filter.  (Townies and NPCs are sims that are in the At Large household, which doesn't age and has special rules about what events they can take part in on the Update tab.)

The 'At Large' family.  Would love these in their proper families so we can find all the dormies, jocks etc.

As mentioned above, the At Large family is there so that the program can figure out which sims not to age, and the update page uses it to figure out which sims are not playable.  I suppose it would be possible to flag certain households as non-aging, though.  Keep in mind that households are essentially just strings and not actual objects, so if you want to track non-aging dormies at the same time as playables that live in the dorm, you'll have to change the dormies' household to a special non-aging one, or else you'd either get aging dormies or non-aging playables.  That also goes for townies whose "Household" happens to have the same name as one of the playable households.

You've done an excellent job here so far.  I hope you can keep this up.

Thanks!  You've given me a lot of ideas - this is excellent feedback!  If you're interested in how the guts of the program work (as it seems you might be) you can also download the source and have a look.  Hopefully the GUI stuff is not to alien.

[tunaisafish]

The 'Filter List...' crash came back after I moved the folder from C:\SimSheet back to
C:\Documents and Settings\Linda\Desktop\SimData\SimSheet
The 'no data' loaded was a red herring... At the time I saw the crash I was still trying to work out why SimPE would not run.
It crashes regardless of data loaded when in the longer path.

I've put it back in root and it's working fine again.

got to feed my daughter now so I'll ETA later.

[rufio]

The 'Filter List...' crash came back after I moved the folder from C:\SimSheet back to
C:\Documents and Settings\Linda\Desktop\SimData\SimSheet
The 'no data' loaded was a red herring... At the time I saw the crash I was still trying to work out why SimPE would not run.
It crashes regardless of data loaded when in the longer path.

That is really weird.  The only thing I can think of is it might be a Windows issue - an awful lot of signals get connected up when that's created, but that's all that really happens.  Maybe the combination of the long path and that many signals is too much for it?  Really, the filter dialog is just a frontend for letting the user directly set flags in the main GUI class.  It has nothing to do with the filesystem whatsoever.

[coralleane]

Checkbox working again, and identically named Sims differentiated between in the family ties list.  Woo!  I assumed that to add a new household, I should use the "Add Household" button, but it doesn't seem to do anything when I click it.  I've found that I can force the creation of a new one by editing a Sim directly, so it's not a huge problem, but I'm not sure if it's intended to not work yet, or if it's broken, or if I'm flat out doing it wrong..!  Also, adding Sims to a different household at the moment, unless I'm doing it wrong, seems to require you to edit each Sim and enter the household name as a text field.  It would be useful to have some way to either select multiple Sims and do a mass add-to-household, or to be able to choose the Household from a drop down list when editing a Sim - I'm cheating at the moment and using Copy/Paste rather than retyping it for each one.  It's a bit of a limited-use feature though, I suppose - I need it because I have a lot of Sims with the same family name spread out over lots of different households, but others may not.  

Would it be possible to add some sort of confirmation that the file has saved once you press Save As?  

I assume you're aware of this already, but the thumbnail images generated have a .png extension, and SimSheet only gives an option for .bmp or .jpg when you try to use the Add Image button... additionally, I tried opening a couple of the thumbnails in PaintShop Pro and got a error message that they weren't valid .png files.  

(Incidentially, I've got the Program in C:\Documents and Settings\coralleane\EA Games\SimSheet-test\ and am not having trouble with the Filter list at the moment...)

[rufio]

I assumed that to add a new household, I should use the "Add Household" button, but it doesn't seem to do anything when I click it.

Yeah, I, uh, forgot to implement that.  I stuck it up there because I assumed that I would want that functionality later, but in the event it doesn't really make much sense - households are just strings, and so "creating" them doesn't really make sense.  If some sim has a certain string in their household field, it'll show up on the list; otherwise it won't.  I will remove that button when I update.

I've found that I can force the creation of a new one by editing a Sim directly

That is the way to do it.

It would be useful to [...] be able to choose the Household from a drop down list when editing a Sim

Definitely possible.  Will add.

It's a bit of a limited-use feature though, I suppose - I need it because I have a lot of Sims with the same family name spread out over lots of different households, but others may not.

When you import, you can also change the household name to something more distinctive.  Actually, what I did for my hood was to change the household names in SimPE (a non-QA version) and then when I imported them they were all distinct.

Would it be possible to add some sort of confirmation that the file has saved once you press Save As?

Sure.  I'd actually been thinking about that before.

I assume you're aware of this already, but the thumbnail images generated have a .png extension, and SimSheet only gives an option for .bmp or .jpg when you try to use the Add Image button... additionally, I tried opening a couple of the thumbnails in PaintShop Pro and got a error message that they weren't valid .png files.

I assume you're referring to the pngs in the Rufio folder?  Images are actually kind of broken at the moment, since I haven't been able to figure out how to get Qt plugins to work and haven't really been working on it lately.  Once I get the jpg plugin to work, png should not be an issue, though.  Also, those pngs seem to work fine for me, though I certainly haven't viewed them all.

(Incidentially, I've got the Program in C:\Documents and Settings\coralleane\EA Games\SimSheet-test\ and am not having trouble with the Filter list at the moment...)

Does it happen when you put it into the same folder that tuna did (well, the corresponding one with your username)?  It crashed for me there, too.  I'm currently trying to figure out what's going on from people more knowledgeable than me about Qt and its signals.

[coralleane]

When you import, you can also change the household name to something more distinctive.  Actually, what I did for my hood was to change the household names in SimPE (a non-QA version) and then when I imported them they were all distinct.

Ah, I didn't think about editing them at the time of import.  As it is the drop down field ought to make it fairly simple to do it after import, the main problem is that going in and typing them repeatedly would get annoying and that it opens up the possibility of typos as well. 

I assume you're referring to the pngs in the Rufio folder?  Images are actually kind of broken at the moment, since I haven't been able to figure out how to get Qt plugins to work and haven't really been working on it lately.  Once I get the jpg plugin to work, png should not be an issue, though.  Also, those pngs seem to work fine for me, though I certainly haven't viewed them all.

They show up as thumbnails when I'm looking at the folder with them in.  However, I was thinking I'd open some in PSP, resave them as .jpg or .bmp, and try adding them that way - but no dice.  PSP wouldn't open them at all and it's normally pretty good with weirdly/slightly incorrectly saved stuff. 

Does it happen when you put it into the same folder that tuna did (well, the corresponding one with your username)?  It crashed for me there, too.  I'm currently trying to figure out what's going on from people more knowledgeable than me about Qt and its signals.

I'll give it a shot later.  Maybe due to being presumably "lower" down the system than the game?  With me, The Sims 2 folder is on a level with the SimSheet one - ie My Documents\EA Games\SimSheet-test and My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 are at the same level, C:\SimSheet would be "higher", but presumably the Simdata option is "lower" and so it's having trouble?  No idea. 

Edited to add: misunderstood the filepath slightly.  Tuna's running it from the desktop, correct?  If I move it to the desktop it also fails when I select filter.. but as I general rule I'd never install a program on the desktop normally anyway; I use it for shortcuts only.  It does *not* fail if the program is directly on the desktop, but as soon as you put it in anyfolder (even Desktop/SimSheet), it will crash when the filter is used. 

[Inge]

Not in any 100% reliable way.  I can associate manually entered sims with SimPE sims by their names, but some sims could have the same names.  I could test every single variable associated with the sim, but those might have changed slightly in the game since they were entered.  .

It's easy.  You offer an interactive dialog that shows the manually entered sims along with the proposed merge, and if you display the picture of the sim the user can accept or reject the merge in an informed way.   Also you can add a facility for a use-initiated merge, for those the app has not automatically detected.   Surely the user would *want* a way of allowing the program to take over maintenance of a sim they had previously had to maintain manually?

[Maireaine]

I would love a link to the new version, but I don't think I would be much help in testing.  I don't know anything about programming and whatnot.  I can certainly try though!   

[coralleane]

I've got some problems trying to import all NPC's or townies.
I've tried using the 'select all' buttons with these.  Don't know if the program is still doing anything but after 20 mins I kill it.
I can add a random single sim from these groups, but it fails or hangs when selelcting all.
I can mail you the txt file if you can't reproduce this.

Apparently this may just be an issue of time.  I tried importing all my NPC's (..about 50 pages worth, apparently), and the first time I thought it had crashed.  However, I set it up to try again, walked away and watched an episode of Futurama, and when I was finished with that, came back to the computer and found it was done.  As such, rufio's suggestion of including a progress bar ought to do it - and, when the program does have some documentation written up, a note in there that large numbers of Sims do take a long time for the list to compile.