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

[Liveangel]

Inge, if you have being paying attention to the senate, you would know it's his punishment avatar. However, he might have implmented it himself, seeing as Trixie still has her old avatar and lacks her custom title.

[Inge]

Yes, that's why I asked.

[rufio]

I didn't implement it; it just appeared.  I never cared enough about avatars to upload one in the first place, so I wasn't about to proactively upload the punishment avatar when I was sure Pescado would get around to it eventually.

[zceepy]

I've been testing the 'On day 1' function to the New Sims and Pets section and have a few notes. When adding a new sim (from CAS) if I have a 7 day cycle and add a toddler on day 5 the toddler is added fine but has not aged along with the rest of the household. i.e. in the household if a toddler is added on day 3 of a cycle by day 7 it will have aged to child, instead it is shown as 4 days to child as if it were added on day 7 of the cycle. So 'on day 1' isn't actually making that much difference - although it's nice to have a record of it in the achievements I suppose

Second note If this function starts working can I request it be added to some of the aging functions, particularly the going to/graduating from College functions (If I send a sim to College mid way through my 5 day cycle I like to continue the cycle for them there at university so it would be great if I could say 'On day 2 of the cycle Jodie went to College' and have the rest of the days age her through the semesters - although now I come to think about it this might not work since not everyone has an equal number of days to number of semesters in a cycle... But for graduate it might be good.

Third note. While testing this function I added an ordinary baby to a family and if I added it on any day other than day 1 the program crashed (Have never done error logs before but have attached the files the computer wanted to send microsoft if they make any sense to you)

Fourth Note. While testing this function I added a baby by townie to two households, one on day 1 and one on day 2 and neither baby actually showed up on the sim list. The same thing happened when I tried exactly the same (two babies, one on day 1 one on day 2) with alien babies. However, when I tried adding some normal babies again the alien babies (but not the babies by townie) appeared, the alien baby born on ay 1 of the rotation was the correct age by the baby born on day 2 was a rotation behind. Similarly the ordinary babies, the one born on day 1 had aged to toddler, as they should have through the rest of the rotation, whereas the baby born on day 2 was the age it would be if it was born on day 5 of the rotation. I applied updates again and all four babies (the ones from the townies never appeared) aged up 5 days as normal. Also this time I was able to click on the day 2 ordinarily created baby (now toddler) without a crash so I conclude its only babies that clicking on causes a crash.

Sorry, I know that's a lot to throw at you, results of just one test session - I now have a lot of non-existent babies in my neighbourhood called alan... Hope I've been helpful in some tiny way. If I'm not clear just ask and I'll have another go at explaining

[rufio]

Thanks for testing this out - I'll take a look and find out what's going wrong.  Did the crash happen when you applied the updates, or when you clicked on the baby in the list of sims tab?

That reminds me, too - I should probably add a way to delete sims other than going through the savefile.  Cross your fingers and hope that Qt's so-called "safe" pointers really work as advertised.

[zceepy]

Thanks for testing this out - I'll take a look and find out what's going wrong.  Did the crash happen when you applied the updates, or when you clicked on the baby in the list of sims tab?

When I tried to click on the baby in the list of sims tab

I'm glad I could help

[katemonster]

Latest weird import issue...SimPE generates this output file (attached) and when I try to import from it I get "Generated list of sims", "-1", then "Imported 0 sims". Any idea what's wrong with this file?

[rufio]

Well, the -1 error message is coming from something other than the latest version, so you should update.  That's not the problem with that file, though; the key for which field is where is missing from the top of it.  Usually they start with something like this:

hood,HoodName,NID,FirstName,LastName,SimDescription,FamilyInstance,HouseholdName,HouseNumber,AvailableCharacterData,Unlinked,ParentA,ParentB,Spouse,BodyType,NPCType,
SchoolType,Grade,CareerPerformance,Career,CareerLevel,ZodiacSign,Aspiration,Gender,LifeSection,AgeDaysLeft,PrevAgeDays,AgeDuration,BlizLifelinePoints,LifelinePoints,LifelineScore,GenActive,
GenNeat,GenNice,GenOutgoing,GenPlayful,Active,Neat,Nice,Outgoing,Playful,Animals,Crime,Culture,Entertainment,Environment,Fashion,FemalePreference,Food,Health,MalePreference,Money,
Paranormal,Politics,School,Scifi,Sports,Toys,Travel,Weather,Work,Body,Charisma,Cleaning,Cooking,Creativity,Fatness,Logic,Mechanical,Romance,IsAtUniversity,UniEffort,UniGrade,UniTime,UniSemester,
UniInfluence,UniMajor,Species,Salary,PrimaryAspiration,SecondaryAspiration,HobbyPredestined,LifetimeWant

In other words, you should complain to Inge.

[Inge]

As I have said on the SimPE forum, Rufio, if you can't be bothered to keep up to date with the latest SimPE to let us know if it is still working for your SimSheet, why should we bother to keep track of the development of your tool?  I think it is unacceptable that you haven't bothered to download anything since 0.73.18.  How can you possibly know what your users are experiencing these days?

From now on, the output will concentrate on supporting people who wish to open it in spreadsheets, and if SimSheet happens to be able to use it too, then fine.

People wishing to use the data in a spreadsheet are invited to report directly to the SimPE development team with requests or problem reports regarding the output.

Well, the -1 error message is coming from something other than the latest version, so you should update.

Now you know how frustrating it can be when users don't update, maybe you can take your own advice? 

[rufio]

I'm sorry, Inge - I just thought you might recognize what the problem might be and be able to fix it.  The SimPE site is not something I check daily anyway, since I don't really use SimPE for anything more complicated than checking sims' DNA and occasionally renaming households, so I don't get every update.  In any case, I have not really been working on SimSheet during the holidays.  I have now downloaded the latest QA.  In future, I will download the latest version before complaining about something.

[Inge]

But....  you've been supposedly making a tool, a major feature of which could be thought of as a plugin to SimPE.  I am astounded that you have attempted to do so with so little interest in what input it is receiving.  You should have been right up there at the front giving us immediate notification if something wasn't right with the data.  Preferably long before *your* poor testers were bothered by it.  You should be the person to first try out each new SimPE before giving your users the headsup it is ok for use with your tool.  You're supposed to be the techie, not them.

It's not an apology I am after, just something to stop my head shaking in disbelief.   It's the person you told to "complain to Inge" who deserves the apology, really.  It put them in a very difficult position.

[rufio]

I thought we'd been over the fact that I don't really see it as a plugin for SimPE, and that I don't use it that way, and also that development has been put on hold for the last couple weeks.  I am not doing this professionally, have never done any software professionally, and started this project as something for me to use; I don't know everything that's expected of me, in all probability.  To be honest, it kind of frustrates me a little that there is this other program that SimSheet depends on for input that I have no control over, and whose workings I don't understand - not that I don't appreciate what you've done, but it feels weird to me.  All I could do in this case was to download the latest QA; if I saw the problem, I'd scratch my head and complain to you.  If I didn't see the problem, I'd scratch my head and tell the tester to run it again or report it as a bug.  No matter what the case is, I can't do anything about it.

Anyway, I have run the output command with the latest QA, and there seem to be no problems with it.  So either it was a bug that was fixed between 0.73.18 and 0.73.33 or it's bug that only happens sometimes.

[Inge]

No matter what the case is, I can't do anything about it.

Well I take exception to this.  The commandline switch is -rufio.  Your name.  Now you want to make out Peter just happened by coincidence to be adding some csv output that was nothing to do with you and not developed with your input or views being taken into account in any way? 

What you can *do* about it is what you are quite happy telling your own users to do - download the latest version and report when something is not right.

[rufio]

If I am not experiencing the bug (which seems to be the case) I can't do that, though.  It may be something to do with that particular neighborhood.  It may be something else.  I have no idea, because I don't know how SimPE works.

[Inge]

My point is that by the time Katemonster had posted, you should have either already been in a position to say "That's odd, simpe output is fine for me" or have quickly gone to check it out *before* saying "Go and complain to Inge".  You're meant to triage your own users' reports, not just pass them on to someone else.

[katemonster]

Okay, this is what I know:

1. The version I'm using is timestamped 12/21. If there was a more recent one, I missed it.
2. The link in post #1 currently goes to a version with the same timestamp.
3. When I paste the headings into my output file, save it, then try to import from that file ("Import from previously generated output"), I get the same error.
4. When I then re-open that output file, the headings are gone and the timestamp on the output file has been updated to the time at which I tried to import it.

This puzzles me, as do whatever politics surround SimPE, but whatever. Do what you will with it.

[rufio]

1. The version I'm using is timestamped 12/21. If there was a more recent one, I missed it.

The zipfile was last updated on the 22nd, according the 4shared when I go to look at my files at least.  Iit is possible that I just took out a debug message during the last two weeks some time and forgot about it, though.

3. When I paste the headings into my output file, save it, then try to import from that file ("Import from previously generated output"), I get the same error.
4. When I then re-open that output file, the headings are gone and the timestamp on the output file has been updated to the time at which I tried to import it.

It sounds like it's generating a new file.  Are you sure you checked the box?  Are you sure that it's really the latest version?  Does the SimPE script run (it pops up a little terminal)?

ETA:  In the interests of being a conscientious programmer who is nice to her testers, I downloaded the latest upload at 4shared and ran it with the latest (well, second-to-latest now, I guess) version of SimPE, and everything seems to work as it should.  There is an extraneous debug pop-up in there, which appears to show the position in the list of fields of the family instance.  It should be 7.  The -1 is due to the lack of header.

[tunaisafish]

katemonster, the file you posted is not in csv format.  So you are using an older version of SimPE than the current SimSheet expects.
Rufio will now be able to advise.

[rufio]

How did I manage to miss that?  Yes, you need to use a later QA.

[katemonster]

OK, I just ran it again (this time just re-generating the output instead of trying to use the old output) and instead of "-1" I got "6", and it did actually import a list this time, although my output file is again missing the headings. I've not downloaded either a new version of SimSheet or a new version of SimPE, so I remain puzzled, but I'd rather go play Sims than fuss about it, so that is what I shall do. I'm sure someone will figure out what idiotic thing I did to cause this to happen. Feel free to point and laugh.

I'm using SimPE 0.73.18.whatever QA. If a newer one is required I missed that too.

[rufio]

Can I see the new output file?  Inge did rearrange the fields a bit since then, but 18 did have a header for me, and if it didn't it wouldn't have loaded.

[katemonster]

Here's the output. There probably really is a header that I just can't see somehow. Seriously.

[rufio]

That file will not load for me.  Are you sure it's loading that one?  The output that it reads is going to be (Path to SimSheet.exe)\Rufio\ExportedSims.txt.  If you tested an older version, it was in your Sims 2 folder in My Documents, but it has changed and no longer uses that location.  Also, did you give SimSheet the directory for your latest version of SimPE?  I've got a couple different ones myself, and have to remember to change the location to the latest.

[sleep]

Can someone explain what Bliz Lifeline Points are please? Also, what are the three 'traits' that are being tracked?

I searched, but can't find any information.

[tunaisafish]

The traits are to do with the attraction system.
They're flags for hair color, fitness, skills etc. and they match the turn on/off fields.

They're screwed up of course.  Such as EAxis thinking that wearing jewelry makes your sim a werewolf.

Dunno what the blized thing is.