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

[rufio]

Ok, new version uploaded incorporating various suggestions, including the changelog suggestion, so I don't have to describe them all here.

On the filter dialog issue:  I normally run the program from C:\REM\SimSheet\release;  running it from C:\REM\SimSheet\release\Folder1\Folder2 works fine but C:\REM\SimSheet\release\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3 causes the crash.  That's six folders deep, which is more than tuna's path (only five).  I've got no idea what's happening. 

[Inge]

Having a seperate copy of the changelog textfile with a link to it would be good please - save me downloading the zip just to find out what's going on.

[rufio]

Sorry.  This is what it says:

Code:

Savefile V 0.5

11/7/08
- Checking the appropriate box in the LM dialog will allow you to import
directly from a previously generated output file rather than running SimPE
again.
- SimPE imports will now check the current list and update sims with relevant
NIDs.
- Import progress is now shown with a progress bar.
- Playable/Non-Playable filters added.
- Extraneous "Add Household" button has been axed.
- The household field in the Add and Edit Sim Dialogs is now an editable
drop-down box.
- A pop-up now confirms a successful save.

[tunaisafish]

Excellent, will download today.

The trailing '/' issue was fixed for the 'manage sim lists' dialog, but it still happens in the 'settings' dialog.

I moved the install to My Documents\Simsheet, but *still* had the crash with the filter :/
'My Documents' is one of those magic folders that varies with user login.  So although it looks short the internals might use a longer path.
Confusing bug.
It's now living happily in c:\Program Files\SimSheet

The combining the Patel households thing.
Yes, renaming one of the households would fix this problem. It would also fix the problem with the EA cheat of altering the family funds by name too.
The aging of my playable students in the dorms doesn't bother me though.  I've not really looked at the 'update' tab and all the aging code and options.
This isn't needed when the import will automagically do that for me.

Images
Yep, there are images in the SimPE export.  You may want to hang on to the option of assigning one manually though.
Those images are often out of date.  eg my graduated Firstborn Patel still shows as a toddler.
And there are several missing, hence the 'Mr. Potatoeheads' that show when in SimPE.

Importing a Full Hood.
The 'At Large' family only showed the first 5 members.  Doesn't bother me as the actual list would be 600+ and I wouldn't want to view them all anyway.
Just reporting this in case there are no hard limits in the code, and this is evidence of a broken array or something.

@coralleane, yes you're right I was being too impatient.  I imported *every* sim from my hood, ~830 of them.  The list updated after about 45 minutes.
This list saves and opens fine

[coralleane]

@coralleane, yes you're right I was being too impatient.  I imported *every* sim from my hood, ~830 of them.  The list updated after about 45 minutes.
This list saves and opens fine

At some point I plan to do my whole neighbourhood, but apparently the current count is a rather depressing 1209 sims.  Clearly I'm going to have to set it to run at some point where I'm going to be out of the house for an hour or two. *g*  (I had it down to just under a thousand before installing AL, after going through and manually deleting over 100 gardeners caused by the gardner-spawning bug in the early base-game only days, as well as extra tour guides and charlatans..)

[Inge]

The new SimPE QA is published, which includes support for SimSheet.

[coralleane]

Well, I finally did try to list the whole neighbourhood, and it's looking as though I should have taken my own advice and gone out - I think I started around 1:30 and it's nearly 5 now!  Apparently I'm down to the last 120 or so sims.  It looks like the further down the list it gets, the longer it takes to process each sim - when I first set it off, it was taking about a second between each one, then at about the 600 mark it was taking about fifteen seconds for the counter to move up one, and now it's taking about 25 seconds.  I don't know if this is related to the way the search is done, or if it's a problem elsewhere (or a problem on my computer). 

ETA: Well, it finally got done.  And, uh, trying to filter the Sims crashed it. 

[Inge]

Does the SimPE output phase appear to complete ok?

[coralleane]

Does the SimPE output phase appear to complete ok?

In what sense?  The whole process runs through as normal, it just takes an exceedingly long time, getting noticably slower as time goes by.  When it comes to the actual data, as far as I can tell at a quick glance of 1210 sims, no-one is missing or has any obvious inaccuracies.  In the rufio folder there is a 403kb exportedsims.txt file.  920 files are in the SimImage folder; there are no potatoheads so I'm assuming those account for the 'missing' pictures given that I imported every single sim, including NPC's and townies.  I didn't get very far with actually looking at the data; I did notice one Sim's father and son weren't showing in the family ties (and as a result, none of her grandchildren or other relatives by her son's marriage, either) - but she was created, and died, in the days of the basegame, and I know the lot that she died on had some problems with buggy graves in the dim and very distant past, so I put it down to that.  No one else who I've looked at yet appears to have missing relatives (again, bearing in mind I've not comprehensively gone through everyone).

[rufio]

The trailing '/' issue was fixed for the 'manage sim lists' dialog, but it still happens in the 'settings' dialog.

That's odd, thought I got that.  In any case it works in mine, so it must have just not got the right version up.  I'll reupload.

I moved the install to My Documents\Simsheet, but *still* had the crash with the filter :/
'My Documents' is one of those magic folders that varies with user login.  So although it looks short the internals might use a longer path.
Confusing bug.

Yeah, the absolute path to My Documents is actually C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents.  I think it must have to do with the length of the path string rather than the number of folders deep.

Images
Yep, there are images in the SimPE export.  You may want to hang on to the option of assigning one manually though.
Those images are often out of date.  eg my graduated Firstborn Patel still shows as a toddler.
And there are several missing, hence the 'Mr. Potatoeheads' that show when in SimPE.

Maybe when I get images working I'll put smaller pictures in the import dialog and let the use choose whether or not to use those images.

Importing a Full Hood.
The 'At Large' family only showed the first 5 members.  Doesn't bother me as the actual list would be 600+ and I wouldn't want to view them all anyway.
Just reporting this in case there are no hard limits in the code, and this is evidence of a broken array or something.

Interesting.  There actually isn't any limit on that - when I made the At Large household I imagined it'd just be used for townies who'd contributed genetic material but never moved in.  I never considered importing the whole neighborhood...

@coralleane, yes you're right I was being too impatient.  I imported *every* sim from my hood, ~830 of them.  The list updated after about 45 minutes.
This list saves and opens fine

It seems to be taking longer to import sims depending on the length of the current simList, so it's probably an issue with the container class - I'll try changing it to something faster and see if that helps.  In any case, it will be worse now, since it has to check the existing simList for sims with matching NIDs.

ETA: Just tested this, and using a different kind of list is hugely extremely much more faster.  Unfortunately the interfacing is different, so I have a lot of code to edit.

ETA: Well, it finally got done.  And, uh, trying to filter the Sims crashed it.

Is this the same starting-the-filter-dialog crash, or is it crashing when you check and uncheck the boxes?

[coralleane]

It seems to be taking longer to import sims depending on the length of the current simList, so it's probably an issue with the container class - I'll try changing it to something faster and see if that helps.  In any case, it will be worse now, since it has to check the existing simList for sims with matching NIDs

I was importing with an empty Sim list (ie, no previous saves loaded), so that shouldn't have been an issue this time if I understand you correctly. 

Is this the same starting-the-filter-dialog crash, or is it crashing when you check and uncheck the boxes?

Starting the filter again. 

[rufio]

It seems to be taking longer to import sims depending on the length of the current simList, so it's probably an issue with the container class - I'll try changing it to something faster and see if that helps.  In any case, it will be worse now, since it has to check the existing simList for sims with matching NIDs

I was importing with an empty Sim list (ie, no previous saves loaded), so that shouldn't have been an issue this time if I understand you correctly.

It is, though - it'll be pretty quick at the beginning because there's no sims in the list; as it adds more sims to the list and the process gets slower.  If you'd started with sims in the list the rate would just have been slower at the outset.

Is this the same starting-the-filter-dialog crash, or is it crashing when you check and uncheck the boxes?

Starting the filter again. 
[/quote]

Ahh, ok, nothing new for me to fix then.

[tunaisafish]

Got the newest version now.. 4shared was being mean to me yesterday for some reason.

Inge,
Importing from the new QA SimPE.  No probs.  Pass Peter a tinny

rufio,
Yep. '/' now fixed in settings, and I love the new progress bar

I think the importing slowdown is a sign of the algorithm, not the container class.
Are you loading the sims one by one into the list?
If so, are there any triggers that can be turned off? (the recalc of family ties for instance)

Loading a saved fullhood of ~850 sims is very fast at the moment.
Importing the same 850 sims into a clean simsheet should be able to happen in a similar time.

[coralleane]

It is, though - it'll be pretty quick at the beginning because there's no sims in the list; as it adds more sims to the list and the process gets slower.  If you'd started with sims in the list the rate would just have been slower at the outset.

Alright, I understand now - I thought you meant an already existing and loaded list rather than the one it was compiling at the time.  Beyond as an experiment to test it, I won't usually be loading all townies and NPC's normally, although now I've actually *done* it, it has been quite interesting to scroll through and be able to see at a glance which townies are at which life stages. 

[rufio]

I think the importing slowdown is a sign of the algorithm, not the container class.
Are you loading the sims one by one into the list?
If so, are there any triggers that can be turned off? (the recalc of family ties for instance)

Yeah, I was updating the displays after each sim - didn'y realize how long that took (the family page does not actually calculate the family ties until you click on a sim, though.  I changed the container class anyway, because it's probably a good thing to do in any case.  New version should be up.

[tunaisafish]

Wow, just a slight increase in speed there
Hardly had time to look at the progress bar at all, great work.

[rufio]

Well, if I hadn't been idiotic about where I put stuff in the first place it would have been like that originally. 

[coralleane]

On the dialog where you choose which Sims to import, would it be possible to give an option to *deselect* all townies/NPCs/playables as well as the select all option?  Or even just a "clear all selected Sims" if breaking it down by group isn't possible?   

..and yeah, that is *much* quicker now.  *blink blink!*

[rufio]

On the dialog where you choose which Sims to import, would it be possible to give an option to *deselect* all townies/NPCs/playables as well as the select all option?  Or even just a "clear all selected Sims" if breaking it down by group isn't possible?

Yes; I'd thought about doing it and then forgot.  Will do.

[katemonster]

Okay, it seems likely that I'm just a moron, but I'm not importing successfully. It does generate the exportedsims text file, plus images, and it says it's generated a list of sims and located data for 502 sims. Then it hangs. The longest I've let it sit so far before I got impatient was 45 minutes. Am I correct in understanding that there should be a progress bar in the current version while it is importing from SimPE? I'm not seeing any progress bar. Sorry, this must be the most useless kind of feedback, wish I had anything more useful to say...

[rufio]

That's not where the progress bar is - it should not hang there at all.  What are the general demographics of the hood you're importing?

ETA:  The current version now has "Deselect All" buttons on the Import Dialog.

ETA 2: Inge, I have a child who (in-game) is shown as being 1 day away from being a teen, but who in SimPE (and in the output) is shown as having 0 days remaining.  Is this standard, or is the days remaining field supposed to match what it says in-game?

[katemonster]

OK, I tried importing with the debug version, and before it hangs I get "Generated list of sims", "Loaded data for 502 sims", "Created pageData", and "Set epFlags". When I click OK on that last is when it hangs. No error messages or anything. As for demographics of the hood--I have only around 40 playable sims--what matters in sim demographics besides playable/non-playable? My last computer and its un-backed-up hood was stolen 3 months ago, so this is a pretty young neighborhood with a only a few sims who have died of old age.

Edit: I have no idea if it matters, but I have all EPs except AL.

[Lerf]

OK, maybe it's jet lag, but I'm missing something.

I tell it how to find the Test SimPE version.  But there is no way to specify a neighborhood.  The drop down in blank and I don't seem to be able to type into it.  My game is on the F: drive.  I don't know if that has something to do with it or not.

When I hit import I get an error rufio {outpath} {-hood hood) {-group group}  Which is, I assume telling me that I haven't specified a neighborhood.

I'm lost.

[Inge]

ETA 2: Inge, I have a child who (in-game) is shown as being 1 day away from being a teen, but who in SimPE (and in the output) is shown as having 0 days remaining.  Is this standard, or is the days remaining field supposed to match what it says in-game?

That's the value in the sim's data field, but as users of my shrub know, the value is out by one in terms of how a human thinks of having a day left.  You can adjust in your display, if you think it will make it more intuitive for the users.

[coralleane]

Is there any way you can make the expansion pack settings stick (even if the default behaviour is to clear the settings each time you load the program, it would useful to have a 'save these settings' button as an option if it can be done)?  I'm not 100% positive, but having created a new list of all playables/townies/NPC's, it seems that if I try to load it without the correct EP's checked, it hangs.  If I remember to check them before loading, it loads okay.  I tried the same with a slightly smaller sample (playables only, about 440 sims) and got the same results: if I remember to check the expansions before loading, the list opens in a few seconds.  If I don't, it doesn't load.  I know the Any Game Starter is out there to allow different EP's, but I expect the vast majority of people use the same EP's for all their hoods.