native CHIT

roippi

Developer
If this is useful information, I'm half-tempted to see how hard it would be to merge ChIT into KoLmafia's core decorations, because it includes this among several other things and presents them in a cleaner way than the default interface.

http://kolmafia.us/showthread.php?7594-Character-Info-Toolbox

Well, you have my complete support. I have three different machines that I use for mafia, and the only thing keeping me from using CHIT on all of them is version control/updating. It is an objectively superior charpane experience.
 

Theraze

Active member
Especially if it retains its modularity and customization, this would be a great addition. If it presents everything or radically adds more to the default view, it might overwhelm those with smaller screens.
 

Catch-22

Active member
More often than not I find myself using the CLI, so this wouldn't really affect me too much except when I find the need to manually override certain adventures/fights using the relay browser. As for making CHIT native to KoLmafia, well, I already find the vanilla interface to be cluttered and dislike the use of IFrames that only refresh if you have javascript enabled, but that's probably just me.

My only question is, what's the problem with leaving CHIT as a relay override? I mean, lots of scripts use Zlib (including CHIT) but nobody is suggesting we make that native to KoLmafia. Why should CHIT be any different?
 

Catch-22

Active member
My question to you, kind Bale, are you happy with how CHIT is working at the moment (that is to say; as a relay override)?
 

roippi

Developer
There's no "problem" with leaving CHIT as a relay override. But making it native:

-exposes it to a much larger userbase
-solves version control issues
-expands the possibilities of what we can do with it. ASH is feature-rich, but Java is more so.

Of these, the first item is the most important. Your average mafia user has never heard of this "chit" thing.
 

eggman

New member
Although the interface of the charpane could be more informative and useful, the relay browser is the main interface beginners to mafia use. To have this (if integrated) as the default charpane would be confusing to new mafia users and potentially turn them away. I have no desire to have to set up mafia before using it, I'm sure others are also using it to simply automate turns and not taking advantage of the more advanced features of mafia. If this is added to the relay override it solves an issue that not many people had, lack of information as they had always gone to the main GUI to view and set up moods anyways.
 

Bale

Minion
My question to you, kind Bale, are you happy with how CHIT is working at the moment (that is to say; as a relay override)?

Totally, but it'll be kinda neat to make it native. Unfortunately that opens all the questions that roippi brings up. Mostly the question is if it will continue to be developed as part of mafia. Something like Boris that presents an alternative to familiars will mean that mafia needs a new feature or else the charpane gets broken. A mafia dev would have to be really into it.

Of these, the first item is the most important. Your average mafia user has never heard of this "chit" thing.

I don't think that is a huge issue. Players love greasemonkey like things to improve the interface. This is just one of those on a larger scale as long as there is a preference to turn it off. Lots of people will want to know where the checkbox is. Many others will adore it. The third group will think it is nice, but could be so much better if only...


Although the interface of the charpane could be more informative and useful, the relay browser is the main interface beginners to mafia use. To have this (if integrated) as the default charpane would be confusing to new mafia users and potentially turn them away. I have no desire to have to set up mafia before using it, I'm sure others are also using it to simply automate turns and not taking advantage of the more advanced features of mafia. If this is added to the relay override it solves an issue that not many people had, lack of information as they had always gone to the main GUI to view and set up moods anyways.

Yeah, I'm a little nervous about hola's idea to make it default, but on the other hand, ChIT's UI is pretty intuitive.
 

roippi

Developer
The question of whether it's opt-in or opt-out is a single boolean somewhere, I don't think that's really material to the discussion yet.

Plus, I just realized we could use this as a reason to make Bale a dev, I'm starting to like this idea more and more. :cool:
 

Bale

Minion
The question of whether it's opt-in or opt-out is a single boolean somewhere, I don't think that's really material to the discussion yet.

Plus, I just realized we could use this as a reason to make Bale a dev, I'm starting to like this idea more and more. :cool:

Except that I'm not very good with mafia's code. Once it goes native I'm out of the ChIT business.
 

roippi

Developer
Oh pish posh. Java is way easier than ASH once you get a proper dev environment set up. Without knowing a lick about how something in mafia works, I could tell you everything about it after 5 minutes of hitting ctrl-h, ctrl-G, and f3.

Plus, the .css and .js wouldn't change at all.

Sounds like a ChIT position to be in...
*puts on glasses*
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

:cool:
 

Bale

Minion
Perhaps the lack of a proper dev environment is my problem. I don't even know which program should receive those commands.
 

Catch-22

Active member
Perhaps the lack of a proper dev environment is my problem. I don't even know which program should receive those commands.

Eclipse is probably the most popular IDE for Java development, I'd say most of the KoLmafia devs use it. You don't actually need it though, I don't use it for any of the tinkering I've done with KoLmafia code.

Things you actually need are:
  • An SVN client
  • The Java JDK instead of the JRE
  • Apache Ant
  • Text editing program of your choice

IDE's just make things easier, or more complicated, depending on how you use them :)
 

Bale

Minion
Well, I know the minimum of what I need. I was more curious why Roippi hat that makes it so easy.
 

Catch-22

Active member
In Notepad++ terms, he's talking about Ctrl+F on steroids. Ctrl+H will search the workspace, Ctrl+G finds declarations and F3 will hop to a declaration. Some understanding of Java terms is still necessary to understand what you're actually reading, but at least you're not having to sift through thousands of lines to understand just one function.
 

Bale

Minion
Then those commands are an Eclipse thing? Your description of what they do sounds awesome. Searching through thousands of lines is a problem I was having. I used WinGrep to search, but I'll admit that that ctrl-h, ctrl-G, and f3 sound a lot easier. I guess I'll have to install Eclipse the next time I think of diving into mafia's sourcecode.
 

roippi

Developer
Yup, Eclipse thing.

I should write up a short tutorial sometime, installation, tips and tricks, etc. Figuring out how to efficiently navigate the codebase makes coding so much less intimidating.
 
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