bumcheekcity's Easy Snapshot Maker

[AiluroDragon]

I am running KoLmafia-16.0 from the jar, which is the latest version I see for release.

Someone in-game pointed me to this thread, which alerted me to the necessity for daily builds, which solved my problem. However, I would like to suggest that the first post in the thread be amended to indicate that "up-to date" means 'daily', not 'last official release'.

 

[roippi]

Someone in-game pointed me to this thread, which alerted me to the necessity for daily builds, which solved my problem. However, I would like to suggest that the first post in the thread be amended to indicate that "up-to date" means 'daily', not 'last official release'.

It is exhausting trying to put that information everywhere. We have it plastered in stickies, we post it in response to someone's issue once every other page, we put it in signatures, and still it is not enough. Many people have given up trying to proactively educate because there is a subset of users that just won't get it until a feature that they want breaks.

 

[Bale]

Hey, education does work even if it has failures. In response to this I got PMs from people who were excited to have learned something and were now using the feature. We just have to keep on trying. Repetitively. Because not everyone learns in the same way.

 

[roippi]

I know that your GD post pulled in a good number of people who until now had never visited the forums or used a script before. And that's cool.

It's just.. I dunno, I'm probably burnt out on that being 25%+ of new users' first post nowadays. Something isn't working, and I don't know what the solution is. I don't think it's "make scripts use bigger crayon letters in their first post." The past has shown that it doesn't matter how big the crayon is, some fraction of users just aren't going to read it, especially now that looking at the first post is not necessary for installing a script.

 

[Bale]

Something I've learned about life is that some percentage of humanity will always fail to get anything. I don't let that burn me down anymore.

 

[Winterbay]

Or as Dilbert so succinctly put it "Don't expect that people are as stupid as they look, they are even more stupid"

 

[roippi]

I mean, yes, there is a bell curve of competence.

But I don't really accept that some users are hopeless, or even that it's their fault that they're not absorbing the information properly. That's an antiquated way of thinking about user interfaces - the "everyone should read the manual" school of thought. If users aren't understanding something, you could be designing it better. Think about sitting a six-year-old in front of an Apple 2e and asking her to make it work. Then hand her an iPad and perform the same operation.

So, yes, users should RTFM. We should encourage everyone to RTFM. But some of them aren't going to - and this is just a fact of human nature that we should accept and design around whenever possible.

 

[Bale]

So, do you think that there is a magic bullet you can use to make people learn things when they have no interest? You think you can make them become interested? Honestly, some people's method actually is "when something breaks they ask for help." Then they get help.

 

[roippi]

So, do you think that there is a magic bullet you can use to make people learn things when they have no interest? You think you can make them become interested?

The whole point of good design is that you teach people things without them knowing that you're teaching them things. It has nothing whatsoever to do with whether they are interested or not.

Take the price column in the store manager. When you hover your mouse over it, it becomes blue and underlined. This evokes the knowledge that all modern computer users have - blue underlined things are meant to be clicked. Thus, the user is taught that you can click on the price to edit it without ever having to seek out a README somewhere that tells them how to edit prices. Many people accept that GUIs should be intuitive to use, but there is no reason that it need stop there and not apply to the rest of your program.

I don't immediately know what the solution is in this situation. There may not be any good solution so long as we adhere to the point release system, but I still reject the archaic mindset that it's the user's fault. That line of thinking just creates bad software.

 

[xKiv]

but I still reject the archaic mindset that it's the user's fault.

Even if the user chooses to find a living person to bother instead of choosing to find instructions (often in the same thread)?

 

[Ethelred]

I mean, yes, there is a bell curve of competence.

...

So, yes, users should RTFM. We should encourage everyone to RTFM. But some of them aren't going to - and this is just a fact of human nature that we should accept and design around whenever possible.

A big part of the problem here is that there is no FM to read. These forums and and KoL ones, are not a FM, not even close. When the KoLmafia wiki was created, I hoped that would become TFM, but alas, it hasn't happened. I prefer to learn by reading TFM whenever one is available, but FMs seem to be going the way of the dinosaur. When I bought my iPad, I couldn't get it to do a damn thing. It came with not documentation at all. I had to go out and buy "The Missing Manual" to get it to do anything at all. And I've been an Apple user for over 25 years. Good design is important and can help a lot, but even the best design in the world can't repace TFM, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[morgad]

It is exhausting trying to put that information everywhere. We have it plastered in stickies, we post it in response to someone's issue once every other page, we put it in signatures, and still it is not enough. Many people have given up trying to proactively educate because there is a subset of users that just won't get it until a feature that they want breaks.

If the build procees automatically checked in the latest build into a SVN somewhere, Mafia could eventually become self-updating

checking repo
download latest version
next time you run Mafia it will build <blah>

best regards
Dave

 

[heeheehee]

I believe that would either require users to install the JDK or automatically download the JARs. The latter functionality is already available (albeit not "built-in").

 

[fronobulax]

There may not be any good solution so long as we adhere to the point release system

Perhaps that is worthy of discussion in another thread? My recollection is that point releases were a necessary evil at a time when KoLmafia was maturing, KoL was changing rapidly, and there were interim builds that were broken. I feel like the times, they are a changing, and it might make sense to abandon the concept of a point release.

 

[Orbrisa]

Seems like bug reporting on the sourceforge page is disabled, restricted, or I am too stupid to find the right buttons. >.<

Violent Vestments---shubtat---Ass-Stompers of Violence(1)Brand of Violence(1)Novelty Belt Buckle of Violence(1)Lens of Violence(1)Pigsticker of Violence(1)
Hateful Habiliment---yogtat---Cold Stone of Hatred(1)Girdle of Hatred(1)Staff of Simmering Hatred(1)Pantaloons of Hatred(1)Fuzzy Slippers of Hatred(1)

The snapshot is reporting completion of these outfits incorrectly. Possibly it only expects the presence of 5 pieces, rather than 6?

 

[Darzil]

Loving the changes coming, but noticed that you had added Dog Tired as a skill. This skill is not permable.

Also currently missing the tattoos Mark of the Bugbear, Mark of the Werewolf, Mark of the Ghost, Mark of the Zombie, Mark of the Skeleton, Mark of the Vampire.

The current version doesn't appear to support detection of Pen Pal, GameInform Magazine or Friar Cottage, which were working on version 2.8 when that was downloadble.

 

[InfiniusDev]

FYI, I'm seconding that bug reporting on the sourceforge page seems to either be disabled or restricted.

I do see that bumcheek snapshot for skill "summon taffy" is not reporting as permed, even though it does see Libram of Pulled Taffy.

My profile name is Infinius. Awesome script, by the way!

 

[fronobulax]

CafeBoob

Profile shows that the tattoo for Raiments of the Final Boss is available but character is missing the Boots of Twilight Whispers. I think it is an error in the outfit definition since the script found the other outfit pieces in my DC just fine.

 

[bumcheekcity]

I'm aware of the fact that outfits with more than 5 pieces can show false positives. I'm not planning on fixing it at the moment.

Dog tired removed as a skill already.

Tattoos to add, Mr. Store items to add. What is the exact name of the summon taffy skill, with capitalisation?

 

[Darzil]

Tattoos to add, Mr. Store items to add. What is the exact name of the summon taffy skill, with capitalisation?

Summon Taffy is what it has at campground and when looking at another character.