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Please consider donating! My PC is having serious trouble at the moment, any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Need help with Chronos? Remember that you can Email chronosdevelopment@gmail.com with any questions you might have!

Monday, 18 July 2011

I have no idea how this bug occurred, but it's fixed!

Hey guys.

My girlfriend recently noticed a bug with the timer engine that meant extracts weren't being replaced in timers / triggers correctly. Instead, the program would not call out extracts in your text to speech, put the text in the overlay window, etc.

This is actually a major feature of Chronos and was part of the design plan from the very beginning. This feature was tried and tested, so I have no idea how that bug crept in the code.

Anyway, it's fixed. Extracts should work correctly.

Larks.

Thursday, 30 June 2011

Downloads Are Back Up!

Hey guys!

There was some downtime today (most of the day actually). Sorry about that!

Suggestions and comments are still welcome, so feel free to shoot them over at chronosdevelopment@gmail.com or leave a comment on the blog!

If I can't implement the changes into the current version, they'll likely end up in the next major version of the software :).

Thanks!

Larks.

EDIT: I've made a new "comments" section on the blog. If you're a Chronos veteran or even if you're new to Chronos, I'd love to hear your feedback, comments, first impressions etc on the software!

Sunday, 5 June 2011

The Chronos File Structure

Hey all!

I've recently been asked where Chronos settings are stored. In response to this, I'm going to give a full overview of the Chronos file structure and where your Chronos data is stored.

Upon running the Chronos executable, Chronos will automatically create two folders in the same directory as the exe. I'm going to use the server version as the example, but keep in mind that the client version stores data in a very (in fact, many of the filenames are the same) similar way and you should be able to figure it all out from the information below.

After running Chronos for the first time, you should have a folder that looks like this:

Chronos (Server).exe
Chronos Updater.exe
[Folder] ChronosData
[Folder] ChronosServer


The ChronosData folder stores misc data that can be used by both the client and server versions of the software. For example, you'll find your icons folder here. If you run the server version, you'll also find the web folder here, which is used to store the files related to generating the Chronos report webpage for your website. If you look in these folders, they're fairly self explanatory.

The majority of data relating to Chronos is stored in the ChronosServer or ChronosClient folder, depending on the version you're using. Upon opening the ChronosServer folder, you'll find the following files:

users.chronos
ttsdictionary.chonos
perlist.chronos
logfiles.chronos
earningsandevents.chronos
comlist.chronos
basicsettings.chronos
attendanceandpointssettings.chronos
advancedsettings.chronos
tts.wav (this file may or may not exist)
chronosconnectiontest.txt (this file may or may not exist)
[Folder] OverlayThemes
[Folder] Logs


The Client version will have similar files, although it will be missing some, as it does not need to store the same data as the server version.

Here's a description of what data is stored in all of these files:

users.chronos
This file contains data about your users that you have set up on your server version. It's basic information like username, password, etc.

ttsdictionary.chronos
This file contains data about your text to speech pronunciation definitions, known as the text to speech dictionary. It's a simple list of line by line definitions.

perlist.chronos
This file contains data about your personal events that you have set up in Chronos.

logfiles.chronos
This file contains data about your logfiles that you have set Chronos up to read.

earningsandevents.chronos
This file contains settings and information regarding guild event information you have specified in Chronos (for example, how many events your guild has ran for DKP / attendance purposes)

comlist.chronos
This file contains data about your community or "global" events that you have set up in Chronos.

basicsettings.chronos
This file contains all data regarding any settings in the "basic" panel of your Chronos settings.

attendanceandpointssettings.chronos
This file contains data regarding your attendance, points (or DKP) etc that you have specified in Chronos.

advancedsettings.chronos
This file contains data regarding any settings in the "advanced" panel of your Chronos settings.

tts.wav
This is the file generated by Chronos when text to speech occurs. Instead of using text to speech directly, Chronos generates outputs the speech to this wav file which is then handled by a SoundPlayer object in Chronos. The reason I used this method is that it's generally more compatible with different sound devices.

chronosconnectiontest.txt
Chronos generates this file when you test a connection with an FTP server (for use with the Chronos report page). Chronos uploads this file to your FTP server and then deletes it from the server in order to test the connection. If it is successful and doesn't encounter any exceptions, it deems the connection test a success and reports that back to the user.

[Folder] OverlayThemes
This folder contains any Chronos themes you have installed.

[Folder] Logs
This folder contains any logs Chronos has generated. These logs are for your use and possibly debugging use if I request them. Chronos does not log information and then send it back to me, Chronos is not designed to call home.

If you open up the ChronosThemes folder, you'll find at least the following files:

1.chronosoverlay
currenttheme.chronos

Here is a description of what these files are:

1.chronosoverlay
This file is a theme file. If you copy this file to somewhere else, give it a name like mytheme.chronosoverlay and open it in Notepad or something similar, you can even make your own themes. Any custom themes that you make or download (from the Chronos downloads page) can be installed via the theme panel in your basic settings.

currenttheme.chronos
This file contains information about your current theme.

Overall, Chronos mostly stores data that you, as the user, define. The data is stored in a text based format that can even be opened and edited in text editor software like Windows Notepad. Feel free to open these files up and take a look inside. You can even pass these files around to friends. Have you made a really good personal timer list for a particular class in your MMO? You can give that to other players if you like!

I'd be very careful about editing these files manually, as you may cause inconsistencies that could cause Chronos to crash. I'd also inspect any files you receive from other people before using them. If you're unsure, you're welcome to check with me at the development Email address ( chronosdevelopment@gmail.com ).

Side note: If any of your Chronos files ever go missing, Chronos generates new ones in the same manner as it does when you first run the program.

I hope this will help improve understanding of Chronos and the file structure it uses.

Thanks!

Larks.

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Chronos Rewrite Features

Planning for the next version continues!

There's still time to suggest any major or minor features that people would like to see in Chronos.

Things I currently plan to implement:
- Customizable loot, levels, achievements and other things being tracked and displayed on your website
- Multiple timer windows with a way to filter timers between different windows
- More program and overlay customization options
- "Modification", a new event type. This will modify timer lengths of all or specific timers when fired
- A "dedicated" server version. Users will now interact with their server through their clients. This means that your server could be ran on a dedicated machine without direct user interaction, instead of relying on your raid leader to run it on their "special server" version of the regular software. Still easy to use!
- User levels. More than one person can change global evens, manage DKP and attendance, etc.

Things I may implement:
- "Buff" windows. Dedicated buff style overlays to show your buffs. This may not be required with multiple overlays and overlay theming, as you could make them look how you like!



There'll probably be a lot more by the time solid coding begins. I've had some great suggestions and comments lately, so keep them coming! :)


Chronos thread on the Official Rift Forums.
Chronos thread on EQ2 Flames.

Thanks,

Larks.