I know it has been a while since the last update to ATTAC. The reason is that we have been completely rewritting ATTAC in C and it has taken us about 6 months. The new version will be much faster, much smaller and much better.
We decided to rewrite ATTAC since it was originally written in Visual Basic. VB is a slow language and does not have the flexiblity of a language like C.
Our timeline for release is as follows. We hope to release a public beta in 3 weeks, probably the 27th of May.
Here are the improvements you can expect to see:
1. no more CIM processing. it processes as it downloads.
2. much faster processing on show pair ports/ evil pairs. - it runs instantly.
3. much faster import/export of TWX. it runs instantly.
4. much smaller zip file to download. currently, we are at 1.9MB.
5. a brand new mapper that doesnt display sectors twice.
6. a new fig calc with a graph to help you see how fig/shield prices fluctate with the month.
7. no more access database or data corruption. all the data is stored in binary.
8. better parsing. grabs data is you move.
9. updates info bar much better.
10. it is just faster

There are more improvements and i will list them all when we release the beta. stay tuned as it will be out in 3 weeks.
The ATTAC Dev Team
-earth & Peanut

>7. no more access database or data corruption. all the data is stored in binary.

Any chance of some sort of export to an access db? The ability to write my own queries on the CIM in the access db is (currently) the only reason I use Attac [of course add nearest fig scan and some fast (but less safe) versions of scripts and I'll have some more reasons...]

Whilst I'm here... can't remember if I've already asked this.... the only reason I still mainly use Zoc rather than Attac running Zoc scripts is the lack of f-key assignments in Attac (either to send text or run a script) [Having F8 mapped to AY10000^M is worth is worth having to swap over to Attac before I run a CIM every time...]

Cheers,

Dr. Bad

Actually, no. I don't think you'll be able to export to Access after we're done. However, it still has the export to TWX, and you can write scripts that'll do that same thing as an Access query.

On a side note, I'm planning on working on a closest fig script today. 1 down.

AND, you can do macros in ATTAC already. It'd be Shift-F8, but you could write a script such as the following...

call ZocSend("AY10000^M")

This one-liner will do the exact same thing. Depending on how things go, we may attach macros to any variation of the F-keys. You could then do the F8 to the script Attack_Quick.zrx (above one-liner) and be set. Until then, use Shift-F8.

-Peanut

If there is a very large demand... we can always put out a utility to convert a TWX file to an access database. shouldnt take too long but it is something we can talk about after v4 comes out. If you post to the forum what types of queries you run... maybe we can include them directly into v4. Somethings i hope to add are show all anomolies and show ports not updated in CIM
earth.

Peanut/Earth... this is a reply to both messages...

>However, it still has the export to TWX, and you can
>write scripts that'll do that same thing as an Access
>query.

Yeh u can write the script, but queries are much simpler for anything that is "give me a list of sectors that <criteria>"... this is exactly the reason I prefer Attac to Zoc in this situation.

Whilst it exports to TWX, TWX is a yukky binary format. Sure its smaller, but try importing TWX into anything with 5 minutes programming.

Actually, if you could also export the equivalent of the old "WarpUniverse" and "Ports" tables to fixed width or csv text files that'd make it pretty easy to import into access/excel/whatever.

>On a side note, I'm planning on working on a closest
>fig script today. 1 down.

cool!

>AND, you can do macros in ATTAC already. It'd be
>Shift-F8, but you could write a script such as the
>following...

How do I set these up? I can't find any menu options where I'd do this.

>If you post to the forum what types of queries you
>run... maybe we can include them directly into v4.
>Somethings i hope to add are show all anomolies and
>show ports not updated in CIM

I have over 30... Here are the simplest ones to describe... blocked ports. Ports with maximum capacity above 30k; unblocked ports with current available capacity over 30k; sectors that have become blocked or changed capacity since the last CIM (usually one I ran a minute ago...) Nearest fuel, SDF pairs (two neighbouring xxB's without more than <x> warps out between them [otherwise I spend all my turns surrounding with figs...] One way warp list, Unexplored dead ends; blind warps <x> away... All of the above, but also showing the sector Note (so I can sort by it- usually my sector notes say things like "corp 1 bubble" or "corp 12 Ptrade area")... the list goes on...

Anyhow I think you get the drift of how handy I find it to have the sector data in a relational database. Its a 5 minute job to write these suckers as I go in a rdb. In any scripting language I've seen its more like an hour or so [& way more for some of the trickier ones]

Cheers,

Dr. Bad

Hey, why dont you send me your database with all the queries and i will see what we can add. I was thinking of a show me stuff page that allowed you to just see a bunch of stuff like what you are mentioning.

We will write a few of these 'queries' in rexx when we release v4 and you can see how easy it is to do them and maybe you will change over. attac v4 takes no extra time to process or run queries so the new way will be much faster.

we can do the export to a CSV file. do you want 2 seperate files? or just dump it all in one?

To use the macros.. go to attac -> macros and you add a new one. you select a REXX file and associate a function key with it. i think you need version 3.1.1 to see that functionality. It is great for a quick attack. install in a new dir so you dont overwrite your old version if you still want to run your old version.

I like the sector note thing. we can try and get that done for v4. we will see if that happens or not.
earth.

>Hey, why dont you send me your database with all the
>queries and i will see what we can add. I was
>thinking of a show me stuff page that allowed you to
>just see a bunch of stuff like what you are
>mentioning.

Sent. Lemme know if hotmail doesn't like the size of the attachment...

>We will write a few of these 'queries' in rexx when
>we release v4 and you can see how easy it is to do
>them and maybe you will change over. attac v4 takes
>no extra time to process or run queries so the new
>way will be much faster.

I remain skeptical about rexx being more convenient for queries... Though I'll be damn happy if I turn out to be wrong!

>we can do the export to a CSV file. do you want 2
>seperate files? or just dump it all in one?

2 files is easier.

>To use the macros.. go to attac -> macros and [...]
> think you need version 3.1.1 to see that

Ah. I never bothered downloading 3.1.1 as I thought it was only fixing some ppls install problems.

Cheers,

Dr. Bad

Bruce:

Perhaps one of the enhancments I'll make to the REXX language is a scriptable query similar to SQL.

It'd be very restricted, but it may work out nice... AND, don't expect this to be in v4. Maybe v4.1 and up. Still much to do...

-Peanut

i.e.

sector_number = 555 /* pick a number, any number */

/* Prepare statement */
query = ATTAC_Query_Prepare("select s.info, s.warp_cnt from Sector s where s.ID = " || sector_number)

IF query = -1 THEN DO
call ZocMsgBox("Error in statement!")
exit
END

/* total_records should be 1, but... */
total_records = ATTAC_Query_Record_Count(query)
DO record = 1 to total_records
info = ATTAC_Query_Get_Col_Data(query, 1)
warp_cnt = ATTAC_Query_Get_Col_Data(query, 2)
END

Sounds cool!