Pertelian.com

by **mrasmus** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:10 am

I realize that this topic has been brought up before, and I've seen some people talk about Blizzard's decision to disallow outside programs access to game data. However, I can see other applications for the Pertelian that are WoW relevant -- for instance, a Thottbot/Allakhazam lookup system. This is actually something I'm interested in developing myself, but I'm still fairly new to pretty much anything .NET so it may take some time for me to develop.

For those of you who don't know, Thottbot/Allakhazam are sites that have massive amounts of World of Warcraft information -- they are basically lookup sites that have valuable information about quests, items and monsters. My idea is that the user could press a hotkey, the Pertelian takes keyboard priority and the user inputs a search query. The program than looks up the query in Allakhazam's database and parses the returned web page and displays a list of results for the user. The user chooses the result through hotkeys, and can display any number of things for that result. For instance, the user selects a quest and it displays basic info about the quest (level, location etc.) and they can navigate the display (all still with hotkeys) to find the specific info they want (even read comments from the web site to find stuff like "mob found at location (xx,xx)" which isn't in the default information included on the site.

I'm going to be making this for myself, and I was just wondering if there was any interest in such a plugin within the Pertelian community. A couple of my guildies liked the idea, and said they'd be interested in purchasing a Pertelian only for this purpose (we play a lot of alts, so we're constantly doing low-level quests that we forget the info about and just want to blast through).

Was just polling for interest.

EDIT: BETA 1 no longer works, working on a new BETA.

by **viperlairMike** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:26 pm

I'd be interested in something like that

by **mrasmus** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:30 pm

Good to hear. The first version will be a Beta release that should work with Allakhazam's database, and will allow lookup of, well, pretty much anything you'd find using their search button. I'm hoping to do comments in this version, but no promises. Their will also not be "Previously Viewed Pages" (one of the features I could see being incredibly useful, but right now likely is impractical if I want to get this thing out the door). However, the basic functionality will be there, and I plan on building it out once I get a simple version out the door.

My main holdup is I still don't understand Text input to the display... I need this for my search feature. Once I figure that out it should be a matter of a couple days for me to finish the Beta, maybe less. I'm trying to work around it right now.

Aside from Thottbot support, a "History" of viewed items, maybe a similar "Favorites" system, and Comments support, what else would you look for in such an application? I just want to get ideas on how I'll be able to improve it later, thanks for any input.

by **Alex** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:52 am

I can see this as being quite a major plug-in, major major. Try to get it in before Feburary 1st so it will be considered as part of the Pertelian Development Contest.
Email Vicken about your particular question regarding text input.

by **mrasmus** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:54 am

Alex wrote:I can see this as being quite a major plug-in, major major. Try to get it in before Feburary 1st so it will be considered as part of the Pertelian Development Contest.
Email Vicken about your particular question regarding text input.

Should definitely be in by then, maybe with a few of the features I was talking about. That'd be awesome. I will definitely e-mail Vicken with my question too, hadn't really thought of that, thanks.

by **mrasmus** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 8:22 am

I'm thinking of expanding this project into basically a "Pertelian Search" Plugin. I was thinking about it as a submission to the Development contest, and I thought "Well, it's a limited audience kind of application... Nobody needs it much if they don't play WoW". Then I thought "Maybe I should change priorities -- do something that would be more useful to more people... Google's popular, I could make a Google search plugin..."

Then I came to the realization that "Hey, why not do both?"

So I've decided to rename the project "PertSearch with WoW Support".

This new version should have all the functionality that you would want from the WoW plugin (search Allakhazam, ThottBot for Items, Mobs, Quests, etc) but will also be able to search other online resources and parse and display their data. My initial goal is Google and Allakhazam support, with growth to Thottbot, Ask, Yahoo!, M-W.com, and anywhere else the community asks for.

The reason I do this isn't only because of the contest -- I think that a general Search tool would be useful, and it's very similar in what needs to be coded (the backbone is still going to be the same). I will support Google and Allakhazam first, then I will add Past and Favorite Search features shortly after (save information about previous searches, etc.), then I will decide what else needs developing. I hope y'all like the (in my opinion) improvement to the application. Tell me what you think!

--mrasmus

by **viperlairMike** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:08 pm

Definitely an improvement, I look forward to seeing it in action.

by **mrasmus** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 8:28 pm

viperlairMike wrote:Definitely an improvement, I look forward to seeing it in action.

Cool, good to hear. I figured out a (very rough) way to take input, and so I should have an alpha release ready soon (for anyone who feels like testing it, it won't be very practical on it's own).

by **mrasmus** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 1:08 pm

So I've been working at this... I've completed the parsing methods for Allakhazam's Quest Searching, and developed the results system enough that I can give you a small taste of what's coming. So I made this GIF to show me scrolling through the results of a search (quest search for the term "doom", hehehe). This is just a looping animation, normally you scroll top to bottom using the S and W shortcuts. It actually turned out pretty well...

It should be noted that this is the "preview" of the results... when you select one (depending on the engine you search) you can also get what I call a "fulltext", which is a more complete, full description with pretty much everything from the database in there (hopefully including top 10 comments, so you can read coordinates, etc). I'm treating AllaSearch as my top priority, then I'll work on Google, etc.

And no, I'm not releasing what I have. This is actually pretty much it, anyway -- the search term is even hard-wired into the code. However, this should give you a taste of what's to come.

by **mrasmus** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:28 am

I just got full search functionality working, so I can go from selecting an engine (one choice) to displaying results in the format above. I had to re-work the menu system I had from earlier, so it took a while, but now I'm gonna just have to format the details page (including parsing source pages) and I'll have something worth releasing.

After I get the main features working (full search with details and forwards, as well as history and maybe favorites) I'm going to develop the google aspect of the application. But, as I've said before, WoW was the original purpose of this plugin, so it gets priority.

Any suggestions/questions?

by **Sarmalidu** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 4:19 am

This is a cool concept so I thought I would drop my 2 cents.

1) The google idea is cool but doesn't seem very practical to me - The reason I say this is that if you are looking for a website, you will have your browser open anyways. A full window is a lot easier to deal with than the pertelian screen. I think something like answers.com or a dictionary lookup would be more practical as the screen is sufficient to give you the info you want in a readable format (i.e. a definition or two). Encyclopedia / dictionary functionality seems like a great plug-in (in addition to thott/Alla).

2) A cool in-wow search function would also be something that could open and use a lootlink or similar item database. This may be easier than the thott/alla sites that have all sorts of extra information that may be difficult to deal with accurately/appropriately. Maybe not, but it's something to think about

by **mrasmus** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 4:55 am

Yeah, google was just a simple idea. It won't be particularly tricky to do, so I thought I'd throw it in there. M-W was always part of my plan (since I changed to PertSearch rather than just a WoW app), so don't worry -- it's coming shortly after Google. As for your lootlink idea, I like it... I'll look into it as a possibility, but I find that Alla has things like Coordinates in the comments that I find really useful (and is good for Quests, Mobs AND Items). I'm not sure how Lootlink gets format saved data... does anyone know? Any users of such plugins out there? I used to use lootlink before I stopped WoW play for a while... is it still the best?

Thanks for the idea.

EDIT: Actually, really, Lootlink support doesn't seem all that useful (on second thought). It already has search features within the game -- the nice thing about PertSearch is you don't have to remove yourself from play to use it. I might still look into it if there's interest, but the main advantage to using PerSearch is kind of not there for LootLink support.

by **viperlairMike** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:21 pm

I use Ala a LOT while me and my wife play, especially when playing on our alts doing quests. Other than displaying a list of results what else is currently working? I can see myself using this a lot of it turns out the way you described...being able to see comments would be a HUGE benefit since that is normally where I find the info I'm looking for.

dictionary.com would be excellent as well

by **mrasmus** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:14 pm

At the moment, I'm just getting the menu system/selection down... soon I'll be working on the "details" pages, which display full results (and end up being vastly different depending on what "engine" I'm using, like quests, items, etc). I plan to get AllaQuest working first, then the rest of the Allakhazam featureset. Comments are definitely part of my goal for AllaQuest especially, and I also hope that I can "link" quests, so that if a quest has related quests linked to on the Alla page, you'll be able to navigate from one to the other without having to try to figure it out through search results.

I'll think about dictionary.com -- I've always used m-w.com, but if dictionary.com is your preference I might be able to add support -- once I get the system going it really shouldn't be too hard at all to add more engines.

Any other requests for features are welcome (not that I don't have enough to work on already, but I'm always looking for good ideas.)

--mrasmus

by **mrasmus** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 12:32 am

Update:

Quick update, the reason I haven't been making much headway was that a recent change in Allakhazam's code threw me way off... I figured it out now, and I'll be doing a push on it this weekend to get a working, distributable version out to the public. Sorry about the delay (and lack of activity) but some of the newer Allakhazam features will actually make my job easier on a few levels -- and that means I get to push the savings on to you! Or rather, then decreased dev time. Or something like that.

Long story short, WoW AllaQuest and Item search will be done by Sunday night (if nothing comes up), and the end of the month will signify the release of a version that's not WoW exclusive.

--mrasmus

by **Nomad** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:58 pm

I'm thinking of getting this device, and what you accomplish with this has a large bearing on whether or not I pick one up.

Can you tell me what sorts of WoW support you're trying to bring to the device?

Would I be able to hit a button, type in an item name, and it would display information on the item pulled from the Allakazam and thotbott? I think this is what you said you were aiming at, but I wanted to make sure. Plus what types of item info or quest info were you hoping to display?

by **sdf** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 11:28 pm

This feature would be great. I had been thinking about writing something similar for WoW but what you're working on seems to be exactly what I need. Are you planning to release the source?

In case you didn't know, there's a standard dictionary protocol (http://www.dict.org/links.html) and a number of open source applications that make use of it. It would probably be a lot easier to parse than HTTP data (you could probably even just insert prewritten code into your program and simply handle the input/output for Pertelian).

by **mrasmus** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 7:53 am

Nomad -- my end product (on it's way, I promise!) will have separate "engines" to work with -- the first screen you see is a list of said engines. This will include (at first) AllaQuest, AllaItem, AllaMob, and probably Google (thus making it more than just WoW... not my top priority, but I want to see some support there at least). Selecting these will bring a prompt screen where you can type in your search term. Pressing enter from here will display the results in a "summary" format, where you scroll through one at a time (this way you can differentiate from similar quests by their level). The summary page will basically have what's on the search page -- you can see my above image for reference (it's old relative to what's on Alla now for the same search).

Clicking on that gives you a scrollable interface for all the info I can fit in on the quest/item/mob. This will (hopefully) include a list of comments that you can select to read... but maybe not in the first version. Selecting the title of the details page will open a browser with that item in it... maybe. I'm still waiting to decide on that, 'cause if you double-select at the results screen you might launch a browser window, which is less than optimal. So I haven't yet decided on that.

All the basic info for items should be supported right off the bat, with comments and extended info coming maybe in the second version (if it's not in release 1).

Since I want to submit this for the design competition, I should have a build ready by the end of this weekend. Hopefully it'll be good

.

--mrasmus

by **mrasmus** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 6:04 am

Beta 1 is OUT! BAM!

Yeah, check the top post for the link, it's not completely featureful but for now a fair amount of functionality is certainly there. Tell me what you think!

by **Minotaur** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:11 pm

The top link gives a file not found error. Cant wait to try out the plugin!

by **Tweakfiend** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 10:55 pm

As per Minotaurs comments
Where is the file ??

by **Alex** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 6:47 am

mrasmus? Where did you go?

by **Clete2** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:55 pm

Sounds like a great plugin. Can someone e-mail me the file he had up? I'd love to try it out. other@onmapsclete2.com (remove nospam (backwards)).

by **Alex** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:07 pm

We haven't heard from mrasmus for a while. I don't know if any of us have a copy of this plug-in.

by **Kaota** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:53 pm

The file is in a link in the last sentence of the first post, as far as I can tell.

by **Tweakfiend** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:46 pm

Never worked as far as I know.

by **Alex** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 8:51 pm

With mrasmus back, I'm chopping on the bit to see this feature get off the ground!

by **mrasmus** » Sat May 05, 2007 12:06 am

I should probably update you guys on the current situation.

I mistyped the filename when I put it up here, which is unfortunate. However, I'm just taking the link down because that version seems to have stopped working anyway (I think Allakhazam, who I get the data from in this version, altered the code layout of their site... it happens sometimes, and I'm gonna look for a better way to extract the data I need.) But yeah, I'm hard at work getting a new version up and running, and I think I'm gonna get some time to work on it this weekend. I'm not gonna make any promises (I don't know how bad the problem is), but a fairly conservative estimate is at the end of next weekend (around the 14th or so). Now then, back to work for me!

by **mrasmus** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:29 am

Ok, coming back to undocumented code is not fun.

I only have myself to blame, but still.... DX

So basically, I've starting over. Now that my courses are all finished and I'm home, I can dedicate some time to it. I have written my menu system (check out the Dev Forums for that), and have plans for how I'm gonna implement the rest of the design.

I'm off on a trip tomorrow, and I'll have spotty (at best) internet for the next week, but I'll have my laptop and I hope to get some coding done while I'm on the road. I may or may not be able to log on here and check in, and I may or may not be able to test my online code while on the road, but when I get back (Saturday night) I will try to check in, and hopefully I'll have something to show you guys.

Again, sorry for all the delays.

--M Rasmus

EDIT: Also thinking of adding WoWHead, as I hear that's popular these days. What do you guys think?

by **Nebula_Octon** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:26 am

I am really looking forward to this. I use Alakhazam all the time. I also take the time to learn all the areas in the game as I take my different alts from 0-70. I started storing waypoints on the map ion wow by searching the locations as I needed them. Your Pertsearch would make it much easier to get the info.

And once you have the shell made I think adapting it for someting like Wikipedia would be useful. There are plenty of information sites that you could design modules for and which ever one people needed they could just load that module.

But that would probably take to long to develop. I look forward to testing this for you

Pertelian.com

PertSearch w/WoW, BETA 1 Reloaded Coming Soon!

PertSearch w/WoW, BETA 1 Reloaded Coming Soon!

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