Feedback on Project

I have been working on for a few days now a project of mine that will allow me to test out query strings without having to keep typing in and changing the wording it just a few clicks here and there.  I was just wondering if this might help others out there as it will display the Data string it used for use if you want later on and will show the Raw data and soon formatted data this is kind of a tool I made to help me parse the data and toss it into a Database.

 

That sounds cool.  

On my whiteboard, I have a mockup of a query builder tool - a web page with drop-down menus and fields that would allow you to construct a query to the API.  Once you have the query, you could then copy the query and use it in your application.

I'm not really sure how long it will take me to get something like this done.  I'd be very happy to refer this to someone else.

-dan

 

Well let me get little bit more into it and see about posting some pictures tonight/tomorrow (This is written in .net and gives full breakdown of the query and brings back the data for you)

 

Sounds great.

-dan

 

I'm a Ruby on Rails hacker.  I suspect I could throw this together in a few days at most.

 

Hey Dan, are we allowed to post links to programs on this board? I am going to later release a first build of my application later today (when my son goes to sleep)

let me know thank you.

 

The "Developers" sub-forum here is only accessible to people who are acknowledged developers using the REST API (meaning we were specifically given access by Dan or another SOE mod), so it should be fine, especially if you are looking for feedback from other developers.

 

Proopai...please do post the link.  Lantis is correct in that this forum is intended for sharing and feedback within a smaller community of developers.

When you post the link, you should be clear about how you would like others to treat it.  It is unlikely you'll be able to keep it completely quiet or confidential, but you can let people know if you want lots of folks to check it out.  If you want, I can also put it on the Example Sites topic.

One thing I should also mention is that it is very likely that many of you are working on similar features or applications.  Please do not feel that you are in competition.  I am a big believer that transparency and peer-review makes great products.  If some of you are working on the exact same thing, consider joining forces to make your sites and/or apps that much better.

-dan

 

Sorry about not posting this over the weekend Son and wife were sick but this is the program as of this weekend.

I still have more to put into it.  Off the top I am looking to put into the options a service area that will allow you to put your service account id in there to get errors back if you wanted.  Right now it lets you click check boxes and then put into the field or click the button and click on boxes to do things.  I need to add a section for wild card searches.  If you can think of anything else to put into it let me know.  Also the Server ID will pull servers from eq2 status page.

The Query string is loaded into the Status Menu and will have a button to copy it over to the clip board and the Menu file allows you to select you want XML/JSON if there is other formats let me know to allow it to pull that information.

*Sorry it is a big picture*  And I will release this soon as I finish the items that are posted up top.

<img src="http://www.eq2dm.com/querytool/main.png" width="1213" height="794" />

 

Well here you go this is the current working version the buttons on a few of the options which are show, hide, sort, and has will not work till I can get more time to get all the options here.  If you know the options please let me know I will get them placed in.

Also I am working on a way to Visualize the Data as it is pulled off the server and even see about dumping it into a SQL File/Server if you wanted or save the XML Files local to view so it can cache the data.

Let me know what you think - Download here

Please hold off on giving this out others till this is completed and I have enabled the cache so that we don't get a lot of people hitting the server.

 

Proopai...don't take my lack of a response to mean that I'm not happy about you getting this working.  I'm sure this is going to be very useful!

I did try to install it and got an error in the setup.exe file - it says that it is "missing required files".  I was trying this on a Windows 7 64bit machine.

-dan

 

Let me look into that I Dont know why it would do that.

*Edit* Fixed the issue I think try redownloading it and installing it again.

Final version I will try to make it a web install to make it more simple for people.  If you dont have the required items it will also prompt you to install them now too.

 

Cool.  I'll check it out in the morning.  No Windows machines at home.  

-dan

 

Next project after the windows application will be a Mac Application (I actually run EQ2 on my Mac)

 

Proopai...

Sorry for the delay, but I just tried it again and it did work.  However, you may want to update the default installation path.  For me, it was...

Crogram Files (x86)Default Company NameSetup

Unless that *is* your "company" name.

Since the tool does not appear to be usable for server status, I would remove the "Server" entry.  If you want, you could add "Status" to the "Type of Search", but then grey out everything else but "Server".  I think the server status queries are simple enough to leave them out of this tool.

You can now add "all" to the "Resolve" field as it is now a valid value (similar to the "Attachments").

You may want to add a field to insert a service ID into the query you are building.

This is a personal preference, but I would rather have the query options be on the left side of the screen (instead of the right).  That allows the UI to flow more naturally (for me as an English speaker) from left to right.

I think this is a valuable tool for experimenting with the API.  Thanks for building it!

-dan

 

LOL love the Default Company Name, I will have to change that nope its not my company name.

As for the other things you stated I have actually changed a few things around.  I am using tabs now not drop down so each table will have its own options to allow the use of tools only for that type of search and not others.

The whole Menu on the right only reason I did that was because how I setup my screens and computer it made it easyer for me but now I have it do the tool menu can be moved to the left or the right.

I am adding the All to the resolve field as soon as I am done with this here.

service ID is been added to be saved to be attached to ALL query's so you dont have to put it in each time.  Also on top of that I am working on a INI file to save all the settings and past searches for you so you can recall them when needed.

 

Any chance you can just drop the setup program and let us download the executable? Also I'd love to see many more options on the right side with a more in-depth usage the query structure. Great tool with lots of potential.

 

yeah but you need to make sure you use the .net 4.0 Framework on your computer.

I hope to have the new version up and running by Friday.  Let me know if there is anything else that should be added one feature I did for my self I don't know if anyone else would want is a way to save the XML File that you are looking at onto your computer.  And even a parsing tool to allow you to insert it into SQL now this was for me but if others wanted to use it i could make that available too within it.  but all the changes at top will be available with the next update.

 

Ok I am almost ready to post a update Is there anything else that I should add to this anything else people want? Because I am thinking of releasing it to others who might just start learning to use the data feed but not a dev on here.  Let me know also would it be helpful for a link to a site with some info on it rather than just a link to a file to download?

 

If you integrate a service ID into the calls made from the tool, we would be able to tell how often it is being used.

I'm working on getting better analytics from requests to the API so that we can understand better how it is being used.  I'm planning on sharing my results with the community.

I am not going to be sharing usage specifics publicly.  I'm working on a way to share serviceID-specific stuff directly however.

-dan