[1.12.x] Kerbal Alarm Clock v3.13.0.0 (April 10)

[TriggerAu]

Bug (?) report, possibly reported earlier.

A weird bug has been haunting me where entering/exiting a pod would freeze the game for about 10 seconds. Last night I finally narrowed the suspect list down to this mod. It seems that whenever the mod checks for updates online while I don't have an internet connection, it does this. I disabled auto-check in the CFG, set the last successful check date to today, still freezes.

Well thats not good, if thats turned off it shouldnt contact anything. Can you:

• Check the settings->about tab and make sure that the cfg file edit has stuck - you can see the check version daily item in the screen shot here - https://sites.google.com/site/kerbalalarmclock/settings
  
• Search the log file for KerbalAlarmClock and "version check", whenever the plugin starts and the version check code comes up it logs whether it is checking or not based on date, etc, so once a day mine logs "Starting Version Check-stored date is not today" and every other check for that day is "Skipping version check". If that check box is off you should see no entries with "version check" in them
  

You could also pastebin your log, I'd be happy to look through it as well

[Superfluous J]

This may sound like an odd request but could we get "days" added to the "time before" alarm, at least for raw time and planetary window alarms? I like to do 2 burns to go to other planets, one burn to raise my apoapsis above minmus and one (on the next orbit) to actually eject. I can (and right now I do) just set a raw time alarm for the 9 days before the other alarm, but that seems clunky and I'd love to just say "alert me 9 days before this transfer window alarm."

[TriggerAu]

This may sound like an odd request but could we get "days" added to the "time before" alarm, at least for raw time and planetary window alarms? I like to do 2 burns to go to other planets, one burn to raise my apoapsis above minmus and one (on the next orbit) to actually eject. I can (and right now I do) just set a raw time alarm for the 9 days before the other alarm, but that seems clunky and I'd love to just say "alert me 9 days before this transfer window alarm."

I should be able to easily adjust the margin routine to add days in front without too much issue - If you can confirm thats what you mean it would be great.

For timing, I've finished my plugin framework and I'm recoding KSP ARP at the moment, and then I'll come back to KAC.

[Superfluous J]

I should be able to easily adjust the margin routine to add days in front without too much issue - If you can confirm thats what you mean it would be great.

Essentially yes. Though I went back to look and I was actually wrong, there currently is no margin for raw time alarms. It seems redundant but it'd still be nice.

Here's what the xfer window looks like now:

Here's what I'm thinking (only not so ugly ):

And here's what I was thinking for raw time:

[TriggerAu]

5thHorseman said:

Essentially yes. Though I went back to look and I was actually wrong, there currently is no margin for raw time alarms. It seems redundant but it'd still be nice.

I dont know about that, I've seen much uglier screens than those

Understood and added it to the list of items to look at. In the mean time, in case you weren't aware, you can put large numbers in the hours box to get big margins - ie standard stuff like 72 hours gives a three day margin - the maths just adds em all up

[Superfluous J]

Understood and added it to the list of items to look at. In the mean time, in case you weren't aware, you can put large numbers in the hours box to get big margins - ie standard stuff like 72 hours gives a three day margin - the maths just adds em all up

I knew that. Of course I did. I tried it immediately because I'm smart and think of things like this all on my own without anybody telling me*.

*All of those sentences are bald-faced lies. That will assuredly work for most of my purposes! Thanks!

[KerbMav]

I would like the popup for transfer window alarms to stay open and not reset, so I can add multiple transfer alarms without clicking more often than would be necessary now - there is something in my head telling me, I could use KAC to find gravity assist opportunities by looking at transfer windows to one planet and looking for another window coming up in a number of days mostly equal to my travel time to the first.

[GavinZac]

I would like the popup for transfer window alarms to stay open and not reset, so I can add multiple transfer alarms without clicking more often than would be necessary now - there is something in my head telling me, I could use KAC to find gravity assist opportunities by looking at transfer windows to one planet and looking for another window coming up in a number of days mostly equal to my travel time to the first.

Similarly, I'd like it to be able to look ahead of the next transfer, and schedule 2 or 3 Eve transfer windows at the same time, for example. I like to 'prepare' for manned interplanetary missions, for example by probe-ing the lander and return vehicles there ahead of the actual kerbonauts, to minimise risk, launch size and time spent in space for each Kerbal (I'm not playing with Life Support at the moment as neither mod is currently in a suitable state, but I like to play as if it matter anyway.)

Also, a calendar view would be awesome. Obviously the months don't have names (months are never really used in the game) but being able to see the launch dates in the familiar format would be very pleasing. And using things like raw time alarms we could 'mark' special dates, e.g. the launch date of a particular mission, the date of the first moon landing, etc.

[KerbMav]

Maybe in cooperation with this mod?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/68270-0-23-Kerbin-Date-Calendar

[TriggerAu]

looking ahead for multiple windows is a good idea, and i like the calendar idea too. I'll note em down for when I get back to this plugin - I'm about 75% through fixing the alternate resource panel, then on to this

[Tsevion]

So... I'm a longtime coder, but new to KSP modding, and I've been playing around with your source code (Good stuff, well organized), and working on a feature: Instantly warping to the next alarm time (Also works at the tracking station). I've got it working, with some obvious caveats... it's similar to warping when not focused to the craft at 100000x... so it just adjusts positions in orbit, it will not properly do SOI transitions at all, ignores atmosphere, can warp through planets, etc...

Given these caveats though, as long as you set alarms for SOI transitions, you can jump ahead an arbitrarily long time... great when waiting for that perfect Eeloo launch window in 3 years, or waiting for your craft to get to Eeloo in 5 years, etc...

I've got it set up to either jump to specific alarms or jump to the next alarm. I was wondering if you'd like a patch to add it to your mod, or if not (perhaps you feel it's too cheaty? Too many caveats? Don't like to incorporate other people's code?) I can go make my own mod (possibly that integrates with KAC if it's present)... but it seems like overkill for its own mod, and works well with KAC.

From a tech side, it can actually jump back in time just as easily, although that's much cheatier, as jumping forward doesn't really let you do anything that you couldn't do by setting speed to 100000x and wandering away for 5 minutes, but jumping backwards lets you do reverse intercepts or weird zig-zag paths...

Looking forward to hearing back from you, and once again thanks for writing nice code, it's made picking up modding much easier.

[ANWRocketMan]

Is there any way I can modify the plugin to calculate transfer angles in Real Solar System?

[TriggerAu]

@Tsevion - just read your PM as well, Sounds like a good idea, just a matter of time and execution - and picking teh right method too

@ANWRocketMan - Looking at RSS is on my list of things to do. To my knowledge the Formula version is just doing basic orbit to orbit maths so it should work, but I have absolutely no knowledge of RSS so I'm just guessing

In general - I am really trying to focus on finishing the ARP mod so I am recording all these things in the Codeplex for when I come back on to active KAC dev, have been doing too many things at the same time recently and need to improve that. Hopefully you can put up with me

[Spyre2000]

BAD SAVE DESIGN SETUP!!!!!

I was loving this mod right up until my computer crashed. When I rebooted and loaded my game I was dismayed to see that all my Alarms had been lost! At first I figured perhaps there was some save file corruption due from the crash so I figured I would just load a backup save file. I regularly backup my Save folder in case some mod corrupts the file. Well reloading a save from few hours ago didn't fix the issue to my surprise. It did a little debugging and found that KAC doesn't save the Notification points in the save directory but instead saves them in the same folder as the MOD files.

This is a bad setup because if your trying to manage your save files manual to create backups, like I'm doing, then you also have to go and grab a copy of the KAC file in the other directory. I also found that the MOD only keeps one copy of the list so if you load a quick save it has the "updated" list. Which means if you deleted or added any after your last quicksave then those changes wouldn't be present.

This seems like it would be an easy fix as other mods, such as KSP Interstellar, have their save info in a file located in the same save folder as game's save file.

Now I'm stuck going through my 70+ flights in progress to redo all their Notification points. >(

[TriggerAu]

BAD SAVE DESIGN SETUP!!!!!

I was loving this mod right up until my computer crashed. When I rebooted and loaded my game I was dismayed to see that all my Alarms had been lost! At first I figured perhaps there was some save file corruption due from the crash so I figured I would just load a backup save file. I regularly backup my Save folder in case some mod corrupts the file. Well reloading a save from few hours ago didn't fix the issue to my surprise. It did a little debugging and found that KAC doesn't save the Notification points in the save directory but instead saves them in the same folder as the MOD files.

This is a bad setup because if your trying to manage your save files manual to create backups, like I'm doing, then you also have to go and grab a copy of the KAC file in the other directory. I also found that the MOD only keeps one copy of the list so if you load a quick save it has the "updated" list. Which means if you deleted or added any after your last quicksave then those changes wouldn't be present.

This seems like it would be an easy fix as other mods, such as KSP Interstellar, have their save info in a file located in the same save folder as game's save file.

Now I'm stuck going through my 70+ flights in progress to redo all their Notification points. >(

I wont even attempt to argue against that. I agree the current save design needs to change. when it was first written I'm pretty sure we had no way to edit the save file without manually editing save files, and no access to System.IO to do it - thats a bad idea too. This change is on my investigation list for the next iteration, as it will break everyones saved alarms when I make the change, so will be in a major version.

Sorry you had an issue

[Superfluous J]

I wont even attempt to argue against that. I agree the current save design needs to change. when it was first written I'm pretty sure we had no way to edit the save file without manually editing save files, and no access to System.IO to do it - thats a bad idea too. This change is on my investigation list for the next iteration, as it will break everyones saved alarms when I make the change, so will be in a major version.

Sorry you had an issue

I for one will happily break every alarm in every system if it means hitting F9 to restore to 5 minutes ago restores alarms from 5 minutes ago

[BloodyRain2k]

I wont even attempt to argue against that. I agree the current save design needs to change. when it was first written I'm pretty sure we had no way to edit the save file without manually editing save files, and no access to System.IO to do it - thats a bad idea too. This change is on my investigation list for the next iteration, as it will break everyones saved alarms when I make the change, so will be in a major version.

Would it be that hard to add an option if you want to use an external file for saving or tie the alarms to the crafts and move them accordingly when you change the setting?

You technically don't even have to mess with the savefile, just add a node to the craft, I think. I know ORDA saves it's stuff by just adding a node to it's part.

[TriggerAu]

After all the work I did understanding the confignode stuff for the framework and arp, yeah it should be an easy code adjustment. And yeah I am of the opinion that the change is needed, just want to cause the least amount of impact for people during changeover - thats the part I want to get right

[Spyre2000]

After all the work I did understanding the confignode stuff for the framework and arp, yeah it should be an easy code adjustment. And yeah I am of the opinion that the change is needed, just want to cause the least amount of impact for people during changeover - thats the part I want to get right

Well can't you just change where the file is loaded and saved from cause that's mostly what I was hoping for? I refer again to the KSP Intersteller Mod which has two cfg files in the career save folder for saving its stuff. Couldn't you move the reference location that way when you make the change all we have to do is copy the old file from it's current location into the save folder? That way we don't lose the current way points.

As for Quicksave can't you just have a function that Saves a 2nd copy of the Alarm file and then when quick save is loaded it retrieves that copy of the Alarm File instead of the primary one which is tied to main save?

[allista]

Glad you like it, not so glad you are having issues Well both of these dont sound like fun at all, probably best thing to do - if your OK with it - is to pastebin your debug log and I can see if there are any KAC specific things in there. I've really been focusing on getting a solid code base for the rewrite I'm underway with, but if I can help out I'll give it a go.

Sorry it took me so long. Didn't play much, and the bug is hard to reproduce (my rough estimate: it occurs in about 10% of alarm trigger events).

Here's two links:

1. Short version, where I've cut out log lines from the last time warp till the space-back jump, upon which I've hit Esc. It starts at line 56948.

2. Zip archive of the full log. Unfortunately, it's too big for a free pastebin account.

[TriggerAu]

Well can't you just change where the file is loaded and saved from cause that's mostly what I was hoping for? I refer again to the KSP Intersteller Mod which has two cfg files in the career save folder for saving its stuff. Couldn't you move the reference location that way when you make the change all we have to do is copy the old file from it's current location into the save folder? That way we don't lose the current way points.

As for Quicksave can't you just have a function that Saves a 2nd copy of the Alarm file and then when quick save is loaded it retrieves that copy of the Alarm File instead of the primary one which is tied to main save?

Any and all of these are possible yes.

[Oinker]

Not a big deal but could we get a toggle button or config setting to toggle the UI to Unity Smoke skin (like your Alternate Resource Panel)?

Btw, your Alternate Resource Panel is incredible. It blows the stock panel away; even the way I can use the toolbar button or the nicely done "Alternate" button on the interface (positioned right next to the old button) is fantastic! I just wish I could erase the old button from my interface. It's just garbage now. I'd configure yours with toolbar support and the toolbar button hidden so your panel would be there all the time.

[AbeS]

If you have the toolbar, you can switch between the Smoke skin and the default one

[TriggerAu]

Not a big deal but could we get a toggle button or config setting to toggle the UI to Unity Smoke skin (like your Alternate Resource Panel)?

Btw, your Alternate Resource Panel is incredible. It blows the stock panel away; even the way I can use the toolbar button or the nicely done "Alternate" button on the interface (positioned right next to the old button) is fantastic! I just wish I could erase the old button from my interface. It's just garbage now. I'd configure yours with toolbar support and the toolbar button hidden so your panel would be there all the time.

Thanks for the feedback, for info I just finished the rewrite of the ARP and you can go check that out if your interested.

Yes I'd like to have the skinning ability in this plugin as well, and my plan is to look at reworking this Plugin next (assuming not too many issues with the latest ARP)

Although I may need a bit of a lie down first

[Rabada]

Is there a way I could have set an alarm to repeat after an interval of time? I would like to set up a reminder to resupply the life support for my crewed station every 100 days or so.

Edit: I should also thank you for your incredibly useful mod. Good work! This mod my favorite plugin for this game. I won't play KSP without it.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Rabada