Official ShowEQ FAQ Development Thread

[Ratt]

Ok... I have the DB back end in place... but that's all I've got.

The method to integrate it into something that you'd want to bring home to mother... or at least publically display is somewhat more tedious.

Fryfrog, or someone else... how are you guys with PHP? Would you be willing to design the FAQ layout? It will require some PHP work. It's not hard, just tedious, as I said... If no one wants (or is able to do it) I will do it, but it'll take some time. My free-time is a quite limited, at least for another month, but I should be able to find time to work on it prior to then, I just don't know when.

Honestly, after settin' this up, I'm not sure if it's worth the effort to put it in a DB, heh... but eh... I guess it can't hurt. It's all gonna depend on how it's presented I guess.

I'll give it some more thought while I await your responses

[fryfrog]

unfortunatly, i know exactly jack and shit about php really. i barely managed to squeek by with the very limited knowladge i have of html to make the faq as it looks now ;)

i even had to use webmonkey to learn those "anchor" things (and still goofed it up to start with).

personally, my vote would be for skipping the db backend until it really starts to become neccessary due to a HUGE faq. right now it really isn't that big and probably won't become just overly gigantic.

it would be nice to group questions together, but i was thinking about that the other day. if i were to re-org it EVERY time i got a good question, old links from posts or other places would point to wrong questions.

so, to sum it up... i know no php except to configure things like gallery ;) sorry :(

my ability is more software on windows and linux. want me to muck about with apache or iis... fix something a stupid ass customer broke... i'm your man... ask me to script or try to... i might be able to... but what the hell is all this html, asp, php bs :)

[fryfrog]

updated and added the "su" command to before running showeq and also before make && make install.

i added 2 or 3 questions, for gcc3 figuring out and how to compile qt with gcc3 :)

[deathinc]

Here's a couple of thoughts to enhance or better illustrate errors....

(Working off the last version FryFrog posted as of this post)

1.3 - What information does ShowEQ actually show?
Anything that the EQ client knows, ShowEQ knows. This includes things like EVERY mob position in the zone, its level/class/race, items it is HOLDING which affect the way it looks, an accurate map of the zone, ground drops/spawns, traps... the list is very large.

Change "Anything that the EQ client knows" to "Anything that the EQ client is told". Seeing as all the structs have not been fully described this is a bit misleading. The same goes for "items it is HOLDING" - which should probibly read "information about items it is HOLDING".

1.4 - Can ShowEQ be detected using software means by Verant?
The short answer is no. It would take a fair amount of work on their side to be able to tell that a NIC was in promiscuous mode (sniffing network traffic), and even then they would not be able to tell if it was tcpdump, ethereal or ShowEQ that was sniffing packets. ShowEQ is totally passive and transmits no data.

While all those programs listed above have 'ligitimate' (to some degree) uses, the most 'ligitimate' use of a packet-sniffer would be an Intrusion Detection System. Who can argue against one now adays? I would suggest adding it to the list of programs above.

1.11 - I went to the Plane of Hate and saw an invisible mob called "ShowEQ users suck." Have any of you guys seen this?

I thought it was "ShowEQ users are lame"? Of course I haven't been in-game in some time now.

2.11 What hardware do YOU recommend?
Hardware wise, go with the best you can afford. While ShowEQ will run on something as slow as a Pentium 133, performance will be abysmal (not to mention it will take nearly a week to compile, depending on memory). The general minimum recommended specs would be a PII 400 with 128 MB RAM and a 4 GB hard drive, a hardware accelerated video card is a plus. Typically Nvidia has much better driver support in linux than ATi, Matrox or 3dfx. A TNT2 card should be just fine (it is what I use).

A few notes, I use a P133 for my SEQ box. It's not fast, but it works:
Remove: "(not to mention it will take nearly a week to compile, depending on memory)" -- it's a serious overexaggeration. It only takes about 4 hours. (Don't ask about a kernel compile -- I'll cry)
Regarding "abysmal" performance -- again an overstatment. Performance is "degraded" to "sub-par". And the "minimum" specs can be dropped a bit if you wish to use the word. Perhaps change "minimum" to "recommended".

That's about all I have time to go over ATM.

Ratt -- if you're still desparate to get some php front-end done up for the FAQ, drop me a line and I'll see if I can whip something up. You've got my e-mail.

[fryfrog]

i'll toss in those updates :)

qt-2.3.2 actually probably takes about 24-48 hours to compile though showeq should compile faster. that question was actually modified by someone (ratt i think?) from my original version of it ;)

and the ids thing is an AWSOME addition. i know i run ids, and i knew it ran in promisc but i just never put the 2 together. thanks :)

[deathinc]

Originally posted by fryfrog

qt-2.3.2 actually probably takes about 24-48 hours to compile though showeq should compile faster. that question was actually modified by someone (ratt i think?) from my original version of it

I don't remember it ever taking that log to compile (I think I even also had QT3 compiled on it as well...

Nonetheless, the longest part of getting SEQ up and running is the QT compile. Once it's done, even SEQ recompiles pale in comparison.

Perhaps if it was really that bad it would be better to note that we are referring to 'runtime' preformance, and that compilation will take some time on that hardware platform.

[fryfrog]

please, lets host the html file somewhere and make it stick at the top of the help forum ;) (soon).

[Ratt]

The SEQ FAQ's official home is now:

http://www.macsrule.com/~seqfaq/seq-faq.html

Yes, I am aware of the irony of the domain name, thank you very much.

[fryfrog]

bwahahahah, but they DO RULE! :)

anyway, i setup a dyndns.org redirect thing for "seq.doesntexist.org" and i'm sure there is one SOMEWHERE that doesn't be all ghey and have pop up add.

[Ratt]

If it has anything to do with Macs, it's inherently ghey. You can not beat the ghey-ness out of a Mac, it's a fundamental part of their nature. Ask Steve Jobbs.

[fryfrog]

i would also suggesting putting that huge stuff into the help forum, just in case they SOMEHOW miss it on the main part ;)

[high_jeeves]

I love the new main page.. great work on the FAQ fryfrog!

--Jeeves

[Cryonic]

Nice new message.

wonders if he should find the animated torch image to make as his sig

[KennySP]

a P70 Laptop with 24MB Ram and a 520MB Harddrive runs SEQ good enough at 1fps.

KennySP

[Cryonic]

I had it on a P150 with 80MB RAM, could do it at 10fps, but kept it down near 3 since I didn't need that fast of an update.