How does logging work

I tried out the new auto-start logging to see how logging works in 3.5.2 snapshot…

I typed a simple string into the chat window, ended logging, exited module.

I then loaded the log file… I was presented with what looked like a saved game, and the chat window was empty (excepting the standard loading dialog).

Shouldn’t all the info that goes into the chat window, whether from player typing chats or game generated info be saved in the log?

Did you play it back? Unless something has radically changed, a logfile has always been a starting state that loads initially, a sequence of moves that are played back sequentially with a button in the toolbar, eventually arriving at the end state.

Joel -
Thanks - I didn’t see the playback button. Worked fine…

Never having used the VASSAL logging feature, I didn’t realize it was a playback capability. I was expecting a literal text log of all the material that showed up in the chat window.

I’m guessing a module designer could incorporate some sort of command chain triggered by an at start command to automatically playback the log each time the module is started.

It can be assigned a Hotkey (default Page Down), so I guess you are right. The problem I see is that I think you’d have to do this on a trigger loop, with no (reliable) way to know when to stop. Perhaps it could be done as a “play forward X steps” function, but then you can just keep the key pressed anyway.

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From a UI perspective, I would not recommend doing this…

It would frustrate me to open a module and have it always automatically start playing stuff back to me…

I don’t usually use logging and if I do, I rarely need it in the short term - but I mostly play live.

Giving the user the option is good, forcing it on them is bad (IMHO)…

“Logging” is what people use to play PBEM – it’s the way they can send each other turns and then each can see what the opponent actually did.

There’s mostly no feasible way to create designer-accessible commands that directly affect the replay of logging … because those would use commands, and commands are what get logged for replay, etc, etc. Vassal is designed to faithfully reproduce the command executed by one player on the board of another – whether through online play or via exchange of logs. There is no way for the module to obtain a perspective “outside of” the logging scheme in order to take control of logging.

The code that packages things up into “commands” and then sends them to other players is actually the same for both online & PBEM/logging believe it or not – it’s just that in the online version the commands are sent immediately over the wire to opponents, whereas in PBEM they are accumulated in a log. But the commands themselves are the same.

Brian

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