Linkshell Point Tracking Application (Web Based)

[nitsuj]

Hey Guys -

I got tired recently of my dynamis/sky groups just updating a PHPBB thread with our point standings after every run (I have multiple shells for various dedicated events, as I'm sure do most of you).

So I took an idea a former member of my HNM shell came up with and made a real simple point tracking application. It allows users to view the list and sort it by name, points, job or last activity (ascending or descending) and clicking on a user's name shows a breakdown of where their points came from.

Administrators can login and add members, mark members as inactive, and add points (insert description, point total and check the box next to all members who were there).

I'm sure many shells have a very similar system, but I know a lot of them are still just using PHPBB.

What I'm interested in doing is updating a few more things on it, and if people are interested I'll release the 2 or 3 PHP files to the public so any small sky/dynamis/HNM shell can just drop it on their server and run it and have an easy way to keep track of their points (that isn't so atrocious on the members).

The features I'm adding before I could release:
- more security(lol)
- Ability to post a "message of the day" so people know what upcoming events are without having to check /lsmes"
- ability to track items (i.e. who is holding what sky pop items or who has what dynamis drops)

Then planned small things:
- variable for # of days before a user on the list is automatically marked as inactive (i.e. miss 5 runs in a row and get removed from list but not deleted to make list easier to read)
- and thus adding points to this users 'account' will automatically mark them as active again
- option to submit your email and be notified whenever your account is updated (or on certain days what not.. entirely optional to the user)

Of course, the usability of this all depends on the sackholders ability to update it properly and on time.

I understand most of you didn't read this wall of text, but for the ones who did I'd like to know if this would be something that would be helpful to the community or if I should just keep it internal. The features could get more and more robust as suggestions come in as well.

Maybe even get Miisha to help and integrate the real time web linkshell chat into it some day

Thanks guys!

(credit for the original idea behind the system goes to Igace of tactics linkshell, Unicorn server)

[Slott]

Our linkshell uses something that you just described, and it's been around for quite a bit. EQDKP - and I think we had some upgrades/custom things put in, but it does everything you described.

Has message of the day, inactivity, raid tracking, event point tracking, item point tracking. Your friend isn't very original at all. A system like this has been around for several years in fact.

[nitsuj]

Our linkshell uses something that you just described, and it's been around for quite a bit. EQDKP - and I think we had some upgrades/custom things put in, but it does everything you described.

Has message of the day, inactivity, raid tracking, event point tracking, item point tracking. Your friend isn't very original at all. A system like this has been around for several years in fact.

Well I didn't think it was totally original. What I was thinking was readily available, easy to install/use and ready to go for FFXI without customization. Judging by the name EQDKP it's probably none of those things (well maybe available, but I've never heard of it until today).

No big deal though. I can just keep the project internal.

[Slott]

You can still go ahead and put it out there for other shells - I was just saying it's already there. EQDKP is open source, so it might be easier for you to take their code, add in whatever you want, and repackage it. It does take customization for FF11 - it's mainly made for EQ and WoW, but you can add ff11 in, job levels, job names, item values (and then you can sort the page by values of items, names etc), raid values, raids, it'll track the # of times you've done the raid, active/inactive members, etc. You might want to take a look at it - name is website is eqdkp.com

Our linkshell's version, customized by Verix, whom is highly talented, has tabs for:

News
Standings (Standings has the following tabs: Name, Job, Rank (Pearl, Leader, Sackholder, Inactive, etc.) Level, Total earned, Total Spent, Adjustments (can be positive or negative adjustments for DKP adjustments that aren't item based) Current (Total - spent +- total adjustment) and we have another tab called "Merit" as well, for a seperate tracking system we use (Not as in exp merits, something completely different) You can click any tab and it'll sort however you want.

Then there are Raids (Individual raids, like if you do 4 bahamuts, it'll show up 4 times), Events, Item values, item history, Summary stats etc. It's very useful and highly customizable - and may help you in what you're creating. If you really want, I can post screenshots later.

[nitsuj]

Yeah, I looked it up a bit earlier. It's pretty nice and probably more feature-rich than mine.

I've already written mine, and it works for what I need it to. So I'll probably just finish up the few things I want to add and release it. Couldn't hurt, and maybe someone out there could benefit from using it

[ismarc]

There's also an active FFXI variant of EQDKP I released due to PMs and emails I was getting. Check out http://ffdkp.googlecode.com. The main feature differences between EQDKP and FFDKP is:
1) Support for multiple jobs
2) Support for primary and secondary jobs
3) Trigger tracking (who holds what, what's used, etc.)
4) "Item Requests", can track who wants what, automatically marks it as completed if they are marked as "purchasing" the item
5) 30/60/90 day attendance percentages viewable on the Stats page as well as "Lifetime" attendance (rather than attendance for the past x amount of time, attendance percent since they joined) (this was done for a request to be able to do lotting rights based on attendance percent rather than a points system)
6) Secondary Attendee support (allows a separate point value for secondary attendees)
7) Run based inactivity checks (initially was just inactive after x number of days, there is a configuration option to have it be inactive after x number of raids)

Portions that are still in the works:
1) Item Data - Adding support to have what drops from what, the item stats, etc. available. I'm still trying to decide how to control which data is actually loaded (dyna only shell vs. sky shell vs. land kings), but it's getting closer to being done.

Portions that are planned but haven't started:
1) Raid scheduling support - Allow the scheduling of raids and a nice pretty calendar view
2) User updateable info - Right now normal users can't update/change anything. The plan is to allow users to update their jobs and item requests (will go to a pending state, admin can approve the updates).
3) Fancy javascript pop-up with item data
4) Fully customizable view - admin will have full control over which menu options and which fields are displayed on each page.
5) Access support - Allow it to easily track who has access to which areas (sky/sea/etc) (in particular for Einherjar tracking).

Two example sites using different features of the system can be seen at http://www.catwho.net/yamato/ffdkp and http://www.atlantisls.net/ffdkp

[nitsuj]

Thanks for the info guys. I'm going to go ahead and finish mine (as it's a fun project) and if anyone is looking for something really simple to use, I'll release it for their linkshell here.

Thanks again.

[tajii]

Hi, im trying to install ismarc's configured ffxidkp and im having a bit of a problem.

Everytime I get to step2, inputting my database/user/pw and press submit, I get the following error:

SQL query error

Query: CREATE VIEW `eqdkp_v_member_data_lifetime` AS SELECT m.member_id, m.member_name, m.member_raidcount AS raid_count, m.member_raidcount / count( DISTINCT ra.raid_id ) AS raid_percent FROM eqdkp_raids ra, eqdkp_members m WHERE ra.raid_date >= m.member_firstraid GROUP BY m.member_id
Message: CREATE VIEW command denied to user 'dyna'@'localhost' for table 'eqdkp_v_member_data_lifetime'
Code: 1142

Anyone can give me a hand on this please? lol^^

[ismarc]

Hi, im trying to install ismarc's configured ffxidkp and im having a bit of a problem.

Everytime I get to step2, inputting my database/user/pw and press submit, I get the following error:

SQL query error

Query: CREATE VIEW `eqdkp_v_member_data_lifetime` AS SELECT m.member_id, m.member_name, m.member_raidcount AS raid_count, m.member_raidcount / count( DISTINCT ra.raid_id ) AS raid_percent FROM eqdkp_raids ra, eqdkp_members m WHERE ra.raid_date >= m.member_firstraid GROUP BY m.member_id
Message: CREATE VIEW command denied to user 'dyna'@'localhost' for table 'eqdkp_v_member_data_lifetime'
Code: 1142

Anyone can give me a hand on this please? lol^^

It looks like the user you have (dyna) is not allowed to create views, but is allowed to create tables. The use of views is a direction I'm taking the code to try and get better efficiency in the code and with the DB interactions. If you modify the user, you should be able to just allow them to create views and that should resolve the issue.

In addition, I'll look into providing more robust permissions checks/error messages when verifying the information.

[tajii]

Thanks for the reply ^^

When I created the user for the database, i gave it absolute permissions, should i take some away? Maybe thats why?

Edit: just went into the permissions.. these are what the permissions are:

SELECT
CREATE
INSERT
ALTER
UPDATE
DROP
DELETE
LOCK TABLES
INDEX
REFERENCES
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES
CREATE ROUTINE

And all are checked.

[tajii]

So I guess I cant use this altered ffxidkp sicne my database wont give me the permission to "create veiws"?

[ismarc]

Sorry for the delayed response, have been really overloaded at work.

What I would suggest doing is manually running the query against your database when logged in as the user. Theoretically you should get the same error, but it should give you some more information. It's possible that there's a duplicate entry for the view creation, as well, and it's not working because it's set to not let you create over an already existing view. If that's the case, running the command manually should tell you as well.

Are you using a MySQL DB or a different type? While theoretically it should work for any database, there are some syntactical differences that could also be the cause.

[tajii]

I had an install of the original eqdkp, but since deleted the database and user, and created another database and user for your altered one. Not sure if it would still register the other one i installed but i did install 2 different ones at the same time and they worked just fine.

Im not that mysql/php savvy so im only getting bits and peices of what your suggesting i do, sorry

And yes, im using a My_SQL database running from my .net domain.