Spyglass1

UPDATE 9 FEB 2021

As of the patch distributed on 9 Feb 2021, spyglass is now non functional. This is because the filename of the chatlogs has changed. This is actually a simple fix code wise. However what is not simple is getting the old dev tools to compile this project to an executable. I have been unable to get this working.

The future!

In response to this, I am consuming copious amounts of rocket fuel and working to get a Spyglass 2 beta release out ASAP! I will make an update here as well as various other eve media platforms once it is ready. I estimate that I will be pushing a beta around the first week of March.

How can you help?

If you have the ability to compile the windows exetuable of spyglass using pyinstaller please get in touch, my discord handle is Crypta Eve#9846. If you want to attempt this, then you will need:

  • python 2.7
  • PyQt4 (unsure which minor version, archived downloads are available on sourceforge)
  • pyglet==1.2.4

If I can find someone to compile the exectuable I can have a patch out to spyglass 1 extremely quickly. Otherwise we must wait until I have a beta of spyglass 2.

Welcome To Spyglass

Spyglass is an intel visualisation and alarm system for EVE Online. This too gathers information from in game chat channels and presents the data on a dotlan generated map. The map is highlighted in real time as players report intel in monitored chat channels.

Spyglass is written with Python 2.7, using PyQt4 for the graphical interface, BeautifulSoup4 for SVG parsing, and Pyglet for audio playback.

News

-The current release version of Spyglass can be found on the GitHub releases page.

Screenshot

Spyglass Normal Theme Screenshot

Features

  • Platforms supported: Windows and Linux. (Mac in the future…)
  • Monitored intel chat channels are merged to one chat stream. You can add or remove channels via a menu option.
  • These chat channels can be rescanned on startup to allow for existing intel to be displayed
  • An interactive map of Providence / Catch is provided. Systems on the map display real-time intel data as reported through intel channels.
  • Systems on the map display different color backgrounds as their alarms age, with text indicating how long ago the specific system was reported. Background color becomes red when a system is reported and lightens (red->orange->yellow->white) in the following intervals: 4min, 10min, 15min, and 25min.
  • Systems reported clear display on the map with a green background for 10 minutes.
  • Clicking on a specific system will display all messages bound on that system in the past 20 minutes. From there one can can set a system alarm, set the systems clear or set it as the current system for one or more of your characters.
  • Clicking on a system in the intel channel (right hand column) causes it to be highlighted on the map with a blue background for 10 seconds.
  • The system where your character is currently located is highlighted on the map with an violet background automatically whenever a character changes systems.
  • Alarms can be set so that task-bar notifications are displayed when an intel report calls out a system within a specified number of jumps from your character(s). This can be configured from the task-bar icon.
  • The main window can be set up to remain “always on top” and be displayed with a specified level of transparency.
  • Ship names in the intel chat are highlighted.

Intel Rescan

  • Spyglass can look over all of your previous logs to check for intel. This is useful in two main cases. Firstly when you startup Spyglass but have already had eve running and want to see the intel you have already collected. Secondly, when changing theme the intel in Spyglass is all reset. You can rescan to get it back.
  • By default automatically rescanning is disabled, this is so people dont complain of speed issues.
  • THIS IS VERY SLOW! looking over existing logs can be incredibly time consuming so if you use it, please be patient. This is espicaially the case for more characters/chat channels you have.
  • If you want to use thi feature, but find it to be too slow, clear out your chatlogs regularly.

Running Spyglass from Source

To run or build from the source you need the following packages installed on your machine. Most, if not all, can be installed from the command line using package management software such as “pip”. Mac and Linux both come with pip installed, Windows users may need to install cygwin to get pip. Of course all the requirements also have download links.

The packages required are:

For ubuntu based distributions there is a script that will install these dependencies included. However it’s mileage may vary.

The background of Spyglass

Spyglass is a project aimed at the continuation to the work done on the Vintel tool by Xanthos which can be found here.

FAQ

License?

Spyglass is licensed under the GPLv3.

Spyglass does not play sounds - is there a remedy for this?

The most likely cause of this is that pyglet is not installed.

A litte bit to big for such a little tool.

The .exe ships with the complete environment and needed libs. You could save some space using the the source code instead.

What platforms are supported?

Spyglass runs on Windows and Linux. Windows standalone packages are provided with each release. Linux users are advised to use the compiled binary however the source is also an available option.

What file system permissions does Spyglass need?

  • It reads your EVE chatlogs
  • It creates and writes to path-to-your-chatlogs/../../spyglass/.
  • It needs to connect the internet (dotlan.evemaps.net, eveonline.com).

Spyglass calls home?

Yes it does. If you don’t want to this, use a firewall to forbid it. Spyglass looks for a new version at startup and loads dynamic infomation (i.e., jump bridge routes) from home. It will run without this connection but some functionality will be unavailable.

Both of these actions route to amazon s3 servers requesting data.

NO DATA IS SENT FROM YOU TO ME!

Spyglass does not find my chatlogs or is not showing changes to chat when it should. What can I do?

Spyglass looks for your chat logs in ~\EVE\logs\chatlogs and ~\DOCUMENTS\EVE\logs\chatlogs. Logging must be enabled in the EVE client options. You can set this path on your own by giving it to Spyglass at startup. For this you have to start it on the command line and call the program with the path to the logs.

Examples:

win> spyglass-1.x.x.exe "d:\strange\path\EVE\logs\chatlogs"

linux> python spyglass.py "/home/user/myverypecialpath/EVE/logs/chatlogs"

Spyglass does not start! What can I do?

Please try to delete Spyglass’s Cache. It is located in the EVE-directory where the chatlogs are in. If your chatlogs are in \Documents\EVE\logs\chatlogs Spyglass writes the cache to \Documents\EVE\spyglass

Spyglass takes many seconds to start up; what are some of the causes and what can I do about it?

Spyglass asks the operating system to notifiy when a change has been made to the ChatLogs directory - this will happen when a new log is created or an existing one is updated. In response to this notification, Spyglass examines all of the files in the directory to analysze the changes. If you have a lot of chat logs this can make Spyglass slow to scan for file changes. Try perodically moving all the chatlogs out of the ChatLogs directory (zip them up and save them somewhere else if you think you may need them some day).

Spyglass complains about missing dll files on Windows at app launch, is there a workaround for this?

Yes there is! There is a bit of a mix up going on with the latest pyinstaller and the Microsoft developer dlls. Here is a link to help illuminate the issue https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/issues/1974

You can visit Microsoft’s web site to download the developer dlls https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=5555.

You can also read a more technical treatment of the issue here http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2417960/msvcr100-dll-32bit-64bit.html

How can I resolve the “empty certificate data” error?

Do not use the standalone EXE, install the environment and use the sourcecode directly. There are missing certificates that must be provided by the environment. This error was discovered when running the standalone EXE on Linux using wine.

Spyglass is misbehaving and I dont know why - how can I easily help diagnose problems with Spyglass

Spyglass writes its own set of logs to the \Documents\EVE\spyglass\logs directory. A new log is created as the old one fills up to its maximum size setting. Each entry inside the log file is time-stamped. These logs are emitted in real-time so you can watch the changes to the file as you use the app.

I love Spyglass - how can I help?

If you are technically inclined and have a solid grasp of Python, contact the project maintainer via email to see how you can best help out. Alternatively you can find something you want to change and create a pull request to have your changes reviewed and potentially added to the codebase. There have been several great contributions made this way!

I’m not a coder, how can I help?

Your feedback is needed! Use the program for a while, then come back here and create issues. Record anything you think about Spyglass - bugs, frustrations, and ideas to make it better.