A Smartphone as a Basic Rift DPS Meter
I’ve added some new features to the Rift controller. It can now monitor the Rift combat log file and send the new log line entries to the smartphone as they come in. The lines are then parsed on the phone in a JavaScript parser. The parser extracts information that’s available in the combat entry, such as:
-entry time
-entry type (damage, heal, etc)
-event source & target (player, pet, NPC, Mob, etc)
-value (damage/healing done, etc)
with this information, I’ve then built a very basic DPS meter display that sorts the actors by damage done. At the moment, it’s really basic, to show that the principle of sending log data to be processed and displayed on a smartphone really works. The update interval works best between 0.5 and 1 seconds. All the controller needs to know is the folder where your Rift game is installed (as this folder contains the combat log).
Now that I know this works, I’m going to be adding some more display options (like HPS), and also be adding a monitor to the chat log file, so you can have easy links to Wiki pages for quests you just picked up, etc. This really opens up possibilities for a lot of cool stuff. And best of all, it doesn’t require any Alt-Tabbing back and forth, or any overlays on the game display. I’m also looking at some JavaScript graphic libraries to add charts to the meter.
RIFT Utilities on a SmartPhone
I really like the dynamic character of Rift, and it’s pretty darn stable for a first release. But there’s still a couple of User Interface features that could use some polishing. For one, I really don’t like having to type my alt’s name and a mail topic every time, so I started building some utilities for this and more – best part is: it doesn’t clutter the screen but runs on (any) SmartPhone instead!