Imp Inventory
&
Phat Lewt Walkthrough
By Elder of MorningThaw
ImpInventory is a plug-in for Decal. It will go through the current character you have loaded, and do a complete inventory or what is on that character. If the character cannot ID the item, it will read word for word the inscription on the item. It will write/save this information to a .CSV file, which can be viewed by a spreadsheet program like Excel, or, you can use Phatlewt to take that information and process it to a text file and/or html files for posting on the web.
EXAMPLES:
Sample Text File: http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/plain.txt
Sample HTML Files: http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/armor.html
Heart Failure did a good job at explaining how to get everything up and running, so you should read his page and instructions IN ADDITION to the instructions below.
This may seem long and complicated, but actually it isn't. And once you get everything downloaded and installed, it's pretty darn easy to run it in the future.
So right click the below link to OPEN IN NEW WINDOW and bounce back and forth between here and there while reading how to do all this:
http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/
I'll go ahead and try to sum everything up:
If you don't have WinZip, download it at www.winzip.com run and install.
Create a temporary folder on your desktop. Download everything listed below to that temporary folder.
1. Download and run/install Microsoft's Installer at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn-files/027/001/455/instmsia.exe
You'll probably have to reboot - do so.
2. Download and run/install Decal at:
http://decal.dereth.ac/download.html
It SHOULD install to C:\Program Files\Decal folder.
3. Some of the plugins (e.g. ImpInventory) require you to register dlls. If
you are unfamiliar with how to do this download this file to your temporary
folder.
http://home.earthlink.net/~sweetpeahsd/QuickRegister.reg
Go into your temporary folder, and RIGHT-CLICK this file, and select MERGE. It adds a 'register' option to the right-click menu when exploring your directory.
4. Download ImpIventory at:
http://www.cgocable.net/~arkayas/impinventory.zip
Create a new folder in the C:\Program Files\Decal\ folder called ImpInventory. Extract the files from ImpInventory.zip into C:\Program Files\Decall\ImpInventory
Right click the ImpInventory.DLL file and select REGISTER.
Right click the ImpInventory.REG file and select MERGE.
5. Move the messages.xml file from there to the \Decal\ folder, overwrighting
old one.
NOW, you should be able to run Decal and ImpInventory (or any other plugin)
without having to repeat ALL of the steps above.
To run Decal and ImpInventory, you must be out of Asheron's Call and the MS Zone Completely. Click the Icon on your Desktop called "Start Decal" - it should put a mini-icon in your bottom bar. Now, go into Asheron's Call as you normally would.
To create the .csv file, click on the ImpInventory button to open it's window in AC. Now, click on Auto-ID and sit back. It will go through everything and attempt to ID. If it can't ID something, it will read word from word what is written in the inscription. Normally, the IDing goes pretty quick, BUT, sometimes it will pause for a few seconds - make sure it's done IDing before you move onto the next step. Now, click "Write CSV" - and a file with the name of your mule with a .CSV extention will be written. Exit this character, and repeat for each character you wish. A new .csv file will be created for each. This format alone isn't the greatest to work with.. sooooooooo...
Heart Failure wrote a little program called Phat Lewt. It will take ALL your CSV files if you want, and put them in ONE long text file and/or html file.
Sample Text File: http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/plain.txt
Samle HTML Files: http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/armor.html
Ok.. onto Phat Lewt.
Phat Lewt was written in Perl Programing Language, and is a small one file program.
You can download it at Heart Failures Web Page:
http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/
Create folder on your hard drive called C:\Phatlewt or D:\Phatlewt. You should create it here and not on desktop or somewhere else, because you need to be able to get to it easy via DOS.
Now, you have to download and Install Perl at
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePerl/index/
Make sure you download the:
ActivePerl 5.6.1.626 Windows MSI 8MB
And download it to your temporary folder that you created on your desktop. And run/install (double click) it.
You will have to reboot. Do so.
Ok. Now everything is in place - sort of.
Move the .csv files from your C:\Program Files\Decal\ImpInventory folder to your C:\Phatlewt folder.
Now, we have to get a DOS window up.
Select Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> MS DOS Prompt.
You are probably in your C:\Windows folder, so type in
cd C:\Phatlewt to get to the right folder.
Ok, type in dir and look at the files - should have phatlewt.pl and your mule.csv files. If so, you're doing great.
Your screen should be at the
C:\Phatlewt
Folder, now type in EXACTLY as it is listed below:
C:\perl\bin\perl phatlewt.pl
(if you are familiar with adding things to your PATH, you can add C:\Perl\Bin\Perl.exe to your PATH - thus not having to type out the C:\perl\bin\perl everytime)
In your C:\Phatlewt folder, a filed called PLAIN.TXT should have been created, in addition to several .HTML files. You can now open one of these .HTML files up with your web browser to view your inventory. And you're all set!
NOW, if you want to add icons to your .HTML file like that shown in the example, be sure to read how to do it at Heart Failure's web site at:
http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/
It involves downloading another program, moving that program to the phatlewt folder, copying portal.dat from your AC folder (can't be in AC when you copy it), creating a subfolder in your phatlewt folder called icons, running phatlewt with line commands/arguments, then running a .bat file to extract the icons from the portal.dat, and downloading another program to convert the extracted .bmp files to .gifs - it's not THAT bad - seriously. But check his page for instructions - it's pretty simple.
Other Links/Topics/Discussions about Phatlewt and ImpInventory:
http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/ac/
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=13455010&page=1
Decal, ImpInventory & PhatLewt on Windows 2000:
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=13236238&page=1