News

11/21/03 BWChart 1.02E : Hot Keys baby !

This latest version of BWChart comes with a bunch of new features. The most important one is the new chart for Hot Keys. I just couldn't let those guys from WGTour ahead and I also thought it might help me find some motivation to finally learn to use hot keys when I play. No wonder my APM is so low...

So anyway, the Hot keys chart will show you hot key usage in time. On the left, all keys from 0 to 9 for each player. Then on the chart, all hot key assignements and selections are represented with their numbers (eg: 1 for selection of hot key 1). By moving your mouse over the keys on the left side, you will see the list of all groups assigned to that particular hot key for the whole game. By moving your mouse over any number on the chart, you will then see the content of the group assigned or selected with that hot key press.

Just so you know, all that hot key business involves quite a lot of work to recognize units and buildings, cause they are not explicitely described in the replay. You have to "guess" from the context. That's why in many occasions you will see groups of units that are displayed as a bunch of numbers. Those numbers are the units ID for units that couldn't be indentified. For example, let's say you train a few marines and medics and as soon as they all come out of the barracks you select them all and assign them to hot key 1. Then you start harassing your poor zerg ennemy. What will you see in the hot key chart? Just numbers. Cause there is no way to say which unit ID is a marine, which one is medic, which one is a firebat, etc. Cruel isnt it?

Other changes

Auto load and display of latest game played (if you saved the replay) : that means if you like to check your APM and stuff right after every game you play, you can now leave BWChart on with the option checked, and as soon as you save the replay of a game, BWChart will add it to the database and display it on screen. So all you need to do is Alt+Tab to BWChart and contemplate.

Event list does not display events for disabled players : I don't remember who complained about that 10 000 times on Teamliquid.net but I should now have one more happy user. The feature is simple : when you disable a player in the player's list, it hides all the events for that player in the event list.

Colored event list : train, hatch, build, etc, are drawn with different colors. Just ease the reading of events.

Export event list to text file : self-explanatory (right click on event list and select "export to text file")

Option to turn file association on and off (for .rep extension)

Option to choose where the replay database is saved : My Documents or next to bwchart.exe

All news...