Galaxy Harvester News

I've got two main enhancements coming at you this time. First of all, you may notice an option up in the login box to "Stay Logged In". Check that box before you log in if you'd like to never have to log in again for the computer you are on (assuming you have cookies enabled). Tell your fingers they are welcome ;-)

The other big item is some fine tuning and a new option on the resource list page. When you are using the "By Type" view, the resources will now be loaded in chunks so you can start interacting with the page before it's loaded everything. You can also control what it loads first by collapsing sections you don't want it to load right away. It will remember what sections you left expanded, and populate those first the next time you go to the page. The new option available is a new view that lets you sort by a resource stat, or the average of all present stats.

Also, a small side note. A small bug was also fixed which was preventing you from being able to make a resource available by entering it again after it was accidentally marked unavailable.

Rontos, Eopies, and Banthas are likely going extinct as everyone scours Tatooine harvesting this stuff. If you can take a break from harvesting Herbivore meat for a little bit, you might want to check out a couple new features available here today.

• Added option to collapse top level categories of resources on the Resource List. (Your view must be set to "By Type" to see the arrows on the right side that let you collapse the section.)
• Added text next to the inner groups on the resource list indicating what resource types within that group are currently unavailable or not reported. This should be handy to easily see what organics need to be surveyed or to quickly see what inorganics are not in spawn right now.
• Added option when viewing a schematic to exclude a group of qualities when determining the best resources. Just un-check the box next to group title, and the resource lists will refresh.
• Improved the way the algorithm determines best resources for a profession or crafting group. Resources that did not have all the stats utilized by the group were getting too much weight and being driven to the top.

It took some time to get this release put together, but today's update brings the beginning of what I hope you find to be a very useful feature. A tool to let you view crafting schematics and quickly find the best resources to craft with them. You will find the new schematics page here. The schematics available now are based on what is currently available from the SWG Emu project. As work progresses, more schematics will become available. In the meantime, you can usually at least find a schematic similar to the one you are crafting to get a top resources listing based on similar weights and requirements. Having the schematic information up also means that the profession drop down on the Top Resources widget on the home page is now enabled. Use it to find the best stuff out there based on the unique requirements and weightings of a specific profession.

Another major feature releasing today that some of the more hard core harvesters and/or site developers might be interested in is export files. When you are logged into the site, you should see two new links in the Other Links box on the home page. These will link to 2 files for the galaxy you have selected up at the top of the page. These files are updated at 5pm UTC time each day with the current available resources data. One is XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format which developers working on other community tools might find useful for incorporating resource data. The other is CSV (Comma Separated Values) format for those of you that like to dump the resource data into a spreadsheet and do some of your own manipulation.

There's always a few other odds and ends worthy of note as well, and here they are:

• Added Top Harvesters section on the home page showing top harvesters for current spawns.
• Made resource type names a link to other recent resource spawns of that same type.
• Added more user stats breakdowns to the Stats page as well as charts of the top 5 members in various categories.
• Some new graphics for top links and other UI polishing

The schematics feature is based on a large set of data which is not complete. In addition to the need to get missing schematics filled out, there's another job that anyone can help with if they are interested. You may notice when you are logged in that you should have the option to upload an image for a schematic. Anyone who wants to help fill out some of these images is welcome to help out. We'll want to stick to the same method to create a consistent look though. Have a look at an example that I already have an image on like Bone Armor Left Bracer or Ubese Armor Segment. You should be able to get the same look by following these steps:

• Open crafting tool and select the item schematic
• Make sure the item preview part of the window is pretty square and you have the window at full height, then take a screenshot.
• Crop the screenshot so you have just the item preview and background without any of the dark edge or light border.
• Make sure your resulting cropped image is square and at least 320x320. It will be automitically resized down to that when you upload it if it is bigger.

Also keep in mind that there is an option to just link up a schematic to use another schematics' image. This is handy because many schematics use the same image resource in the game. Using this feature whenever possible will make the tool run more efficiently, and be a little quicker for you than browsing to and uploading the same image again. If enough people chip in and do a few images, I bet we can fill out all of them before long. The same group effort that keeps track of hundreds of in-game resources at a time should do well at conquering this task as well.

These two major features may prompt questions and suggestions, and if so, I encourge you to send me any questions or feedback. Feel free to post a comment here on the blog and start a discussion, or send me an email with the contact link at the bottom of the page.

Those of you who are familiar with the awesomeness of RSS will be extra pleased with todays update. Head on over to the feeds page, and you will find a new way to keep up to date on the resource data flowing into Galaxy Harvester. If you're not already familiar with subscribing to RSS feeds, this may be your opportunity to discover something new that you may use in many ways. So do a little research and try it out. You might like it.

Besides the feeds, there's a few smaller goodies coming your way as well. Apex got a couple new themes whipped up for you, so now you can style your experience with Destroyer or Rebel Flight Suits. Here's a list of some other minor tweaks of note in this update.

• Fixed cookie so your theme sticks around when you're not logged in.
• Made resource edit form populate with existing stats on edit action.
• UI changes to Planet availability bar.
• Added prompt to remove old resource if it exists when adding a new creature or flora resource.
• Added link in resource list to verify a resource. Uses selected planet in search criteria.

While new tools for keeping track of all those hot resources are great, today we bring you an aesthetic update. Besides, the Doctors know what's hot right now, and Armorsmiths are digging a new trench big enough to trap a Kimogilla while harvesting this stuff.

So head over to your profile, which you can get to after logging in at the top right corner of the page and personalize your Galaxy Harvester experience a bit. You can now upload an Avatar image for yourself there, as well as choose from a few different color themes. Hopefully you find one you like, but if you don't, rest assured we have more themes on the way. For now there are three new options: FS Jedi, Imperial, and Rebel. A big thanks to Apex for giving me a hand with the theme setup.

More cool features on the way! Till next time, may the resources be with you.

Couple new features available today on the Available Resources page. You can now find some view options at the top of the resource list. You can now select to view the list by time, which sorts it by either the resource entered, verified, or unavailable date. I'm thinking the most common use for this might be sorting by entered time to see the latest resources entered since the last time you checked the site. Sometimes when a shift happens and lots of resources get entered, the short list on the homepage might not include everything that's been put in since your last visit.

Another smaller feature you may notice is that resource names on the available resources page are now links. If you click them, it takes you to another page with information for just that resource including its complete history of events. These pages will be expanded on in the future. Because of the way you link to that page, it could also be a useful way to check if a resource exists or not. If you type in your browser address bar http://gh.apex-games.net/gh/resource.py/1/imanewres for example, you get a little message that says that resource doesn't exist. Replace "imanewres" with any resource name you want to check and if it exists it will go to its page, if not you get that message.