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• New slash commands (I think they're pretty self-explanatory):
  
  /censusplus auto {on | off}
  /censusplus take
  /censusplus pause
  /censusplus resume
  /censusplus stop
• Change the minimap button to a different color for each of the different running states (idle, taking, paused).
  
  (Brainstorm: Maybe get even more clever and have two colors for each of the running states: a bright color for when auto-census is on, a dark color for when auto-census is off.)
  
  I don't even know if that's possible. I can't think of another mod that does it.
• Something about tweaking the current algorithms in order to reduce lag at end of census.
  
  I haven't fully thought this one out yet, but the goal here is to prevent lag death. Maybe do more parsing during the census versus at the end?
• (Brainstorm) A popup menu when clicking on the minimap button.
  
  Initial list of menu options: take/pause/resume, stop, auto on/off, profiler on/off.
• (Brainstorm) An optional prompt before initiating an auto-census.
  
  Like the CTRA ready check. Options would be "Procede" and "Skip".

More as I think of them.

all great ideas, keep 'em coming =)

I like them all =)

Esp the popup menu and the lag death thing. Census takes longer than most mods to open its UI so if there was a menu then that would be even better, perhaps as a right click or something or just a simple left click with an option to open the UI.

You people must have huge local databases if you get a ton of lag when you open the UI. Granted, my local DB isn't that huge so this is never really an issue for me.

I don't think that's really the entire problem, I get issues now already at 2-4k surveyed from the first server and I purge quite often. When I do a full run of a bunch of servers it gets worse of course but the initial file size/char number to notice issues has decreased over the last couple of patches.

I have started looking at how to lessen the processing lag. Hopefully I can get something worked out well.

Yes mine is large.... Currently the file is just over 2mb in size. I tend to Prune alot, not Purge. But still a addon like MobInfo is one which gathers data and doesn't take a long time to load when you open up its UI, my lua file for that is only 218kb

I like my database size large so I can keep track of things


Hopefully the next version will have some lag reduction methods in place

Yeah, I've been noticing really nasty end-of-census lag since 3.3 came out in parrticular - it's always had a slight lag but now it's a second or longer. My censusplus.lua in SavedVariables is under 4MB, and a few months back I had it at 12MB with less lag than currently, so I don't think it's entirely down to my large database

Love the idea of having the minimap button showing the censusing state btw, I often don't notice a census starting and then wonder why /who won't work any more lol. The pop-up menu would be a nice touch if possible too, though I can understand if that's tough to code.

Oh yea thats another thing.... Being able to do a /who when Census is running.... But I think Blizzard limits the amount of /who you can do to like one every 2 seconds. So Census takes top priority by quickly sending out another /who command once the previous one comes in.

Not sure what can be done here, if anything but ah well. Oh I know... Pause!!

DM. wrote:Oh yea thats another thing.... Being able to do a /who when Census is running.... But I think Blizzard limits the amount of /who you can do to like one every 2 seconds. So Census takes top priority by quickly sending out another /who command once the previous one comes in.

Not sure what can be done here, if anything but ah well. Oh I know... Pause!!

A CensusPlus command that queues your custom query and runs it as soon as the internal /who timeout has cleared.

That would be a problem if the query returned more than three results: the /who results window would open, then be cleared in a few seconds as CensusPlus resumed its own queries. So, maybe:

1. CensusPlus hums along, silently performing /who queries in the background.
2. User runs a command, /censusplus who Character. C+ queues this request.
3. C+ pauses the census process.
4. /who timeout clears, C+ runs user's /who query.
   1. Results <= 3: results are displayed in the chat window.
   2. Results > 3: result window is displayed, C+ background queries are disabled until result window is closed manually.
5. Background queries resume.

Oh, how my baby has grown! It's nice to see my thread generated discussion.

Thoughts:

• Lag
  
  Just to be clear, I'm talking about end-of-census, not loading the graph. I could do without the graph 95% of the time.
• Queuing user /who requests
  
  Excellent idea, and one I'm surprised at myself for not thinking of. It would be even neater if you could intercept standard /who messages instead of having to go through a C+ command.

An additional suggestion:

• Configurable time between censuses
  
  Allow me to configure how often a census runs.

Bump.

Especially the bit about the minimap button showing the status!

Ideas I've had include
Bar integration (Titan Panel & FuBar are the two biggies) - I have too many icons around my nimimap as it is..*sigh*
a way to identify other census takers (IE you can flag yourself as a census taker and it would transmit on a private channel {I believe this is possible} so that you would know who on your server was also gathering info)
updated graphics for the races/classes...surely someone knows an artist who can draw so more interesting protraits than Blizz's male portraits. >_<

Naraht wrote:..... updated graphics for the races/classes...surely someone knows an artist who can draw so more interesting protraits than Blizz's male portraits.

How about those new avatars from the WoW forums? it would also be great if we can get some female pics as well... At least an option for those who have chars Claimed to set this?