Free Software: BCDx36HP Favorite Helper

I had a little free time and always found it a chore to see what had changed in a new master database file vs a favorite list. I decided to see if I could write a program that would tell me. Favorite Helper is the result. I have only tested it with BCD436HP files. This is the first beta version that is somewhat stable and useful so I figured I would share. Yes there are still bugs and probably uncaught exceptions, yes the output reports are messy and not complete. Yes it is a Java program

Currently the program can:

Backup favorite files
Backup profile files
Generate a report on a profile file
Generate a report on a favorite in a favorite list
Compare a favorite in a favorite list against a master database state file

The compare works as follows against a state file you choose

Conventional shows matches, non-matches and differences from the favorite list file against state file.

Trunk shows matches, non-matches and differences from the favorite list file as well as information not found in the favorite list that is in the state file.

You will need the latest version of Java to run this you can install java from java.com: Java + You

Why java? I happened to have the development environment handy, and wanted to play around with it.


The zip file containing the .jar files can be downloaded from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/unidenfavoritehelper/files/


unzip all the files into a location and double click FavoriteHelper.jar

FWIW - trying with HP1,2 files. It does not seem to run the compare.

Seems to load everything and the reports populate.

For grins I'll export and import into the BC version of Sentinel .

I will have to load sentinel for HP and create some favorite files to test. I will add it to the list.

Thanks

There are some issues where it retains a previous folder or file extension that might confuse some.

I noticed that x series have a different naming structure for the master hpd. HP uses state names and x uses a number.

Under compare - what is the actual file for there ? is it one of the .cfg or a *.hpd ??

I just don't get the selection to populate.

Yup I see the difference. I load the hpdb.cfg for the X series to get the state file list. I see in HP it is different. I will add an option to choose HP or X and load accordingly.

Updated when you are in the homepatrol directory choose the drop down to pick the other filetype.

Should be version 0.20

When I try to unzip the file I get an error of " A java exception has occurred." I checked and I do have a newer version of Java than the link you provided.

Incredibly useful! Two observations from me:

- When I loaded different favorites lists one after another to be compared to a state (province, in my case), it appeared that it was not flushing the old data. So the first compare was OK, the second compare gave "Not Found" for everything from the first FL I checked, the third compare gave "Not Found" for everything from the first and second FLs I checked, etc.
- Clicking on the "Output" button, as well as trying to use 'output' from the file menu, caused an error in the debug pane which I didn't think to record. If you can't reproduce it on your own, I can try here and paste it in.

Feature request:
- Let us choose which items make a comparison pass or fail. For example, I got "Differ" on almost everything in my FLs because I have changed all the FM frequencies in my province to NFM in my FLs. If I could tell the application to ignore the modulation field, that would be ideal.

Thanks for the program!

Thanks for the feedback. I will work on the lingering information and post when an update is available. I will add the comparison pass/fail to the list along with cleaning up the reports.

For the java exception my guess is that you installed the latest version but still have an older version installed that is being used instead? Did you tell the java install to clean all older versions?

New version 0.30 posted that should cleanup the trunk site tab in a compare. Also allows you to compare against the state file previously used. Next I will work on getting all the data into a report for the trunk compares. Then work on cleaning it up into a better format.

New version 0.40 with an options menu for compare options. Currently you can only choose to turn on differ for modulation. You have to set each time you run the program for now......

jdolina said:

For the java exception my guess is that you installed the latest version but still have an older version installed that is being used instead? Did you tell the java install to clean all older versions?

Click to expand...

I get the same error and only 8u31 is installed. Haven't tried troubleshooting it, and may soon, but wanted to mention there are others with the issue. I will post if I figure it out.

I have asked for a compare feature in Sentinel, but it hasn't happened (yet). So this will be nice to have because I sometimes go months without listening and don't want to have to rebuild FL's again.

Ok "Java exception has occurred" If you download the .zip file and try to run the program from the zip you will receive this message. You need to Unzip the files into a directory and then run the .jar from that directory not the zip.

Right click the .zip file and choose extract files...

The right click did it. Thanks!!! Could you add a print option to it?

Print will be enabled from the output button(s)

jdolina said:

You need to Unzip the files into a directory and then run the .jar from that directory not the zip.

Right click the .zip file and choose extract files...

Click to expand...

I'm 99.9% sure that's what I did, but I will have another go at it.

Nice program [emoji3][emoji3][emoji3][emoji3]


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I can not get this to return results. Any idea how long it should take? 2 hours?

jeepers128 said:

I can not get this to return results. Any idea how long it should take? 2 hours?

Click to expand...

How big is your favorites file you're comparing? With a ~170kb FL file it took a couple of seconds on my PC, which was bought brand-new in December so quite modern in terms of processing power.

My favorites is 300kb. My computer is a newer i7 with 16gb of ram. Bought it last summer.