Cheat Engine

[L. Spiro]

I got tired of waiting for you to come online on MSN (even though you’ll probably be on in the next 15 minutes, as you usually are).
And I figured your community might like to have input on this idea anyway.

How I Got The Idea
Once upon a time, someone was using my software and he said the old version works on his game, but the newer versions don’t. It has to do with user privilege levels, since his game actually checks to make sure you are the administrator of your computer, and after I set the higher privilege levels in my software it stopped opening his game (what junk).

So he can use the old version to search and then slowly put all the returns he wants into the newer versions. Manual adding, and very slow.

I decided it would be helpful in this situation if he could select and copy (Ctrl-C) from the old version all the values he wants to add and then paste (Ctrl-V) them all at once into the newer versions.


So the Actual Idea Is
In fact I have heard other stories about people using one software as the main cheat device but using another software just for the searching. Sometimes one software has search types or search speeds the other doesn’t have.

So the actual idea I wanted to discuss with you is to create a standard copy/paste clipboard format we can both use between our software.

So if people really like to use one as a searcher and then add those values into the other software, it would be a really big help to be able to just select them from the source software, and paste them all at once into the target software, keeping the addresses, descriptions, types, etc.


There are a lot of differences between the way we both store our values, but I think we can come up with a standard format that can work in all searching software, including ArtMoney also (if he can be contacted and is willing to add such a feature).


Basically my idea for the clipboard format is something similar to XML, with named nodes that contain the data in basic text format.
So, for example, standard nodes would be “Address”, “Description”, and “Type”. All searchers have to support these nodes.
Then extra nodes would be added, and each searcher can support any of them that it pleases.
For example, you would probably have a node called “Lock” and have a sub node called “LockType” which has the option of locking inside a range, or an exact-value lock, etc. Mine would be able to support all these nodes and so would ArtMoney.
But then yours would have a node called “QScript” or whatever, if their saved values have quick scripts attached.
If pasted into my software, I would simply skip this node and throw a warning saying, “Some parts of this value have been omitted and it may not function 100% correctly,” or something, even though I would still be able to keep the correct address, description, value type, and locking information.


This also allows us to fill only the nodes we can.
For example, if they copy from my “Found Addresses” list, there aren’t any descriptions or lock types yet. I just fill out the “Address” and “Type” nodes. If pasted into your software, you give default values for all the missing nodes, just as you would anyway when they add from your found list to your main list.


The format will be extendable and entirely portable to all searchers that are willing to support it.
TSearch is no longer active, but ArtMoney and XM Search still add a few updates sometimes, so it may be possible to get them in on it too.


How does it sound?
How about the community’s response? What does everyone think?



Once we decide on a finalized format, I would be willing to write the actual parser myself and give it out both in compiled .DLL form and with source code that can be compiled directly into the project(s).
For easy integration it could be just a simple DLL with a defined interface that simply parses the format into a node tree and then allows you to access each node you desire by name, so you can pluck out the information you can use.



Post thoughts, ideas, and comments here.


L. Spiro

[Dark Byte]

That sounds like a good idea.
When I have time I'll get on msn (currently a little hard since my laptop can't handle msn, it's too slow, and my main comp is being used as a test system that doesn't even get the chance to start up windows)

One suggestion I sometimes get but I usually refuse to implement are hotkeys on tables (I hate it if they'd use hotkeys I already defined somewhere else) But it might be a xml node you might want to consider

[hakkairu]

[benlue]

Dark Byte still goes on sometimes, not as much though .

[stanoja]

Really great idea.
DB you can make it possible of copy/paste addresses in CE.
And you can change the view of address list(both ways:the way
it is now, and a table view).

But I wouldn't use two combined apps for memory write.