Untitled Document

Support

Explanation:

Using different sierra user profiles:

Its possible to use different sierra user profiles, according to your own wishes.

This can be enabled by choosing Game->Sierra User Profile->Use specific profile. When this is disabled, the game will use the last userprofile that was selected ingame.

When this option is checked, you are able to setup user profiles. To do this choose Game->Sierra User Profile->Setup profiles... When you make a profile (select add after choosing Setup profiles), you have to enter your sierra login name, and password. There's also the option to let the program automatically choose the selected profile, when entering a game in a specific serie (cup, tptcc, ...). You can edit the series where this profile needs to be used with the add and del buttons.

Instead of letting the program decide what profile to use (based on the series), you can also force it to use a specific profile. This is done by choosing Game->Sierra User Profile->Force select and there the profile you want the game to use.

When starting the game the user profile is selected by the following rules:
- if "use specific profile" is checked, and a "Force select" profile is chosen, this profile will be used
- if "use specific profile" is checked, and no force select profile is chosen, the game will use the profile based on the series. If no profile is configured to use the current series, it will let the game choose the last profile that was selected ingame
- if "use specific profile" is unchecked, the game will choose the last profile that was selected ingame

Regular expressions for hostname and servername values:

Regular expressions are a way to "identify" a certain text. If you are not accustomed to regular expressions, they might seem a bit hard. But thrust me, one you know how to use them, they are pretty powerfull (well, all is relative... :P). I'll just explain a few basics about their use here.

Regulare expressions use some characters that have a special meaning, the most common ones are:

.	This stands for any character in the searchvalue (only 1)
*	This allows the value which stands in front of this symbol to occur 0 or more times in the searchstring
[]	When putting values in the [], there's a choice between those values in that place of the searchstring. When putting a "^" behind the "[", it means all values but the ones inside the []'s.
^	Beginning of the searchstring
$	End of the searchstring
\	The value behind this will be interpreted as a normal character, and not as one with a special meaning (eg. to find a "." in the searchstring, you'll have to use "\." as a regular expression

We'll be filtering on the hostname as an example.

If you want to find all hosts, you can just leave the filter empty. Note: this is the same as putting ".*" there ("." stands for every character, "*" for 0 or more occurences, so this means everything)
Say you want to find host with only "uk" in it. Solution is easy, you just put "uk" (without the "'s) in the filter, and you'll only get the requested values
If you want to find a host which starts with the "s" or "S", put "^[sS]" in the filter.
If you want to find a host with first a "uk" in there, and then a "test", you can use "uk.*test" to find those values.

Lots of other possibilities, but i think you get the basics of it now.

Filters on series and tracks:

These filters get filled according to the data received. If eg. a new track got added, it will be in the filter. There is a default selected option when you right click on the list of tracks/series (when the tracks/series filter is enabled). On the series filter this default selected option is default set to false, on the tracks filter to true. Maybe some explanation as to why this option is there.

I'll explain with an example on the tracks filter:
- If you only want to see a couple of tracks (eg. daytona and talladega), you'll want to disable the default selected option. This way, when new tracks got added, these won't be selected, so you won't see them in your list.
- If, on the other hand, you want to see all tracks except a couple of them (eg. remove all ovals), you'll want to set the default selected option to true. This way, when a new track got added which hasn't been in the list before, it will be seen in the racelist.

Meaning of values in the "settings" column:

1st	Damage setting. "-" = no damage, "M" = medium damage, "R" = realistic damage
2nd	Yellow flag setting. "Y" = yellows, "-" = no yellows
3rd	Fixed setup setting. "F" = fixed, "-" = not fixed
4th	Simmode setting. "A" = arcade, "S" = simulation
5th	Computer opponents. "C" = yes, "-" = none
6th	Hardcore mode. "-" = none, "D" = Driving Aids disabled, "V" = Driving View Fixed, "+" = both

Using the IRC chat: From v0.54 on there's an IRC chat included in the program. IRC is a way to be able to chat with other people, in private or in a group.

To be able to chat you'll first need to setup your userprofile. You can do this by choosing Irc -> Setup user profile.... You'll also get a message the first time you start the program to do this. Its important you fill in the user profile right. The username can't consist off spaces, and you need to enter at least 1 nickname. Its adviced though you enter some more nicks (eg nicks which are closely related to the one you want, by adding _ or something). When your nick is already in use on the server you are connecting to, it will automatically switch over to your next choice of nick.

The next thing you need to do, is configure an IRC server. When you first start the program, there's already a server configured which is used to connect to the default chatroom (irc.shadowworld.be - room #NR2003). If you want to add an other server, use the Irc -> Configure servers... command.
Note:
- When you fill out the info about the server, you only need to enter a password if you're sure. Most (public) IRC servers don't use a password.
- In the Extra commands box, you can specify if commands need to be sent to the server after login. This is usefull on eg. shadowworld, if you got a nick registered to chanserv. To identify you, you just need to enter "chanserv identify <password>" (replace <password> with your password and no "'s).
To join a server, click the menuitem with the name of the server on it, and select Connect. If the server item is grayed out, it means the IRC window isn't shown. Goto Window -> Irc to fix this (make sure its checked). If you pressed connect, there should appear a new tab with a computer next to its name. You should also see a bunch of stuff the server sent when you logged on.

If you're connected to a server, you need to join a channel on the server. There are a few ways to do this. The easiest way is by selecting the Join channel... option in the menu of the relevant server. A window will pop up so you can type the channel name (eg. NR2003). You can also join a channel by typing the command. If you type in the server tab (the one with the computer icon), you'll need to enter something like this: "JOIN #NR2003" (without "'s). The # in front of the name means its a channel we're talking about. When you're in a channel tab, or a private tab, you'll need to enter it this way: "/JOIN #NR2003". The "/" means we want to give a command to the server.

Thats the main stuff to know i think about the IRC chat. In the options (File -> Options) there's an IRC tab to setup some options. One of them enables you to reconnect to servers where you were logged on before you exited the program automatically (also enters the channels). Another one is to select what to do when you enter a nascar game.

Known issues:

Racelist update:
The racelist isn't updating all the races properly. This is caused by the way papyrus designed their racelist infrastructure. The info i'm fetching from their server is only getting updated when a user joins/leaves a server, and when a server changes its status (practice -> qually, qually -> warmup, ...) (though i'm not sure if it gets an update in that case). The more detailed status info needs to be fetched from the raceserver itself. I haven't implemented this fetching from each individual server for several reasons. One of them is that this would put additional stress on the raceservers, since its not only the packages from within the game it needs to process, but also the ones from this program. An other reason is to keep this program light to run. When having to send packages to each server every once in a while it would mean a significant higher workload. A third, and most important reason is that i haven't been able to figure out the format of the UDP packages sent and received from an individual server...
Joining a server from the program:
When joining a server from the program, you might get the message "You are not qualified for this race" ingame. I don't know why this happens, but when you press cancel, and reconnect (still ingame), the 2nd time it should work. This doesn't seem happen on all the servers...

License:

Although copyright does not abandon, this software is completely taken as freeware.
Redistribution is allowed if the contents of the package is not changed.

Qualification:

Any damage by having performed this software is not compensated.
Please use this software on accountability.