PBEM Helper a Primer in Its Useby Robin Yskonyn Kraak

PBEM Helper – A primer in its useBy Robin “Yskonyn” Kraak

PBEM Helper

A primer in its use

By: Robin “Yskonyn” Kraak

V1.0

DISCLAIMER

This document is meant as an addition to the official documentation which comes with the program itself.

It will not be a substitute for the manual, it must be seen as a tutorial on how to use the program, as I had several people complaining they were not able to setup the Helper properly. As this is only a primer it means that many functions, if not most, will not be discussed. This document will only show you how you can setup the Helper to play the turns.

For official documentation refer to the official website or the documentation included with the program.

This document, nor I am affiliated with the author/his work or his business in any way.

This document is enhanced with several screenshots further clarifying the tasks asked from you, which the official manual lacks.

CONTENTS

Introduction

General Overview

Configuring a game in the Helper

Configuring Helper to send email

Launching the game

When starting a new game

When in the middle of a game

How to continue when receiving turns

Microsoft’s Hotmail and PBEM Helper

INTRODUCTIONback to contents

Welcome to the PBEM Helper primer!

This document hopefully shows you in a quick and effective way how to setup your Helper environment for using PBEM games generated by Battlefront’s Combat Mission series.

The PBEM Helper (from now on simply called ‘Helper’ in this document) version used to write this primer was: v1.3.362 (the latest as of February 10th 2005).

The Helper partly automates the process of playing PBEM games, enabling you to focus on playing the game instead of copying files over and over and managing moves on the technical side.

Helper is able to start Combat Mission, automatically load the turn, quit Combat Mission again and send the turn to your opponent.

The only thing you have to keep doing is to copy the turns you receive from your opponent in the Combat Mission\PBEM\ folder or let Helper automatically load the turns once you receive them.

As you can see I’ve colored the above location in blue. That brings me to our next ‘before the actions begins’ subject;

Throughout this document you will find some blue text. This indicates a directory on your harddisk e.g. CMBB\Help\ indicates the Help directory in your Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin directory.

Not too difficult, is it? And I think it will keep the technical bits as clear as possible so you can see exactly where to look on your hard disk.

NOTE: Due to the fact that many people do not use the standard install directory (for example: I have installed all Combat Mission related stuff under C:\Games\Combat Mission\ which makes the location of the Helper: C:\Games\Combat Mission\PBEM Helper\ and the location of CMBB: C:\Games\Combat Mission\CMBB\) I will only refer to partial locations expecting you to know where you have installed the game(s). In other words: I will only talk about the subfolders in your main game folders (like the first time the text was blue in this document).

Still clear enough, right? Good, let’s get on with it then!

GENERAL OVERVIEW back to contents

When you have installed the Helper and open it for the first time, you will need to setup a few things before you can effectively let the program handle all your PBEM-ing.

Below you will find a screenshot with general overview notes. Take some time to look at it, as I am going to refer to the locations shown on the picture in the next paragraphs.

This is the main screen which, at first, we can roughly divide into three separate sections;

-Program Operation Menu’s

-List of installed and configured games

-List of active turns

All other buttons, switches and nifty things can wait for now (and some will not even see the light of day in this document at all).

Let’s begin at the top and work our way down. This is exactly how the program is built up itself, so it only makes sense to do so ourselves.

The options and settings you configure in the Program Operation Menu’s will reflect in the lower windows.

For starters, there will only be games listed when the program is told to look into the correct locations on your hard disk and in turn Helper is able to find the active turns.

By the way: the blurry spot on your monitor is not filth. Don’t try to erase it. It’s where the email addresses of your opponents are shown and so I have blurred them for privacy reasons. 

So now that you have a small idea of how this things works, let’s setup a game!

CONFIGURING A GAME IN THE HELPER back to contents

Actually you my find this easier than you thought once you first opened the game’s property window. The what? Just hang in there, it’ll be as clear as a spring morning in a second.

Take a look at the next screenshot:

Here we have opened the ‘Options’ menu.

Its where we can configure the ‘core’ of the Helper to look where we want in order to let Helper do what we want.

The next step we are going to take is to open the ‘Modify installed programs…’ menu, but before you do that I want to point one other option out.

The last option is called ‘Check CDs’. You have to make sure you have unchecked this option if you are playing without your CD (for example if you stored the originals somewhere safe). Otherwise PBEM Helper will not start your game when you launch the turn!

Ok, on to the ‘Modify installed programs…’ menu.

Here’s the screen we have when we have clicked on ‘Modify installed programs…’ (note that whenever an option ends with three dots like ‘Modify installed programs…’ it means you will get to another window instead of just a toggle between ON and OFF. This goes for every Windows program).

Note that we have a whole bunch of games in this list. The Helper will automatically find any games which are installed in the default directories (which you can see by the data filled in to the right behind the game.

But like I said before; many users do not use default locations and need to configure the game(s) manually in Helper.

Also note that my CMBB entry already has the data filled in, even though its not installed in the default location, but that’s because I already configured it myself.

Let’s take CMBB as an example for the rest of this document.

Locate CMBB in the list (make sure you don’t select the demo, which is also there) and double click on it.

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Here’s the screen you’ll see:

Now don’t get all scared! Many options! I know, but we’re only interested in one option here; ‘Default install dir:’ (see screenshot).

This is likely to be configured for Battlefront’s default install location, so press the ‘Browse…’ button and find the folder where you have installed CMBB and select the ‘Berlin to Barbarossa.exe’ or ‘Combatmission2.exe’ file (depending on your game version) and press ‘Open’ in the lower right of the window.

Now the Helper knows where to look for CMBB! It’s happy, see? Now it can get to work, finally! 

Leave all other settings alone and just press the ‘OK’ button in the upper right of the window to return to the ‘Modify installed games…’ window.

Again press the ‘Close’ button in the lower right of the window to return to the main window.

You might get a message that you may need to restart Helper in order to see the new settings configured, but I was able to continue just fine.

You can tell by the fact if you see CMBB listed in the ‘Installed (and configured games)’ section (see screenshot one).

If so, then continue. If not, quit and restart Helper.

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CONFIGURING HELPER TO SEND EMAIL back to contents

Now that Helper knows where to look, it can automatically find any active turns for you. You don’t have to setup anything in Helper.

The only thing you must make sure is that your PBEM files are located in the CMBB\PBEM\ folder.

Helper will also automatically archive old turns. It creates a subfolder in your CMBB\PBEM\ directory with the name of the turns for every match. Only the newest (and active) turn is kept in CMBB\PBEM\,the rest archived immediately.

Neat and tidy, eh?

But before you can let your wrath be felt by your opponent, he must first receive your turns. So let’s get on with the last bit of technical issues:

Configuring Helper to send emails!

IMPORTANT!

If you’re using a web based email account other than Microsoft’s Hotmail you’re not able to let PBEM handle your email sending. You can only use PBEM Helper to automate the loading of turns, but you will have to manually send the turns to your opponent!

If you ARE using MS Hotmail as a web based mail provider, there’s still an opportunity to experience the ‘full PBEM Helper experience’! 

Please refer to ‘Microsoft’s Hotmail and PBEM Helper’ section further down this document for more details. (Credits go out to Sivodsi Glow for pointing out this issue! Thanks!)

Take a look again at the second screenshot in this document (way back up) which shows the ‘Options’ menu.

At the top we have an option called: ‘Sending email…’. Click on it to open the configuration window as shown below:

Again, your monitor is not dirty, well… err maybe it is, I don’t really know, but anyway the entries in the screenshot are again blurred for privacy reasons. 

You basically have two choices for letting Helper send emails.

The first option requires you to have the mentioned file in your Windows directory, but I think it’s always there if you use Outlook (Express).

The Simple MAPI will use Outlook’s defaults, so the email address you have entered as you main address will be the one which will send the turns and in addition to that you must have configured Outlook properly with your account info to send and receive mails, but you’ve probably been sending emails over and forth anyway, so don’t worry about it, it is configured correctly in that case.

If you want to review the email you’re about to be sending before you decide to actually send it, place a tick mark at the ‘Show a message dialog before sending the e-mail’. Note, however, that this will interfere with the automatic operation as you will always have to manually press the ‘Send’ button to actually send the turn to your opponent.

Then there’s the second, and in my opinion far more comfortable, option:

Using the SMT Protocol.

Just enter all your provider’s info into the boxes according to the information you got when you opened your internet connection with your provider.

We are talking about the provider’s info which you also use to setup your email account in a program like Outlook for example.

So go and find that old dusty piece of paper and retrieve the provider’s email server, your account name and your password and enter them into the correct boxes.

Once all is entered correctly press the ‘OK’ button at the lower left of the window to return to the main menu.

We want to test if we’ve setup correctly, so open the ‘Options’ again (see screenshot two) and click on ‘Test e-mail sending’.

If you don’t get any errors you will receive a fake email in your inbox and everything is working correctly!

If you encounter any problems, please review every step carefully to make sure you didn’t forget something and try again. If you keep running into problems you can review the official manual, contact the author of Helper or contact me for help. I am only human, and errors or inconsistencies might have slipped into this document.

If all is well, Helper is now armed and dangerous!

But how do we actually play the game now?

On to the very last part…

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LAUNCHING THE GAME back to contents

Now that we have set everything up correctly it’s time to get down and dirty! Let’s pour some lead on the enemy!

I am going to discuss three possible options in order to begin using PBEM Helper;

- You have no PBEM games at this time and want to start a new one.

- You already are in the middle of a game and want to switch to PBEM Helper.

- How to continue when receiving turns.

WHEN STARING A NEW GAME…

Just start CMBB and setup a PBEM game like you always do. After you’re ready to send the turn to a friend, close CMBB and open Helper.

You should see your newly created active game listed in the main window under ‘List of active turns’ (see screenshot one).

We now have to tell the Helper where the turn should be sent to. Right-click on the active turn and select ‘Edit selected game…’ in order to open this window:

Enter your opponent’s email address into the first blurred box. Enter the password you have chosen in CMBB for your games into the second blurred box (this info will be used directly by CMBB, so you will not be asked for your password again when you let Helper start the new turn on your computer).

IMPORTANT:

If your opponent also plays with PBEM Helper, then you can leave the ‘Mode:’ option at ‘Send as PBM (recommended)’. This will send a .PBM file to your opponent on which he can simple double-click to load the turn into Helper and continue.

However, if you’re playing against someone who isn’t using PBEM helper you must select ‘Send as ZIP’. This will zip the .TXT, so he can unpack it with WinZip or a similar un-zipper.

In this case you will not receive .PBM files yourself (from him) and so you will have to manually copy the files into yourCMBB\PBEM\folder.

Once you copied the .TXT files there and start the Helper, it will automatically detect the new turns (see ‘How to continue when receiving turns’).

Now all is set. Select the turn (If it’s still marked with a darker color it is still selected) and either press the ‘Send…’ button in the lower left of the window of press ‘F4’ on your keyboard to send the turn to your opponent.

NOTE: If you selected the ‘Show a message dialog before sending the e-mail’ option (see screenshot five) an composed email window will popup waiting for you to press the send button.

WHEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A GAME… back to contents

If you’re in the middle of a battle and want to switch from manually send and configuring turns to the automatic process Helper has to offer you simply have to define the opponents email address as discussed in the previous paragraph.

Even though you never used Helper before, it does automatically locate the most recent active turn for you and displays it in the list.

Just follow the above procedure to configure the turn for it to be ready to be sent and you’re all set.

HOW TO CONTINUE WHEN RECEIVING TURNS?

This is quite simple also.

It all depends on how your opponent send you the turns:

If he or she is not using the Helper, you will probably get a ZIP file, containing the .TXT file(s) of your turn(s) or the .TXT files are sent directly.

In case of the latter, just save the attachments to your CMBB\PBEM\ folder, load up Helper and voila, they’re listed as the new active turns!

In case of the first option, unzip them with a common un-zipper (like WinZip, or WinAce) to your CMBB\PBEM\ folder, load up Helper and bam(!) get on with the action.

If he or she IS using Helper, then it gets even more easy! Just open de .PBM file and the Helper is launched automatically, updating your turn info and ready to launch the game!

See? By ignoring most of the settings, tweaks, variables and technical tidbits, we’ve managed to get our games up and running quickly without (too much) problem!

MICROSOFT’S HOTMAIL AND PBEM HELPER back to contents