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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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EVE Mail Log
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Granix Uvelian
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2012-04-20 20:54:24 UTC
Hey All,

I don't know how much this affects everyone else, but I'd like to propose the idea of an EVE Mail Log. We have chat logs and combat logs, market logs, etc. However, my EVE mail stays on the server.... and slowly disappears.

Can we have an export button for our evemail which allows us to store the messages locally?

It would help with tracing events and conversations within the corporation/alliance which span years of mail. This would allow us to build a more accurate history of corporate events, etc.

Just my 2 ISK.

Granix
mxzf
Shovel Bros
#2 - 2012-04-20 21:16:12 UTC
It's called the API. The mail is already available, you just have to actually download it and save it.
Granix Uvelian
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-04-20 21:18:32 UTC
That's great and all for those who know how to program, but for those of us who don't know how... we're kind of SOL
mxzf
Shovel Bros
#4 - 2012-04-20 21:30:35 UTC
https://api.eveonline.com/char/MailMessages.xml.aspx?keyID=(your API key ID)&vCode=(your vCode)characterID=(your character's ID)
https://api.eveonline.com/char/MailBodies.xml.aspx?keyID=(your API key ID)&vCode=(your vCode)&characterID=(your character's ID)&ids=(a list of mails you want)

There you go, now you have your mails.

Or you could make a post asking if some programmer would be willing to write a program to periodically dump mails into a file, it's really not very complicated.

But either way, it's not something CCP should add to the game, because it's already there, you simply have to use the tools they have already given us. If you are too lazy to learn how to use the current tools, and too shy/lazy to ask someone to do it for you, then get over yourself.
Granix Uvelian
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-04-20 21:35:52 UTC
Fair enough.

I didn't mean to rile anyone. I was just pointing out that it'd be nice to have. I'll see what I can do with those lines you posted.

Thanks,

Granix
mxzf
Shovel Bros
#6 - 2012-04-20 22:31:27 UTC
Sorry if I come across as a bit harsh, there are just a LOT of people that post on these forums wanting CCP to drop everything to do things for them who aren't willing to try and do anything themselves. It's nice to see someone who's willing to atleast give it a go when they're pointed in the right direction.

I've been working on an API parsing program for something I've been working on which will touch on the mail system, if I get a chance I'll try and make a stripped down exe that can take an API key and char name and dump the most recent mails to a file (probably a CSV file that can be opened up with Excel, for simplicitys sake). If I get around to doing that, I'll try and get you a copy of it.
Granix Uvelian
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2012-04-20 22:34:53 UTC
Yeah.

I guess for me, working with an API is kind of a foreign concept. I just don't even know where to begin. I have used Excel VBA a lot in high school, college, and even in my work. However, I never had a need for using/understanding internet programming.

Let alone app development.

I mean, once I get the data to my hard drive I can run my macros to analyze just like most peeps. I'm just unfamiliar with how to perform a call to the api with VBA to get what I want.

If that makes any sense.

G
Granix Uvelian
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2012-04-20 22:36:57 UTC
Ideally I'd want to create a text file for each EVEmail using a file naming scheme to tell date and mailbox, kind of like our chat logs use date and chatroom. Then I could have a folder for all the logged emails which could be searchable at a glance.

G
mxzf
Shovel Bros
#9 - 2012-04-20 23:11:18 UTC
Well, API calls are fairly simple at a fundamental level. http://wiki.eve-id.net/APIv2_Page_Index has a list of all the possible API calls. What happens is that an API call simply spits out an XML document which has all of the information requested, providing that the given API key has sufficient access. At which point you can parse the API data however you want.

The basic structure for what you're looking for will be:
Pull down the MailMessages to get all the headers with to, from, date, message ID, and subject information
Use the CharacterName API call to resolve the sender/receiver IDs to English names
Use the message ID information from MailMessages to pull down the bodies from MailBodies
Output the mails in a coherent form

Unfortunately I don't think that the API actually includes mailbox information. So you'll likely need to sort them manually unless you get really clever (you do have corp/alliance/mailing list IDs to work with though, as well as the sender/receiver names).

Also, this probably should be moved to the Eve Technology forum, which is the place for development talk.