DV Annotate

dV-Annotate: Windows utility for tracking events and creating a zip for bug reports

This is a human-readable script for Windows Powershell 5.1 (the powershell.exe that ships with Windows 10).

It is a GUI utility to help people using Windows archive game logs, saved games, screenshots, and also timestamps of events for bug reports. I wrote it in powershell but no knowledge of powershell or command lines is needed to run it.

The reason for a script like this is that it can be rather difficult to keep track of when different things happen during gameplay that might be relevant for debugging, and the more timestamps and descriptive info the developer can get, the less time they have to spend looking for stuff. So this can save a lot of developer time and also make it more possible to discover more issues, etc.

Installation/Setup

This is just a plain text .ps1 (powershell) script, but it creates a GUI so you don't need to run it from the command line. Just download the .ps1 file and save it wherever it's convenient.

If you double click on the script it won't execute, but instead should get opened in a text editor. (I encourage everyone to review it because it's a good idea to look for anything suspicious in scripts before running them.)

To actually run it, just right-click on dv-annotate.ps1 in Windows Explorer and select "Run with PowerShell".

The first time it is run it will create a settings file in %AppData%\dV-annotate\. It will then offer to move itself to that directory and create a shortcut in its current location that will allow it to be run in a normal manner without opening a terminal window. This shortcut can be moved anywhere you want.

Configuration

If you need to change any paths or settings, see the Archive tab.

And if you want to modify the script yourself, all the important functions are at the top of the file will all the ugly tool-generated GUI stuff being toward the bottom. It's just a normal plain text PowerShell script, so it can be read and edited with any text editor.

Usage

The easiest way to use this is to run it and minimize it before launching the game. During the game, just bring the window to the front by using Alt+Tab, type in a comment, then Alt+Tab again to make it go away and go back to playing. Having the "Auto-pause in background" option enabled in dV's settings will be useful.

As long as you have the Annotate tab selected, the input focus will switch to the textbox and so you can just Alt+Tab, Type a comment, hit enter, and Alt+Tab again to go back to playing.

If using Steam then you can use F12 to take screenshots of anything interesting. (This requires having the Steam Overlay enabled.) The script by default will look for screenshots to include in the archive that are newer than when the annotation (comment) log was created.

The recommended time to create the .zip archive is after returning to Enceladus (which saves the game) but before exiting the game. This helps to ensure that the Godot engine log doesn't get blown away and that anything interesting is saved in the game save.

The script can archive the game directory while the game is running without any problems.

Download

Download the script from GitHub Gist here: dv-annotate.ps1