New DCS in beta!

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Hi everyone,
It has been a long time in the works, but we now have a beta release of the next iteration of the SEOW DCS application, called SEDCS v8.0. This marks a consolidation of the ground war feature into the DCS, so that it generates missions and analyses logs much faster than before. At the same time, we are trialling a new release/deployment method based on ClickOnce technology. Here are the details:

Where to get SEDCS v8.0
Simply point your browser at https://seowhq.net/SEDCS/ and click the "Install SEDCS" button. Do not use the old Sourceforge file release pages for SEDCS any more.

Prerequisites
SEDCS v8.0 uses modern libraries, much better than the archaic library references used by prior releases. In order to run it requires the following (free) third party libraries to be installed on your computer:

• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8.1
  MySQL Connector/NET 8.3.0

Deployment and automatic updates
SEDCS will routinely check for available updates and download them when appropriate. In this way you can be sure that your SEDCS application is maintaining pace with development releases.

Source code repository
The source code for SEDCS is maintained at Sourceforge, as it has been for decades! You can browse the SVN source code tree at https://sourceforge.net/p/seow/seow_code/HEAD/tree/SEDCS8/SEDCS8.0/. It is organized in native Visual Studio 2022 project format.

What is new in SEDCS v8.0?
Almost every feature from SECS v7 has been carried forward to SEDCS v8.0, except:

• The DCS execution command log has been deprecated and no longer operates
  The tools menu has been pared down to remove extraneous features
  The MS Access database option has been disabled permanently
  The configuration settings file is now located in %USER%/%APPDATA%/SEOW/sedcs.ini

A range of new features has been added:

• A new tab called "IFA" containing settings for the Iron Front campaign and mission environment
  A revised "Files/Misc" tab containing file locations for both IL2 and IFA worlds
  Optional automatic IFA mission generation and log analysis based on MP battlefield status
  New idle supply use selector for regular infantry and spies

The take-home message is that conventional SEOW campaigning in the IL2 world (termed "Air Focus") is still fully supported as before, with all that entails. However, if you desire to include campaigning in the Iron Front world (IFA) then you have the option to run this alongside the IL2 actions (termed "Combined Operations") or instead of the IL2 operations (termed "Ground Focus"). The choice is up to you.

Notes on the Beta Release
The beta release has been a large undertaking, involving converting more than 15,000 lines of complicated PHP code into VB.Net plus refactoring the entire data query engine. We are still testing this code and ironing out some bugs. When we feel sure that the major conversion bugs are eliminated we will remove the beta terminology on the release page. All deployment methods, updating etc will stay the same thereafter.

Cheers,
4Shades