Spawn auto have my commander already selected so that I don't have to click on it at the start.

Okay so I have an idea but I don't feel like writing the code right now as I am at school, I will do some of what I call paraphrase coding, you should get the idea:

Code:

$("whatever the id of the start button is").append("onclick='startSelectLoop()'")

function startSelectLoop() {
loop  comSelect api.select.commander();
if ("commander").is("selected") {
end comSelect
}
else {
"keep doing loop"
}
}

something like that, no idea how to actually code that and my syntax is fu***ng horrible, but you should get the idea.

EDIT: If you do use this in the mod and make it before I do mention me as author please, also if I make it before you I will mention you as author also

oh relax, if ever this comes out it's everyone's, @raevn participated, @wondible , me and you.

If it is possible to write this does it seem like it would work?

Just wait until the game has started then select the commander? PAStats says hijack handlers.server_state to know when we're playing:

Code:

	var oldServerState = handlers.server_state;
	handlers.server_state = function(m) {
		oldServerState(m);
		if (m.state !== 'game_over' && m.url && m.url !== window.location.href) {
			paStatsGlobal.unlockGame();
		}
		switch(m.state) {
			case 'landing':
				pasHadReconnect = false;
				break;
			case 'game_over':
				gameIsOverOrPlayerIsDead = true;
				paStatsGlobal.unlockGame();
				break;
			case 'playing':
				updatePlayStartTime();
				maySetupReportInterval();
				break;
		}
	};

Hey I know that code!
Yeah I'd try to add the call in that handler.

EDIT:
You know what is funny?
Calling the old handler before my code is actually a dangerous thing because the old handler has a path that ends in setting the current location to some other page, I am not sure if that call returns in that case.
hmm

showLanding is set from server_state. Immediate, setTimeout(0) and I think setTimeout(100) didn't work.

I tried a few hooks that all trigger "around the start of a game" in PA Stats and none worked.

Code:

   var oldServerState = handlers.server_state;
   handlers.server_state = function(m) {
     if ( not_noticed_we_are_playing_yet ) {
       if (m.state === 'playing') {
         //we have noticed we're playing now
         api.select.commander();
         //stop selection of commander everytime handlers.server_state gets called
         not_noticed_we_are_playing_yet = false;
       }
     }

     //moved to end because of Cola's reply
     oldServerState(m);
   };

Haven't tried it, but something like that is all you need?

this is the most communal mod yet, is it not?

I did just that. Like I pasted it into my PA Stats code while doing other tests.

did it work?

See my post above.

ah sorry, didn't see that before

or what?

A bit of a hacky way to do it:

Add it to the handlers.army function in live_game/live_game_econ.

This works (just tested), but you'll need to add some filtering to prevent it selecting your commander at times other than the start (eg., when pressing F5, and possibly others - not sure exactly when this function is called).

Quite the demand of recognition for butchering the syntax of a simple

Code:

while (condition) { do(); }

I actually tried

Code:

while (model.selection() === null) { api.select.commander(); }

and... you really shouldn't. As effective as an endless loop of calling the api command. Had to kill the PA process.

This in the server_state handler though works fine for me

Code:

function selectComWhenNothingSelected() { if (model.selection() === null && model.armySize() < 2) { api.select.commander(); setTimeout(function() { selectComWhenNothingSelected(); }, 50) ; } }
selectComWhenNothingSelected();

Edit: Okay, it does trigger again after F5 so I added the armySize check. Also I increased the timeout a bit. Because sadly selecting the commander via api command (even when unsuccesful) also plays a sound and calling that very rapidly (only happened to me once in a few games) sounds really bad.

Edit: Thinking about it more, this might fail when you're in a game where you're annihilated or only spectating, it would get stuck trying to endlessly select a non-existing commander. armySize == 1 might not be good enough. I don't know in which order game state and armyCount are updated. I'll test this later. I also tried to turn it into a stand alone mod (that I'd just attach here, for anyone to grab) but got stuck with Coherent complaining to be unable to find my script. And after an hour of no progress, despite the seemingly same attempt working for my other mod, I got too frustrated to reduce my remaining sleep time below 3h30m...

good job, still soldier, we can work from there.

Since I haven't seen any other release yet, here's my take

https://github.com/JustinLove/autoselect_commander

You kinda gotta put "everyone on Modder's forum" on author.

My impression is that the PAMM layout won't work very well with a long list of names. Perhaps the description?