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Merge pull request #5 from SayakMukhopadhyay/master
Creating an ELI5 like guide for CMDRs
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‎cmdrs-guide.html‎

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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta charset='utf-8'>
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<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheets/stylesheet.css" media="screen">
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheets/github-dark.css" media="screen">
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<title>E:D Community Developers - CMDRs Guide</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<header>
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<div class="container">
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<h1>
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<img src="images/edcd-white.png" style="height:80px; margin-bottom: -20px; margin-right: -30px"/>
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Elite: Dangerous Community Developers
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</h1>
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<h2>Welcome to the home of Elite: Dangerous developers</h2>
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</div>
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</header>
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<div class="container">
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<section id="main_content">
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<h3>Overview</h3>
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<p>
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This guide will help you in understanding how most of the <b>3rd party</b> tools of Elite Dangerous works.
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You need no previous knowledge to follow this guide. So, let's dive into it.
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</p>
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<h3>What is this guide about?</h3>
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<p>
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Elite Dangerous is a vast and complex game and there are many different moving parts in the game. Although
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in-game tools have improved over the years, it still becomes very difficult to progress in the game by only
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using them. As such, many players of the game have created their own tools available outside the game which
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greatly enhances the ease of playing Elite Dangerous. <b>These tools are not the official tools of Elite
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Dangerous and their developers have no affiliation to Frontier Developments.</b>
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</p>
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<p>
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Please keep in mind that these tools are created and maintained by developers for free in their free time at
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a best effort basis. Some of these developers can be supported via various channels. If possible, please
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support their efforts. Links would be available in the respective locations of the tools.
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</p>
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<h3>What are these tools and where can I find them?</h3>
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<p>
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You can find links to some of these tools in the <a href="index.html">homepage</a>. You can find more at
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<a href="http://edcodex.info/">Elite:Dangerous Codex</a>. There are a vast number of tools that you might
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discover but these should be enough to get you started.
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</p>
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<h3>What am I supposed to do with these tools?</h3>
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<p>
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Like all great questions, the answer is; it depends. There are broadly 2 types of tools:
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</p>
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<ol>
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<li>
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Client tools, running on your PC.
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</li>
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<li>
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Browser based tools, running on some remote server and accessed using your web browser.
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</li>
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</ol>
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<p>
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Client tools would need to be downloaded and run from your system. Most of the tools need to be run on the
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same system that Elite Dangerous is running on although some tools might not need so.
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</p>
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<p>
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The available tools can be used for anything from tracking and logging your activities, keeping track of
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your resources and credits, to giving advice for how to build that perfect ship you are looking for.
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</p>
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<h3>How do these tools get their data?</h3>
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<p>
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There are 3 ways tools get their data:
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</p>
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<ol>
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<li>
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From <a href="#journal">journal files</a> generated by Elite Dangerous. Some use the data of these files
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sent through EDDN.
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</li>
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<li>
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From <a href="#capi">CAPI</a> once you authenticate your Frontier account with the tools.
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</li>
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<li>
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From manual user input
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</li>
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</ol>
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<h3>What are journal files, EDDN and CAPI?</h3>
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<h4 id="journal">Journal Files</h4>
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<p>
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When you start Elite Dangerous and do activities in it, the game writes some particular files in the system
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you are playing on. These files keep track of your activities by writing
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<a href="https://www.w3schools.com/whatis/whatis_json.asp">JSON</a> data. These files are called the Journal
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files. By default you can find these files at
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<code>C:\Users\%userprofile%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous</code> (Please note that
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depending on your setup, the location might be different).
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</p>
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<p>
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The files in this folder can track back years if you haven't changed your system. That means these files do
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not carry over when you switch PCs. One way to carry them over is to manually copy from the old system and
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paste them in the new system.
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</p>
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<h4 id="eddn">Elite Dangerous Data Network (EDDN)</h4>
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<p>
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Elite Dangerous Data Network (EDDN) is a community run message broker used by browser based tools. Client
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tools send data to EDDN and browser based tools get the data from EDDN. EDDN itself doesn't store any data.
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It just passes along data.
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</p>
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<p id="privacy">
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Please note that EDDN doesn't accept all data that is generated from the
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journal files to protect the users privacy.
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</p>
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<h4 id="capi">Companion API (CAPI)</h4>
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<p>
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The Companion API (CAPI) is an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API">API</a> provided by the game
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itself using which tools can fetch data on your behalf. Sometimes, the <a href="#capi">CAPI</a> can fetch
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more data than provided by the <a href="#journal">journal files</a>.
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</p>
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<h3>How do these all fit together?</h3>
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<p>
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Most tools running on your computer will read the <a href="#journal">journal files</a>. Some of these tools
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will use the data from the journal to show you output in the tool itself. Most of these tools will also have
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an option to send the data to EDDN.
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</p>
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<p>
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Most browser based tools are running on some servers of some kind. These browser based tools listens to EDDN
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and when EDDN receives new data from the tools running on the players computers, these browser based tools
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get that data. Think of EDDN as a cable TV operator and the client running on your PC as the broadcaster.
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You, the viewer would be the browser based tools in this case.
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</p>
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<p>
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Some client based tools and some browser based tools use the CAPI to get additional data too. In order for
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these tools to get data from CAPI you will need to authenticate yourself with your Frontier account.
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</p>
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<h3>Is there something else I should know?</h3>
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<h4>Plugins</h4>
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<p>
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Many client applications support plugins to extend their functionality. Some plugins allows one to send
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extra data to browser based tools that they can't send over EDDN due to the
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<a href="#privacy">privacy restrictions</a>.
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</p>
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</section>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>

‎index.html‎

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<h3>Information</h3>
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<ul>
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<li>CMDRs Guide: <a href="cmdrs-guide.html">GO</a> - The simplest guide for all CMDRs to contribute data.</li>
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<li>Frontier IDs: <a href="https://github.com/EDCD/FDevIDs">github.com/EDCD/FDevIDs</a> - A collection of IDs and Symbols used by Frontiers API or Journal.</li>
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<li>EDDN How-to: <a href="https://github.com/EDSM-NET/EDDN/wiki#app-developers-data-uploaders">github.com/EDSM-NET/EDDN/wiki</a> - Information about how to send or receive EDDN messages.</li>
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</ul>

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