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Elite Dangerous Market Connector (EDMC)

Elite Dangerous Market Connector ("EDMC") is a third-party application for use with Frontier Developments' ("Frontier") game "Elite Dangerous" ("the game"). Its purpose is to facilitate supplying certain game data to, and in some cases retrieving it from, a number of websites and other tools.

To do this it utilises the Journal Files written by the game when played on a PC. It also makes use of Frontier's Companion API ("Frontier's CAPI"), accessible once you've authorised this application.

Supported Platforms

The primary platform for this application is Windows 10 (any version currently supported by Microsoft). It will probably also function on the following, but no testing is done on them: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1.

macOS, Linux, and possibly other platforms able to run a Python 3 program, are supported by running from source. Once you have the application installed follow instructions on Installation & Setup for your platform.

You can run the application on the same PC on which you're running Elite Dangerous or on another PC connected via a network share of the Game Journal files.

Consoles, i.e. PS4 and Xbox, are not supported.

Supported websites and tools

Elite Dangerous Data Network (“EDDN”) - relays any data sent to it out to its listeners (EDDB, Inara, EDSM and others).
Elite Dangerous Star Map ("EDSM") - one of the sites that keeps data about all player-known systems in the game to facilitate such activities as exploration and trading.
Elite: Dangerous Database (“eddb”) - another of the general data sites.
Inara.cz ("Inara") - another of the general data sites.
Elite & Dangerous Roguey ("Roguey's") - a collection of tools to assist players with things like trading.
E:D Shipyard ("EDSY") - a website for examining ship builds and seeing the effects of changes to them.
Coriolis.io ("Coriolis") - another ship builds tool.
Trade Dangerous - a set of powerful trading tools for Elite Dangerous.

These are just a few of the third-party tools that have built up around the game. The Elite Dangerous Community Developers ("EDCD" website lists some more, and we're sure there are others.

Contributing

If you think you have a good idea for extending or improving EDMC then please read Contributing.md.

Functionality

Optionally saves station commodity market prices to files on your computer that you can load into trading tools such as Trade Dangerous.
Optionally saves a record of your ship loadout to files on your computer that you can load into outfitting tools such as EDSY or Coriolis.
Optionally sends station commodity market prices, other station data, system and faction information and body scan data to: EDDN, EDSM, Inara.
Optionally sends your Cmdr's details, ship details, cargo, materials and flight log to EDSM.
Optionally sends your Cmdr's details, ship details, cargo, materials, missions, community goal progress, and flight log to Inara.
Command-line tool EDMC.exe which can be used to save various data to files or send it over EDDN. See EDMC.exe -h for options.
Export your current ship's build to either EDSY or Coriolis.
View the EDDB, EDSM or Inara page for a game star system.
View the EDDB, EDSM or Inara page for a game station.

There is also support for third-party plugins which offer extra functionality.

Usage

Start the application before entering the game to ensure that you don't miss any data.

Caveat on starting EDMC first

However, if your most recent game session didn't include you logging all the way into the game then:

No 'Cmdr' name will be displayed - the application doesn't yet know this. EDMC has multi-account/commander support, and doesn't assume it should use the last Commander.
No 'Ship' name will be displayed.
No 'System' name will be displayed.
No 'Station' name will displayed.
You might not be able to click the 'Update' button.

This can also be caused by a corrupt or incomplete most recent Journal file. See Troubleshooting - Credentials settings are greyed out

If the 'Update' button is clickable then using it will fetch the latest data from the Frontier CAPI and the fields mentioned above should be filled in.

The user-interface is deliberately minimal - your choice of data is automatically downloaded, transmitted and/or saved when you start Elite: Dangerous, land at a station, jump to a system or scan a body.

labelled UI image

Menus
Commander Name
Ship Name
Suit type name, if applicable.
Suit loadout name, if applicable.
Current system's name, if applicable.
Current station's name, if applicable.
Update button, or cooldown timer.
Status text line.

We'll refer to the labels on this image below.

Menus

The application has three menus, labelled 1 in the image above.

File
1. Status - displays some information about your Cmdr and owned ships.
2. Save Raw Data - Saves the last retrieved CAPI (Frontier API) data to a file in the folder configured in the Output tab of Settings.
3. Settings - opens the Settings/Preferences/configuration dialogue.
Edit
1. Copy - copies the current system name, and station name if applicable, to the clipboard, separated by a comma, e.g. LFT 1748, Chomsky Enterprise.
Help
1. Documentation - opens this page in a browser.
2. Privacy Policy - opens our privacy policy statement in a browser.
3. Release Notes - opens our GitHub Releases page.
4. Check for Updates... - performs a manual check for application updates on Windows. Only stable, full releases will be considered.
5. About E:D Market Connector - Display application name, version, version-specific release notes link, and copyright information.

Commander Name

This is the part of the UI with the label "Cmdr:". The text is the element labelled 2 in the image above.

If you aren't in a Private Group, nor taking part in Multi-Crew, then the text to the right of the label will simply show your current Commander's name.

If you are in a Private Group then then it will be of the form: <Command Name> / <Group Name>. Keeping in mind that <Group Name> will simply be the name of the Commander whose Private Group you are currently using.

If you are taking part in Multi-Crew activities on another Commander's ship then this will be of the form: <Commander Name> / <Name of Commander whose ship you're in>.

You can differentiate this from the Private Group case by checking if you have a 'Ship:' or 'Role:' label, see below.

Ship Name

The text next to the label 'Ship:', labelled 3` in the image above, will contain either the model of your ship, or if you have set a ship name in the game 'Livery' interface it will show that instead.

Unless this text is greyed out (indicating we don't yet have loadout information for the ship) you can click on the ship name to view its loadout on your chosen 'Shipyard' provider in your web browser.

Change which provider you use on 'File' > 'Settings' > 'Configuration' (tab) > 'Preferred websites' > 'Shipyard'.

If you are in Multi-Crew on another Commander's ship then the label will change to 'Role:' and the text will be the role you're currently fulfilling on the ship. You cannot click the text to access the build of the ship you're Multi-Crewing in.

Suit Name (Odyssey)

If you are playing Elite Dangerous Odyssey and the application has read data about your current suit and loadout then an additional line (4 and 5 in the image above) will appear on the UI.

If you're not playing Odyssey then this line will not appear in the UI.

The text labelled 4 is the name of the type of suit you're wearing. The text labelled 5, in parantheses, is the name of the currently equipped suit loadout.

System name

The name of the star system you're currently in appears as per label 6 on the image above.

Click on the system name to view its entry on your chosen 'System' provider in your web browser.

Change which provider you use on 'File' > 'Settings' > 'Configuration' (tab) > 'Preferred websites' > 'System'.
If your selected provider doesn't yet have data for the system in question then mouse-over will show a 'stop sign' icon.
Whether you use EDSM as the provider or not you might see an extra image at the end of the System name:
1. <Green Circle> - This system is known to EDSM, including co-ordinates.
2. <Red Circle> - This system is not known to EDSM.
3. <Yellow Star> - You were the first to report this system to EDSM.
4. <?> - An error occurred checking the status of the system on EDSM.

Station name

The text labelled 7 on the image above will be one of:

the name of the station you're docked in if you are docked.
A 'multiply' symbol × if you are in a system that is known to have at least one station/landable port, but aren't docked at any.
Blank/empty if in a system not known to have any stations or landable ports.

Click on the station name to view its entry on your chosen 'Station' provider in your web browser.

Change which provider you use on 'File' > 'Settings' > 'Configuration' (tab) > 'Preferred websites' > 'Station'.
This works whilst docked, or after requesting docking permission. You might see an × character as the name sometimes when not docked. This means the application has determined that you are in a populated system and clicking this × will open the system page so you can see a listing of stations in the current system.
Similarly to the 'System' name, this might not be clickable if your chosen 'Station' provider doesn't have data for the station in question. You'll see the 'stop sign' icon on mouseover if this is the case.

Update button

This button, labelled 8 on the image above, will not be available until Frontier Authentication is completed for the currently active Commander.

Remember, the application will automatically respond to game data so as to update and/or send it as needed. Under normal circumstances you won't ever need to press this button.

But if, for instance, you've been docked in a station for 15 minutes and want to ensure that EDDB etc have the latest commodities information then you can press the 'Update' button to trigger this.

There is an enforced cooldown on how often you can do this so as to not over-tax the Frontier CAPI service. The text 'Update' will change to 'cooldown XXs' during this cooldown.

Plugins might have their own internal cooldowns or queues which cause pressing this button to not necessarily send/update data, immediately or at all.

Bottom status line

The bottom-most line of EDMC, labelled 9 on the image above, is used for short messages conveying status information and/or errors. In the image it is showing the local time of the last data update used to send information to EDDN etc.