Author Topic: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion  (Read 5588 times)

caeles

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Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« on: January 26, 2012, 04:01:36 AM »
Hey guys (and ladies),

Using the latest version 3.1 in its evaluation period (@Corey: if it operates smoothly this next tourney i will get back to you ;) ), just have a question if the following is possible:

In my case I will be running a 5-player tourney, which will boil down to a headsup between the last two standing. It is now my intention to change the mainscreen-set to a newly made headsup-screenset with different cells, when that happens. And in there I would like to insert the images of those final two players. Showing it not only on the table, but also on the screen.

At this point i have created one cell ('VS_Headsup1) in which i added two images (e.g. Jake.jpg and Barney.jpg). If not these two players made it to the headsup i can quickly change it to the correct names (e.g. Michael.jpg and Robert.jpg). Hope everyone can see that i would love to have an automated function for such a feature..

So, in other words: can I put in a formula that shows: IF players <3 THAN show picture of player 1 AND player 2.

Hopefully this is possible with this version. If not, @Corey: is it possible to add this functionality to a newer version? It might be easier to setup if it an image-entry is created in the players-database. Since then, just like the playernames-token, a token could be created that showed player-images.

Hope to hear from you!

Regards,
Bobby

EDIT: This could also be a great feature for bigger tournaments, where -for instance- on the screen the pictures can be shown of the 'championship-table'.

Magic_fubu

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2012, 11:14:53 AM »
I am pretty sure that TD wouldn't be automatically able to show the pics, but as long as you have the layout set up, you could easily and quickly get them in there (based upon other posts i have seen regarding pictures).
« Last Edit: January 26, 2012, 01:52:57 PM by Magic_fubu »
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Corey Cooper

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2012, 01:02:15 PM »
See this topic: http://www.thetournamentdirector.net/forums/index.php?topic=3280.0

In short, would love to add this, but currently it's a matter of priorities.

For something as small as a 5-player tournaments, here's what I would suggest: create a screen such that the two player images are each in cells by themselves.  Depending on what your screen looks like, this may be easy or it may be difficult to impossible.  But if you can manage it to do it, you then just have to create 5 cells, one for each player, that simply contain the player's image.  For example, the contents of one of the cells would simply be:

<img src="C:/playerImages/Jake.jpg">

Then once the heads-up portion is reached, you can easily drag-and-drop the appropriate cells on the Layout tab to display the correct players.

TIMMER

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2012, 02:06:19 PM »
We do this as a finale table break, which is a break & chip up screen, which the screen is already to go with name & pic in cells, put the pic in the seat order takes about 2min to do, after the break find your pic and your seat number as will. I think are pic are 160x107,  we have about 32 pic but are final table is 10 so click and drag 10x,  So 2min and I still got time to do what ever.  Timmer.

caeles

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2012, 04:18:24 PM »
Hey everyone,

Thanks for the replies!

In the end I have done it sort-of like you've advised me to do, however created one headsup-cell, inserted two pictures out of five (html-style with inset-borders) and when the heads-up came up i just had to modify one of them, so just quickly put in a different name and done. (though, next time I will go with Corey's suggestion, that sounds faster)

@Corey: appreciated that you will look into it on adding it in your program. Last Saturday we have had a blast, great tournament! Much thanks to this program!

Just a final question, I have noticed with the layout that there are empty spaces between the contents of cells (for instance: cell 1 with picture next to cell 2 with picture has a lot of empty space in between). Is there an easy fix on 'deleting' this empty space? I've tried doing it with the width/height elements in the Layout-tab, but then I get an extra wide border (or so it seems) and the rest of the layout is unaffected.. Hope this is understandable, though..

Love to hear again!

Regards

Corey Cooper

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2012, 10:52:48 AM »
It can be tough to eliminate unwanted space.  The layout, by default, expands to fill the available screen.  Cells within columns will be as wide as the widest cell in that column.  Not much you can do about that.  Reducing the width value of the cell will reduce the cell's width, but it will still occupy a space as wide as the column.  Meaning it's not likely to do what you want.  But there are some techniques that can be applied to achieve the results you want, probably.  Post a screenshot and/or your layout and what needs to be done.

TIMMER

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2012, 11:11:41 AM »
We do this in our TURBO POKER with Players Names but a Image should work to, If you got room on your main screen. you can do-it there as the players go out, click that ( in our case its (Players In (token) cell remove there Image, by the time you get too heads-up the players are already there...put this cell in your, Heads-up screen then when you pop the heads-ups screen the 2 players are there just edit Players In to Heads-Up.  Or put it just on your Heads-up  Screen and remove the players image from there....hope this makes sence...... PLAYERS - IN - <players><br><marquee direction="up" loop="-1" width=160 height=110  scrollamount=-1> <img src="Your Players pic.gif" border="0"> <br> <img src="Your Players pic.gif" border="0"> <br> <img src="Your Players pic.gif" border="0"> <br>  <img src="Your Players pic.gif" border="0"> <br> <img src="Your Players pic.gif" border="0">   With out the marquee you can put  <img src="Your Players pic.gif" border="0"> &nbsp; <img src="Your Players pic.gif" border="0">   this will put your pic side by side in the same cell.... The marquee may have some jerking to it ,but a fast machine you shouldn't notice to much...
« Last Edit: February 01, 2012, 11:23:11 AM by TIMMER »

caeles

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2012, 05:09:36 AM »
Hey all sorry for the delay, but:

@TIMMER: Thank you for the new technique, I will definitely try that one out!

@Corey: I understand the workings of the layout more now and got it to work a bit better now. I used the alignment options to put the images in two adjacent cells closer to one another. So one is aligned center/right, the other is aligned center/left, which results having them next to one another.

But, just to elaborate on my original question: it would be grand if it is possible to change the height of one cell, which then changes the other cells as well to keep on filling the screen. In this case to make the logo-cell less high, and thus make the cells beneath it higher/larger.

I added the screenshot of the specific screen and added the layout with the 4 different pictures. Hope you can help me in this. (btw: in the layout i have changed the urls of the attached pictures, because they mentioned my full name before.. ;) )
« Last Edit: February 03, 2012, 02:06:29 PM by caeles »

Corey Cooper

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2012, 10:48:28 AM »
OK, so now we have the layout and images.  What *specifically* would you like done?

caeles

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #9 on: February 03, 2012, 11:05:44 AM »
Ah sorry to be unclear about that, thing 'needed' done are:
- I would like to have the middle column with the two logo-cells to be smaller in height, which would leave more room directly below in the Rounds-cell/Time-cell (making them larger in height). Because I would like to add another cell there (avg stack), but it would make it too crampy in my opinion if the logo's have that much height in it.

Hope this is making sense, again: thanks for taking a look.

Corey Cooper

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2012, 01:22:29 PM »
The Logo_ cells will automatically expand to fill the available space (all cells will do this).  Likewise, if you "cram" in more cells, they will shrink as much as they need to to ensure everything fits on the screen.  But they cannot shrink any smaller than the size of their contents.  Thus, they cannot shrink to a size smaller than the images inside of them.

So it sounds to me like you need to shrink the size of the images themselves.  Just change the height or the width value in the <img> element.  (Quick tip: you only need to specify either the height or the width of an image, not both.  If you specify one dimension, the browser will automatically scale the other dimension to the proportional value.)

caeles

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #11 on: February 03, 2012, 01:30:39 PM »
Alright, that will have to do then. Just find it weird though to see such a large 'colourless border' around my picture. The picture itself is already cut around the edges, but the program still shows a lot more green than the picture can account for..

Corey Cooper

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #12 on: February 03, 2012, 03:24:08 PM »
As I said before, the cells will all expand to fill the entire screen.  If you don't want this done, edit the Screen Properties and uncheck the "Stretch layout" option.

Internet Explorer is rendering the screen, so it's up to IE to decide how to fill the screen.  My observation has been that every cell will have its width and height increased proportionally until the screen is filled.

For example, if you have 3 columns and their content widths work out to be 100, 200, and 300 pixels wide, then of course the 3 columns will need to be 600 pixels wide.  If your screen is 1200 pixels wide, then your 3 columns will fill up exactly half of the screen.  To make the 3 columns fill the screen, the 600 available pixels could be divided evenly among the 3 columns (200 pixels each), making the columns now 300, 400, and 500 pixels wide.  But this is not how it's done.  Instead, every column will be twice as wide: 200, 400, and 600 pixels, so they remain the same size proportionally to each other.

This is essentially why extra space is being added "around" those Logo images.  The trick isn't to "shrink" those cells so they are only as tall and wide as the images inside of them, but rather to make other cells wider or taller.

If the Logo cells were only as wide as the Logo images inside, where would the extra space go?  To the column holding the Player images, and to the column holding the clock and the blinds.  So instead of trying to narrow the Logo cells, widen the Player and Clock columns.

caeles

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #13 on: February 03, 2012, 03:29:32 PM »
That's the kind of out-of-the-box-thinking i was missing..  ;)

Just tried it and it helps a lot. Problem solved.

Thank you, Corey!

beaker

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Re: Inserting images of players in an automated fashion
« Reply #14 on: February 03, 2012, 08:42:23 PM »
Hey Caeles,

I love your heads-up screen, great idea. Think I'll have to add something similar to my next tournament.  I've been trying to think of a way to automate the pictures on the heads-up screen as you mentioned in your original post.

I doing an automation type thing for my break screen background imagine. Of course I realized later that it would have been WAY easier to simply add three seperate break screens, but I've never been one to take the easy route! I ended up creating a BAT file that will rename my 3 different break background imagines to match the name specified in the TD break background path (one by one depending on the current break). This "name change.BAT" file is triggered via TD event 4 minutes into the round following each break. So when the next break occurs the background image will have changed as a result of the BAT event.... hope that made sense.

Anyway, I was hoping to do something similar with pictures on the heads-up screen, but so far it is proving a bit more difficult. It seems there may be some opportunity to use the new "status update" feature to write to a txt file and then use some of the associated player information to figure out which picture to rename. Likely would need some fancy IF statements (external to TD) to ultimately accomplish this one.... good thing for Google!. However, I've been looking through the "status update" information and it doesn't look like there is anything is help determine who may have just busted out.

Corey, is there a way to include the <name>, <winner>, <ID> or similar token / data in the status update information? I've got the feature configured to update on significant event only, so I was searching for some bust-out (player) related data in my test example but didn't notice any?

Thanks,
Beaker