Author Topic: 3.5 Progress  (Read 26252 times)

Corey Cooper

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #30 on: November 27, 2018, 10:27:11 PM »
Nov 27 update:

- Fixed a few Preferences tab items
- Polished up the built-in screens.  They are now 100% as far as I know.
- Fixed various Players tab items.  I think this tab is now 100%.
- Fixed file loading/saving in Game tab, Rounds tab, Players tab, Prizes tab, Tables tab, Events tab, Chips tab
- Fixed formula dialogs (Points for Playing, Events, Stats)
- Fixed Help tab, Links tab
- Fixed all Tournament exports
- At this point I think these tabs, with a very few exceptions, are 100% complete: Game, Rounds, Players, Prizes, Tables, Events, Chips, Help, Links
- Removed the hacky screen saver suppressor and updated the code to use an actual API that disables the Windows screen saver while the application is running.  Woohoo!  Removed the reminder to "Disable your screen saver".
- Fixed a few more internal incompatibilities with the latest version of JavaScript
- Fixed basic chip images
- Fixed a hundred other minor issues

Doesn't seem like a lot, but actually a lot more progress has been made.  I'm getting much closer to a point where I'll be able to step back and take inventory, and finally chart out a path to completion.

Things I know still need work (off the top of my head):
- Rules tab
- Summary tab
- Layout tab
- Database tab
- Stats tab
- Preferences tab
- Hotkeys tab
- Controls tab
- Dashboard

Most of these items are at least 50% complete already.

Finally, things I haven't touched on yet but know will need to be done:
- Licensing has to be refactored to remove it from the Windows registry.
- Evaluation will be completely overhauled (already know how I plan to do it, but haven't implemented anything yet).
- Need to create (or utilize) a color picker, because we no longer have access to the system color picker (not so bad, since it kind of sucks, and there are plenty built using web tech that are waaaay better).
- Still don't know how to allow the user to choose a font from installed system fonts.  Electron has no facility for this.
- Still need to figure out how it will be packaged for installation.
- Still having a few issues from time to time with dialog windows.  As I continue refining it gets better and better, and it's working very well now, but occasionally still have an issue, like a window doesn't open when it should.

efdenny

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #31 on: November 28, 2018, 09:26:45 PM »
Thanks for the update, Corey... keep 'em coming!! We really do appreciate your hard work...

craigt78

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #32 on: December 04, 2018, 10:55:03 AM »
Great news - glad to see progress is being made!!  I look forward to the next update!

Corey Cooper

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #33 on: February 17, 2019, 12:58:21 PM »
Feb 17 update:

- Finished formula dialogs.
- Finished Hotkeys, Layout, Rules, Summary tabs.
- Discovered the zoom feature doesn't work on <iframe> objects, so layout scaling won't work on HTML screens or any layout using an iframe.  Luckily there's another mechanism, but this unfortunately shows some graphic artifacts on many layouts (little lines between cells).  I think the layout will have to be refactored.
- Finished Import Players functionality.
- Fixed file encoding.  I believe we can now load/save properly files that are UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoded.
- Finished Token Builder dialog.
- Finished backup and restore features.
- Finished seating chart tables images.
- Finished HTML screens in the game window.  Also fixed the Minimalist layout.  Much simplified and looks great.
- Added a few screen transitions.
- Tons of other fixes and refactors all over the application.

Currently working on the dialog code again, as the sizing part appears to have an issue.  Once I complete that, I'm going to refactor the layout using flexbox instead of tables and see how it goes.  After that is done, I plan to take a step back and reassess and see what is left.  From that I can determine what must be complete for a beta test to start, and begin working towards beta.

Guzzler

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #34 on: February 17, 2019, 11:53:51 PM »
Very impressive, sir.  I am stoked - can't wait.

MooseWizard

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #35 on: February 28, 2019, 07:19:57 PM »
Great update!  I appreciate your work!    :D
The man, the myth, the moose!

Corey Cooper

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #36 on: March 20, 2019, 04:26:23 PM »
- Added "hide cursor" preference.  This just causes the mouse pointer to disappear automatically after a few seconds when over the Game window, and reappear when moved (you'll see the same behavior when watching a YouTube video, for example).  This was actually a feature many years ago, but removed when it caused problems.  In all likelihood my code was buggy, but I removed it instead of chasing it down.
- Fixed a bug when player images are missing (from version 3.4).
- Removed some obsolete code and updated additional places where paths were being created using "/" or "\" instead of using proper os-specific methods (this will help should we ever get the TD to run on MacOS or Linux).
- Realized many places we show a file dialog were actually implemented incorrectly, and fixed them.
- Discovered that the loading of tournaments when running stats had slowed WAY down.  Figured this was due to me changing file I/O back to synchronous instead of asynchronous.  Returned this part to asynchronous and didn't see any improvement.  Finally realized the introduction of a package that allows for proper detection of file encodings (which is required since some files saved with the TD could be encoded with ASCII, UTF-8, or UTF-16) caused this.  Found a workaround to return it to normal speed and still use the encoding detection.
- Added 10 new screen transitions because I can't help myself.
- Started working on restyling the scrollbars on the built-in screens (Player Rankings, Seating Chart, etc), since we can now do this.
- Fixed the <timer> token, which previously used VML (no longer supported on any browser), to use SVG.

Most time was spent working on the layout.  I experimented using flexbox and it turns out the Chrome rendering issue I was trying to avoid is also present when using flexbox or grid layout.  So it doesn't help to retool the layout in this way.  I spent quite a bit of time experimenting, testing, and going back and forth between using "zoom" versus "scale" for layout scaling.  I found a new issue with "zoom" that ultimately pushed me to decide to move ahead using "scale".

zoom: actually looks good, but doesn't work on iframes.  I can probably work around the iframe issue.  But also noticed that using zoom can change the way the layout looks.  That is, a scaled down version of the screen using "zoom" may not look exactly like a smaller version, but may have spacing changes within the layout.

scale: Looks great, works with iframes, but introduces gaps between elements.

So to give you an idea of the "introduces gaps" issue with using "scale", here is the default layout scaled to 640x480:



Notice the line below the description?  That shouldn't be there.  Also, the lines below "No Limit Texas Hold 'Em", "Next Round: No Limit Texas Hold 'Em", and "Blinds $15/$30" shouldn't be there.

If I turn off borders, the issue is even more pronounced.  There should be NO white lines in this image:



I decided that I could probably modify the layouts to avoid this (mostly) and just live with it as a Chrome bug until they finally fix it.  Shortly after that I realized that having property sets be part of columns and rows would be required, which is not a simple change.  It might be the right thing to do eventually, but I don't want to make that kind of change yet.

But today through some additional google-fu I finally found that I am not the only person who has seen this issue.  It was submitted to Google in June of 2017, so I'm not holding my breath on it being fixed anytime soon.  However, the same search came with a workaround, which I *think* will work for us.  When I apply the workaround, the layout looks like this:



And with borders turned off:



Yay!

I just got back from a vacation, so I've got to get my head back around where I'm at in this process.  Making progress every day and getting much closer.

Silver Owl

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #37 on: March 21, 2019, 07:57:51 AM »
Great job Corey and thank you for all your hard work so we can enjoy playing a game.

Corey Cooper

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #38 on: April 29, 2019, 11:47:56 PM »
- More cleanup of Game window (built-in screens and tournament screen)
- Fixed a few dialogs that didn't render quite correctly (Font dialog, Cell dialog, Screen Properties dialog)
- Fixed the status icons.  Using new icons and some animations now, it looks good.
- Fixed a handful of the remaining dialogs: Game Player dialog, Player Details dialog, Stats Player dialog, Stats Tournaments Information dialog, Stats Profiles dialog (and sub dialogs), Name Format dialog, Config Files dialog, Sort Order dialog, Chop dialog
- Finished up the Database and Stats tabs
- Added new options to player images to make images round, add background color and borders
- Fixed AutoSave
- Finished Status Messages
- Fixed a few rendering issues in the Settings window
- Updated to the latest version of Electron and in doing so completely broke drag-and-drop (Tables, Layout, and Dashboard)!  I have since refactored Tables tab drag-and-drop so it works again.  Still need to complete Layout and Dashboard.
- And finally, came up with a preliminary list of what is left (see below)


What's left to do?  In a semi-ordered list of the most important things:

Must complete before beta
- Refactor licensing
- Package the software for download and installation
- Complete drag-and-drop on Layout tab and Dashboard configuration
- Display Management
- Re-re-factor dialog code (still a few issues that need to be ironed out)
- Loading/saving of files that are not ANSI (UTF-8/UTF-16/etc).  This is still an issue unfortunately.

May need to complete before beta
- Various FIXMEs throughout the code
- A few bugs I am currently aware of

Can wait until beta
- Software patch feature
- Hand Timer
- Hotkeys dialog should be "modeless", but isn't
- Color selection dialog
- Font selection input/dialog (this is still a complete unknown, since Electron still doesn't provide this service)
- Update built-in layouts
- Other various tweaks and changes

mcfrojd

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #39 on: May 03, 2019, 09:54:09 AM »
Roadmap looks good, cant wait to be beta tesing this new version.
Keep up the great job.

ThorstenP

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #40 on: May 24, 2019, 06:01:02 AM »
Hey Corey.

Do have an idea for the schedule of finalizing 3.5?

Kind regards, Thorsten.


Corey Cooper

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #41 on: May 27, 2019, 10:39:26 PM »
I would like nothing more than to provide a schedule or even a single date, but I would likely just disappoint everyone by missing it.

Since my last update I have done a lot (2 pages of notes, in fact), but it distills down to only a few items:

- Fixed all the drag-and-drop stuff.  And everywhere else that was broken with the update of Electron.
- Fixed the dashboard and updated its icons.
- Fixed the Hand Timer (mostly)
- Removed Display Management
- Fixed about two dozen other small items around the application

Removing Display Management seemed fairly trivial, but turns out it was embedded in a lot of places I hadn't realized (or remembered).  That took a lot more time than I had anticipated.

On the positive side, when I have to fix something that used to work under IE that doesn't under Chromium, half the time I end up improving it.  Usually it's something small and possibly insignificant, probably something few others would even notice.  But it's nice that it is improved.

I'm going ahead with the licensing part now.  This will probably take a good deal of time, because much of it has to be refactored, and it has to be right.  And it has to be right the first time.  Once that's done, the install will need to be done.  I think then I can begin an "alpha" version, which will have known issues but at least I can get it into the hands of those of you brave enough to give it a try.

ThorstenP

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #42 on: May 29, 2019, 07:40:30 AM »
Sounds good!  :)

The Meal

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #43 on: June 24, 2019, 03:52:57 PM »
Glad to hear progress is being made.  Can't wait until we have something we can help test!  Good luck Corey.

Corey Cooper

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Re: 3.5 Progress
« Reply #44 on: July 15, 2019, 08:02:05 PM »
It's almost done!

Since my last update, I've fixed countless issues all around the application, including loading of files with respect to encoding (UTF-8/16, etc).  In addition I've gotten the licensing working.  I'm currently working on the installer.  Once that's done, I'll begin the process of general clean-up and prepping for beta testing.

The first beta will be open to licensed users only, simply because I have not completed the evaluation code update yet, and I don't want to hold back beta testing.