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Messages - The_Duke

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1
Beta Testing / Re: Version 2.5 beta 2
« on: January 14, 2008, 03:40:33 PM »
A bit late, but had to attend some other important things here that kept me away from here.
But your last comment of sending TD to a plasma has interest to me as I will soon run into that situation.
Why couldn't you send V2.4.3 to a plasma TV (since I will probably be using 2.4.3 for a good bit of time until 2.5 is well established)?
Offcourse every program can be send out, but..
1. I just don't like to switch screens for settings, buy-ins and all other stuff on the same screen that players are viewing. I want them to read the houserules in PRE tournament state and not seeying me click on a buy-in.
2. Some little problems (might have to do with my widescreen display and using 4:3 playerscreens). When switching back and forth between settings and playerscreens sometimes the screen ratio gets screwed up. So when using the dual monitor option this problem is instantly solved ;)

I would be interested to know what problems you anticipate as I may be called over to my neighbors to run a tourney and also don't want to haul any monitors, but I know he has a big plasma TV.   I was planning on just bringing a VGA cable and do what I usually do or possibly bring an S-video cable just to try out that connection type just in case I need to do that in the future.
Interested to know what issues you have had/anticipate with V2.4.3
There aren't many problems to solve but i suggest testing your external video connector because every video card has it's own strange behaviours when using the 2nd output.

You have to play around with the "exent desktop" setting, because it is the combination of computer/plasma resolutions that will decide for you what setting is best. When you consider you have to deal with 2 resolutions and at least 3 settings concerning widescreen options; then you'll understand there are 12 combinations available; and only 1 of them will give you a fullscreen resolution without strange stretch effects on your plasma or lcd.
I have to install a non official ATI driver if i want to run external screen on a choice for 4:3 or 16:9 resolution. If i would use the standard ATI drivers i could not set 16:9 for external resolution...

Offcourse HDMI, DMI, VGA and such are the best for quality. But S-video is also fine for stuff like this. S-video is not very detailed but playerscreens usaly don't need such high detail and every TV,LCD, Plasma can handle this.

Tip for plasma: Alltough i have a good quality plasma and one of the newest models. Still i make the brightness a bit low when displaying this program. Burn-in on plasma's is still something to consider and better be save then sorry.

2
Beta Testing / Re: Version 2.5 beta 2
« on: December 24, 2007, 03:36:00 PM »
Not trying to flame you  :-[.
I didn't take it that way. No hard feelings...
But i tought letting people know what IT level i am it helps the communication because then we know that some things don't need an explanation.

And I agree that the final tournaments extension is the same as the extension of a default tourney (although some of the other templates, such as layouts have different extensions), but I think it is untrue that for say a MSWord template that the template does not contain data.  If you have graphics or other textual elements in a template, then that template contains data just as a default .tdt file contains layout graphics and other information. 
Don't want to start a whole big thing over templates, so i'll try one short last reply about it.
We just have different interpretation of the term "data" here.  And offcourse you're right when you say every bit is data.
So what do i mean with tournament data then? With tournament data i mean dynamic data like scores and everything else that's recorded while playing a tournament. It doesn't matter if this is text, pictures or whatever. And with template data i mean all that is needed for settings and layout (the static stuff if you like the term).
But i suggest leaving this all behind us for now, and if Corey thinks it's worth trying in version v28b3 he can allway's take this post and contact me for details abut the idea. ;)

(although the stats function of TD is pretty impressive and you might want to spend some time in there to make sure that you can't manipulate the data the way you want to in the stats and scoring data filters - its pretty cool).
I sure was impressed by it. I made some html exports and after a little editing put them online where all the players gave lots of good compliments about this stats.
Also the freedom for calculations is absolutely fantastic. And believe me, even if this program will never be updated again it will probably still be the best in 2020.

The more difficult part of this thread is that you are wondering if problems you are experiencing are bugs in a beta version and it is very hard to figure that out since you are not familiar with the program - so I (or others) aren't sure if it is a bug, or if it is just because you are not familiar with the program.........
.....cut...Is there a reason why you can't use multiple monitors with the current version (2.4.3)?...
I think you misunderstood my suggestions as bug reports or misbehaviours.
The only things i mentioned as possible bugs are the "temples need forced reload" stuff (text marked brown now) and the external screen activation. The first problem also occuurs in the final version, and the latter is a beta version bug report.
For the rest i just type suggestions that comes to my mind while using the program... Free to throw away, or (like we do now) talk about to see if it realy could be a improvement.
Nothing to win or loose or get right or wrong. I believe this kind of discussions bring out the best ideas, and it's a good thing to learn from each other.

I can't use multiple monitors for practical reasons.
I'm just not able to carry my 19" monitors to the tourney room, but there's a 42" plasma present that i can use as external.

And a very happy X-mass to you to.

3
Beta Testing / Re: Version 2.5 beta 2
« on: December 24, 2007, 08:16:10 AM »
I am not sure what you mean by "prices" . . . prizes?
Erm.. yes.. hehe... prizes it is.
Was a late night here :P

Not sure what you mean by data being stored with the templates either.  Any layout templates or tourney templates shouldn't ever be written over unless you mean to do that (to change the template).  TD is extremely (almost too?) flexible
I'll try to explain a bit more...
My defination of a template is: A template will only store settings and layout, but not the data (playerscores) itself.
Take the wordproccessor example; The documents are opened as templates, but saved as documents... In these template files there is no typed document data. There is a seperate system between  templates and data information workflow. Saving a template in a word processor program is a whole different system then saving a document with data (read playerscores).
Now in "The Tournament Director" you load a template and save it under a different name, but still under same file extension and document type (it's still a "template"). And in that saved file there are settings, template layout, and score data.
I rather open a template and save the tournament file under different extension like the office templates work. But that's how i'm used to it, and just personal favorite...

By more flexible i ment:
If you store scoring data seperate you can store it in more readable files or even database. This way 3rth party tools can retrieve this data and can do lots of need stuff with it.
I know many of you use the services of pokersites by using export options. But i'm a PHP website builder and rather have realtime pokerdata on my own website and in my own designs, and offcourse i rather acces a file or database direct then do an export every minute. Also i believe that if the data is easy accesible many more people will create 3rth party tools for it so this data can be used for many more things and The Tournament Director can be extended with plugins.
One of the sites i run is a multigaming group, Just imagine the power if this gaming site can acces realtime pokerdata. Tournament Director might benefit from these extensions because the program grows and gets more options while others program them.

You're absolutely correct that the program itself with the templates and layout system is as flexible as can get.
But putting score data in 1 file with template settings makes it a little bit harder to reach, so here is still an oppertunity to increase flexability in my humble opinion.
Allmost every program i know (or programmed myself) that uses templates also stores data seperate. That's the reason i was wondering why the choice was made to not seperate it in this program.
And i was just thinking out loud... So please do not take these comments like a bad thing.. the way it's made now works, and works great !!!

One thing I might suggest is to not use the beta version if you are new to the TD software. 
It just might be easier to use a version that is well tested - just a thought.
Thnx for the suggestion.
All versions  work the same concerning template files, So also when used the final version i would have cleared my scores by mistake.
But allthough i'm new in the pokersoftware, i'm a Senior system operator and building PHP websites with MySQL db's for many years now.
So i'm not lost in the world of beta's or the many options a program offers, it's just that template load/save system that threw me of for a sec.

I realy need the dualscreen output, and therefore this beta versions.

Beta programs like this are great that it's made public available.
Sometimes somebody types for 5 hours in a forum and a whole new application option is born, and sometimes someone is wrong and all who read will learn.
I learned a lot this weekend :D

PS: excuses for the spelling mistakes.
PS2: I edited the post above (http://thetournamentdirector.net/forums/index.php?topic=1033.msg4866#msg4866) and made a part brown that still confuses me. Maybe someone can explain this part?

4
Beta Testing / Re: Version 2.5 beta 2
« on: December 23, 2007, 07:07:02 PM »
Duke,

I actually like the way the new and reset functions work and.............
Thank you both for this detailed and clear explanation.
I do understand how it works now, and once you know this principal the buttons NEW and RESET are logical.
Untill now i didn't realise that templates where also used to store the data. I thought the data itself was written somewhere else and therefore the tournament templates could be saved over without overwriting tournament data.
I work with templates in M.. Office a lot; and i'm not used that templates are filled with data and saved as template again.
Because i assumed templates are never filled with data i got confused... Now thinking back about all this i realise there is only a load/save template, but there is not a save "datafile" option so i had to know....

Just curious; Is there a specific reason why templates and tournament datafiles are not saved seperate with different file extensions?

Again, thnx!

---------

And the strange profile behaviour as described in my post for prices, tables, etc.
Is that also my twisted mind that confuses me, or does it realy need some fixing?


--------

Okay, one more for the road...
If i load a tournament template i see in status bar the tournament template name, but i have no idea what other templates (tables, prices, etc) are used and active.
Is there a way to find out which active templates are loaded, or maybe possible to display the active template filename on top of each screen in the next version?


With regards,

The Duke.

ps: I realy like this software and i think its a great program! So my suggestions don not mean i don't like it, but i'm just trying to help you make it even better by letting you know what i experience from a pokersoftware noob's (what i am) point of view.

5
Beta Testing / Re: Version 2.5 beta 2
« on: December 23, 2007, 06:19:25 AM »
First real tourney run last night, and all my friends tought this software was a huge succes!


There's an small problem/bug in duallscreen that's also present in beta1 (alltough not mentioned earlyer, i forgot).

Setup: Laptop 1440x900 / ATI 9700 mobile.
External: SVHS cable / 1024x768
In prefrences set the resolution.
Option: Use extended... and Settings on main...

Status: Gamescreen displayed on laptop
Click on "Move to extended screen"; nothing happens and game screen is gone. Not on laptop, not on extended?!
Click on "Move to Main"; gamescreen displayed on laptop again.
Click on "Move to extended"; gamescreen is displayed on external screen.

So extended is only displayed when i switch back and forth between Home and extended once.
From here on it keeps on working okay. It's just the first extended activation where i have to switch twice before extended is displayed.


----------- Strange template behaviour ----------
I'll type it in exact the same step by step like i did.

1. load tournament TEST-A.
2. Create rules TEST
3. Save Rules and Tournament.
4. Create Tournament TEST-B
5. Load rules TEST
6. Change Rules TEST
7. Save Rules TEST
8. Load tourney TEST-A
* Then in rules the text is not displaying as last saved? The rules displayed are like before step 6 (the last change and save)? But i would expect the rules must have changed because both tourney's use the same RULES file that was changed and saved. So i'll force a load template....
9. Load rules TEST
* And now changes since last save are displayed correctly.

This same behaviour is also in prizes (and maybe also in layout templates, but not tested).
Saved changes in prizes templates do not show when other tournament is opened that uses the same prizes template. Only after a forced template load it shows that last correct saved version.

In short:
Change a prize-template and save. Then in other tournament that uses same prize-template the changes are not displayed untill forced prize-template load.


I hope it's clear what i ment to explain. Not real bugs, but for user friendly and logical behaviour i think there's much room for improvement to make here.

-------------
Suggestion:
There's maybe some room for improvement how to start a second tournament.
The first time i tought RESET would reset the scores and start a new second tournament, but with reset all scores from the first tourney where gone from stats! Aaarch... my fault.
The second time I clicked NEW, loaded same template as before (we wanted to play an exact same tourney again), and found many things where not cleared like buy-ins and some other things concerning players alltough i clicked something that stated "want to clear player buyins etc.".

Maybe it's me, but i find it a bit confusing how to start a new tournament without change on loosing first scores.
Do you need to create a NEW tourney with a NEW NAME for every tournament, or can you re-use the same template again and just clear the player buyins before start? Looks like REusing same template also REuses the last scores in that template, and is that a problem for the overall stats?

So my suggestion is to remove NEW and RESET buttons, and make some sort of wizard. Or make a "wizard mode" optional in preferences.
The wizard has only essential steps with questions if you want to.. Create, Start, Restart, or Reset a tourney?
In this wizard all of the steps could have info displayed on what they do so users can read and make the correct choice.
Just a suggestion...


With regards,

John.

6
Beta Testing / Re: Version 2.5 beta 1
« on: December 22, 2007, 06:43:52 AM »
When you press "Move to extended screen", it reads the screen dimension values for the extended screen that you have set.  It will default them to the same values as your main screen, so if you didn't set them, they would have been defaulted to 1440x900.  That said, if you did set them, I wonder if for some reason it didn't properly read them...  Not really sure what may have happened.
I have set the dimensions.
Will do some further testing and let you know if in next beta this still happens.

Quote
Quote
Suggestion:
Open Information screen FULL (optional), but setup windowed.
Setup window runs on laptop, so would be nice if windowed, but info screens are on 2nd so these i would like Fullscreen. Now i need to make a selection for both and can not independent.

Not sure what you mean.  The "game" window (the one that displays the Tournament/Player Rankings/Seating Chart/etc screens) will open either windowed or full-screen, depending on your preference (selected on the Preferences tab).  The "Settings" dialog always opens in a window.
You say that "settings" screen is independent of the fullscreen setting and allway's windowed, but it's not like that.
When in preferences set "Fullscreen ON" then also the settings screen is Fullscreen on my laptop.
I can not get the "settings" windowed while at the same time "game" fullscreen.
They are now allways BOTH fullscreen, or BOTH windowed... Depending on the fullscreen option in settings.

I hope i'll made it more clear now, i struggle a bit with the english here...

EDIT: Just installed beta2 and now settings is windowed while game is fullscreen!
Don't know if it comes because I changed some things while testing or that beta2 solved it, but it's good now, thnx!


Thnx for your answers and solution to clear some test tournaments.

7
Beta Testing / Re: Version 2.5 beta 1
« on: December 20, 2007, 06:27:22 PM »
Hi,

Testing this great program for the first time next Saterday.
Absolutely going to buy it now the Dualscreen feature is available!

My Setup:
Laptop DELL 9200 / Ati 9700 mobile agp8x
External screen: Plasma 42 inch Hitachi.
Laptop: 1440x900
External: 1024x768
Connected by SVHS.
Options: Extend desktop ON

Tested, and found some possible bugs/problems in this beta version:

BUG 1:
Dualscreen worked good, but sometimes it messed up the resolution.
Take 2nd screen back home, sent out to 2nd monitor fixes the resolution problem.
It looked like the resolution problem has to do with the difference in resolution
Sometimes I send the screen to 2nd and it did not fit, It looked like it was still at 1440x900 and did not reset to 1024x768.
But as said, when closing 2nd screen en send again it resolved good.

For the rest absolutely perfect duallscreen system !
Looks great, and with extra tab with controls is real easy to control.

BUG 2:
When adding point system calculation the points are reversed?!
Using : n-r+1
Result: First player busted gets most points, and winner gets least points!
In the calculation test windows the results displayed ok, but in game it's reversed.
The same happend with other calculations, all are reversed added to players

BUG 3:
I can not select more then 1 Hitman?
I remeber in the nonbeta i could select 2 or more.. Is this a bug or changed?

BUG 4:
Default gamescreen information not refreshed after Blind raise.
When Blind or ante is raised the windows keeps displaying the OLD big  and small blind and ante.
After screen refresh (manual or by screenrotation) the correct info is displayed.
Looks like there must be a refresh build in after the blinds are raised.

BUG 5:
When adding new players in DB i get an error.
The same error also ocuurs when editing player.
After error screen the player is added! So it does work?!
Error:
Code: [Select]
Deze eigenschap of methode wordt niet ondersteund door dit object (DatabaseTab, SchedulePage: 497) [i]- Translation: Method not supported -[/i]
Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer
Browser Code Name: Mozilla
Browser Language: nl
Browser Minor Version: 0
Browser Version: 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30)
Cookies Enabled: true
CPU Class: x86
Date: 1:18:01 12/21/2007
DB File: C:\Program Files\The Tournament Director 2\db/td.db
DB Folder: C:\Program Files\The Tournament Director 2\db
Home: C:\Program Files\The Tournament Director 2
JScript Build: 5730
JScript Version: 5.7
Media Player Version: 11.0.5721.5230
Online: true
Platform: Win32
System Language: nl
TD Version: 2.5.b1
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30)
User Language: nl

Suggestion:
Open Information screen FULL (optional), but setup windowed.
Setup window runs on laptop, so would be nice if windowed, but info screens are on 2nd so these i would like Fullscreen. Now i need to make a selection for both and can not independent.

Q1:
How to empty database? I've got many test "not finished" tournaments in there i like to empty this.


If first run works okay Saterday, i'll send to money for license on monday!

With regards, A happy new client.

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