Author Topic: Auto-Save  (Read 1712 times)

turbinetester

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Auto-Save
« on: March 04, 2013, 10:05:38 AM »
I just finished my first home tournament on Saturday with the hopes of having a regular game/league.  We busted out the last player and had the tournament finished, but i don't remember specifically hitting a save button before i closed the program.  Is there an auto-save feature somewhere or have i lost all of the tournament info?  Thanks

Corey Cooper

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6216
    • View Profile
Re: Auto-Save
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2013, 11:52:58 AM »
There is an Auto save feature on the Game tab, but you have to enable it.  The software will always prompt you to save your current tournament, if it was currently unsaved (or anything had changed), when you exit the software.  So you (or someone) would have had to explicitly decline to save.

But as to whether there's an automatic save that just happens (that you don't have to enable), so you could go "recover" your tournament should something catastrophic happen, unfortunately not at this time.

turbinetester

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Auto-Save
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2013, 07:28:15 PM »
There is an Auto save feature on the Game tab, but you have to enable it.  The software will always prompt you to save your current tournament, if it was currently unsaved (or anything had changed), when you exit the software.  So you (or someone) would have had to explicitly decline to save.

Please correct me if i am wrong but this does not seem to be exactly correct.  I see now that when exiting the software it WARNS you that you have not saved the tournament.  However, selecting OK, which at first glance would seem to indicate that you would like the software to save before exiting, simply proceeds to exit the software and no save is made.  To save the software you have to "Cancel" that dialog box and then manually save the tournament.  During our first tournament with this software on Saturday night we entered data for 6 and 1/2 hours and all that data entry seems to have been lost.  Baffling.  I am just having a hard time understanding how all the player information could be automatically saved and yet all the tournement data is not.  It doesn't seem to make sense.  Why not have auto-save enabled by default? 


Quote
But as to whether there's an automatic save that just happens (that you don't have to enable), so you could go "recover" your tournament should something catastrophic happen, unfortunately not at this time.

I see where i have some kind of data file for March 2 under the "Statistics" tab, but it shows as being incomplete and i don't see a way to open the data or the tournament.  The blind structure we had for the night does not seem to have been saved either.  Is there any way to recover this information?  Is there some way to open an incomplete tournament file?

Corey Cooper

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6216
    • View Profile
Re: Auto-Save
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2013, 10:35:40 AM »
Quote
Please correct me if i am wrong but this does not seem to be exactly correct.  I see now that when exiting the software it WARNS you that you have not saved the tournament.  However, selecting OK, which at first glance would seem to indicate that you would like the software to save before exiting, simply proceeds to exit the software and no save is made.  To save the software you have to "Cancel" that dialog box and then manually save the tournament.

That is incorrect.  As an example, I've just made a change [to the tournament] and pressed the "Exit" button.  A dialog pops up that says "This tournament has been modified.  Would you like to save the changes?" (with Yes and No buttons).  After that (regardless if I choose to save the tournament or not), a dialog pops up to confirm that I actually want to exit.  The only exception to this rule is if you are running in window mode (not full-screen) and press the X button that is part of the main (game) window.  This is the standard Windows "close" button.  Due to a bug in IE, once you press this button, the application will exit no matter what.  It WILL still prompt you to save your tournament.  It WILL still ask if you really want to exit (but the dialog will be different; it will say something to the effect of "Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?").  The application will exit regardless of whether you press OK or Cancel (that's the IE bug).  But no matter what, if the tournament has unsaved changes, you will be prompted to save it.

Quote
During our first tournament with this software on Saturday night we entered data for 6 and 1/2 hours and all that data entry seems to have been lost.  Baffling.  I am just having a hard time understanding how all the player information could be automatically saved and yet all the tournement data is not.  It doesn't seem to make sense.  Why not have auto-save enabled by default?

The most common way for users of the software to configure a new tournament is to load a previously-run tournament, reset the tournament (back to the start), and save it as a new file (leaving the previously-run tournament file intact).  This makes it easy to use all of the same tournament settings.  Auto-save has several settings, once of which is to "Auto save after significant events".  This really means something like "save after anything happens that changes the tournament state, except for the clock counting down".  If Auto-save was automatically enabled, a user could load a previously saved tournament, reset the tournament back to the start, then save as a new tournament ... EXCEPT the "reset" part would be a "significant event" that caused the tournament to be auto-saved.  Poof!  Previously run tournament gone.  Written over by a tournament that has been reset.

After having this conversation many times, I updated the software to allow you to control how Auto-save behaves.  You can change the Auto-save settings on the Preferences tab, in the "Loading / Saving" section.

Quote
I see where i have some kind of data file for March 2 under the "Statistics" tab, but it shows as being incomplete and i don't see a way to open the data or the tournament.  The blind structure we had for the night does not seem to have been saved either.  Is there any way to recover this information?  Is there some way to open an incomplete tournament file?

As far as the Stats are concerned, an incomplete tournament is simply a tournament that did not finish.  If it isn't done, it won't be included in the stats computations.  But you can load a tournament, regardless of state.  Just go to the Game tab and press the Load button, then select that tournament file.  (The new version currently in beta testing will allow you to load it directly from the Stats tab; just a convenience feature but it's not there today.)

By the way, if you want to know why the software doesn't have some sort of internal "save" feature it's because until IE8 saving a tournament could take a long time.  When a tournament is saved, the whole app basically "freezes" while the data is written.  Depending on the size of the tournament (number of players, really, and complexity of the layout), and speed of your PC, saving a tournament could take anywhere from 2 seconds to 60 seconds, or longer.  No one wants the tournament clock to "freeze".  It was a deficiency in Internet Explorer that caused this.  In IE8, responding to pressure from Firefox and Chrome, Microsoft made some excellent strides in their Javascript engine, significantly speeding this process up.  I would like to implement just such a feature (a recovery mode, for example) where the software auto-saves to a temporary location, allowing you to recover files if necessary.  It's on the to-do list, but it hasn't made it to the top, yet.

turbinetester

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Auto-Save
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2013, 09:47:14 AM »
Well i went back and loaded the tournament the way you suggested and nothing was saved except the blind structure.  Pretty disappointed in this.  It's just inconceivable to me that i could enter 6.5 hours worth of buyins, rebuys, add-ons, bust outs seating changes etc etc etc... and HAVE NOTHING SAVED EVER?  big fat fail.  

Silver Owl

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
    • View Profile
Re: Auto-Save
« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2013, 02:53:26 PM »

 However, selecting OK, which at first glance would seem to indicate that you would like the software to save before exiting

Why would you not read the dialog box before hitting OK ? It clearly states "would you like to save"

To save the software you have to "Cancel" that dialog box and then manually save the tournament.

There is no "cancel" its yes/no