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Messages - amcq10

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1
How are the cables to the computer connected?  Can you show us how the computer is connected?

I bought an Asus EEE Box PC.  The thing is TINY (compared to desktop PC's).  Thus, I ended up just Velcro'ing the PC to the bottom of the table.  I then plugged the monitor/speakers/etc into that. (keyboard and mouse are wireless).

The only cable that I have running across the floor is power.

the EEE box PC has Wifi built-in so that I just use that to connect to my network.

One thing to note.. I bought the PC 2-3 years ago.  There is probably some other product out there these days that is just as light, with small footprint, .. that could easily be  attached to bottom of the table.   Heck.. if you "want" to use full-size PC .. you could even go as far as to pull the motherboard/HDD/power suppy/etc out of the case, and attach them to the under-side of the table individually.. (would get great ventilation .. ahah)


Also, I've been thinking lately about using some of the newer Tablet-type devices in the Poker setup.  I haven't even checked with Corey to see if he's thinking about doing anything on Android... would make for a great system to just have an android tablet with the tourney running on it. (HINT, HINT, HINT @Corey)  :)

Of course, the Tablet idea would tend to reduce the need to have the monitor "IN" the table, since I wouldn't want it to have ONLY that job.  (would be quite an expensive device just for running tourneys).






2
There are only a few angles which make it hard to view the screen... This primarily caused me to use Bold Contrasting colors in my layout, so that even when the screen is harder to see, you can still make out a "05:00" remaining on the clock.

I have no clue what model of LCD it is.  It was a cheap $25 one that we got from a friend who was getting a new monitor.. so, didn't do any investigation into Viewable angle or quality... just used what we had.

Also, think of the monitor in terms of the bottom of the screen being "side A", and the top being "Side B".  If you lay down the LCD, with "side A" closest to you, the screen is hard to see, and tends to cause the colors to be inverted somewhat.  However, if you turn the LCD around and view if with "side B" closer to you, you can see it almost perfectly with no discoloration..  This means that for our comfort, we chose to mount the LCD "upside down" or... with Side B facing the person typing/controlling, so that the person controlling could see the screen the best.   In order to do this, we had to set BIOS settings that cause the Screen to be rotated 180 degrees so that the image is upside down on the screen (ie: right side up for the person controlling it)...

This may not have been a BIOS setting either.. may have been a Windows XP application or Video driver setting to flip the screen 180 degrees.

to summarize, we too have seats which make it hard to see... but with the bold white text on dark backgrounds... it makes it much better...

3
Templates, Layouts and Sounds / Re: Lock Cell Positions
« on: August 27, 2008, 10:33:10 AM »
I definitely agree that absolute heights and widths are required for perfect non-adjusting layouts.  With mine, I set every cell to absolute size, including the overall screen size (1024x768 for mine).  The best tip I can give when working on this is to use Background colors in the cells... just choose random colors.... this will show you the boundaries of the cells (can't use borders since they add actual width/height to the cell on-screen), and allow you to line everything up perfectly... Then just remove the colors and make them invisible... with a single "background" image to hold all your text...  more on mine here..
http://thetournamentdirector.net/forums/index.php?topic=755.0

4
Hey everyone... sorry for not replying, I must have missed the email informing me that updates were posted to this thread...

In any case...

To: Hightower
  I first thank you for your compliments.  It does feel great hearing from someone that has been building poker tables, that our idea is a good one... very cool indeed.
Now, about the layout.  I should probably download the latest TD2, since I haven't done that for a couple of months.  I could then re-save my layout into the format the Corey has created that should make transfer of the layout easy to other computers.

Now, with my layout, it is very specific to my needs.. meaning, I had to manually adjust all the cells with Height and Width values, in order to guarantee that it fit properly on my 1024x768 LCD.  I did not design it to be easily transported to other resolutions besides 1024x768 (sorry that it's a small res, but, the LCD that we had only supported this max resolution.. so, go with what you got).


To: ddonofrio
  As far as the cells and their b/g colors.  ALL cells on my layouts have invisible background.
I decided to create the colors/bg/images/logos in Photoshop, which allowed for very nice customization, and a final product that would simply be a 1024x768 background, that would fill the entire screen.
I then used TD2's layout screen to organize the invisible cells on top of that background.  One great trick is to use bright background colors during the design phase.  I frequently set the BG to green, black, blue, orange, etc... in order to "see" the boundaries of that cell (also borders could work too).  Then, once you get the widths and heights setup properly, you can remove all the BG colors, and you should be left with the same layout, but invisible backgrounds, allowing your pre-designed background to "contain" the fields.



Please ask any further questions that this may have caused,.... and I'll try to do a better job of monitoring this post from here forward....

5
Suggestions / Re: Export Layout - included images files
« on: June 29, 2007, 12:57:28 AM »
And here's the info from my computer..

Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer
Browser Code Name: Mozilla
Browser Language: en-us
Browser Minor Version: ;SP2;
Browser Version: 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Cookies Enabled: true
CPU Class: x86
Date: 10:56:00 pm 6/28/2007
DB File: D:\Program Files\The Tournament Director 2\db/td.db
DB Folder: D:\Program Files\The Tournament Director 2\db
Home: d:\Program Files\The Tournament Director 2
JScript Build: 8831
JScript Version: 5.6
Media Player Version: 11.0.5705.5043
Online: true
Platform: Win32
System Language: en-us
TD Version: 2.3.3
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
User Language: en-us





6
Suggestions / Re: Export Layout - included images files
« on: June 28, 2007, 06:11:22 PM »
Also, If I hit "OK" to bypass those image files... I can't get past the saving of the Layout Template.

no matter what filename I give it... it always gives me an error about "selecing a path relative to the Tournament Director folder". as seen in the attached image.


7
Suggestions / Export Layout - included images files
« on: June 28, 2007, 06:06:34 PM »
Corey -

While trying to export my Layout Template, I get the message seen in the image attachment.

Your notes state that as long as the images are within the Tournament Director folder (or sub-folders) that they should be fine.
However, in this case, it states that it will not include the images, even though there are inside the TD subfolders.

Not sure why it's not seeing the location of these files properly.
Am I not doing something right?, or can I provide any further details to help resolve this?


8
Templates, Layouts and Sounds / Re: Template Gallery
« on: June 28, 2007, 05:32:51 PM »
Corey..
Would there be a way to include an external file in this zip?  Such as a Photoshop PSD file of the multi-layered layout?
This would allow me to share the layout in a way to have others just open up Photoshop, and modify logos, colors, etc to their liking, while still maintaining the over-all look and layout.

(I guess this is only a request from me, since I use a full-screen background image to create the divisions in color and design for the layout... which allows me to keep all the Cells/borders transparent).

if everyone else just colorizes their cell colors and borders... then i guess the PSD wouldn't be a needed option...

It might be as easy as me just copy/pasting the PSD into "SomeFolderName", which would then by default be included in your Zip...

10
For a reason unknown to me, when I would set either the left or right sides to "rotation=1" or "rotation=3", I would lose the clock numbers.  I'm not sure if they were being rendered somewhere off-screen, or what, but, I was just unable to get those 2 rotations to "rotate within the column size that I had defined".

I tried changing column/row widths and heights to try and "find" the clock, but... just couldn't find it.

It was after I successfully rotated the clock/blind on the left (using your built-in CSS rotation), that I got the idea to use your built-in rotation with the "rotation=2" setting.. (effectively providing the 270 degrees needed).


11
This layout is designed for an LCD that will be sitting flat in the middle of the Poker Table.
(yes... mounted directly in the middle of the table, perfectly flush with the surrounding poker speed cloth) (In the process of creating an Instructable... will post link when finished).

Due to the screen laying flat, we wanted people on all edges of the table to see the clock and blind levels with ease.
This took quite a bit of effort to get the Rows/Columns/Cells rotating in the right direction.
(thanks again to Corey for the tips about using filters)

The Top clock was easy enough to just rotate via the filter:
progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=2)

The left clock was rotated via the TD2 built-in "Rotate 90 degrees" option.

The right clock was the hardest, by eventually using the "Rotate 90 degrees" option.. and THEN rotating the outer Column by 270 degrees using the same filter as the Top Clock above.

Attached is a screenshot below.. as well as the .tlo file.

I've manually sized many of the Cells/Columns with width/height settings to get them to fit where they needed to on the screen.
So, this is sized to a 1024x768 screen.  If you want this on any other size screen, you'll have to manually modify each width/height to fit your screen.



12
Suggestions / Re: Rotate entire Main Screen
« on: June 18, 2007, 01:24:41 AM »
Thanks Corey for that tip. I had glanced through some search results about Filters, but had never used them, so, didn't really know how to set it up.  Now this gives me a great start.
I was able to rotate the entire screen 180 without any side-effects visible on-screen. (i guess because I don't have any background colors on the cells or rows/columns.. it's all transparent on my layout).

However, after rotating the screen, I realized that this suggestion is something that would have to be manually changed to be able to continually rotate the screen on a time-delayed basis.

So, I think I've found a happy-medium with your suggestion and not having to continually rotate the entire screen.
I now have 2 clock cells on my screen, one with normal settings, and the other with the rotate filter applied.
The new layout can be seen in the below attachment.

Now that I'm aware of how to rotate parts of the screen independently from other parts, I can think about it further and possibly come up with an even better design than below.
(In a few days I'll post a link explaining why the need for all of this rotating and half-screen upside-down tricks).

But thanks again for your help.

13
Suggestions / Rotate entire Main Screen
« on: June 12, 2007, 02:13:24 PM »
I will soon be designing an LCD Layout that needs to be read from opposite ends.
I've thought of a fiew ways to do this.  First started with the "Rotate 90 degrees" option, but, this only allows for the rotating in one direction(clockwise), but not counter-clockwise.

The high-level layout of the screen could be something such as
where the left side is rotated 90 degrees clockwise, and the right side is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.
+----------------------+
|             |             |
|             |             |
|             |             |
|             |             |
+----------------------+

If this is not possible, then what about rotating the entire Main screen by 90 degree increments.
I would be happy with just 2 rotations (0 and 180 degrees)... but even more happy if it could be rotated to face each side of the LCD edge in for about 5 seconds each.

I've thought about using the video card/OS built-in options to rotate the screen.. but each of these takes about 4 seconds for the screen to go black, then re-appear in the opposite orientation.
I'd prefer a method of rotating that would have almost no lag between rotations.


Any quick ideas to implement this given the current 2.2.2 version? or will this take a feature request in a future load?



14
Templates, Layouts and Sounds / Re: Looking for sound files
« on: November 27, 2006, 07:23:45 PM »
just a few i found useful.

(mostly created via the AT&T Text-to-speach webpage, as previously posted, http://public.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php)


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