The Tournament Director Forums
Main => Beta Testing => Topic started by: Corey Cooper on February 12, 2010, 01:36:53 AM
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This is an ALPHA release of the software. Alpha typically means that the software is not ready for prime-time, and has known or anticipated bugs. For this release, there are a few known issues (listed in the changes.txt file, and below), but mainly the software is classified as alpha because it has not been thoroughly tested. Thus, the probability of bugs is high. It is not recommended that you use the software for live tournaments (but I hope some adventurous people out there will).
First, backup your data first. I cannot stress this enough. This is good advice with any alpha/beta software. Use the Backup feature on the Database tab to backup your saved tournament files, templates, preferences, and database. Go the extra mile and be aware of the location of all of your saved data and make a backup copy of it.
The user manual has not been updated yet. Below is the relevant part of the changes.txt file. The link to download the alpha is at the bottom.
Thank you in advance to everyone who will participate in this test release. I welcome your feedback.
The Tournament Director 2.6 alpha release 1
Copyright (c) 2004 - 2010 Corey Cooper
Version 2.6.a1 (alpha release 1)
======================================================================
New Features:
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- Tournament files (.tdt) are now associated with the Tournament Director
application. Double-clicking a Tournament Director tournament file in
Windows Explorer will now start the Tournament Director and open the
selected tournament automatically
- The database, preferences, tournaments, and templates are now saved in a
new format
- Major rewrite of all underlying object code, dialog code, and UI code
- Added ability to specify more than one hitman for a player bust-out
- Stats tab now uses Profiles. Tournament file location now specified in
profile and not on Preferences tab. Currently selected profile displayed
on Stats tab
- Layout is now saved independently from tournament
- Various Layout dialogs completely overhauled
- Added feature to import components from other Layouts
- Added Layout Design Mode
- Cells simplified to use only Property Sets. Property Groups removed
- Added Advanced conditions to allow formula-style conditions for Property Sets
and Screen Sets (basic conditions still available)
- Added Layout screen property "expand"
- Added "expand" and "outline" attributes to <tables> token
- Added <playernames>, <evenchop>, <prizemoneyleft> and <prizepointsleft>
tokens
- Added "link" attribute to <tdbutton> token in token descriptor (attribute
was already there, but not displayed in the "Add Token" dialog)
- "Add Token" dialog now displays token code as the token is being defined
- Added "Used by" button to Global Properties Dialog
- Auto-resize feature now adjusts everything, not just visible components
- Added Seating Chart Screen option to set table width
- Added Seating Chart Screen option for multiple columns in List mode
- Added new table blueprints:
OctagonalEightSeatTableBlueprintLarge.xml,
RacetrackEightSeatTableBlueprintLarge.xml,
RacetrackEightSeatTableBlueprintMedium.xml,
RacetrackEightSeatTableBlueprintSmall.xml,
VerticalRacetrackTenSeatTableBlueprintLarge.xml,
VerticalRacetrackTenSeatTableBlueprintMedium.xml,
VerticalRacetrackTenSeatTableBlueprintSmall.xml
- Game Player dialog overhauled
- Stats Player dialog overhauled
- New Tournament dialog now gives option to use any saved tournament as a
template
- Default filename provided for new tournaments
- Added context-menu option for removing a player from a league (Database tab)
- Added feature to shift the time of a tournament (useful when the PC clock was
incorrect)
- Countdown dialog now gives option to start the clock immediately or pause the
clock
- ID field added to Name Format custom option
- added "roundToNearest()", "roundUpToNearest()", and "roundDownToNearest()"
functions for formulas
- Tables tab now renders tables dynamically according to window width
- Added tournament status to Controls tab (Clock section)
- Chop dialog now recognizes negative relative rankings numbers (allows for
easily moving a chopped player to a higher rank)
- "Problems" changed to more appropriate "Alerts"
- "Columns" (arrangement) and "Column Names" functions consolidated under
"Preferences" on respective Settings tabs
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Bugs Fixed:
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- Settings window size/location not saved on exit (sometimes)
- "position" variable calculated incorrectly for manually adjusted chops
- when exporting a layout and a file is found that is outside of the current
Data Store, a confirmation dialog is presented with the option to continue
or cancel, but only an OK button is given
- Status Messages sometimes fail to "flash"
- In the History section of the Game Player dialog, "Knocked out" events always
show a player collecting the bounty chip even if the player was not
eligible to collect the bounty chip
- "Find" on Remove Players From Tournament dialog broken
- Selecting "Allow players to rebuy if not busted" in the Quick Start Wizard
does not set the option correctly
- The Extended Display dialog sometimes can not move the Game window to the
Extended display unless the Game window is first resized
- Decimal point and Decimal comma preferences allowed to be set to same
value
- Changing Name Format preference does not automatically update built-in
screens
- XML exports do not properly encode special characters
- Restoring a backup file does not restore preferences
- Formula variables "buyinrake", "rebuyrake", and "addonrake" always set to 0
- Background images for tables are broken when player movement highlighting
occurs
- Automatic prizes feature, in simple mode, uses number of players in the
tournament, not the number of entrants
- Automatic prizes feature uses hard-coded prize name if the name attribute
is not included in the XML descriptor file
- Test All dialog (on Tournament Scoring dialog) "Points" column should be
"Score" column
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Known Issues:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- In testing, one particular PC experienced rhythmic high CPU usage. Unable
at this time to determine what factors are causing this. It is very
reproducible on the one PC, but cannot reproduce on other PCs.
- Some Layout operations can take a very long time to complete. For example,
pressing the "Global Properties" button on the Layout tab may take a few
seconds for the dialog to open. Working on speeding this up.
- Undoing a buy-in from the History section of the Game Player dialog will not
unseat the player. This is an existing bug and is not new in this release
(but was not fixed, either).
Edit: 2.6 beta 1 has superceded this. See http://www.thetournamentdirector.net/forums/index.php?topic=2142.0
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wow,
You really have been bust Corey, well done look forward to the final version going live!
I tried the beta version but got the following message during loading:
An expected error occurred!
Message: 'T' is null or not an object
Line: 4942
This error occured before the Tournament Director could fully
initialize, and will therefore now exit.
Please report this error to support@.....
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Do you have a "default" tournament configured? If so, can you email the tournament file to me?
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No issues so far. I may actually risk trying this tomorrow at my live game. Will need to run a good test before I do that. One thing (and I am sure it is on your list but you wanted me to remind you when the beta came out), you still have a way to export out the player id but not the id of the hitman. This is important for those of us that track hitmen via alternative means.
Thanks again!
Mike
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wow,
You really have been bust Corey, well done look forward to the final version going live!
I tried the beta version but got the following message during loading:
An expected error occurred!
Message: 'T' is null or not an object
Line: 4942
This error occured before the Tournament Director could fully
initialize, and will therefore now exit.
Please report this error to support@.....
Your tournament has Events defined that have hotkeys bound to them. This exposed a bug. Will fix for next release.
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Hi Corey
Have installed this, this morning on a clean install of Windows XP. Loaded the application once to have a look at it and then closed it down. Loaded it back up later and it tells me the 30 day evaluation has expired. The date and time on the laptop have not been changed.
Any ideas?
Many thanks
Matt
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Loaded the application once to have a look at it and then closed it down. Loaded it back up later and it tells me the 30 day evaluation has expired. The date and time on the laptop have not been changed.
Ditto here. My install was on a win7 machine. Note this is not the machine where I run my normal licensed copy of the software.
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if you already have a licence key for the product you can use it on the 2.6a version the licence terms provide an allowance for you to have the software on more than one computer, provided you do not run simultaneous tournaments on different computers
(3) If your evaluation period has expired, press the "Enter License Key" button on the "About" dialog. Enter your User ID and License Key exactly as it appears above. Use the Windows copy and paste features to ensure it is entered correctly. Press the "OK" button and your copy will now be registered.
Regards
Stuart
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Thanks for reporting the evaluation period issue. I don't know why this would happen. Although I didn't explicitly change any code dealing with this, I did move it around and repackage it, so there's definitely a possibility that I screwed something up.
One other thing I found is the Auto-save feature is hosed.
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Hi Corey
Just to update you on this. I wiped the laptop again and did a fresh install. Loaded TD Alpha, opened the app once which worked OK. Closed down and re-opened and evaluation version expired. Not an issue to me as I have since purchased a license but just thought I'd let you know.
Kind regards
Matt
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You guys are right, the eval mode is busted. The bug was literally a missing space character. The implications of that missing space were huge.
I appreciate your help. While I don't expect this to hit many folks (how many people new to the software will be using the alpha test version?), if it made it into the released version it would be very bad.
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I have set a default tournament through the Preferences>Config Files. When I open TD, it opens up the default tournament set by TD during installation. Second, I'm not sure if I like the fact that whenever I load a tournament, I have to also load the layout I built for that tournament (the default layout is currently loading). I think what I would prefer is to have a particular tournament point to a layout and load that layout when I load the tournament.
I have several different tournament structures all using the same layout. When I modify the layout, I have to open each tournament, load the layout and save the tournament then go to the next.
Example:
5 tournaments all using the layout called "ABC". I modify "ABC" then open any one of the tournaments and the layout "ABC" is then loaded automatically.
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That's odd. When I start the TD, it loads the default tournament file I have set in Preferences -> Config Files.
I understand the idea of having a tournament "link" to a layout. I might implement this in the future.
But I'm not quite sure I understand why you have to open each tournament, load the layout, save the tournament, etc. What is it you are doing that requires this?
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I run several different tournament buy-ins, blind structures, bounty tourneys etc...They all use the same layout. When I modify the layout, it is not changed in all the tournaments I have used that layout. The layout that was last saved with the tournament is the one that is used. So when i modify my default layout, I have to open each tournament file and load the modified layout, then save the tournament (as it saves the layout with it).
And as per the default tournament not loading, I have uninstalled then re-installed and it seems to have corrected that issue.
Is there a way to have my layout open with the default tournament?
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I kind of achieved what I want...I deleted the Default.tlo from my templates folder renamed my layout to Default. My layout now loads on startup.
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With version 2.6, the layout is now separate from the tournament. So when you save a tournament in 2.6, you are NOT saving the layout with it. 2.6 is still backwards-compatible with tournaments saved with earlier versions of the software. When you load a tournament saved with 2.6, it will simply load the tournament. When you load a tournament saved with version 2.5.10 or earlier, you will be given the option to also load the layout that was saved with that tournament.
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I kind of achieved what I want...I deleted the Default.tlo from my templates folder renamed my layout to Default. My layout now loads on startup.
Note that each time you start the TD, it checks files that are included with it against what is in your Data Store, and copies files if (a) they are missing from your Data Store, or (b) the file in your Data Store is older (this makes sure you get new files in your Data Store if you upgrade the software). Therefore, the "Default.tlo" file could be written over. Therefore, you might want to be sure you've got a backup of your modified Default.tlo file.
I think I should probably add a preference to specify the "default" layout file, much like the default tournament file.