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V3.0.0 RELEASED

 
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drneau
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Joined: 13 Feb 2005
Posts: 2385
Location: Woodbury, MN

PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:26 pm    Post subject: V3.0.0 RELEASED Reply with quote

I hereby announce the official release of Dr. Neau's Tournament Manager, v3

This release represents the culmination of nearly 3 years of work. I'd like to start by thanking all those that helped along the way, especially those that helped test out the betas.

When I stopped enhancing v2 in 2006 and started thinking about v3, I had some pretty hefty goals:
1. Re-architect the application the way it should have been done in the first place
2. Vastly improve usability
3. Significantly improve the support available for the application
4. Greatly enhance the exporting and reporting capabilities
5. Add lots and lots of cool features
6. Make the application fun

I've succeeded. Here's an overview of v3 and how it meets those goals:

1. RE-ARCHITECTURE
The application is now repository-based. All files used by the app live in a single directory structure that can be easily moved from system to system or actually live on a flash drive.

The repository consists of reusable components. Chip cases, betting schedules, payout schedules, console dashboards, player databases, etc. are all components you can define in advance and reuse over and over. You can also define multiple components of the same type. For example, a table configuration for your house and one for your friend's house.

The capability for multiple types of tournaments. For now, there are two: A "Standard" tournament (which everyone is used to) and a "Simple" tournament (which has no player tracking or seating management). I'll be adding Shootout support, heads-up support and more.

V3 has a reduced memory footprint.

The concept of a "console theme". It defines the look and feel of your tournament on the console, including which dashboards are used when, the alert definitions, etc. You can create many of them, they can share dashboards, tournaments can reuse them, yadda yadda yadda.

Networking: V3 was built with robust networking in mind (whereas in v2 it was bolted on after the fact and therefore flakey). Clients will reconnect on network drops. Log windows detail all network activity. (Note: Just like in v2, no filesharing is required…just a network connection. The client downloads all required files when it connects)

Do not taunt v3

2. USABILITY
The application is designed to work on an 800x600 monitor.

All entities in the application are treated as "components" and managed in "component libraries". Each library has a common layout and is used the same way.

The application contains extensive embedded help with complete descriptions of every entity, panel and dialog along with a growing list of tool mentors.

Wizards for many operations including tournament creation, league creation, table balancing, betting schedule creation, and more.

The betting schedule continually updates you as to the estimated start and end time of each level.

Greatly improved designer for the console dashboard. Components can be transparent and layered on top of each other. Multiple components can be edited at once. The ability to set the relative size of rows and columns. The ability to have rotating images.

Easier ways to undo mistakes (anyone who eliminated the wrong player in v2 will appreciate that)

A customizable roster layout with pre-defined layouts for different tasks (and soon the ability to create and save your own layouts)

3. SUPPORT
V3 utilizes the JavaHelp library which gives users access to an extensive (I spent weeks writing documentation) and completely searchable help system.

Video tutorials on YouTube (which I'll continue to create) demonstrate the use of the application.

The repository structure makes it a LOT easier for me to debug user problems as everything they work with can be easily zipped up and sent to me so I can reproduce what they see.

A reusable component library (with user-contributed content) on drneau.com

4. EXPORTING AND REPORTING
Built-in exporting to XML formats already tested and usable by StatsGenie and PokerDIY.

V3 utilizes the JFreeReport library which allows me to let you produce professional-looking reports that can be printed saved as PDF, HTML, CSV, EXCEL, RTF or text. The list of reports is growing and currently contains: Chip Case, Chip Distribution, League Standings, Roster (this one is extremely flexible), Checklist, League Player Financials, etc.

5./6.NEW FEATURES & FUN
I've added a lot of new features in version 3, including many that make the application more fun. Here are some that weren't already mentioned above…

Player avatars – Avatars serve two purposes: 1) Identification of players in situations like bar leagues, and 2) they can be used in alerts on the console…for instance to display someone's picture when they are eliminated

Player audios – Audios can be used by alerts, for instance to play a player's theme when they eliminate someone

Player "display names" – A display name for each player (separate from their real name) that is visible on the console…and patterns you can apply to players to automatically create and update their display name based on changes to the player.

The ability to create your own chip designs (including plaques) and save them as reusable components (to be shared among different chips and chip cases).

The ability to track "Chip Leaders", display them on the console and save them to history.

Side-Bet management. Manage bad-beat side-bets, best-hand side-bets, last-longer side-bets, most-knockouts side-bets, generic (anything else I didn't think of) side-bets and also five types of bounties.

A fully editable event log.

An expanded "player database", and you can have many. Each player in the database has the following attributes: ID, FName, LName, NickName, DisplayName, Birthday, Address, City, State, ZIP, Country, Avatar, Audio, Email (4), Phone (4).

The ability to export many components to a file, edit them in another application like Excel, and import them back into the app.

The ability for the seating wizard to seat the clock operators near the clock and spread game experts out on the floor (if you wish)

Three types of breaks: 1) Standard breaks (that are part of the schedule), 2) Fixed breaks (that occur at a pre-determined time of day), and 3) Ad-hoc breaks (that occur when the pizza guy shows up) For fixed and ad-hoc breaks, the clock will remember where it left of and resume at that point when the break is finished.

A graph to show your betting schedule progression – to make sure your betting schedule progresses at a standard rate
16 betting schedule wizards for all types of poker

Expanded league support – A different scoring method per tournament, if you wish…the ability to exclude specified players from the standings…the ability to include the top X scores and require Y tournaments to qualify…the ability to specify the league score format.

Extensive financial analysis (I get to use my accounting background!)…a complete cash-flow report for each player, each tournament and each league showing the detail behind all incoming and outgoing funds.

A "spreadsheet" option for a scoring method.

The ability to specify how a scoring method should handle ties in a tournament.

A scoring method previewer that lets you plug parameters into your formula/spreadsheet and test it out or calculate scores.

Expanded console overlays: Chip case, chip distribution, league standings, seating charts, etc.

A "Jingle Bank" that will play any repository audio clip on-demand on all hosts.

Odds calculators for Hold'em and Omaha built in.

Roberts Rules of Poker built into the embedded help.

Many new alert types: Elimination (first out), Elimination (with a rebuy), Elimination (out of the money), Elimination (on the bubble), Elimination (in the money), In the Money

Time-based alerts that you can create and specify the time parameter, including: Time to Start of Break, Time to End of Break, Time to Start of Tournament, Time to Next Level, Time to End of Tournament

Remaining-player count alerts

An "announcement marquee" console component that will scroll the contents of an announcement collection across the console throughout the tournament

Granular control between the betting schedule and the console to allow you to display different console dashboards depending on the betting schedule segment (great for multi-game tournaments)

Fun overlays on the console during the parts of the tournament you want them to appear, including announcements, hand nicknames, quotes, quiz questions, rules, terminology and trivia (and unlike v2, it works)

And above it all, the v3 actually performs better than v2. And remember…it works on Windows, Mac, Linux…anything that supports Java.
And also remember…most of the capabilities of the application are free
_________________
--
Dr. Neau (not a real doctor)
http://drneau.com
http://home.comcast.net/~jneau


Last edited by drneau on Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:13 pm; edited 1 time in total
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rastapete
Founding Father
Founding Father


Joined: 13 Feb 2005
Posts: 401
Location: 'Ipsa' this, you pissy little bitch!

PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Congratulations, doc.

Must feel like you've just given birth.

Well done.
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Addicted
"Cowboys"


Joined: 08 Jan 2006
Posts: 46
Location: Mokena, Illinois

PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What a great St. Patty's Day gift!
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MissileMan
"Miracle Flush"


Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 107

PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kudos!!!
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i8dbear
Founding Father
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Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 181
Location: Los Angeles

PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bigg ups, jeff. what a long strange trip its been.
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Calendyr
"Miracle Flush"


Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Posts: 121
Location: Montreal

PostPosted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Congratulations Doc!

Can't wait to try thing new tool out.
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