Hey Everyone,
I just wanted to throw it out there that I released the latest version of my Tournament Manager software for Windows. This has a number of new improvements and requests.
More info here: http://scottdanesi.com/WP/?page_id=161
I will try and answer questions about it in this thread, but I guarantee nothing. 
Thanks,
--Scott
Post edited by TheNoTrashCougar : Updated Verison Number
As a quick update, I have been working like crazy on this latest version that includes the ability to display Tournament Results to classic BetaBrite LED signs. From what I am able to test, it works great! Let me know what you guys think.
--Scott
Awesome! Thanks VERY much scott! Seriously.
I have used your software and it is great! I will download the newest version when I get a chance and will be sure to donate.
Just curious, is there anyway to build in a feature that makes sure I can not accidentally enter in a lower score than what a player has already recorded? I know the version I am currently using will allow me to override a previous higher score by entering a new lower score for that player/game.
I was also thinking it would be a sweet thing to have this software built into an application for smart devices. I could then set up my touney helpers with enabeled devices and instead of them recording on paper and then handing off to the head offcial to then manual enter on the cpu, they could just enter scores as they watch over games. I know that would obviously be way more sophisticated and require more tech, but I figured it was worth sharing the idea...
Hey Snow,
Thank you very much for the feedback.
Quoted from Whysnow:Just curious, is there anyway to build in a feature that makes sure I can not accidentally enter in a lower score than what a player has already recorded? I know the version I am currently using will allow me to override a previous higher score by entering a new lower score for that player/game.
What I can do for this is have the system send a warning that the score being submitted is lower than the score that was there previously. The issue I see with this is that it may annoy the general audience for this application. I have thought about the idea of sending a warning if you are about to overwrite a score and ask for verification. This would be about as far as I would go with it. I am trying to keep it as generic as possible for a wider audience.
Quoted from Whysnow:I was also thinking it would be a sweet thing to have this software built into an application for smart devices. I could then set up my touney helpers with enabeled devices and instead of them recording on paper and then handing off to the head offcial to then manual enter on the cpu, they could just enter scores as they watch over games. I know that would obviously be way more sophisticated and require more tech, but I figured it was worth sharing the idea...
This is something I have given much thought to. The only option that I could think of was to write-back to a database on one of my servers. This would require me to build apps for multiple device platforms as well as pay for database bandwidth, which is not really feasible for a free application. This can also present security issues for IFPA tournaments. You would not want the possibility of someone getting in and changing scores. The way that I have the system setup now, the Tournament administrator can lock the computer through Windows to protect unwanted score entry. Since the data for the tournament is stored on the local machine, there is minimal risk for tampering.
I will continue to think about this in the future and see what I can do. I may be able to set something up that allows multiple computers to enter scores to one tournament, but that is not on the radar at the moment.
Thanks again,
--Scott
Maybe have a tick mark in the settings menu, "warn on lower score override" or something like that.
Quoted from TheNoTrashCougar:What I can do for this is have the system send a warning that the score being submitted is lower than the score that was there previously. The issue I see with this is that it may annoy the general audience for this application.
I would love a warning of lower score!!!! It would say a ton of headache.
Actually it would be a lot easier if players would just remember their dang scores 
, then there would be no worry. However, my experience thus far has been that there is always one guy that trhows a fit at the end of the day when they think they had a previously higher score on a machine and it has been overwritten by a lower score that they had later in the day. Then the wonderful task of sorting through ~700 pieces of paper to look for 1 score.
Hey Snow,
I just put the Lower Score warning on my to-do list.
You know in the tools menu, there is an option to generate a player score sheet. This will generate a printable document that the player can write all their scores on in case there is a discrepancy. They are organized by machine. Have you used this feature?
--Scott
Quoted from MRG:I have used Scott software and it is a must for anyone having a tounament. lots of options and dual screen output too. Very cool.
Thanks Scott for all the hard work.
No problem Greg. I am glad people are actually using it. I will be putting together some proper documentation for it soon so that people know how to use all of its cool features.
If you guys have any more questions about it let me know. Thanks,
--Scott
Quoted from bangerjay:Mrg = greg
HAHA Thanks Greg.
Yeah, I played around with the player score sheet but I have found it even more difficult to rely upon the player to have a physical piece of paper and keep track of scores.
Maybe I will utilize it again in the future.
Either way, great software and there is NO WAY I would run an event without it!
Quoted from TheNoTrashCougar:HAHA Thanks Greg.
bangerjay = jay
I have been getting a great amount of feedback on the application so I decided to release a minor update (v1.6.1).
Some of the changes are below:
Minor Bug Fixes
Options Menu Layout changed to be more organized
BetaBrite Functionality Updates
Warning system to let Tournament administrators know that they are overwriting a score
Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you
Hey Guys,
I just created a mailing list on my site to subscribe to future Tournament Manager Applciation updates.
This way I can ensure you guys are aware of the latest version before running your tournaments. I will only send emails when a new stable version is uploaded. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you,
--Scott
Quoted from Whysnow:I would love a warning of lower score!!!! It would say a ton of headache.
Actually it would be a lot easier if players would just remember their dang scores , then there would be no worry. However, my experience thus far has been that there is always one guy that trhows a fit at the end of the day when they think they had a previously higher score on a machine and it has been overwritten by a lower score that they had later in the day. Then the wonderful task of sorting through ~700 pieces of paper to look for 1 score.
For big tourneys, you should get a banker box and put hanging file folders in it. You can either do a rough filing alphabetically - for example A-E in folder one, F-L in folder 2... or file the entries by game name. If it's a multiday tourney I would also have a set for day one, day two, etc. The player will know which day he got the better score so that cuts the search in half.
First, I really like the "low scoring" option. I'm testing the app now and if I can get it working there's a decent chance I'll use it for the pin golf at pin a go go.
I thought about emailing this but it occurs to me others might be having the same problem. I just loaded 1.62. It's the first and only version I've ever installed.
When I go to make a tournament, add players, machines, etc then click Start Tournament, I get a fault. Here are the details.
See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.
************** Exception Text **************
System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'C:\Program Files\Danesi Designs\2013-05-18-Pin a Go Go.trn' is denied.
at Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileSystem.FileOpen(Int32 FileNumber, String FileName, OpenMode Mode, OpenAccess Access, OpenShare Share, Int32 RecordLength)
at ArcadeTournamentManager.frmSetupNewTour.Button1_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5466 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
Arcade Tournament Manager
Assembly Version: 1.6.2.18495
Win32 Version: 1.6.2.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Danesi%20Designs/Arcade%20Tournament%20Manager/Arcade%20Tournament%20Manager.exe
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.VisualBasic
Assembly Version: 8.0.0.0
I'm not able to disable the marquee. The marquee config is high score oriented. For low score tourneys this would cause some confusion. I can modify it's setting but when I uncheck the box to turn it off altogether, it's still there.
It would be cool if jpgs could be uploaded and displayed in the marquee, so that I could put graphics in there from my sponsors. I would also prefer, instead of scores, to just put the event name in there as an option.
Status messages might also be helpful, like to notify people what time finals will start.
Hey Jonny,
Yeah this happens from time to time if you do not have admin rights on your machine. Basically, it is trying to create the Tournament back-end file and is not able to. This can happen in Windows 7 and Windows 8. If you run the application as administrator, it will solve this issue.
I am looking into ways to solve this at the moment.
Thanks for the feedback,
--Scott
Quoted from TheNoTrashCougar:Hey Jonny,
Yeah this happens from time to time if you do not have admin rights on your machine. Basically, it is trying to create the Tournament back-end file and is not able to. This can happen in Windows 7 and Windows 8. If you run the application as administrator, it will solve this issue.
I am looking into ways to solve this at the moment.
Thanks for the feedback,
--Scott
I see. As mentioned, my account is an administrator. My guess is it is because of the User Account Control security features they added in Windows 7.
In windows 7, Program Files is a bit more locked down. You may consider storing the tourney files in the logged-in user's My Documents instead.
You are correct Jonny. That is going to be the next move to bypass that UAC feature in Windows 7. The problem with that is that it still needs to write to a log file in the Program Files Directory. I may have to relocate that as well. Thanks,
--Scott
Hey Everyone,
Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but I have good news. The newest version is here! Version 1.7.0 is a pretty big release. We have added many new features and fixed all of the bugs that have been reported. This version is solid, but we would still love to hear your feedback on new features, enhancements, and bugs that you may find.
New Features
• Bug Fixes
• Options section overhaul (again, sorry)
• Ability to display marquee data by overall player rank or current leaders of each machine/event
• Ability to choose how many positions to show in the marquee data for player rank (1st - 8th place)
• All Files now get written to a folder in your documents to eliminate the need to run the application "as administrator" in Windows 7 and 8.
• Payout options now show on the "Standings" tab for tournament administrators
Get the latest version here: http://scottdanesi.com/WP/?page_id=161
Also, don't forget to sign up for the new release mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/wSHdf
Awesome!!!
If you want to add more things/ a complete change of pace...
I would love to see a software that works for a doubles event like pinbrawl.
Be able to select the total number of teams, rounds of qualifying, and then you enter points scored after each round and it automatically reshuffles the deck to determine which teams play against each other in the next round.
I know a typical format would be 3 qualifying rounds in the morning. Where depending on how you play and the overall stregth of your opponent you shift who you play for ech subsequent round. The idea being that after 3 rounds, teams shoudl eb reasonably well placed into blocks of 8 teams with similar skill. These then make up the bracket/divisions for the afternoon.
I would also love to see a software that works for a pingolf style event to help people track how they did on each machine. An admin would need to be able to populate games/goals and players plus strokes taken. Software (I would probabaly just use Excel at this point) is not really needed for this type of event but it would still be nice.
thanks again for all your hard work!
Hey Snow,
You are right, that is a total change of pace. This software would be possible to make, but not in this application. I wanted to make sure that this one was very easy to use. That "Pinbrawl" style tournament does sound like a fun challenge, but it would definitely be a different piece of software.
I have also gotten many requests for bracket style tournament options, but there is plenty of software out there that does this very well already.
The Pingolf idea is pretty cool as well, but again, I think that would be a separate piece of software.
Man, I am starting to sound like a broken record.
Thanks for the feedback and the props on the software. I will continue making updates to ensure that this thing is the best at what it does.
I will be working on better statistics in the next release. For instance ranking on consistency and other cool stuff.
Thanks,
--Scott
Quoted from TheNoTrashCougar:Hey Snow,
I have also gotten many requests for bracket style tournament options, but there is plenty of software out there that does this very well already.
All the bracket software I've ever seen only works for 1v1 or teamvteam, not 1v1v1v1
Quoted from DarthXaos:All the bracket software I've ever seen only works for 1v1 or teamvteam, not 1v1v1v1
This is most likely due to the fact that it is single elimination and it is the way most people do bracket style tournaments. It would be neat for some software to support the multiple player scenario.
Quoted from Whysnow:Awesome!!!
If you want to add more things/ a complete change of pace...
I would love to see a software that works for a doubles event like pinbrawl.
Be able to select the total number of teams, rounds of qualifying, and then you enter points scored after each round and it automatically reshuffles the deck to determine which teams play against each other in the next round.
I know a typical format would be 3 qualifying rounds in the morning. Where depending on how you play and the overall stregth of your opponent you shift who you play for ech subsequent round. The idea being that after 3 rounds, teams shoudl eb reasonably well placed into blocks of 8 teams with similar skill. These then make up the bracket/divisions for the afternoon.
I would also love to see a software that works for a pingolf style event to help people track how they did on each machine. An admin would need to be able to populate games/goals and players plus strokes taken. Software (I would probabaly just use Excel at this point) is not really needed for this type of event but it would still be nice.
thanks again for all your hard work!
The pingolf functionality is kind of there. There is an option for "low-scoring". Nothing about goals and such, however, as a practical matter I print off my goals and tape them to the backglass anyway.
Hey Guys,
New version is up! I also created a User Guide to help with all the functionality of the application.
Latest Version: http://scottdanesi.com/WP/?page_id=161
User Guide: http://scottdanesi.com/WP/?page_id=176
Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks,
--Scott
Hey Guys,
The newest version is here! Version 1.7.2 is a minor update with some cool fixes and updates. I have created a heatmap on the standing breakout window that looks really good. I have also added the ability to customize the size of the font on the breakout window as well.
The formal online user guide is updated with the new settings. You can access it directly from the site or through the help menu in the Application itself.
As always, your feedback is very important to me, so let me know if you have any suggestions of find anything wrong with the software.
Latest Version: http://scottdanesi.com/WP/?page_id=161
User Guide: http://scottdanesi.com/WP/?page_id=176
Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks,
--Scott
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