TB GUI

[burper]

Very rough start. I did this with an HTML editor, so you can save as and rework it!
http://fibsboard.com/chouettebot/TB1.html

It does not take into account different styles of tourneys yet.
It can have the main section shown under a tab called "details" (with the number and name above) and another tab called "brackets"  (enabled when it is started) showing the rounds, matchups etc...

Oops, I just realized that I have no "JOIN" button there

Lots of these buttons will not be shown if the user is not a moderator (in general, or for the particular tourney seclected).

And of course, action that is invalid tgets greyed-out and disabled.

This is just to get people started designing... Is a wizard style better? I.e. first screen only allows you to choose from unfinished tourneys, and if you're a moderator gives you the option of creating a new one, possibly from a list of templates. The second screen gives you matchlens, next screen (every screen has NEXT and PREV buttons) gives you title/description...

This makes me think that the TB protocol should have more notifications to the moderator for all sorts of tourney changes (players joining, dropping out, starting matches, ending, leaving, etc...) rather than poll for these things. This would be used to update the GUI, and should be opt-in (the GUI can opt-in).

[MadMatt]

I like the layout.

The date and time from the tourney header should also be displayed somewhere. This will be especially imortant once the new scheduler goes in, because then a TD will be able to say to TourneyBot open this tourney tomorrow at 15:00 GMT and stuff like that, so perhaps a row for all such timestamps should be added.

Also, the banned row should not appear in the user version (just the TD one).

I'll probably come up with more ideas once I think about it some more.

[burper]

Here is sort of what a wizard style could look like:

http://fibsboard.com/chouettebot/tbwiz.jpg

Less cluttered. Oh yeah, the text flow in the center there isn't right, it should fill up the panel horizontally. And the tabs colors would match the panels to make that more obvious. Not sure what the menus should be, if anything at all.

The "Tourney" panel would contain the previously shown templetes stuff.

Maybe "Moderators", "Matchlengths" and "NumPlayers" should be combined?

The Limits panel shows also the banned people (if moderator).

Each panel would show extra stuff IF the user is a/the moderator, and that stuff is editable IF the tournament hasn't started yet.

The "Brackets" panel shows the brackets, and updates them as matches are completed. It also has extra functions for the moderator(s), showing timing information perhaps, buttons for watching, banning, and a message-all function.

The Next and Prev buttons do what you expect, and get disabled appropriately, but the navigation tabs on the left can get you to any panel in one click. The "Brackets" panel would show an appropriate message if the thing hasn't started yet.

Weaknesses:
-limited to bracket style currently
-no timing info as per your previous post
-semantics not obvious, i.e. when do we save state, at every Next?

Note, we could add stuff not currently in TB, such as timeout rules, that simply get rolled into the description field.

[MadMatt]

This one might be more convenient for a TD, but I like the all-in-one layout of the previous suggestion better for a standard user. It shows me all the info I need with one simple click. Perhaps that one could have an additional panel for brackets, too.

[burper]

Hmm. I hear you admitting that the brackets panel is large enough to be separate.

How about 4 tabs:

"Tourneys" - shows basic information: number, name, type, title, description, matchlengths, STATUS.
(and timing information)
"Controls" - show stuff a user doesn't care AS MUCH about: min/max players, moderators, limits
"Brackets"
"Help"

Remove the wizardy Next and Prev, and make the tabs on top.
The JOIN (register) button goes on the first tab.
Now there is room to add a Fridays 3 tab in the future, and others.
I think these 4 can be made to look pretty neat and tidy.

[burper]

Here goes another time:

http://www.fibsboard.com/chouettebot/tb2.jpg

Menus:
   File - New, Reset, Load, Save, Save As, Quit (note some are popup dialogs)
   Join - Join, Dropout
   Help - list of topics?

The top panel is a scrollable list of current tournaments. Maybe get fancy and add a View member for filters etc... Which ever one you select shows up below, unless you are a moderator and you have done a New, Load (from Templates).

The Controls panel (Details?) contains display/edit of Limits, Moderators, Min/Max Players and maybe stuff like timeout rules etc... oh, and banned. Maybe the "message-all" goes here too?

The Bracket panel will be interesting. Obviously it will show the graphical brackets (if in progress), but  should have some controls for watching, awarding, banning (all based on one player selected from bracket display). Maybe "message all"? What else?

[MadMatt]

Looks awesome. The table should definitely be filterable.

[burper]

Okay, good. I really want to put the TB GUI, filters and chouettebot (of course) into the intial release of the proxy. Thanks for your feedback so far, but keep it coming! Get the other TD's involved too.

What about the player count and players list (during open period)? I can put that on the brackets page, but then the tab title seems wrong, and it seems also that it should have some relationship with the min/max players on the Controls tab. Maybe put in both places and dynmically rename the tab?

Seems like I need some :"global" indication of TourneyBot's health, just in case.

So, how can I make the table filterable? I can make it sortable, I think without too much fuss.

What about the "message-all" function? Where should that go and what should it look like?

If a user has joined, shouldn't there be some sort of indication throughout? What about other notifications (elimination, next opponent etc...) should these be popups?

Brackets ok if they are similar to the tournament 72 page/thread, except perhaps only one-sided?

Can/should we have an inter-TD messaging tab?

What other neat functions can we put in here?

Detailed changes:
-The table should have it's headers turned on (number,status,name,type,normal,final).
-the table is scrollable both ways, and fills the panel horizontally
-the columns are sized better, and the data is centered in each column. the columns are resizable
-the match lengths spinners are only spinners for the moderators of the current tournament.
-for the moderators of the current tournament, the type is maybe a dropdown box?

Now about semantics:
-the thing opens up from the main proxy-gui menu
-for users
   -join menu choice happens immediately. it is disabled when appropriate (full, not open, banned...)
   -dropout happens from menu choice immediately
   -brackets are updated, so they should see everything they need there.
   -all the other tourney info is displayed for them in the appropriate tabs.
-for moderators
   -everything the same as for users, except
   -if tournament is created but not open, lots of things are edittable
   -saves are done when controls are switched, i.e. not on every click of the minplayers spinner, but if switching to the maxplayers spinner, minplayers is then commited

Okay MadMatt, I will really be needing that clip-alike protocol and notifications changes in TB
I know, I know, it's open source, but I can't do everything!

[diane]

OK - there is a lot of stuff here i dont understand - and would have to start using it to be able to gauge what issues i had.  My initial reaction is very much along the lines of - 'wow, awesome, amazing' etc.  Have thought a few times - when setting up the bot right now - it can be easy to overlook changing something I wanted to - and end up staring at the chat box fer ages before opening - this would clearly help with that. And obviously for us non typists - any pointing and clicking opportunities are much appreciated.
I cannot say which of the layouts i prefer - they all look very impressive - whatever you settle on will be great!
I like the idea of inter TD messaging tab, agree banned should be hidden, and like the status button. It also appears it will solve a few of my little gripes - which are - when i log in - i dont have an easy way to tell if a tournye is signing up - in progress or whatever.  And with the scrollable list at the top - it will be easier to set up regular tourneys like the fridays i think.  
Is there somewhere to tell the actual details of the tourney status - like the round and current commands now available - since it is handy to refresh your memeory of who you should be playing - if it is a tourney conducted over a period of time - or see how freinds are getting on.
Curious though - where would this page/gui appear??

[burper]

Thanks diane. This kind of feedback is much more valuable than you think!

The GUI will appear on your desktop, the same way that javafibs or 3dfibs does now. What oyu would do is down and install the software the same way as you would anything else. The only adjustment you have to make after that is changing your client to connect to "localhost" instead of "fibs.com".

A technical way of looking at it, is that this thing listens to all the traffic going back and forth between your client and fibs, and displays the stuff in another way.

[socksey]

Very rough start. I did this with an HTML editor, so you can save as and rework it!  http://fibsboard.com/chouettebot/tbwiz.jpg

Cool, burp!  You the man!   Excellent beginning (or is it done?)!  

socksey


"See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails?" - Will Rogers (1879 - 1935), to his niece on seeing the Venus de Milo

[Kari_Grandi]

What can I say. Very impressive work burper   .

I cant help you much with any ideas (especially technical about how to make it), since you have run alot of tourneys yourself and you know what is good for TD's.
As for the interface, you have already showed, that you have good eye for it!

One thing though I have in mind. Since every TD has their own style to run tourneys, what to shout, is it difficult to make it so that there is somekind of macro-system and I just pick up my favourite lines for the shouts?

Kari

[burper]

Great idea Kari! We can have a messages tab that creates programmable buttons, and maybe auto-timed messages. The TD can choose shout or tell, and use variables like %RegisteredPlayer, %TourneyTitle, %TourneyNumber etc...

Maybe something like this:
http://www.fibsboard.com/chouettebot/TMsgs.jpg

The list of "buttons" on the left would be stored per tournament, so that if you load a different tournament on the Tourneys panel, a different list would show up here. Not sure what to do with the buttons exactly, maybe have them appear on the brackets panels' toolbar or something. Maybe better to have icons rather than text, and a checkbox for having them appear on that toolbar?

While I'm at it, here is what the control panel could look like:
http://www.fibsboard.com/chouettebot/Tcontrols.jpg

The Brackets panel will take some work, and may not even make it into the initial release, but I envision it to contain something similar to the HTML brackets I've posted in other places on this forum. It would contain more information about each user (for moderators) as well as some controls.

The Help panel will contain an html document for the GUI stuff as well as the TourneyBot help contents.

[alef]

burper, maybe the reason you've tended to just use telnet all these years is that you hadn't yet written the ideal GUI...

     

[diane]

Looking better daily!! You are busy  

And less and less typing for me!!  

I take it although i can select phrases from a list - will still be able to add 'the personal touch too' - should i want to ?

Not knowing much about how these things work - just wanted to ask ..It all looks very nearly finished to me - how much more behind the scenes work is there to do before we have a test version to play with (no pressure at all - just curiosity)

[webrunner]

I am guessing that all what you see is just an empty shell.
The "behind the scenes" work is by far the most time consuming in my experience.
And debugging of course.. so don't hold your breath..

although .... Burper seems to be on a roll and having loads of spare time

[diane]

Yup he certainly seems to be putting the hours in with it - im just all excited about trying it out      

[burper]

Why do I feel like I have to defend myself here?

First, it takes only minutes to design a GUI using an IDE like netbeans. Yes, it is an empty shell right now, but it can be connected to the proxy pretty quickly. The proxy "I" wrote is built upon an open source piece of software, so much of that was already available. I only added the task-based stuff (which, while pretty slick, was quick to code).

Now, with a little constructive criticim, things would go much quicker and maybe we could really have something pretty cool. I code fun. Some people spend loads of time on fibs playing backgammon.

[diane]

Really really really no pressure - just the curiosity of someone utterly ignorant in these things - as i have never done anything like this myself - it seems odd that something can look so ready - and yet not be - designed inside out it seems to me!! (or outside in!!)

There is no need to defend - and kinda miss ya shouting whilst yer busy with this - was good to 'hear' you last night!

I totally appreciate this is your free time - given willingly.

[webrunner]

Hi Burper,
I was only kidding. I think it's great that you are spending all that time and think you are a gifted "codewarrior".
You don't need to defend yourself at all!

I have an idea for the TB gui that was inspired bythis topic.

What if there was a list where you can add fibs users that want to be notified about tourneys by using the "tell" command?

[burper]

The date and time from the tourney header should also be displayed somewhere. This will be especially imortant once the new scheduler goes in, because then a TD will be able to say to TourneyBot open this tourney tomorrow at 15:00 GMT and stuff like that, so perhaps a row for all such timestamps should be added.

Matt, the timestamp is from when the Tourney was created?
What are your plans for "timestamps"? Right now I have a log tab for all TB messages and events. Should the front tab contain a "this tourney will open at" and a "this tourney will start at" field only, or is there something else planned?

[socksey]

I'm all excited about trying it out, too!  No pressure?  Hmmmm.........I usually work better under pressure.  Otherwise, I just play bg and let the world go by.  Hurry up, burper, get it on!  ))

socksey




"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and
as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
- Thomas Jefferson

[burper]

Alright, I'm crackin, I'm crackin!

I almost have phase I ready, believe it or not. Well, it's just the first two panels, but it's a useful subset of the functionality. It's not connected to the proxy yet either, but that's coming soon.

Tourneys Page:
http://www.fibsboard.com/chouettebot/tourneys.jpg

Controls Page:
http://www.fibsboard.com/chouettebot/controls.jpg

In a few days, if anyone wants to download and play with the GUI (only fake TB data so far) to get a feel for it (what a tease!), I'll be posting that too.

Things left to do:
-tweak the fake data so it's more consistent
-better list logic for those add/remove lists. there are cases where the same name can appear in both
-table column formatting and sortability
-get the players list when appropriate and put that on the brackets page for now, unless started tourney
-tweak the colors a bit. disabled colors are too dim
-finish debugging the proxy, it's close!
-talk to MadMatt about connecting the proxy to TB. do a clip-alike protocol first?

[MadMatt]

Matt, the timestamp is from when the Tourney was created?
What are your plans for "timestamps"? Right now I have a log tab for all TB messages and events. Should the front tab contain a "this tourney will open at" and a "this tourney will start at" field only, or is there something else planned?

The timestamp signifies the last change from one tourney state to another (CREATED, OPEN, PLAYING, DONE). I explain it in the News thread.

As to the rest, I haven't really thought much on how exactly the scheduling will work, but it will be possible to schedule creation, opening and starting a tourney at least.

[webrunner]

This might just get me to become a tourney director

[Kari_Grandi]

Are You sure, that you'll qualify?    

[webrunner]

hmm... you got a point there    

[Kari_Grandi]

I was just joking    

[webrunner]

I know  

[diane]

Had a bit of a play with what ya got so far - and of course - it is great  

My thoughts so far are:

Does the front page need to contain the create stuff? - Would a simple front page for players only be better.  Easy to read ifo about the tourney they are signing up for - the menu at the top for what is running as it is now, and then three buttons - one to join, one to dropout and one to register to be told about tourneys in the future?

So many times they type the wrong thing - and it always my fault - cos the info wasnt clear!!

Not altogether sure how useful the interest page is - what did you have in mind for that?  Cant imagine what it would be used for - but that doesnt mean it isnt vital - and i just didnt spot it  

Love the detachable bar - that will make life so much easier too.

[burper]

Great feedback diane, thanks!

After chatting with MM a bit yesterday, we decided that the Interest panel was pretty much redundant with a feature that he is working on for registering users, so I will get rid of it.

As for a simplified front page for non-moderators: point taken. It's still a bit busy. Here is what it would look like:
http://www.fibsboard.com/chouettebot/nonmod.jpg

All the information is relavent, but perhaps instead of subpanels with fancy borders we need something simpler, e.g.  "Type: bracket"

Note that the Commands tab is invisible, as well as the SET buttons, and the controls are all disabled. I still need to make the disabled grey colour darker.

[diane]

Thats looking better - still dont see a dropout button - for those little emergencies.  And im still not entirely clear where the playerlist will appear - though im happy to wait and see

[jinnate]

from http://www.pepsan.com/javamac/#anchor113864

I've downloaded a "cross platform" Java application, but how do I run it on a classic Macintosh?

There is no simple/single answer. Even though people may say their Java application is "cross platform" that doesn't mean it works on a Macintosh (or on any range of Java platforms). We've seem cross platform claims for applications that only work on Windows 98 and Windows NT! Sometimes cross platform means Solaris and Windows, but not Linux. And yes, sometimes it includes the Macintosh. Some applications, even though never tested on a Macintosh, work just fine (for example, most of IBM's Java-based XML tools work great on a Macintosh). They seemed surprised when we told them! If the developer did not provide a Macintosh-based installer then you are probably on your own in trying to get it to work. A friendly email to their tech support people might help, but if they don't have Macintosh experience they simply won't know the answer. You will at least need to download the MRJ SDK so you have access to JBindery, the main tool for creating a double-clickable wrapper for Java applications. See the topic on Java development on the Macintosh, near the beginning, for where to obtain the SDK. Once you have the SDK, you may want to use JBindery and open the JBoundApp file from one or more of our examples (http://www.pepsan.com/downloads.html) to see what a working file looks like.

It's relatively easier to port "cross platform" applications to Mac OS X. Usually you will want the package created for Solaris (not Linux since those are usually packaged as RPMs that Mac OS X can't install). The details of what's needed does vary greatly from package-to-package.

----

found more at http://developer.apple.com/java/javatutori...oubleclick.html. a tutorial on making java apps double-clickable.

[alef]

Have had a look at the testgui.jar on my Mac OS 10.2. Just double clicking the download immediately launched it. Generally looks very good, although:
-With my monitor normally set to 1024x768 I can't see the bottom and lose the tournament description
-Tabs between sections ('Tourney', 'Controls', etc) don't highlight properly (probably a mac thing?)

Wish I think of more that's constructive, but to be honest it looks very well thought and thorough!

[burper]

Lots of good comments here, thanks all:

-sizing: I need to reduce the spacing and font size so the thing fits on the screen better, especially vertically.

-mac packing: when the time comes, I will look into it, or ask for help (I don't have a mac).

-alef: tell me more about the tabs thing you mentioned. is there a screen shot?

-at the appropriate times, the JOIN button changes into a DROPOUT button.

-the player list will be on the brackets page I think. I might need a slightly more general name for that than "Brackets". Any ideas? Something more specific than "Information".

-diane got me thinking about making things simpler, and said something about the toolbar being the most useful thing. Does it belong on the first page with all possible buttons, i.e. join/dropout, create/open/start. Someone could detach the toolbar, minimize the main window, and just use that. When a new tourney is announced, the tourney number could be displayed on that bar. For a non-TD, that might be all they see: "Tourney: 345 JOIN".

-cekerr gave me a couple other ideas, but I think they will wait for a next release. Mostly it's a help guide popup that indicates to a newbie what the next logical step would be. They could turn it off.

[diane]

Aww thats clever - i see now!

And yes - the detachable toolbar sounds good used like that - nice and simple for the majority - and yet more info available to those who want to go look.

[jinnate]

The GUI will appear on your desktop, the same way that javafibs or 3dfibs does now. What oyu would do is down and install the software the same way as you would anything else. The only adjustment you have to make after that is changing your client to connect to "localhost" instead of "fibs.com".

is macfibs going to be able to connect to the localhost instead of fibs? is that something i need to start banging on fergy's door about?

[alef]

any client should be able to be redirected to the local proxy *but* you'll need to be able to run java i presume.

i miss MacFIBS    because i like saving my matches for gnubg analysis and i rarely use classic i've been adapting to JavaFIBS which runs beautifully in OS X. my old MacFIBS preferences file contains colourings/buddies/gags/notes for over 700 FIBS usernames! that long list was started well before RepBot...

[jinnate]

don't forget different sounds for different "buddies"!  

i ain't never leavin' macfibs!   ^_^  

[burper]

Yes, you should be able to connect ANY client to the local proxy.

Is the format for that old friends file in a plaintext format alef? Maybe it can be converted? Send me a snippet.