New Draft Utility

[jdavidbakr]

Ok, after playing FOF for a little while I had an idea that might make MP drafts go much smoother and faster. I wrote a draft utility that you will need to run on your webserver (it's in PHP with MySQL). This is the first version of it, I've tested it about as much as I can with being just one person, so I'd love it if some of you guys would take it for a test drive for me. Here is the link to the file:

http://www.jdavidbaker.com/pub/conscriptor.zip

Here is how the program works: You log in and choose the players that you are interested in. Then you set a priority for those players. You can go as deep into the draft as you want, setting as many priorities as you want. Once the first pick has set his priority, it selects that player for them, and clears out any other players in their queue that have the same position. Then if the next player has picks selected, it chooses their highest priority from the available players, and so on, until it runs out of picks to choose from, which of course will need the player to sign in and update their selections. The admin can choose for the team that's on the clock if they are taking too long. Then you can of course print the final list and do the actual draft in FOF.

The installation is pretty easy. You need a webserver and you need a database. Just unzip the file into some directory on your webserver (it unzips to "fof_draft") and then navigate to that directory. Make sure the server can write to the "includes" directory, and make sure you have a database you can store the data in. Then just go to your web browser and open up the fof_draft directory, and you will be prompted with information on how to install.

Once you finish the install, sign in as the admin user you just created, and follow the instructions to import the draft data. There will be two files, the players file and the draft order file. Directions on how to get those files are displayed on the upload screen.

Once the program is installed, have your players register. On the login page is the registration link, they just need to enter the 3-character code for their team (i.e. DEN or SEA) and set a password. I didn't make any deeper security than that, I figured that would be easier than the admin assigning passwords to everyone and since it's unlikely that anyone will try to hack into your draft I choose ease of use over security.

Let me know how it works or if anyone has any problems or suggestions. I hope it's useful!

[jdavidbakr]

Just swapped in version 0.4 after making a few minor changes

[jdavidbakr]

0.5 is now up, we're using this in the vNFL House League and using it has caused me to make a lot of tweaks. Still at the same link.

[3ric]

Good to have an alternative utility available. Nice work, even though I haven't checked it out yet.

[MrDNA]

Anybody try this puppy yet? It sounds like a great idea, but I am far from being able to talk it for a walk.

[jdavidbakr]

Just pushed in 0.6, adding some nice e-mail notification and allowing the admin to change the team's picks.

By the time the vNFL House draft is done it should be a mature enough program to give it the coveted "1.0" label.

[jdavidbakr]

Just uploaded 0.7, if you've downloaded a previous version you will need to run the installer again because I added some fields to the database. The vNFL House League beta testing has been going great and the users have had some great suggestions to make it even better.

[Hoosierbuckeye]

We've used it in the House and it's a nice utility. For ease of operation it's great. (damn operator errors not withstanding).

It seems much more intuitve than the utilities Ive used in the past.

[jdavidbakr]

After a successful vNFL House draft, a couple of other suggestions came in so I'm releasing 0.8 - won't release 1.0 until I know 0.8 is stable. But 0.8 adds some cool features:

Tracking the time that each team is on the clock and reporting it in the header

Put more information about each player on the players screen

The option to zero out the priority of a position after you have selected a player of that position is now able to be turned off

The admin may now stop the draft at any pick

The admin may now roll back the draft, returning players to the board

Teams may choose to make a player list or a list of "Best Player Available" based on general score or by any of the other values that are recorded for the players.

It's still here:

http://www.catalystproductions.cc/pub/conscriptor.zip

[Cuckoo]

Thanks for your work, Jon. I'm going to download and check it out.

[gottimd]

Is this an add on to the already created Draft Utility or is it completely separate?

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by gottimd

Is this an add on to the already created Draft Utility or is it completely separate?

It's its own app, although you need the FOF Extractor to get the draft list from FOF.

[gstelmack]

I am curious to get reports on usability, etc. My one beef with the current common utility is lack of multi-selection, which makes maintaining lists more difficult than it needs to be. I'm still debating whether to change that or finally get my own ASP.NET utility off the ground, but if this turns out to be robust and easy to use I may give it a whirl for WOOF.

[jdavidbakr]

I put up a demo here:

http://www.catalystproductions.cc/fof_draft_demo/

You can log in with the following credentials:

Team: DEN Password: broncos
Team: CIN Password: bengals
Team: IND Password: colts

You can at least get a feel for how you can select players, even though it is difficult to cause selections to actually happen on a demo.

The chat feature is new in 0.9, I'll move that version into the download here this morning.

[gstelmack]

Overall, I think it's an interesting approach. My critiques would be:

- Get rid of the personality stuff (leadership, wants winner, etc) as you only get that for guys you've interviewed, so it shouldn't be on a global list.
- Add the missing combines (broadjump and position drill).

That should give enough room for everyone to fit on a single line. Would also help to color the combines, either using the standard deviation stuff from Draft Analyzer (which I can get you) or just using the color scheme that FOF now uses (which I don't have breakdowns for yet, but someone else might). I can also get you data for marking above/below average height/weight.

Have to see how the per-page stuff works, as often people are looking for a specific player and won't want to have to page through everyone to find him. Might just want to have a single giant list if it doesn't kill performance.

I like having the chat, and I like being able to type in priorities to rearrange the guys.

Do you have a "best player available at position X" option? That's useful for the late rounds for when the draft is moving fast and someone will be away.

Anyway, those are my quick thoughts. Excellent work here.

[Cuckoo]

Agree with much of what Greg has said. Very good stuff, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it. I like the relative simplicity of the common utility, but this has great potential, I think.

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

- Add the missing combines (broadjump and position drill).

I'm using the FOF Extractor utility to get the data on the players, from what I can tell the broadjump and position drill are not in the data export, am I wrong or you you have a way how I can get that data?

Originally Posted by gstelmack

That should give enough room for everyone to fit on a single line. Would also help to color the combines, either using the standard deviation stuff from Draft Analyzer (which I can get you) or just using the color scheme that FOF now uses (which I don't have breakdowns for yet, but someone else might). I can also get you data for marking above/below average height/weight.

Sure, if you've got that data handy I can incorporate that in the display.

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Have to see how the per-page stuff works, as often people are looking for a specific player and won't want to have to page through everyone to find him. Might just want to have a single giant list if it doesn't kill performance.

You can list the whole draft if you want to, just change the "rows per page" to a high enough value. It will take longer to display a list of the full draft than the default 32 players of course.

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Do you have a "best player available at position X" option? That's useful for the late rounds for when the draft is moving fast and someone will be away.

Yes, go to "options" and you can switch your list between selecting individual players and a "best player available" list.

Thanks for your comments, they are very helpful -

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by jdavidbakr

I'm using the FOF Extractor utility to get the data on the players, from what I can tell the broadjump and position drill are not in the data export, am I wrong or you you have a way how I can get that data?

Extractor pulls all the combine drills. That's how Analyzer uses it. It's always been there for 2k7 (these are new drills for 2k7 that weren't in 2k4).

Originally Posted by jdavidbakr

Sure, if you've got that data handy I can incorporate that in the display.

Heights/weights: http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=62972

See CombineData.csv in the utility suite install folder for avg/std-dev stuff for combines.

Originally Posted by jdavidbakr

You can list the whole draft if you want to, just change the "rows per page" to a high enough value. It will take longer to display a list of the full draft than the default 32 players of course.

Yes, go to "options" and you can switch your list between selecting individual players and a "best player available" list.

Thanks for your comments, they are very helpful -

Good to know! And you're welcome.

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Extractor pulls all the combine drills. That's how Analyzer uses it. It's always been there for 2k7 (these are new drills for 2k7 that weren't in 2k4).

A-ha, I was using the 2k4 extractor, I didn't notice that there was a new extractor included in the utility suite.

[jdavidbakr]

Ok, I changed out the player list to utilize the extra fields of data provided in the 2007 extractor. I'll add the color coding here in a little bit.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by jdavidbakr

You can list the whole draft if you want to, just change the "rows per page" to a high enough value. It will take longer to display a list of the full draft than the default 32 players of course.

Can't you just turn the paging off/take it out?

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by Yoda

Can't you just turn the paging off/take it out?

Of course I can, but it takes significantly longer to load, and once you've changed the records per page it should remember your selection forever, so I figured it was best to let the end user decide.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by jdavidbakr

Of course I can, but it takes significantly longer to load, and once you've changed the records per page it should remember your selection forever, so I figured it was best to let the end user decide.

I am working with the samething for a SQL database with an ASP.NET frontend for the PFL, using the CSV files from Greg's interrogator part of the suite. But I didn't realize you had set it as a user opntion, my appoligies, I haven't looked at your draft program yet.

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by Yoda

I am working with the samething for a SQL database with an ASP.NET frontend for the PFL, using the CSV files from Greg's interrogator part of the suite. But I didn't realize you had set it as a user opntion, my appoligies, I haven't looked at your draft program yet.

No problem

[headtrauma]

Any major updates fortcoming? If not, I'll install this and test it out for Shiba Football (www.snowballhidalgo.com). I like the preferencing logic being used here.

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by headtrauma

Any major updates fortcoming? If not, I'll install this and test it out for Shiba Football (www.snowballhidalgo.com). I like the preferencing logic being used here.

The only thing I plan to add at this point is color coding weights and combine scores, but I don't know how soon I'll be able to get to that. Be sure you are using version 0.10, 0.9 had a bug in the player selection.

I'd love to hear any suggestions or feedback after you use it.

[jdavidbakr]

headtrauma,

also let me know if you run into any issues, I'll get you a fix asap if you do.

[headtrauma]

Originally Posted by jdavidbakr

headtrauma,

also let me know if you run into any issues, I'll get you a fix asap if you do.

Great, thanks!

[headtrauma]

Came across an issue:

After creating the new database in phpmyadmin and then running the install script, I'm getting this error:

"Fatal error: Cannot use object of type __PHP_Incomplete_Class as array in [path to my draft files]/fof_draft/includes/classes/login.inc.php on line 24"



edit:
I'm running:

PHP version	5.2.5
MySQL version	5.0.45

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by headtrauma

Came across an issue:

After creating the new database in phpmyadmin and then running the install script, I'm getting this error:

"Fatal error: Cannot use object of type __PHP_Incomplete_Class as array in [path to my draft files]/fof_draft/includes/classes/login.inc.php on line 24"



edit:
I'm running:

Hm, that's a strange one. Try replacing the login.inc.php file with this file (unzip it of course):

http://www.catalystproductions.cc/pub/login.zip

Are you on a shared server or do you have access to the PHP config file? It may be something that is set in the config file, I'd like to see your settings, make a page info.php with the following line:

PHP Code:

<? phpinfo() ?>

and access that in a web browser, and send me the output in a PM you would (or the address where I can see the output).

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, for some reason the board didn't send me an e-mail notification of your reply.

[jdavidbakr]

Hey, I have a thought that may be causing this error - do you have something that you log into at this same URL? I've got a variable named "login" that might be stepping on your message board login or something like that - the code I gave you would fix that I think (but will break your connection to whatever you are logged in to). If I change that variable name that would probably fix it, I'll do that and release it as 0.11 here in a minute.

[jdavidbakr]

Ok, try version 0.11, it should fix it. You should be able to retain the /includes/config.inc.php file between these two versions if you don't want to run the install script again.

[zbuckley]

Originally Posted by headtrauma

Any major updates fortcoming? If not, I'll install this and test it out for Shiba Football (www.snowballhidalgo.com). I like the preferencing logic being used here.

I like were your heads at commish. Already thinking about the draft.

[headtrauma]

Originally Posted by jdavidbakr

Ok, try version 0.11, it should fix it. You should be able to retain the /includes/config.inc.php file between these two versions if you don't want to run the install script again.

Thanks, I was AFK for most of the day. If 0.11 doesn't work, then I'll try the suggestions you made in your previous posts.

[headtrauma]

I wiped the entire fof_draft/ folder and re-uploaded the files, leaving the old MySQL tables intact.

I went through the main setup screen, establishing the "admin" user account and password.

I then logged in as "admin" with the newly-created password and got the same error:

Fatal error: Cannot use object of type __PHP_Incomplete_Class as array in /home/emaredee/public_html/shibafootball/fof_draft/includes/classes/login.inc.php on line 24


You can see the phpinfo file here:

http://snowballhidalgo.com/phpinfo.php

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by headtrauma

I wiped the entire fof_draft/ folder and re-uploaded the files, leaving the old MySQL tables intact.

I went through the main setup screen, establishing the "admin" user account and password.

I then logged in as "admin" with the newly-created password and got the same error:

Fatal error: Cannot use object of type __PHP_Incomplete_Class as array in /home/emaredee/public_html/shibafootball/fof_draft/includes/classes/login.inc.php on line 24


You can see the phpinfo file here:

http://snowballhidalgo.com/phpinfo.php

Well, I'm still puzzled by why that error is happening but I believe I've made a change that at the very least will get rid of the error on line 24 of login.inc.php

Try installing it again. You can keep the config file again if you want, or just wipe it, it shouldn't matter. The version should display as 0.11.1

[headtrauma]

The error's gone, thanks!

One suggestion/question:

Since the team name needs to be the 3-letter team abbreviation, would it make sense to limit the "team name" field to 3 characters when registering new account?

Also, in the "Team" table, is it necessary that the TeamID field tie to the in-game team numbers (0-31)?

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by headtrauma

The error's gone, thanks!

One suggestion/question:

Since the team name needs to be the 3-letter team abbreviation, would it make sense to limit the "team name" field to 3 characters when registering new account?

Good point, I'll put that into the next release.

Originally Posted by headtrauma

Also, in the "Team" table, is it necessary that the TeamID field tie to the in-game team numbers (0-31)?

Actually the "Team" table is populated in draft order, the team_id field has no relevance at all to the in-game team numbers. The reason for this is that some leagues will have different team cities, and I didn't want to make setup any more complicated than it needed to be, and the team_id field is currently transparent to the end user anyway. In fact, if you reuse the utility the team_id value will just keep incrementing forever, because every time you import a draft it deletes all the values in the team table except for the admin "team". If there was a reason to map a team to their in-game numbers, I'd just add another field to the table for that.

[headtrauma]

Great, thanks for your help.

I'll upload a test draft file and see how things work. We don't run our draft for another 2+ weeks, so there should be plenty of time to test things out.

Thanks for your work on this, it's much appreciated. I've been teaching myself php/MySQL for the past few months, so I can somewhat relate to the amount of work required of something like this.

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by headtrauma

Great, thanks for your help.

I'll upload a test draft file and see how things work. We don't run our draft for another 2+ weeks, so there should be plenty of time to test things out.

Thanks for your work on this, it's much appreciated. I've been teaching myself php/MySQL for the past few months, so I can somewhat relate to the amount of work required of something like this.

Thanks for working with me to get it running on your server. I'm still confused as to why 0.11 didn't work, but made several changes to work around it in the login script and am glad that at least one of them fixed it

Welcome to the php/MySQL world. I love it, I've been doing it full-time for years. Feel free to look at my code, most of what I know with php has been learned by observing others' methods and taking (and modifying) what I liked and throwing away what I don't. Feel free to PM me any time as well if you want to chat about it .

[nthinch]

I took a look at the demo and I'm looking forward to using this for my league's draft.

Couple questions and an issue.

1) Can I do a full league startup draft with this?
2) I changed up the draft order txt document to allow the draft to snake Will your program read it out to 53 rounds?
3) Will it allow for this large a player file?

I have it installed, but run into an issue when I try to load the player file and draft order I get this error...

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/genmgrfo/public_html/fof_draft/import_draft_run.php on line 158

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/genmgrfo/public_html/fof_draft/import_draft_run.php:158) in /home/genmgrfo/public_html/fof_draft/import_draft_run.php on line 175

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by nthinch

1) Can I do a full league startup draft with this?
2) I changed up the draft order txt document to allow the draft to snake Will your program read it out to 53 rounds?
3) Will it allow for this large a player file?

I've not tested it but there should not be a limit on the rounds or players. I'll be happy to work with you to get it working if you are having problems, but the algorithms should expand without any issue, as long as there are 32 picks per round.

Originally Posted by nthinch

I have it installed, but run into an issue when I try to load the player file and draft order I get this error...

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/genmgrfo/public_html/fof_draft/import_draft_run.php on line 158

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/genmgrfo/public_html/fof_draft/import_draft_run.php:158) in /home/genmgrfo/public_html/fof_draft/import_draft_run.php on line 175

Looks like it's in the draft order file. The parser is looking for each row to contain all of the selected pick numbers with the order in the first column, separated by spaces, as follows:

1 AAA BBB CCC ... ZZZ
2 AAA BBB CCC ... ZZZ
3 AAA BBB CCC ... ZZZ
... ... ... .... ... ...
32 AAA BBB CCC ... ZZZ

It ignores any line that does not start with number and ignores any team name that is not 3 capital letters or 'xxx'.

If it looks like that's what you're doing, send me a PM with the draft file and I'll see what might be going on.

[nthinch]

That's all it was. From what I can tell it's up and working. I'll be back with feedback on the utility once the draft is done. Gonna run from 4/26 to 5/18. This should make it a lot more fun and interactive. Thanks!

[nthinch]

Nope, I was wrong. The draft order is in and working for all 53 rounds.

I don't have any players though. Shard extracted the file and sent to me. I don't get any errors when uploading. Just no players listed anywhere.

[jdavidbakr]

Got this worked out via PM, the player file was not in the correct format.

[jdavidbakr]

Just uploaded 0.13, some cool new features include:

* The admin now can see the entire draft transcript
* The admin now can see any team's player queue
* (this is my favorite) I added the ability to skip a team. If a team has been skipped, they can come back and make their pick at any time from the remaining players. This is designed for leagues who want to have a draft with a smaller window but don't want to have to pick for a team who doesn't pick on time; if a team runs out of time, you can just skip their pick, and the next team is on the clock. The skipped team can come in at any time and make their pick.

[gottimd]

Sorry to be a johnny come lately on this one, but how does this handle trades?

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by gottimd

Sorry to be a johnny come lately on this one, but how does this handle trades?

The admin has the power to change the team for any pick.

[gottimd]

Ok. so the users can't do it? In the current draft utility, the GMs can send their picks to each other once a trade has been finalized.

[jdavidbakr]

Originally Posted by gottimd

Ok. so the users can't do it? In the current draft utility, the GMs can send their picks to each other once a trade has been finalized.

My thinking was that changing picks was a bit too abusable to give that power to non-admins. But I'm not beyond being talked out of that position