Catobase Tutorial by Battists and f.montoya
 

Well heariing the news of the latest 6.5b patch(11/21/05), I decided to release this to the public. Battists and I have created a pictorial guide on how to install and use Catobase with OOTP 6.5b. This instructional guide will help anyone to get Catobase working and hopefully with Markus' latest patch release, the chances of having Catobase issues will be lowered.

This is not meant as a fix to any issues. It is merely a starting point for those who who have never used Catobase or those who have had troubles getting it to function at all with 6.5b.

While I originally hoped for more time for Battists and I to proof-read this, I thought with the new beta patch released, I'd like to get a few other Catobase vets' feedback on the new patch and how it affects running Catobase.

Here's the link: http://www.allsimbaseball.com/battmontcato/

Excellent Fidel and Battists.

Thanks for your hard work.

Nice job!

What a contribution, guys. Tremendous effort and will be of immeasureable value with regard to this version. Thanks so much for working on this project.

Now it's important with the time allotted to us to explore the recent patch to ensure what new ramifications it entails and to verify what has been resolved to satisfaction.

Thanks again fellas. MVP quality work.

Play with the new OOTP beta and then let me know. I will modify the newcatofix program to fix the trade thing.

The idea is so you DO NOT have to edit the file with notepad after my program does it's thing.

Give the new beta a trial and let's see what needs to be done and I will write the program.

Please also note anyone who looks at this - the sample size for this was very small, and in my case was tested only with fictional leagues that haven't had any weird occurrences such as teams relocating, players being renamed, or whatever.

This is in no way intended to be the "be all and end all" of Catobase instructions. However, if you have a relatively straightforward league like I did, I believe these steps should work.

My sample size was also small and only with 2-3 seasons worth of stats at most. I did test fictional and historical leagues with financials on, coaches on and trades set to normal. No errors to report but that doesn't mean they will not occur.

To Larry; Thanks! If you do indeed have to make a new "Catofix.exe", I'll be sure to change the instructions and links.

It also appears as though the mid-season retirement bug has been fixed by Markus so within the next couple of weeks, any feedback on how Cato is working with or without Catofix.exe would be greatly appreciated.

I'll add this to the Catobase Cautions Page.:)

I just skimmed it, but it looks good.

I'd put links to the next and previous pages at the bottom. I know you told people to go to the links at the top once they're done that page, but by the time they get that far they might forget or not have even really read all or any of the intro.

I imagine people who need this might be helped by seeing English instead of Japanese (I'm guessing that's Japanese because of your Asahi league) for words like ok, cancel, save, etc in some windows, but maybe that won't be much of a problem.

I meant to ask you before, what do you use to create those yellow popup notes? I've seen you use them before.

Thanks. I put links at the bottom of each page. The Japanese is because of the OS I'm using. I live in Japan and I bought my PC here. I have another computer with Windows XP in English but it's usually in my briefcase. Maybe I'll get around to running this thing on that one and then I can replace some of the screenshots. Basically, the look will not be different and the instructions are in English.

As for the yellow bubbles, Moodysoft's XPX Studio and/or Microsoft's Publisher are what I use for those.:)

Hey, thanks for the contribution! :) And where can I get that wall paper? I want it too. :-[

nicely done guys. If there's a new version for the new OOTP, you guys should write the manual :D

I ran a test league for a sinlgle season with the "new" 6.5b beta patch. I made no edits to anything and I didn't use Larry's CatoFix.exe. Catobase functioned perfectly. While successful, it was the first test of many I intend to run. If this holds up for a few more leagues and at least 5-6 seasons in, I'll revise the Catobase tutorial. For now, I'll put a simple Notice/Pending on the first page.

Keep your fingers crossed!:)

Please note: we had a typo in there that said to edit the lalltrans.txt file. That was corrected last night, but if you printed it out or tried it before last night, please realize it's ltrans.txt you need to edit, and not lalltrans.txt!

You will still need to edit the ltrans.txt file to put a blank line after trades. You should also use the lalltrans.txt file instead of the ltrans.txt. I am not sure if Markus changed this but the ltrans.txt does not have all waiver transactions in it and you will get bit by this with a player showing up on a team that he played for at the end of the season.

I would still use the lalltrans.txt file, rename the current ltrans.txt, rename the lalltrans.txt to ltrans.txt and make the necessary edits to the new ltrans.txt file....

I looked over the tutorial. Just one thing I noted that is not necessary. You do not need to create the league output files. You just need to do the blank lline fix in the ltrans.txt file, and run the program. The exporter takes care of all the files you need and the program uses the txt versions of the files and not the html files created. By doing this extra step you are creating a file that will be read into catobase and converted to records, when all that really needs to be done is to have the record read from the ltrans.txt and lnews.txt.

The older versions required these files, Catobase 6.14 does not. The only time these files are needed is if the files contain an error and cannot be read by the catobase program. The program will error out and ask you to put the html files into your data directory....

Thanks, Sandman. That will be revised.:)

Just one quick question. In my solo league I'm in my 18th season. I was playing with version 6.5a until my 17th season, before I started using 6.5b. I always saved the whole league (copied the whole league folder) every season just before the proceed to next season.
Now will Cato also work for the years before I used 6.5b or will it only work from my 18th season on.

Thanks for your help

Skywalker76

Cato will work fine, just follow the steps in the tutorial if you have any questions. The big thing is editing the ltrans. If you do one season at a time and take your time you should have no problems getting your league into catobase....