CATO to OOTPB 2007 - Calling all programmers

[Jason]

Good luck to our future Jeff Cato level legends of OOTP.

[spiffamous]

Any updates? The silence is a little ominous.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by spiffamous

Any updates? The silence is a little ominous.

Yes, there is news. No, it is not public information.

[Chappy]

Is it good news? Or bad news?

[spiffamous]

Any hope?

This is pretty key for all the 6/6.5 leagues out there. The only league I am in is a 6.5 league and as good as OOTP 2007 sounds, I always end up bored playing it solo. So here is to hoping that this works out so that our league can easily convert....


Matt

[Cowboys3356]

It is interesting that the community has to solve this problem instead of the people who are making money off of everything. But given the history of things since SI got involved I am not shocked. Good luck to those trying to fix this issue, I hope you are successful and receive something for your efforts.

[Ryan W.]

I would rather have Markus working on OOTP 2007 then coming up with an importer for Cato data.

Having said that, the Cato to CSV utility that I wrote is currently in beta and will be released after it has been thoroughly tested...

[Kaitiaki]

Originally Posted by Cowboys3356

It is interesting that the community has to solve this problem instead of the people who are making money off of everything.

Why is it interesting? Catobase was a mod to begin with. It was never designed or supported by Markus, OOTP, or SI. The community (read: Jeff Cato) created Catobase. The problem is that Jeff Cato has since removed himself from the OOTP community and, until now, no one has taken on the task of filling his shoes. And since Catobase was never a feature of any version of OOTP (and Jeff made it available for free), no one involved has made any money whatsoever off of it.

- Kai

[Kelric]

Shame on you Ash, no link to either online league in your sig? I'm not even in the league and I still link to the 4OTP.

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by Kaitiaki

Why is it interesting? Catobase was a mod to begin with. It was never designed or supported by Markus, OOTP, or SI. The community (read: Jeff Cato) created Catobase. The problem is that Jeff Cato has since removed himself from the OOTP community and, until now, no one has taken on the task of filling his shoes. And since Catobase was never a feature of any version of OOTP (and Jeff made it available for free), no one involved has made any money whatsoever off of it.

- Kai

Stop responding with logic! It gets in the way of a dislocated rant.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Cowboys3356

It is interesting that the community has to solve this problem instead of the people who are making money off of everything.

You don't mean like all the hundreds of people using Catobase who never sent him a single dime, do you?

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by endgame

You don't mean like all the hundreds of people using Catobase who never sent him a single dime, do you?

I didn't, couldn't get it to work.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Zitofan75

I didn't, couldn't get it to work.

And others in your position went where to get it to work? The community, where it originated. It's one of, if not the best, many third-party utilities. If you examine each version of the game carefully, you could go so far as to say the community is itself the ultimate third-party utility. Many contributions of both generous ideas and measureable substance have a way of falling on Markus' equally generous ear and making their way into subsequent installments of OOTP, Cato-like record keeping notwithstanding.

To put the burden of bringing forward something that didn't come with the original game on the developer is, IMHO, unfair and potentially undesireable. From my vantage -- not taking anything away from the developer -- the creative persistence of this community has driven the direction of this game second only to his original visions. I like the idea that we, or more rightly those talented enough in thought or deed, are the ones who continue to assist, control, and fix our own creations, or those of our colleagues.

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by endgame

And others in your position went where to get it to work? The community, where it originated. It's one of, if not the best, many third-party utilities. If you examine each version of the game carefully, you could go so far as to say the community is itself the ultimate third-party utility. Many contributions of both generous ideas and measureable substance have a way of falling on Markus' equally generous ear and making their way into subsequent installments of OOTP, Cato-like record keeping notwithstanding.

To put the burden of bringing forward something that didn't come with the original game on the developer is, IMHO, unfair and potentially undesireable. From my vantage -- not taking anything away from the developer -- the creative persistence of this community has driven the direction of this game second only to his original visions. I like the idea that we, or more rightly those talented enough in thought or deed, are the ones who continue to assist, control, and fix our own creations, or those of our colleagues.

Hey Endgame, I totally agree. I'm one of several who never got the thing to work well for me, even after going to the community. Still, I tend to blame my lack of technical skill more than anything else. I too though have always just smiled at the few who seem to insist Markus owes them CATO compatibility.

On a general level a community who contributes to the game leads to a better game, a developer open to such contribution sees his or her product improved. A collaborative effort is far superior than expecting or accepting one product produced by an external entity.

[enuttage]

Originally Posted by endgame

To put the burden of bringing forward something that didn't come with the original game on the developer is, IMHO, unfair and potentially undesireable.

You are a true gentleman, endgame. lol.

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by Kaitiaki

It was never designed or supported by Markus, OOTP, or SI.

Not exactly true!

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...light=catobase

One of the fixes in 6.51 was to support Catobase.

[CHCfan]

Originally Posted by eriqjaffe

Not exactly true!

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...light=catobase

One of the fixes in 6.51 was to support Catobase.

I think "support" in a software context means something else than what 6.5 did. 6.5 just helped to allow it, not truly "support." I suppose I'm splitting hairs, but it just doesn't seem the same.

[SandMan]

I am really feeling a bit overwhelmed by the types of response that this topic is getting for a few reasons.

1. Everything in the CATOBASE database is taken directly from the LNEWS and LTRANS or LALLTRANS file and the CSV files exported from the Exporter program (was it commishjoes?).

2. The only stats that I would want are the winshares which for some reason were only created when creating the html pages. All the data is in the MDB files to create this though with out creating the pages.

3. It is very simple to create the csv files needed without using CATOBASE and using the csv files created by the exporter. With the exception to the player splits between multiple teams.

4. An easy way of converting the MDB file to csv in the lahman format is to simply write queries getting the data that are in each lahman table from the mdb file and then changing the select query to a make table query and exporting that to a csv file. This is very easy and I have done it in the past to create my own lahman style database with my fictional players in it.

5. CATOBASE had many flaws and was difficult to get to work correctly when problems arose, especially after version 6.5 was released. The program needed to be rewritten so that it did not recreate every page after the season. It simply was not written well. Don't get me wrong the DATA it provided in the PAGE format it created was very very good. The program itself was a mess and could have been rewritten. After a while I just did the first sequence of importing the data into the MDB and then wrote my own queries to get the data I wanted to see.

6. What exactly is there to gain from importing this into 2007 other than the player career stats for players no longer in the game?

7. Almost everything in the CATOBASE is in the newer versions of OOTP and most of the data is calculated fields. So getting the data from the CATOBASE is not necessary for a lot of the data. Remember, CATOBASE itself does not store leaderboards and other calculated data and creates pages at the time requested, but unfortunately it recreates all pages.

8. The one nice thing catobase keeps that would not be found in the OOTP game files or the exporter files are the Player History records of all players (including RETIREES!!!). But this data is not in the Lahman database, so this important data would not be imported into 2007.

9. Other than splits for players on multiple teams during the season, winshares and player history for retired players there is no data that would not be in the EXPORTER files and if you created CATOBASE MDB files you have the EXPORTER files saved in the DATA folder.

Bottom line. It would only take about a day to create all the queries needed to put into an access application. But is this really necessary! I would think the way to go would be to get the data from the CATOBASE DATA folder (which is the EXPORTER CSV files) - convert these to lahman, which will be easier to do in EXCEL and then you have most of the data to import into 2007

Just my opinion. I was confused on what data the end users want out of the CATOBASE and is it ONLY the data that is in the Lahman DATABASE. Maybe it is the data that is in the EXPORTER files which can be more closely matched up with lahman fields.

I was going to rewrite the catobase program at one point after 6.5 was released. My theory was to take the data from the exporter as cato did but the draft history from the team files, transactions from the team files and to also included the news stories. Also export the logs from each game and have a link to the boxscores and logs from the html pages. Have pages created as needed or requested (would take a second or two to create but then you would not need to store pages you would never look at). Ran some test and everything but winshares and progressive boards came out as expected. But then 2006 was announced and I thought that there would not be a need for 6.5 utils and that the format would not work with 2006 and that 2006 would have the utils built in. Most of this is correct with the exception to Winshares. Markus has all the data in the files to create winshares (3rd party mod of course) so is the cato data really needed?

BTW, I still use catobase and have not had problems with any leagues in over a year using the utility. You just got to remember to change the LALLTRANS file to LTRANS and to delete the LTRANS file (prior to the rename of the LALLTRANS). This solves most of the issues with the program blowing up on the transactions (usually involving player moving from team a to team b - the conversion then blows up when trying to determine the date of the transaction in the CATOBASE program).

Just my



Regards,



Steve

[legendsport]

Originally Posted by SandMan

I was confused on what data the end users want out of the CATOBASE and is it ONLY the data that is in the Lahman DATABASE. Maybe it is the data that is in the EXPORTER files which can be more closely matched up with lahman fields.

I think what everyone's interested in is the team histories, playoff results, awards, etc that Catobase keeps but aren't imported when a league is converted to the new version. Basically everything BUT the player stats. For player stats, all you need to do is convert your 6.5 league into the new version - they come in with the import. Granted, splits don't come in and that is probably something many people would want, but I think the main thing is the stuff I mentioned at the top: team stats, playoff results, records, leaderboards, awards and so on.

At least that's what I'd be interested in (though I also miss Win Shares).

[SandMan]

Originally Posted by legendsport

I think what everyone's interested in is the team histories, playoff results, awards, etc that Catobase keeps but aren't imported when a league is converted to the new version. Basically everything BUT the player stats. For player stats, all you need to do is convert your 6.5 league into the new version - they come in with the import. Granted, splits don't come in and that is probably something many people would want, but I think the main thing is the stuff I mentioned at the top: team stats, playoff results, records, leaderboards, awards and so on.

At least that's what I'd be interested in (though I also miss Win Shares).

Everything you named are in the exporter files and LNEWS.txt files in the game (LNEWS and the EXPORTER are both saved in the DATA files.) So again I stress the CATOBASE is not needed. Just the EXPORTER files saved in the CATOBASE\DATA folder. Leaderboards are a different story and are not saved in the CATOBASE data. They are created at page creation (that is why the program takes so long -WINshares and Leaderboards.)