OOTP Online Utilities Released!

[Stu]

dola,

One other question. I add an html header and footer to all my php and html pages on my site. I accomplish this by using in my php.ini:

auto_prepend_file = /path.../header.html
auto_append_file = /path.../footer.html

I process all the html pages as php pages so it adds these headers as well.

Obviously I can't process perl files as php, so do you know of an easy way to include these headers on all the utilities pages?

[Getch]

Originally Posted by Stu

I just installed this utility. Absolutely amazing work. You took some already good utilities and combined them into a suite that is incredibly easy to install and maintain.

Out of curiosity, how does the draft auto pick work for scouted leagues? Does it look at the ratings behind the scenes and take the best player available? Does it try to avoid taking players from the same position?

Thanks for all the hard work. I'll be posting a link to your paypal address on my forums and encouraging my owners to donate.

Glad it's easier to install... that was one of the main goals of this version, since I believe only one league (that I am aware of) installed the first version without my help.

Auto-draft on scouted leagues DOES look at the underlying actual ratings/talents, but I convert them to a 2-8 scale, so it "clouds up" the ratings so it won't be 100% accurate. There's no logic (scouted or not scouted) to prevent you from auto-drafting the same position twice.

[Getch]

Originally Posted by Stu

dola,

One other question. I add an html header and footer to all my php and html pages on my site. I accomplish this by using in my php.ini:

auto_prepend_file = /path.../header.html
auto_append_file = /path.../footer.html

I process all the html pages as php pages so it adds these headers as well.

Obviously I can't process perl files as php, so do you know of an easy way to include these headers on all the utilities pages?

Does it go by entension? You can change the name of the utility to whatever you want, like ootpou.html, so long as you change the 11th line in ootpu.pl to match the name:

my $file = 'ootpou.pl';

If that doesn't work, you'll have to paste the header and footer HTML into printHeader() and printTail() functions in HTMLUtils. Put it between the:

print $out << EOF;
....
EOF

lines in each function.

[BretRock]

Has anyone had any problems with the utility auto-picking players even though the team (A) doesn't have a list and (B) the admin didn't ask for an autopick?

For instance, I am the admin in my league and I made a selection for someone, but when I refreshed, a bunch of other picks were made (including the same guy three times). I looked and none of those teams had lists either.

Also, is there any way to delete selections made once they have been made? Instead of editting over them, can you just delete, say, the last three picks?

Thanks!

Bret

[Getch]

Originally Posted by BretRock

Has anyone had any problems with the utility auto-picking players even though the team (A) doesn't have a list and (B) the admin didn't ask for an autopick?

For instance, I am the admin in my league and I made a selection for someone, but when I refreshed, a bunch of other picks were made (including the same guy three times). I looked and none of those teams had lists either.

Also, is there any way to delete selections made once they have been made? Instead of editting over them, can you just delete, say, the last three picks?

Thanks!

Bret

Never heard of that before. What's your league's site? I'd like to look into this and see what happened.

As for editing, edit the picks.txt file in the OOTPOU/draft/<year>/<league> folder... should be self-explanatory on what to do (the readme also mentions this).

[BretRock]

Originally Posted by Getch

Never heard of that before. What's your league's site? I'd like to look into this and see what happened.

As for editing, edit the picks.txt file in the OOTPOU/draft/<YEAR>/<LEAGUE> folder... should be self-explanatory on what to do (the readme also mentions this).

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

The league's sit is www.mlsb.allsimbaseball2.com.

We love the utility and it's probably something I am doing wrong, but I just thought I'd check.

I actually have already reset and re-did the draft and currently have it disabled and am just manually entering the picks, so I am not sure what you are going to be able to see, but the best I can describe is this:

The first time it happened, we were in the second round and I auto-picked for a team and then, every time I refreshed (which might be the problem, so I've stopped doing that) it would show up with a bunch of picks made. I thought that it might be that each team had had a list and had set it to auto-pick, but then, it got to my pick and it selected for me too, and I definitely didn't have a list or auto-pick set.

So I reset the draft and re-did it to where I know we were supposed to be and starting going again. I made a manual pick for a team and suddenly the same player was showing up for the next three picks. I reset it and re-did it again and have left the draft off and have just been inputting the picks manually and haven't had a problem.

Hope that helps.

Bret

[Stu]

Getch,

Is there an easy way to set the timezone in Perl? My webserver is on MT and I don't have the ability to change the time on the server. I know in PHP I can put this at the beginning of the file:

putenv("TZ=US/Eastern");

And any time functions will use ET.

Is there something similar in Perl so I can make the times for the draft utility and export tracker Eastern Time?

[huskerdan25]

Does anyone know how to make this utility suite work for multiple leagues? I run three leagues and have it set up for one of them right now. Appreciate any assistance!

Dan

[thomamon]

Originally Posted by huskerdan25

Does anyone know how to make this utility suite work for multiple leagues? I run three leagues and have it set up for one of them right now. Appreciate any assistance!

Dan

Did you check the readme file? It's quite resourceful.

[huskerdan25]

Originally Posted by thomamon

Did you check the readme file? It's quite resourceful.

I did but I might have missed it when I went through it. I'll look again unless you want to point me to where this is covered in the readme file.

I should mention that I am talking about 3 separate leagues, not multiple leagues in one universe. I see the readme talks about multiple leagues that are all related and within one universe but I have three separate leagues as you can see in my signature block that I would like to set this up for.

Thanks for any help.

[huskerdan25]

Ok, I was able to get some assistance from Getch and wanted to share it here for others who may be interested in the same question.

If your cgi-bin directory is cgi-enabled, then you can create folders for each league in your cgi-bin directory. For example:

cgi-bin/league1
cgi-bin/league2

You create your csv folder under the league directory.

Thanks Getch for the assistance and hopefully this will help others (instead of the "Did you read the readme file" response).

[Stu]

Originally Posted by huskerdan25

Ok, I was able to get some assistance from Getch and wanted to share it here for others who may be interested in the same question.

If your cgi-bin directory is cgi-enabled, then you can create folders for each league in your cgi-bin directory. For example:

cgi-bin/league1
cgi-bin/league2

You create your csv folder under the league directory.

Thanks Getch for the assistance and hopefully this will help others (instead of the "Did you read the readme file" response).

Be aware that this could cause an issue with the All-Star images. By default it creates the images folder 1 directory above the utility. So if you seperate them into folders, it will create the images directory in your cgi-bin and the images will not be accessible. To fix this I edited this line in ASAdmin.pm

$self->{ASDIR} = '../OOTPPU';

Just change '../OOTPOU' to the correct path.

I also commented out the lines that automatically create the images directory in '..OOTPOU' if it doesn't exist.

[Getch]

Originally Posted by Stu

Be aware that this could cause an issue with the All-Star images. By default it creates the images folder 1 directory above the utility. So if you seperate them into folders, it will create the images directory in your cgi-bin and the images will not be accessible. To fix this I edited this line in ASAdmin.pm

$self->{ASDIR} = '../OOTPPU';

Just change '../OOTPOU' to the correct path.

I also commented out the lines that automatically create the images directory in '..OOTPOU' if it doesn't exist.

Crud, good point... I need to fix that.

[huskerdan25]

Originally Posted by Stu

Be aware that this could cause an issue with the All-Star images. By default it creates the images folder 1 directory above the utility. So if you seperate them into folders, it will create the images directory in your cgi-bin and the images will not be accessible. To fix this I edited this line in ASAdmin.pm

$self->{ASDIR} = '../OOTPPU';

Just change '../OOTPOU' to the correct path.

I also commented out the lines that automatically create the images directory in '..OOTPOU' if it doesn't exist.

Thanks Stu!

[Stu]

Getch, just a suggestion if you're looking to add on. A lot of online leagues have their owners vote for end of season awards so how about an awards voting utility similar to your All-Star voting. It seems like it would be fairly easy to create since some of the same code would be re-used.

Potential features:
- mimimum PA, innings, starts, etc similar to your all-star voting util.
- Support for custom awards.
- Allow user to rank players for each award.
- Allow user to set point system for each rank (i.e 5 pts for 1st place vote, 3 pts for 2nd place, 1 pt for 3rd place, etc)
- Similar filtering of potential candidates as you use in your All-Star voting.

[Getch]

Originally Posted by Stu

Getch, just a suggestion if you're looking to add on. A lot of online leagues have their owners vote for end of season awards so how about an awards voting utility similar to your All-Star voting. It seems like it would be fairly easy to create since some of the same code would be re-used.

Potential features:
- mimimum PA, innings, starts, etc similar to your all-star voting util.
- Support for custom awards.
- Allow user to rank players for each award.
- Allow user to set point system for each rank (i.e 5 pts for 1st place vote, 3 pts for 2nd place, 1 pt for 3rd place, etc)
- Similar filtering of potential candidates as you use in your All-Star voting.

It's planned, with all of what you said. Just taking a break for a bit... got burnt out doing this second release.

[Corsairs]

I've bothered Getch enough about this so I'll throw it out here to see if anyone has any ideas. What I'm trying to accomplish is to make the draft utility's "Time Per Pick" field capable of reading numbers in minutes rather than hours. This is useful for when you're conducting an Inaugural Draft with a very large number of rounds. Currently even the smallest number that can be entered for the draft timer (1 hour) is too long.

Getch was kind enough to look into this for me and came up with a modified DraftAdmin.pm file that should theoretically allow you to enter time in minutes into the "Time Per Pick" field. In my practice runs, though, I wasn't able to get it working - I'm not sure if it's the file or me that's the problem. Would someone else like to test this file and see if they can get the draft timer count down in minutes rather than hours? Anyone have any ideas on how else this could be achieved?

While I'm here I have one other question about the draft utility: How do you set up an email distribution list? The readme says to enter the email address of the distribution list. I've set up a list in Outlook, but I don't think I can use that in the utility. Is this a service I'd have to pay to set up online?

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

While I'm here I have one other question about the draft utility: How do you set up an email distribution list? The readme says to enter the email address of the distribution list. I've set up a list in Outlook, but I don't think I can use that in the utility. Is this a service I'd have to pay to set up online?

What do you have for a host? My host will let me set up distribution lists in cPanel.

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by Stu

What do you have for a host? My host will let me set up distribution lists in cPanel.

All Sim Baseball is my host. Here is our league website for reference. I see options in both the web and forum admin panels for sending out mass mailings but not one that would let me designate an email address to be used as a distribution list.

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

While I'm here I have one other question about the draft utility: How do you set up an email distribution list? The readme says to enter the email address of the distribution list. I've set up a list in Outlook, but I don't think I can use that in the utility. Is this a service I'd have to pay to set up online?

I wanted to take another shot at getting this question answered in advance of our draft on Saturday. Can anyone clue me in on how to properly set up a distribution list? If it's tied to our web host provider, mine is All Sim Baseball. I know several of you here use ASM, so maybe you can suggest the correct setting for me to use. Thanks in advance!