Anderson Utilities - AUAlmanac

Comedian2004 · 07-25-2006, 03:15 AM

Missing in the game is something I think is very important, which is the Almanac. We can get a lot of history from the program, but no box scores or play by plays are saved after the season is over.

I am working on a program to solve this situation.

First, the bad news. There is no way I can write a program that would work if you ran multiple seasons in a row. Just no way to possibly do it. I had even thought of having a program run in the background that would monitor when the season was over and then doing the almanac function, but it would just not work, as it could not possibly get done with it's copying files before the next season was underway.

Now the good news. I have figured out a way to link it from inside the program. So, you can be in the game and then go to the almanac and view old box scores, etc.

This is going to be an easy program to write in some aspects, but difficult in others. I am still researching the information to see a few things. I DO NOT want to require you to create the HTML reports and that part looks good. It would basically copy over the contents of the NEWS FOLDER and it's subfolders. My test league I am working on has 16 teams with a full set of minors. The contents of this folder is 230meg. So, this is not for the people with small hard drives. A 20 league season could easily take up a quit a few gig worth of disk space. Hey, disk drives are cheap!

I will more and likely require you to do a CSV dump also. This does not take that long, but I could also archive this information and it would help in creating some fantastic almanac stuff that would not be possible without this dump. My dump file for this example league is just 30meg in size.

Here is some of the stuff that I would be able to add in the almanac:

An HTML page with links to each season.
List of all no-hitters, with links to the box scores and play by plays.
List of all-star games, along with their box scores and PBP.
List of all the world series with all box scores present.
A complete history of a player's season to season ratings.
A listing of all the game accomplishments, with links to the box scores and PBP.
Manager and coach won/lost records for their career.

This is just a few of the items that I can think of at 2:30am.

So far, in the infant stages of this program, I have it where you can select the year. I can then display information about the league, but mainly I can see what the date is of the league. It can check if it is January 1st. That looks like the best date to run the almanac function. I originally looked at December 31st, but some of the league files are not updated until after this day.

One problem I see if that if I copy the box score over from say June 15th, 1955, it will have links to the player's HTML files. These links will not work, since the player's HTMLs are not created unless you tell the program to create them. Same thing with the team HTML files. When you are viewing the box scores in the game and click on a team or a player's name, it creates that HTML file on the fly.

Now to me personally, an almanac without links to the player's pages is not worth it. The added benefit of this is that the almanac would show this players html page for that year. Not his current html page.

This is going to a slow process to write this program, as I really have to dig into this and do some thought process on the best way to do this.

Now, I am also thinking this. This process could actually take a very long time, to do the SQL Dump, to do the HTML dump and then for my program to copy over the files to another location, but then again, it only has to be done ONE time when the season ends. I think the end result will justify the time spent creating the almanac.

Picture this situation: Final game of the year. Detroit playing Chicago with Rogers facing some crummy guy on the Sox. Before you start the game, you look at Roger's history and see that he had a 1 hitter vs. Chicago 2 years ago on June 15th. So, without leaving the OOTP game, you head to the almanac and and look at the schedule for June 15th for that year, click on the box score and see that Dye had a single in the 7th inning with 2 outs. So, you of course walk Dye and Rogers gets a no-hitter this time.

Let me know what you think of something like this.

cibl commish · 07-26-2006, 06:10 AM

Sounds outstanding!

Andreas Raht · 07-26-2006, 06:33 AM

Would it help if OOTP just wouldn't delete all the box scores and game logs, but rename the folder to for example "box_scores_2006" after a season? Optionally, of course?

Comedian2004 · 07-26-2006, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

Would it help if OOTP just wouldn't delete all the box scores and game logs, but rename the folder to for example "box_scores_2006" after a season? Optionally, of course?

Right off the top of my just woke up brain, I say...

Yes...

I would not replace the 'no almanac' function, but would at least save the box scores.

Don't forget the log files also. I need to see what other folders too.

endgame · 07-27-2006, 11:37 PM

All I can say is I am thrilled there is dialogue about this area, and that Larry and Andreas are communicating makes realizing the possibilities much more likely. Very encouraging.

endgame · 08-04-2006, 07:41 PM

bump

Just to keep these ideas in mind for now.

Comedian2004 · 09-09-2006, 09:58 AM

Well, they did not release an Almanac function and it don't look like we are going to get one put in there. A real shame they did not add one.

So, I have started to code in an almanac. The bad news is, that in order to use my almanac, you will have to run my program at the end of the season. I am not sure what date it will be ran at, as I have to do a series of tests to find out when certain information disappears.

The 1st step was to examine the box score folder. At the end of the year, this folder is NOT erased. So, as the years carry on, you have left over box score files.

In my 1940 season, that started in 1940 and is currently in 1942, I examined the folder and discovered these box scores were in the folder:

1941 - 2,507 games
1942 - 2,624 games

In my 1952 league, which I ran from 1952 to 2005:

1966 - 1 game
2001 - 1 game
2005 - 1430 games

So, the 1st thing I will do is to clean up and erase the old box scores, so they are not put in the almanac folder in the wrong year.

The same thing will happen with the play by plays. Plus, we have another added bad thing. When you play a game out, even if you have SAVE ALL BOX SCORES and SAVE ALL PLAY BY PLAYS, the play by play is not saved for the game you play out. BUG!

However, there is a work around. The play by play can still be generated and I have found a way to work around this.

To generate a play by play, simply bring up the box score in OOTP and then click on the PBP link. It will generate the PBP on the fly and it saved.

So, when you are playing a game out, when the game is over, it automatically launches the box score, thus saving it to the disk. But this is where the bug is, it does not generate the play by play. So, you should click on the play by play link and it will generate it.

This is VERY important that you do this, as my program will be using the play by play to generate some HTML files.

I will also require you to do a CSV dump before running my program. This CSV dump will also be backed up in my Almanac. This will allow me to do some cool stuff, like show a players ratings history, year by year.

I am not sure what else I am going to backup, as I will know as I work on the program. You will be able to pick the location where the backup will be. It could be a different hard drive if you want.

My program will create a main html page, where you can access any year in the history and see box scores and play by plays for any giving game. There will be an achievement list, like the no-hitters, but it will have links back to the box score of that game, so you can view a no-hitter's box score 5 years after it happens.

I have figured out a way to link to an outside HTML source while in the game. So, you will be able to have access to this information from within the game. At this point, I have not looked at doing it 'while you are playing a game', but I will look into this.

This is going to be a very complex program, it is not just as simple as copying over files. It is going to be creating HTML files and links, so it will take some time to write this one, plus I will continue to work on the other projects at the same time. When I am ready, I will post it so we can get some people to try it, find bugs and make suggestions.

Comedian2004 · 09-09-2006, 12:39 PM

OK, further investigating I have found out some interesting information.

When you AUTOSIM, the PBP are also not created. So, if I start a new league and sim to next year, no PBPs are created at all. Now when I say that, I mean the HTML files. The actual PBP text files are created. The pbp.html files are created on the fly based on the txt files.

So, all is not lost here. If you create a league report, it DOES create the play by play files for you, if you tell it to.

So, this will actually make my job a whole lot easier, but it may take longer to actually end your year. Considering what you get, it will be worth it.

The steps are as follows: (You may want to go ahead and do this now when you reach the end of a year, as once you move on, the data is gone)

January 1st of the new year.

Go into the GAME SETUP and click on CREATE REPORTS.

Set the reports to COMPLETE STATS and also make sure everything is checked there, including history. I would also go ahead and check photos.

Create a folder called ALMANAC (from windows) whereever you want the almanac to be stored.

I.E. E:/Almanac

Now, inside that folder, create the years, 2006, 2007, etc.

Go ahead and create several years, depending on how long you are going to run the sim.

Now, inside OOTP, specify to copy the report to the correct folder:

i.e. E:/Almanac/2006/ (Put the trailing backslash, as I have not tested it with it not there.

Now, after it creates the report, click the copy button. It will take some time, depending on the league size. You can optionally do the same for the minor leagues.

Now go and create a CSV dump of the league.

You will have to manually copy that folder over. I would like it located under the year of the almanac, i.e. E:/Almanac/2006/Dump

This is very important that you do this, as this is where I will be looking to get a lot of information that may not be available elsewhere.
__________
So, those are the requirements. That is what I am basing my almanac on. I will then have the program create links automatically to access the various folders.

More soon..

Comedian2004 · 09-11-2006, 08:09 PM

I have been mentally working on this Alamanac plan. After considering many options, here is (IMHO) a way to create an almanac. This is one that I am going to be writing utilities for later on too.

1st, to have an almanac, you need to stop on January 1st of each year and archive the year. So, this means no simming 5 years non stop. There is no way to save the almanac this way.

2nd, disk space is required. Each year will take anywhere from 100 meg to 300 meg or even more. With that said, I do not anticipate that people are even going to attempt to use this, if they do not have a lot of disk space.

Side Note: You can buy a 250gig USB External Hard drive for under 150 bucks at most retail stores. This is EXCELLENT for use for the almanac.

OK, now there is no need to reinvent the wheel. He has it built in to create the archive, just not people friendly. So, we will use the online league report option to create the archive. Head on into there, under game setups and tell it to create the report. You should do this on January 1st of each year.

Now, before we do that, we want to create the Almanac folder. I strongly suggest that you keep it in the root of the drive and call it Almanac or MY MLB LEAGUE Almanac. I would keep it short, as some of the paths could become too long.

Now, the layout would be like this:

ALMANAC/1952
ALMANAC/1953
ETC.

Now when you create the report, make sure you select it for ALL LEAGUES and FULL REPORT. Minors and all. You can deselect the minors if you want, but, it would not be a true almanac then. You can't see how your Minor League teams did. If you are going to almanac, go all out, get it all! I would also include PHOTOS.

Now, before we create the report, you will see a place where you can COPY REPORT TO. This is how we do it. Point it to the proper folder and year. i.e. E:/Almanac/1952/

Make sure the folder exists, as OOTP will NOT create the sub folder and it will dump it in Almanac instead. You can manually move the files if you accidently do this, and you will.

It will take a long time to generate the file, depening on the size of the league. Go watch a movie or watch a baseball game. Once the report is done, then select the copy, to copy it to the destination.

OK, once you verify that the information is there and in the right place, we want to copy the CSV dump over. If you have not done it yet, go to the game and do the dump. Use CSV dump. It does not matter if you specify comma or semi-colon for it. This will be located in IMPORT_EXPORT under your league folder.

Now, create a folder called CSV inside the year folder. I.E. E:\Almananc\1952\CSV

Copy the contents of the IMPORT_EXPORT folder over to this folder.

Now, you can go to the YEAR folder and double click on INDEX.HTML and be able to browse that year. You should be able to see all box scores, play by play, team sheets, etc. (If you selected all). If you did not go with all and went with no splits, etc., then you will have all sort of pages NOT displayed.
_______________________
Now, what will my program do?

First, it will be one you want to run right after you copy the files over. It will have a VERIFY ALMANAC folder. It will check to make sure there are no missing files for you.

It will create a MENU html page with the links to the different years. It will compile other HTML menus, like a list of no-hitters, with links to the box score.

It will create reports, showing a player's development history throughout the years. It uses the CSV dump for this.

It opens the door for a wide variety of things that were not possible before having this information laid out this way.

Keep your eyes posted, as I will have something done soon. Just remember, once you advance to the next year and start playing, the information is gone. So, without saving it this way, that box score for that perfect game is gone forever.

rasnell · 09-11-2006, 08:50 PM

As much as I would love to have this, I honestly may not go through the time, the steps and the huge amount of memory to generate this.

I love all of your effort and utilities, but this one sounds like the old days of catobase when it was just too much effort.

Others may disagree.

Of course, if you give us unbelieveable info and details, I might change my mind. Too bad we can't run several seasons at a time for the almanac when we go to bed after some simming.

kagnew35 · 09-18-2006, 04:35 PM

An awesome piece of work, a must have for online leagues. How far along are you in creating all the utilities into a suite, specially for online leagues? The whole package of your utilities make this a far more complete game. I plan a Ted Williams dynasty from 1939 to 1960 where they'll make it spectacular and also a 1970 historical league online.

Really lookin forward to the suite. Many thanks for all your great work and ideas>

bp_ · 09-18-2006, 04:56 PM

As you know, I really am wanting a BOSI-like player development report. I'd have no problem stopping a sim at the end of the year to run this util but it would be even better if this type of tool (the BOSI-like development part) could be run at any time during the season. This would be a very popular tool in online leagues, especially if you can make it generate html.

I did notice that the game does put rating updates in the player history whenever you get an email from the scout reporting a change. I'd guess there are other unreported changes going on as well. I want to see those.

kagnew35 · 09-25-2006, 01:19 AM

Any progress on the almanac, larry, coming soon I hope. Will be using most of your utilities in my 1939 historical league.

Kyros · 09-26-2006, 05:50 PM

Umm, yeah....this sounds great.....F'in really great. I can't believe I missed it but then again I was sick (very) from late June through all of July.

I hoep that you can achieve this. Would this act to something CATO did for OOTP 6, ect? Or will tjhis be different in terms of what it will be able to track, store, ect? I have no problem....NO PROBLEM at all going out and buying a HD with 300-500 gigs. I'll buy two if I have to. More stats is a dream to me. I just wish someone would make an american football game with such an open source utility driven community and customization. FOF2K4 is a GREAT simulation but it needs more HTML outputs, ect. Sorry to get off track but this utility excites me. How far along is this beast? And, what will it store?

Tannk you!.

Kyros · 09-26-2006, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by endgame

All I can say is I am thrilled there is dialogue about this area, and that Larry and Andreas are communicating makes realizing the possibilities much more likely. Very encouraging.

Is this communication still on-going between you two Comedian2004? If so, care to share with us some of the things that came out of yout talks?

I hope OOTPD & SI realizes the huge impact this could create on the game in regards to sales and new players.

Comedian2004 · 09-26-2006, 06:26 PM

It never got past that message.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyros

Is this communication still on-going between you two Comedian2004? If so, care to share with us some of the things that came out of yout talks?

I hope OOTPD & SI realizes the huge impact this could create on the game in regards to sales and new players.

bp_ · 09-30-2006, 09:40 AM

any chance you are working on a development report? The people want it, I want it: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...4&postcount=26 & http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...5&postcount=64 (though they really want it in game but that ain't happening this time around obviously).

Please

Comedian2004 · 09-30-2006, 11:04 AM

There is only a very small percentage that want an almanac, however, I am one of them. I think it is mostly because you have stop the simulation at the end of every year to do it and the disk space.

The diskspace should not be an issue, as you can purchase a 250gig USB external hard drive for less than 150 bucks, but to a lot of people, that is a lot to spend. They want to spend it on silly things, like paying bills, buying wife presents so she does not complain about your OOTP playing time, etc.

I have been busy on a couple of other projects and some stuff that people actually pay me to do, but I have not forgotten about the almanac. I gave a step by step on how you can manually backup a league, and I suggest you do that now, so that when I have the almanac ready, you will still have that information around.

I will go ahead and start some code on this, just so I have a starting point. Sometimes once I get started, it goes better than I anticipated and I have it ready.

So, like they say, watch the funny pages.

Kyros · 09-30-2006, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comedian2004

There is only a very small percentage that want an almanac, however, I am one of them. I think it is mostly because you have stop the simulation at the end of every year to do it and the disk space.

The diskspace should not be an issue, as you can purchase a 250gig USB external hard drive for less than 150 bucks, but to a lot of people, that is a lot to spend. They want to spend it on silly things, like paying bills, buying wife presents so she does not complain about your OOTP playing time, etc.

I have been busy on a couple of other projects and some stuff that people actually pay me to do, but I have not forgotten about the almanac. I gave a step by step on how you can manually backup a league, and I suggest you do that now, so that when I have the almanac ready, you will still have that information around.

I will go ahead and start some code on this, just so I have a starting point. Sometimes once I get started, it goes better than I anticipated and I have it ready.

So, like they say, watch the funny pages.

heh! as far as disk space I'm going out and buying a 500gig HD this weekend. (Well from newegg that is). Only $180.

07-25-2006, 03:15 AM	#1
Comedian2004 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: In a house in Saint Cloud, Florida. Posts: 7,085	Anderson Utilities - AUAlmanac Missing in the game is something I think is very important, which is the Almanac. We can get a lot of history from the program, but no box scores or play by plays are saved after the season is over. I am working on a program to solve this situation. First, the bad news. There is no way I can write a program that would work if you ran multiple seasons in a row. Just no way to possibly do it. I had even thought of having a program run in the background that would monitor when the season was over and then doing the almanac function, but it would just not work, as it could not possibly get done with it's copying files before the next season was underway. Now the good news. I have figured out a way to link it from inside the program. So, you can be in the game and then go to the almanac and view old box scores, etc. This is going to be an easy program to write in some aspects, but difficult in others. I am still researching the information to see a few things. I DO NOT want to require you to create the HTML reports and that part looks good. It would basically copy over the contents of the NEWS FOLDER and it's subfolders. My test league I am working on has 16 teams with a full set of minors. The contents of this folder is 230meg. So, this is not for the people with small hard drives. A 20 league season could easily take up a quit a few gig worth of disk space. Hey, disk drives are cheap! I will more and likely require you to do a CSV dump also. This does not take that long, but I could also archive this information and it would help in creating some fantastic almanac stuff that would not be possible without this dump. My dump file for this example league is just 30meg in size. Here is some of the stuff that I would be able to add in the almanac: An HTML page with links to each season. List of all no-hitters, with links to the box scores and play by plays. List of all-star games, along with their box scores and PBP. List of all the world series with all box scores present. A complete history of a player's season to season ratings. A listing of all the game accomplishments, with links to the box scores and PBP. Manager and coach won/lost records for their career. This is just a few of the items that I can think of at 2:30am. So far, in the infant stages of this program, I have it where you can select the year. I can then display information about the league, but mainly I can see what the date is of the league. It can check if it is January 1st. That looks like the best date to run the almanac function. I originally looked at December 31st, but some of the league files are not updated until after this day. One problem I see if that if I copy the box score over from say June 15th, 1955, it will have links to the player's HTML files. These links will not work, since the player's HTMLs are not created unless you tell the program to create them. Same thing with the team HTML files. When you are viewing the box scores in the game and click on a team or a player's name, it creates that HTML file on the fly. Now to me personally, an almanac without links to the player's pages is not worth it. The added benefit of this is that the almanac would show this players html page for that year. Not his current html page. This is going to a slow process to write this program, as I really have to dig into this and do some thought process on the best way to do this. Now, I am also thinking this. This process could actually take a very long time, to do the SQL Dump, to do the HTML dump and then for my program to copy over the files to another location, but then again, it only has to be done ONE time when the season ends. I think the end result will justify the time spent creating the almanac. Picture this situation: Final game of the year. Detroit playing Chicago with Rogers facing some crummy guy on the Sox. Before you start the game, you look at Roger's history and see that he had a 1 hitter vs. Chicago 2 years ago on June 15th. So, without leaving the OOTP game, you head to the almanac and and look at the schedule for June 15th for that year, click on the box score and see that Dye had a single in the 7th inning with 2 outs. So, you of course walk Dye and Rogers gets a no-hitter this time. Let me know what you think of something like this. __________________ Like BLUES? Visit www.smokestacklightnin.com, you will LOVE it! New show every Monday!! New Blues HOF![/COLOR][/FONT]

07-26-2006, 06:10 AM	#2
cibl commish All Star Reserve Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 611	Sounds outstanding! __________________ Rick

07-26-2006, 06:33 AM	#3
Andreas Raht Administrator Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Hollern/Stade/Germany Posts: 8,992	Would it help if OOTP just wouldn't delete all the box scores and game logs, but rename the folder to for example "box_scores_2006" after a season? Optionally, of course? __________________ Andreas Raht andreas@ootpdevelopments.com Out of the Park Developments

07-27-2006, 11:37 PM	#5
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,843	All I can say is I am thrilled there is dialogue about this area, and that Larry and Andreas are communicating makes realizing the possibilities much more likely. Very encouraging. __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

08-04-2006, 07:41 PM	#6
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,843	bump Just to keep these ideas in mind for now. __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

09-09-2006, 09:58 AM	#7
Comedian2004 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: In a house in Saint Cloud, Florida. Posts: 7,085	Well, they did not release an Almanac function and it don't look like we are going to get one put in there. A real shame they did not add one. So, I have started to code in an almanac. The bad news is, that in order to use my almanac, you will have to run my program at the end of the season. I am not sure what date it will be ran at, as I have to do a series of tests to find out when certain information disappears. The 1st step was to examine the box score folder. At the end of the year, this folder is NOT erased. So, as the years carry on, you have left over box score files. In my 1940 season, that started in 1940 and is currently in 1942, I examined the folder and discovered these box scores were in the folder: 1941 - 2,507 games 1942 - 2,624 games In my 1952 league, which I ran from 1952 to 2005: 1966 - 1 game 2001 - 1 game 2005 - 1430 games So, the 1st thing I will do is to clean up and erase the old box scores, so they are not put in the almanac folder in the wrong year. The same thing will happen with the play by plays. Plus, we have another added bad thing. When you play a game out, even if you have SAVE ALL BOX SCORES and SAVE ALL PLAY BY PLAYS, the play by play is not saved for the game you play out. BUG! However, there is a work around. The play by play can still be generated and I have found a way to work around this. To generate a play by play, simply bring up the box score in OOTP and then click on the PBP link. It will generate the PBP on the fly and it saved. So, when you are playing a game out, when the game is over, it automatically launches the box score, thus saving it to the disk. But this is where the bug is, it does not generate the play by play. So, you should click on the play by play link and it will generate it. This is VERY important that you do this, as my program will be using the play by play to generate some HTML files. I will also require you to do a CSV dump before running my program. This CSV dump will also be backed up in my Almanac. This will allow me to do some cool stuff, like show a players ratings history, year by year. I am not sure what else I am going to backup, as I will know as I work on the program. You will be able to pick the location where the backup will be. It could be a different hard drive if you want. My program will create a main html page, where you can access any year in the history and see box scores and play by plays for any giving game. There will be an achievement list, like the no-hitters, but it will have links back to the box score of that game, so you can view a no-hitter's box score 5 years after it happens. I have figured out a way to link to an outside HTML source while in the game. So, you will be able to have access to this information from within the game. At this point, I have not looked at doing it 'while you are playing a game', but I will look into this. This is going to be a very complex program, it is not just as simple as copying over files. It is going to be creating HTML files and links, so it will take some time to write this one, plus I will continue to work on the other projects at the same time. When I am ready, I will post it so we can get some people to try it, find bugs and make suggestions. __________________ Like BLUES? Visit www.smokestacklightnin.com, you will LOVE it! New show every Monday!! New Blues HOF![/COLOR][/FONT]

09-09-2006, 12:39 PM	#8
Comedian2004 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: In a house in Saint Cloud, Florida. Posts: 7,085	OK, further investigating I have found out some interesting information. When you AUTOSIM, the PBP are also not created. So, if I start a new league and sim to next year, no PBPs are created at all. Now when I say that, I mean the HTML files. The actual PBP text files are created. The pbp.html files are created on the fly based on the txt files. So, all is not lost here. If you create a league report, it DOES create the play by play files for you, if you tell it to. So, this will actually make my job a whole lot easier, but it may take longer to actually end your year. Considering what you get, it will be worth it. The steps are as follows: (You may want to go ahead and do this now when you reach the end of a year, as once you move on, the data is gone) January 1st of the new year. Go into the GAME SETUP and click on CREATE REPORTS. Set the reports to COMPLETE STATS and also make sure everything is checked there, including history. I would also go ahead and check photos. Create a folder called ALMANAC (from windows) whereever you want the almanac to be stored. I.E. E:/Almanac Now, inside that folder, create the years, 2006, 2007, etc. Go ahead and create several years, depending on how long you are going to run the sim. Now, inside OOTP, specify to copy the report to the correct folder: i.e. E:/Almanac/2006/ (Put the trailing backslash, as I have not tested it with it not there. Now, after it creates the report, click the copy button. It will take some time, depending on the league size. You can optionally do the same for the minor leagues. Now go and create a CSV dump of the league. You will have to manually copy that folder over. I would like it located under the year of the almanac, i.e. E:/Almanac/2006/Dump This is very important that you do this, as this is where I will be looking to get a lot of information that may not be available elsewhere. __________ So, those are the requirements. That is what I am basing my almanac on. I will then have the program create links automatically to access the various folders. More soon.. __________________ Like BLUES? Visit www.smokestacklightnin.com, you will LOVE it! New show every Monday!! New Blues HOF![/COLOR][/FONT]

09-11-2006, 08:09 PM	#9
Comedian2004 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: In a house in Saint Cloud, Florida. Posts: 7,085	The Alamanac Thread I have been mentally working on this Alamanac plan. After considering many options, here is (IMHO) a way to create an almanac. This is one that I am going to be writing utilities for later on too. 1st, to have an almanac, you need to stop on January 1st of each year and archive the year. So, this means no simming 5 years non stop. There is no way to save the almanac this way. 2nd, disk space is required. Each year will take anywhere from 100 meg to 300 meg or even more. With that said, I do not anticipate that people are even going to attempt to use this, if they do not have a lot of disk space. Side Note: You can buy a 250gig USB External Hard drive for under 150 bucks at most retail stores. This is EXCELLENT for use for the almanac. OK, now there is no need to reinvent the wheel. He has it built in to create the archive, just not people friendly. So, we will use the online league report option to create the archive. Head on into there, under game setups and tell it to create the report. You should do this on January 1st of each year. Now, before we do that, we want to create the Almanac folder. I strongly suggest that you keep it in the root of the drive and call it Almanac or MY MLB LEAGUE Almanac. I would keep it short, as some of the paths could become too long. Now, the layout would be like this: ALMANAC/1952 ALMANAC/1953 ETC. Now when you create the report, make sure you select it for ALL LEAGUES and FULL REPORT. Minors and all. You can deselect the minors if you want, but, it would not be a true almanac then. You can't see how your Minor League teams did. If you are going to almanac, go all out, get it all! I would also include PHOTOS. Now, before we create the report, you will see a place where you can COPY REPORT TO. This is how we do it. Point it to the proper folder and year. i.e. E:/Almanac/1952/ Make sure the folder exists, as OOTP will NOT create the sub folder and it will dump it in Almanac instead. You can manually move the files if you accidently do this, and you will. It will take a long time to generate the file, depening on the size of the league. Go watch a movie or watch a baseball game. Once the report is done, then select the copy, to copy it to the destination. OK, once you verify that the information is there and in the right place, we want to copy the CSV dump over. If you have not done it yet, go to the game and do the dump. Use CSV dump. It does not matter if you specify comma or semi-colon for it. This will be located in IMPORT_EXPORT under your league folder. Now, create a folder called CSV inside the year folder. I.E. E:\Almananc\1952\CSV Copy the contents of the IMPORT_EXPORT folder over to this folder. Now, you can go to the YEAR folder and double click on INDEX.HTML and be able to browse that year. You should be able to see all box scores, play by play, team sheets, etc. (If you selected all). If you did not go with all and went with no splits, etc., then you will have all sort of pages NOT displayed. _______________________ Now, what will my program do? First, it will be one you want to run right after you copy the files over. It will have a VERIFY ALMANAC folder. It will check to make sure there are no missing files for you. It will create a MENU html page with the links to the different years. It will compile other HTML menus, like a list of no-hitters, with links to the box score. It will create reports, showing a player's development history throughout the years. It uses the CSV dump for this. It opens the door for a wide variety of things that were not possible before having this information laid out this way. Keep your eyes posted, as I will have something done soon. Just remember, once you advance to the next year and start playing, the information is gone. So, without saving it this way, that box score for that perfect game is gone forever. __________________ Like BLUES? Visit www.smokestacklightnin.com, you will LOVE it! New show every Monday!! New Blues HOF![/COLOR][/FONT]

09-11-2006, 08:50 PM	#10
rasnell Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Frankfort, Kentucky Posts: 3,739	As much as I would love to have this, I honestly may not go through the time, the steps and the huge amount of memory to generate this. I love all of your effort and utilities, but this one sounds like the old days of catobase when it was just too much effort. Others may disagree. Of course, if you give us unbelieveable info and details, I might change my mind. Too bad we can't run several seasons at a time for the almanac when we go to bed after some simming.

09-18-2006, 04:35 PM	#11
kagnew35 All Star Starter Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Las Vegas, Nev Posts: 1,965	An awesome piece of work, a must have for online leagues. How far along are you in creating all the utilities into a suite, specially for online leagues? The whole package of your utilities make this a far more complete game. I plan a Ted Williams dynasty from 1939 to 1960 where they'll make it spectacular and also a 1970 historical league online. Really lookin forward to the suite. Many thanks for all your great work and ideas> __________________ Elder Statesman of the Board http://www.soxxcountry.com/ site with FaceGen Central and Duffys Tavern Live OOTP Chat Room

09-18-2006, 04:56 PM	#12
bp_ Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: New York, NY Posts: 2,804 Blog Entries: 1	As you know, I really am wanting a BOSI-like player development report. I'd have no problem stopping a sim at the end of the year to run this util but it would be even better if this type of tool (the BOSI-like development part) could be run at any time during the season. This would be a very popular tool in online leagues, especially if you can make it generate html. I did notice that the game does put rating updates in the player history whenever you get an email from the scout reporting a change. I'd guess there are other unreported changes going on as well. I want to see those. __________________ Commish: Over The Mound

09-25-2006, 01:19 AM	#13
kagnew35 All Star Starter Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Las Vegas, Nev Posts: 1,965	Any progress on the almanac, larry, coming soon I hope. Will be using most of your utilities in my 1939 historical league. __________________ Elder Statesman of the Board http://www.soxxcountry.com/ site with FaceGen Central and Duffys Tavern Live OOTP Chat Room

09-26-2006, 05:50 PM	#14
Kyros All Star Reserve Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 976	Umm, yeah....this sounds great.....F'in really great. I can't believe I missed it but then again I was sick (very) from late June through all of July. I hoep that you can achieve this. Would this act to something CATO did for OOTP 6, ect? Or will tjhis be different in terms of what it will be able to track, store, ect? I have no problem....NO PROBLEM at all going out and buying a HD with 300-500 gigs. I'll buy two if I have to. More stats is a dream to me. I just wish someone would make an american football game with such an open source utility driven community and customization. FOF2K4 is a GREAT simulation but it needs more HTML outputs, ect. Sorry to get off track but this utility excites me. How far along is this beast? And, what will it store? Tannk you!.

09-30-2006, 09:40 AM	#17
bp_ Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: New York, NY Posts: 2,804 Blog Entries: 1	any chance you are working on a development report? The people want it, I want it: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...4&postcount=26 & http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...5&postcount=64 (though they really want it in game but that ain't happening this time around obviously). Please __________________ Commish: Over The Mound Last edited by bp_; 09-30-2006 at 09:44 AM.

09-30-2006, 11:04 AM	#18
Comedian2004 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: In a house in Saint Cloud, Florida. Posts: 7,085	There is only a very small percentage that want an almanac, however, I am one of them. I think it is mostly because you have stop the simulation at the end of every year to do it and the disk space. The diskspace should not be an issue, as you can purchase a 250gig USB external hard drive for less than 150 bucks, but to a lot of people, that is a lot to spend. They want to spend it on silly things, like paying bills, buying wife presents so she does not complain about your OOTP playing time, etc. I have been busy on a couple of other projects and some stuff that people actually pay me to do, but I have not forgotten about the almanac. I gave a step by step on how you can manually backup a league, and I suggest you do that now, so that when I have the almanac ready, you will still have that information around. I will go ahead and start some code on this, just so I have a starting point. Sometimes once I get started, it goes better than I anticipated and I have it ready. So, like they say, watch the funny pages. __________________ Like BLUES? Visit www.smokestacklightnin.com, you will LOVE it! New show every Monday!! New Blues HOF![/COLOR][/FONT]