TMS Alternative Tournament Software

[SteveP]

Just a heads up to all Profs and TOs out there regarding an effort to build an alternative to TMS.

We've created a group of software developers and interested parties who are starting to develop a Desktop Tournament software product that will run on Windows, MacOS, and Linux machines. We've completed the initial requirements and have started designing the GUI and data. Hopefully, this effort will "pay off" and we'll be able to deliver a useable alternative to TMS to those interested.

In the meantime, I'm making my own personal tournament software available for any interested Profs and TOs. I've testing it extensively in my "LAB", but will be testing it in the "REAL WORLD" this weekend at the Colorado State Championship. The URL below contains the zipped install files needed to install this software on Windows machines.

http://www.nancyweb.com/pokemon/ts/setup.zip

Within the next week, this software may undergo a few revisions if testing uncovers any bugs. Nevertheless, I'm confident the bugs, if any, will be minor. Feel free to test/use it yourselves and report any bugs.

Let me just list a few features in my software. These features will probably also be included in the upcoming multi-platform version we are developing.

1. Support for Age-modified Swiss and switching to Age-separated Playoffs. Just change the tournament type before starting the playoffs.

2. Playoffs of any number up to 64 players. If the number of players is not a power of 2, byes will be created.

3. Export to TMS .trn file. This can be uploaded to POP's website.

4. Support for 3-game matches.

5. 3 different tiebreakers calculated the way DCI does it. 33% minimum when calculating opponent-based tiebreakers.

6. Late-player adding with the option to give byes or DNPs (did not play).

7. Support for Age-separated tournaments. You can include all the players in one tournament and the software automatically matches players in the same age-category.

8. View and edit the "raw" tournament data. Externally, the files are text-based, tab-delimited. This makes it possible to view/edit the data in any text editor or spreadsheet.

9. Mixed pairings. You can manually pair some players and automatically pair other players.

10. Local Players database. You can create a database of your local players and with the click of a mouse, add them to your tournament.

NOTE: Documentation is coming! After the final testing, I'll provide documentation for those interested.


Let me just say that I've heard POP is totally re-engineering TMS. It is my hope that it will be robust and bug-free enough to be useable. However, I doubt it will be an "open" product, something that we in the "community" will be able to influence as far as desired features. Our development group is committed to meeting the desired needs and wants of this community. We hope you'll find interest in our efforts and our products.

Desktop Tournament Development Group

SteveP
bulbasnore
GreatFox
NoPoke

[DaytonGymLeader]

Steve, excellent to hear that this is moving forward. The product before last revision was really good.

Sorry I can't help you guys out, but I quit writing code quite some time ago (like 15 years ago). If you need help with documentation, let me know, I'd be more than happy to help you guys out there.

Just a possible feature request, we still don't have anything that does Draft Pods.

[SteveP]

Thanks DGL.

Draft Pods isn't a requirement for our initial release. However, it WILL be in a later release. Thanks for the input. I'll make sure we add that to our next-release requirements.

Regarding documentation help, we'd love to add you to our team as the documentation person. Email or PM me if you want to be put on the team.

[Tahna]

I asked some friends of mine (students of informatics) to do the same.
So far they've gotten the shell ready jTMS pre-alpha 0.3 (http://home.hetnet.nl/~velden66/site/jtms-prealpha-0.3.exe)

As the title implies we're not quite at the release candidate yet, but we'll get there soon.
I'd be happy to assist in bugtesting and passing any information on to my friends (I myself am a student of Biomechanics, which isn't that programming oriented).
Keep up the good work, SteveP and others.

[The Anaconda]

Hmm, sounds interesting. Cannot download it at the moment (because of the computer I'm on), but I'll look at it as soon as I can.

Just out of curiosity, is this just the binaries, or is a source included with it as well?

[SteveP]

Just the binaries. email me if you really are interested in the VB source.

[GreatFox]

Just a heads up...

The GUI for the Cross-platform Desktop Tournament software is coming along nicely.

Screen Shots:
http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/about.png

http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/tourny_info.png

http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/reg.png

http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/parings.png

http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/standings.png

They are not final yet and input would be very much appreciated! :)
Screenshots are from the Mac OS X build.

[The Anaconda]

Hmm.. Well I'm not a VB programmer (I do C++ mostly) so I wouldn't be able to do anything with the source :(

Oh well. Cool screenshots!

[SteveP]

I just got a hold of version 1.11 of TMS of evidently they've changed the file format of the .TRN file. The .TRN export of my software supported 1.06. I'm wondering if TMS 1.11 will be able to read the older .TRN files created by older versions of TMS.

[babayaga]

Just a heads up...

The GUI for the Cross-platform Desktop Tournament software is coming along nicely.

Screen Shots:
Sweeeeeeeeeeet! Those of us who aren't stuck with Windoze appreciate a non-dumpy interface.

regards,
:unknown-b

[ScythKing]

Just a heads up...
The GUI for the Cross-platform Desktop Tournament software is coming along nicely.

Being a software developer/analyst - what exactly are you folks writing this in to make this cross-platform? The only tools I can think of that would be remotely capable of programming on Mac, Windows and Linux would be gcc++ and something like GTK.
Where is the project hosted? How does one volunteer?
I'm experienced in C/C++, VB, C#, Pascal/Delphi and others.
If I may suggest decoupling the GUI from the program logic it may even be possible to port to the PocketPC and Palm. Possibly let the GUI generate/consume XML to communicate with the actual logic?

[GreatFox]

Being a software developer/analyst - what exactly are you folks writing this in to make this cross-platform? The only tools I can think of that would be remotely capable of programming on Mac, Windows and Linux would be gcc++ and something like GTK.
Where is the project hosted? How does one volunteer?
I'm experienced in C/C++, VB, C#, Pascal/Delphi and others.
If I may suggest decoupling the GUI from the program logic it may even be possible to port to the PocketPC and Palm. Possibly let the GUI generate/consume XML to communicate with the actual logic?We're using RealBasic. The simplest way to go (for the moment). It's similar to VB but with the power to compile for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

The project is being hosted at SourceForge ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/pkmntrn/ ) eventhough we're still in the planing and design stages, so there really isn't much. Check with steve on how to volunteer. If youcan contribute somehow to the team, we'll be glad to bring you on board. Of course, its being kept OpenSource (for the most part eventhough its being build with RealBasic) so anyone can make suggestions and give us feedback.

I'm also looking into building a website dedicated to the project for everyone to have easier acces and updates to it.

The end product will be an app bult by the community for the community.

[Rainbowgym]

Thanks, finally people who know what is needed making a program.
I think you need an special avatar in the future, so we can recognize the Desktop Team experts.(and ask questions)

I'm a real computer disaster, can only work with programs, but I will try the program and see of any bugs will appear.

The only thing I really should like: Not the players age but their date of birth (or an option to choose).
There is no conflict with any law as far as I know, if you state in your tournament invitations (in case you run anything age required) that players should present POP id + Naam + Date of Birth.
Asking someone date of birth is a normal thing in case you run something which requires agedivissions.
If players don't want to give that because of any privacy thing, they will always be placed in 15+.

What could be done is that every TO has a form for players who they hand out a POP ID, in the form they need to fill out Name, date of Birth and sign. Bit the same of with DCI, but only difference that this information can be kept on that specific TO's computer/administration only (or meaby in the PUI TMS system).

With the DCI we had some troubles because we have very strong privacy laws overhere (and people insisting on keeping some thing private), and we arranged that we only had to give Name, Date of Birth and DCI nr to the Distributor. The forms were not mailed but stayed in the administration of the clubleader. Parents of minors did signed it and kids were on the rankings, but all further private information (like adress+email) did not became further than the clubleader. If anything should be handed out to the players it was send to the clubleader and they took care of handing it out.

Meaby something like this will work?
Just my opinion.

[GreatFox]

Thanks, finally people who know what is needed making a program.
I think you need an special avatar in the future, so we can recognize the Desktop Team experts.(and ask questions)

I'm a real computer disaster, can only work with programs, but I will try the program and see of any bugs will appear.

The only thing I really should like: Not the players age but their date of birth (or an option to choose).
There is no conflict with any law as far as I know, if you state in your tournament invitations (in case you run anything age required) that players should present POP id + Naam + Date of Birth.
Asking someone date of birth is a normal thing in case you run something which requires agedivissions.
If players don't want to give that because of any privacy thing, they will always be placed in 15+.To keep compatabilty with TMS, we will be including birth date on DT now. As of TMS 1.16, it now asks for bith date insted of age.
What could be done is that every TO has a form for players who they hand out a POP ID, in the form they need to fill out Name, date of Birth and sign. Bit the same of with DCI, but only difference that this information can be kept on that specific TO's computer/administration only (or meaby in the PUI TMS system).

With the DCI we had some troubles because we have very strong privacy laws overhere (and people insisting on keeping some thing private), and we arranged that we only had to give Name, Date of Birth and DCI nr to the Distributor. The forms were not mailed but stayed in the administration of the clubleader. Parents of minors did signed it and kids were on the rankings, but all further private information (like adress+email) did not became further than the clubleader. If anything should be handed out to the players it was send to the clubleader and they took care of handing it out.

Meaby something like this will work?
Just my opinion.Shhh.... its a secret... ;)

[SteveP]

Like GreatFox says....

FYI, the DCI Reporter software does Age-category instead of DOB. As it stands today, TMS 1.1x requires DOB in the .TRN file that is uploaded. If that stands, we'll indeed make sure it's a required field in our software.

Also, my PTO showed me the new POP ID cards the other day. I don't remember if they had a DOB field on them, and if there was a privacy statement on the turn-in card. Does anyone know for sure?

[ScythKing]

Like GreatFox says....

FYI, the DCI Reporter software does Age-category instead of DOB. As it stands today, TMS 1.1x requires DOB in the .TRN file that is uploaded. If that stands, we'll indeed make sure it's a required field in our software.

Also, my PTO showed me the new POP ID cards the other day. I don't remember if they had a DOB field on them, and if there was a privacy statement on the turn-in card. Does anyone know for sure?

Yup - I'm looking right at it - First Name, Last Name, City, State, Date of Birth are the only "fields" on the card to be filled in and mailed in. The ID card itself only has POPID and Name.

[bulbasnore]

As I told the guys, you can take and xmit my DOB, but you aren't going to post it on a wall!

[ukpokemonpro]

Yup - I'm looking right at it - First Name, Last Name, City, State, Date of Birth are the only "fields" on the card to be filled in and mailed in. The ID card itself only has POPID and Name.

Ah PUI that stuffs Europe for sure where we need those privacy and consent statements..

Again no thought of International as in STATE having a /Region or County alternate!

[Hagrid23]

As I told the guys, you can take and xmit my DOB, but you aren't going to post it on a wall!

THe DOB is entered into TMS but it doesn't get displayed on any of the other screens or printouts. The pairings and standings all deal with age grouping only.

[TrainerJL]

I just ran my first tournament as TO yesterday, using the version of the software from about two weeks ago, and it worked great. Thank you very much!

One question: Since the software doesn't support Top 8 right now, how do you do it? Do you manually pair the top 8 rounds, and give everyone else a DNP for the round? It looks like the TRN file is ok that way, but it would take forever if you have lots of players.

[SteveP]

I just used version 2.0.2 of my software yesterday that supports playoffs. Only a couple minor bugs showed up (changing the default printer and initial pairing round # when players are awarded byes), but they were easily worked around by restarting the program and changing the round # to 1 in the dropdown control. I've have those bugs removed by tomorrow (version 2.0.3).

So, if you're interested in Playoffs support (2-64 players), download version 2.x from the URL in my first post.

Also, if you're using version 1.x of my software, version 2.x doesn't read the tournament or player DB file. Let me know if you need a conversion utility.

Regarding Top 8, you can do it a couple ways using my software.

1.a - Version 2.x - Pair Manually and leave the rest unpaired for the round. You don't have to give DNPs to the unpaired players.
1.b. Version 1.x (or 2.x) - Give DNPs to all non-playoff players, then manually pair the players. It's time consuming, but it works, and the correct .TRN file is exported.

2. Use the new software, version 2.x with playoff support.

Hope that helps.

[The Anaconda]

Hey SteveP, I was wondering. I'm getting a new PDA soon, how easy would it be for you to redo the dialog windows and other such things and then recompile the program to fit and work on the standard resolution of Windows PocketPC 2003 (240x320) (unless you need a new SDK for PocketPC versions of Windows not sure yet, as I don't have one yet)

Just out of curiosity.

[farbsman]

SteveP, does your software do best 2 of 3?

[RainbowRichards]

Thanks DGL.

Regarding documentation help, we'd love to add you to our team as the documentation person. Email or PM me if you want to be put on the team.

One of my nicks (yeah, OTHER than RR) is "eagle-eye" 'cause I'm death on typos! I'd be happy to proofread/edit the documentation (not content so much as presentation)! :D

[SteveP]

SteveP, does your software do best 2 of 3?

Yes, my software does, and the upcoming multi-platform version will too. Also, my software does the 2nd and 3rd tiebreakers that go along with multi-game matches, as will the multi-platform version. FYI, at your CO State Championship, we never had to go beyond the 1st tiebreaker to pick our Top X players.

Regarding PDA versions of our multi-platform version, that's a possible future effort (not for the initial release). I've never programmed WindowsCE or PalmOS. If anyone out there wants to tackle that project, feel free to come forward and join our team.

[TrainerJL]

Regarding PDA versions of our multi-platform version, that's a possible future effort (not for the initial release). I've never programmed WindowsCE or PalmOS. If anyone out there wants to tackle that project, feel free to come forward and join our team.

I'm doing PocketPC development (using C++, but .NET is a possibility). I'd be glad to help out there. I'm not a Palm developer, though.

[The Anaconda]

I'm the same as him there (TrainerJL) with PocketPC (no Palm), but again just like him do C++, don't have .NET myself though. So all I can do is give advice/information on the way it works. My PDA will be arriving tomorrow (hopefully! :D ) so I'll write up a few quick programs and give you my observations if you want.

[GreatFox]

SteveP, does your software do best 2 of 3?Like Steve mentioned... it will. I just have to add that to the GUI now (which I almost forgot to :o )

I'm also adding a new Welcome screen to the app which will give you the option of choosing to start a new Tourny, open a previously saved one or quit all together if you changed your mind.

After seeing the new TMS version in action at the California States this weekend (after its initial crash) I got a few other ideas that should make DT a lot more enjoyable to look at and use.

[SteveP]

Yah, I just tested TMS version 1.11 with awarded byes and that caused my test to crash. It came up with some "query" error.

[ScythKing]

Yah, I just tested TMS version 1.11 with awarded byes and that caused my test to crash. It came up with some "query" error.
You shoulda seen Vinces' face when I told him I was going with the new TMS - he looked like he was looking for cover ;-)
Anyway - surprisingly it worked flawlessly. I still think the pairing printing is ugly as hell and senseless.
I was very careful to avoid punctuation in the names and such. Not to mention no way of splitting playoffs by age group. That item should be a priority. Dunno how it would be reported though...

[SteveP]

The reported .trn file handles it just fine. I reported our Colorado State Championship results using the .TRN file exported by my tournament software that had the playoffs included in the file.

I'm curious did anyone upload the .TRN file generated by the new version of TMS? I ask because the older .TRN file is different.

[Sensei]

I`ve uploaded two tournaments with the new software(1.11).The first time I had problems but it must have been fixed and it worked several days later.The second one I uploaded worked like a charm.

`Sensei

[DaytonGymLeader]

I've had no problems uploading using 1.11.

[GreatFox]

Yippe! Here's some more shots of the nearly complete GUI:

http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/about.png
http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/welcome.jpg
http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/tourny_info.jpg
http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/reg.jpg
http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/pairs.jpg
http://www.pokemonlabs.com/desktop_tournament/rank.jpg

For the most part, the graphics have been aquafide to there fullest extent and should not change much if any.
If anything, the only things to change will be some of the layouts of the Window.

I've been checking in with Steve and he's just about ready to begin the Data design. Once we figure out exactly what the App will do and how then the GUI will be finallized.

Enjoy!

[Prof Donphan]

The new official version 1.13 don't read file .trn exported from TMS.
Steve, any suggest?

[SteveP]

I've updated my personal tournament software to be able to import/export TMS version 1.16 tournament files. I've also updated my software to allowed either age or birthdate entry, thus being compatible with TMS.

One note. Because TMS gets birthdates from its internal MDB database instead of the TRN file (where the birthdates are also kept), if you export a TRN file from my program but don't have the players' birthdates in the TMS MDB database, all those players will be considered to be 15+. This of course is only important for tournaments you are running as age-modified.

Here's the URL to the ZIP file for my software (version 2.1.0).

http://www.nancys-artworks.com/pokemon/ts/setup.zip

[GreatFox]

Blah... been so busy with work, The Labs, and what not, I haven't had time to work on the cross-platform version (Sorry). At least Steve has been working on his... :p :o

[TrainerJL]

I've updated my personal tournament software to be able to import/export TMS version 1.16 tournament files. I've also updated my software to allowed either age or birthdate entry, thus being compatible with TMS.


SteveP, is this version incompatible with the previous one? I can't open any of my old TSF files or the player database with it. Any chance of a conversion utility , at least for the player database? I don't want to have to type them all in again! :(