OOTP OU v4

[Getch]

OOTP OU... isn't that that old online utility from a few years back...? Yep, and it's back with a release of a brand new version (version 4, if you kept track).

First, a little background. The 1990's style of bland HTML, basic javascript, and full page refreshes of the current utility have finally worn me out and pulled me out of retirement. There's a lot of potential left in an online utility that has not been reached yet. It's been nagging me for a while now, and now I'm going to do something about it.

So, I'm overhauling OU, one utility/screen at a time. It's still csv based, and the general look and feel and usage of it is identical as before. But I am gutting the core of it to support a more modern interface. This includes support for flash, Ajax, partial page refreshes, and a much more, well, slick look.

As I said, I am doing one utility at a time. Since the changes can be rather large, I am going to release updates as I make progress, instead of all at the end (which may be a few months away). I have plans for every utility, some small, some big, and some brand new utilities as well.

The first release consists of two utilities:

1. A revamped development utility. Two major changes in specific:

The team reports is now a split screen, with the standard development from before listed on the left, and individual player development details on the right. This includes his info, ratings, potential and recent development, and a chart of the player's entire development over his career. No more clicking on individual players to bring up new screens to see who the heck this person is and if he's a decent prospect or just some scrub. Here's a screenshot:



Or, if you'd like to see the page in action, check out one of the leagues I'm in:

http://www.actionpackedbaseballleagu...ge=development

Select a team and click on a player's name on the left to see the details of the player on the right. There are of course more minor improvements as well, but not worth listing them all.

The second change to the development utility is that the League Talent Report (which sucked, honestly) has been replaced with a Prospect Report. Here, you can see all of the development of the top prospects around the league in one page. See it in action here:

Prospect Report

(I'll save some room and not post a screenshot). It only lists the players with the top potential from around the league. This page is quickly becoming my favorite.


The second utility, and probably the big one in this release, is a new Gamecast/Replay utility. After every sim, the results each manager's games are blocked out and replaced with a Gamecast link:




If they want to waste an hour+ time at work (and who doesn't) they can then replay each of their games one at a time in the new Gamecast viewer:




This is similar to the carya viewer (and I must give some thanks to the person who wrote that, as it helped immeasurably to build my own), with the difference that each manager can watch their games on their own time. After watching the game (or clicking "Show Results"), the game will be displayed normally in the Last Sim screen. And of course, the game can be re-watched at any time.

Feel free to check it out:

http://www.actionpackedbaseballleagu....pl?page=lsRes

Pick a team's results, or look at the top games of the week, and click the Replay link on any game. It works off of the game log, so make sure the HTML and game logs are updated to the server first.

The gamecast supports two modes: pitch-by-pitch or by each play. You can toggle the delay between each update, and jump around to any inning. See the bottom bar's options.

In an upcoming release, I will extend the Gamecast to support a Live Sim mode, were every manager sees the same action at the same time (how Carya works).


Install files can be found in my sig. I'm calling this a "beta" release at least until I implement more of the features I planned, and I want to see how the technology works for the general public first. I'll update the Readme shortly (it's still v3).

For those who already have OU, upgrade using the Patch file. You will then need to:
1. Go to the Admin screen. Accessing this screen will automatically handle installing the new files. Fill in the new Other Ratings/Overall Ratings fields
2. Add executable permissions (755) to the new ouReplay.pl file (found in the same directory as ootpou.pl, likely the cgi-bin directory)
3. Add players_value.csv to the csv files you upload to the server

For those who do not have OU installed, follow the Readme instructions for installing, and then do the three steps above.

Let me know how it goes for you all. And like I said, this is just the beginning of a revamped OU.

[Getch]

Reserved.

[molarmite]

The 'Readme' link in your signature is down, getting this error.

Not Found

The requested URL /OOTPOU/Readme.doc was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[kq76]

I haven't installed it yet, but holy cow! This is awesome! Thanks so much, Getch.

I especially love that new dev report. I would have never thought to do it split screen, but it's a no brainer when you think about it. If I had kept track of how many times I had clicked on a player from that report to see his page it'd probably be a 1000 plus. How Markus doesn't get how a dev report is so much fun to check, I'll never understand. Thankfully, though, you do.

That makes me think, the draft report, which is probably the other report of yours I look at the most, maybe you could do the same with it. I remember thinking it'd be better if you simply added more data in more columns on it (age, handedness, etc), but a split screen might be even better. I'm thinking both the before and after picks reports.

Oh, and while I'm at it, a request I meant to ask of you for so long now: could you maybe add an option in your dev report not to report ratings changes for the opposite of what a player is. That is, if a player is a pitcher then don't show his battings rating changes and vice versa. That's one thing that really deters me from wanting to look at the dev report more is that there's just so much noise to it, somehow more than there used to be I'm positive (since OOTP11?).

[Getch]

Originally Posted by molarmite

The 'Readme' link in your signature is down, getting this error.

Whoops. Fixed. Although the Readme.doc that I was able to scrounge up was a really old one, so I'll put updating it at the top of my to-do list.

That makes me think, the draft report, which is probably the other report of yours I look at the most, maybe you could do the same with it. I remember thinking it'd be better if you simply added more data in more columns on it (age, handedness, etc), but a split screen might be even better.

The split screen report is going to be added to many pages, including the draft. There's a little issue with real-estate, but I'll figure something else. The draft will also allow for more options in columns.

could you maybe add an option in your dev report not to report ratings changes for the opposite of what a player is.

That was implemented under those "Lots of other minor improvements" I mentioned. I suppress any development opposite of the player's role, with the exception of when a player is both a pitcher and a batter. No more "Fastball Talent goes from 0 to 2" spam.

[f.montoya]

I am speechless, Getch. Simply an outstanding piece of coding artwork that I just love!!

One thing though...

When I click the link to watch a replay, I saw the entire linescores for each team I selected. I could still watch the replays but I knew the outcome before clicking "Replay". Maybe that's because I'm not logged in as a team and that is how it is intended?

[Getch]

Originally Posted by f.montoya

Maybe that's because I'm not logged in as a team and that is how it is intended?

Yeah, the hiding of scores is tracked by manager, so it requires you to be logged in. You'll just have to take my word on it .

[molarmite]

Great to see you're supporting this again, I'll be using it.

[Getch]

Sounds like you got it fixed.

[pallison14]

This looks amazing, but I'm having problems getting it running. Specifically, I'm getting the following error when checking syntax:

Base class package "Class::Accessor" is empty.
    (Perhaps you need to 'use' the module which defines that package first.)
 at OOTPOU/Ajax.pm line 4
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at OOTPOU/Ajax.pm line 4.
Compilation failed in require at ootpou.pl line 12.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ootpou.pl line 12.

Any thoughts? The file hierarchy appears to be correct, and I have the perl path setup.

Edit: Scratch that. My server didn't have the Perl Class::Access module installed. Leaving this post up here for those that may encounter the same problem. You'll need direct pretty substantial access to your server to fix it (SSH/Root), and here is a cheat sheet on how to get the module up and running.

[Getch]

Just a minor update. Last night I found and fixed a hardcoded league Id in the code. So if anyone was getting blank player details screen on the development report, that was why and it has been fixed. Probably only affected leagues that were started from scratch on OOTP 12.

[Chicagofan76]

Is OU just for Online Leagues?

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Getch

Just a minor update. Last night I found and fixed a hardcoded league Id in the code. So if anyone was getting blank player details screen on the development report, that was why and it has been fixed. Probably only affected leagues that were started from scratch on OOTP 12.

Hmm. I don't know about that. I just downloaded the patch and installed now and I'm getting the no player details too. Our league was started with OOTP4 IIRC. I thought it was because the players_value.csv file was old, but then I updated it to no avail.

[Getch]

Originally Posted by kq76

Hmm. I don't know about that. I just downloaded the patch and installed now and I'm getting the no player details too. Our league was started with OOTP4 IIRC. I thought it was because the players_value.csv file was old, but then I updated it to no avail.

Your issue is due to how you've set up your server. Looks like you run OU on one server (corporatebaseball.com), while your HTML files are on another server (cbl-online.info). OU provides a couple of javascript files and images, which have to be available through the browser. The specific issue for the Player Details is that it assumes there's only one server, so it looks for the OOTPOU files here:

cbl-online.info/OOTPOU/js/OOTPOU.js

instead of

corporatebaseball.com/OOTPOU/js/OOTPOU.js

For now, you can copy over the entire <server>/OOTPOU directory (the one that contains the js and images directory) to your other server to make it work. And I can probably rework it to not make this assumption in this case. However, know that OOTPOU's game replay works off of parsing the HTML game logs, which requires OU to work on the same server as the HTML files. So this setup won't work for the new game replay utility, and there's absolutely nothing I can do on my end to fix it.

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

Is OU just for Online Leagues?

You can use it for whatever you want. It's designed for online leagues, and most features don't make much sense outside of an online league, but there are a few features (most prominently, development) that could be useful for solo play.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Getch

Your issue is due to how you've set up your server. Looks like you run OU on one server (corporatebaseball.com), while your HTML files are on another server (cbl-online.info). OU provides a couple of javascript files and images, which have to be available through the browser. The specific issue for the Player Details is that it assumes there's only one server, so it looks for the OOTPOU files here:

cbl-online.info/OOTPOU/js/OOTPOU.js

instead of

corporatebaseball.com/OOTPOU/js/OOTPOU.js

For now, you can copy over the entire <server>/OOTPOU directory (the one that contains the js and images directory) to your other server to make it work. And I can probably rework it to not make this assumption in this case. However, know that OOTPOU's game replay works off of parsing the HTML game logs, which requires OU to work on the same server as the HTML files. So this setup won't work for the new game replay utility, and there's absolutely nothing I can do on my end to fix it.

Thanks for that. Actually, I'm pretty sure it is on the same server it's just that they're in different directories and the cbl domain name directs to the folder that the rest of the league is in. I'm not as much of a whiz at this as some, but if my understanding is correct we put the cgi-bin folder outside of the regular folder for security reasons. We also share the space with others (it's jazz's) and I don't even know for sure if it's even possible to have separate cgi-bins.

If you don't mind, I'll PM you later with some structure specifics and ask what our best option is. I understand what you said above, but I'm not sure it's optimal or even possible for us.

UPDATE: Getch found the problem. It was a simple, and apparently a previously unimportant, mistake in the parameters. Thanks, Getch!

[BleedingCubbyBlue]

Getch,

I'm setting up OU for the HBL. Most things seem to be fine, but when I click Generate Reports under Dev I get a 500 error within seconds. Thoughts?

Sim Results

[Getch]

Originally Posted by BleedingCubbyBlue

Getch,

I'm setting up OU for the HBL. Most things seem to be fine, but when I click Generate Reports under Dev I get a 500 error within seconds. Thoughts?

Sim Results

zip up the csv files and send them to me. Also, let me know what your parameters are set to on that page.

[soadeathdealer]

having an issue can't see the replay correctly. any thoughts

[Getch]

I think your HTML root directory is incorrect, so OU cannot find the game log on your server. I am assuming OU is loaded in the directory:

/home/oddballs/public_html/hrb.ootpleagues/OOTPOU/

If so, try changing the HTML root directory value to .. (two periods).

[soadeathdealer]

Originally Posted by Getch

I think your HTML root directory is incorrect, so OU cannot find the game log on your server. I am assuming OU is loaded in the directory:

/home/oddballs/public_html/hrb.ootpleagues/OOTPOU/

If so, try changing the HTML root directory value to .. (two periods).

sorry forgot to update my post at like 3 am az time i messed with it and figuried that out only issue now is its not finding the logs so my question is what do i put the text logs for the game