Online leagues - Plans for patch 2 & File explanations

[Markus Heinsohn]

Hi

It looks like the conversion wasn't an easy one when it comes to online leagues. Of course we're working hard to eliminate the stumbling blocks in the future. That being said, we will be building a zip-library into the next patch, which will greatly help creating your league file (the one that the league members download from your site) or zipping the freshly generated reports. We will add a new dialog where you can select which things you want to include into the league file, for example:
X days of game logs, X days of boxscores, X days of messages, player histories Y/N, names.dat file Y/N, include power rankings (Y/N), and a list where you can select which news text files you want from which leagues (similar to the HTML report creation/upload dialog).
After you have made your selections (the settings will be stored), the game zips the needed files and puts the resulting zip file into a selectable destination folder. You'll also have the option to automatically upload the file to your server after it has been created.

I think this will really make the job of the commish easier.

Now, here is a description of the folder system of OOTP 2006 save games, and an indication of which file you (the commish) would probably like to include in the league file when manually creating it:

\myleague.lg\ -> here are all the .dat files stored. Include every file except the names.dat file (unless you edited player/staff names).
\myleague.lg\page_links -> NOT include
\myleague.lg\messages -> include all to be sure
\myleague.lg\news\html -> the \box_scores and \game_logs are the only folders that include HTML files that you may want to include in the league files, with the exception of \leagues\league_*_team_power_rankings_page.html (the power rankings that get generated weekly)
\myleague.lg\news\text\players -> The player history files, include if you like
\myleague.lg\news\text\teams + \leagues -> You may want to include all files, EXCEPT the ones ending with a league year (ie. league_100_transactions_2006.txt) as they are only kept for reference in the league/team history pages.

Hope this helps a bit.

Questions? Suggestions?

Cheers,
Markus

[cibl commish]

Must say I'm loving the idea of having the game zip the league file for us.. Awesome!

[thomamon]

Wow, this is huge for online leagues!!!

[canadiancreed]

this is quite helpful.

Now all we need is a league activate/de-activate feature and we're golden!

[RBLwebguy]

Definetly a step in the right direction!

[Cooleyvol]

Definitely a great help, Markus.

Have you looked at the lineup ftp problems yet?

[DaMook]

Awesome dude.

[Diskostew22]

I was actually in the process of writing a utility to do this very function.

Basically:

Build the Zip file upload it
take the report files/ zip/ upload it/expand it
Take the DB Dump/ upload/ and load into DB

I wrote an ANT script to do this for OOTP5 an 6 when I ran a league and it was very helpful. I was planning on writing it as a real appliaction instead of just a bunch of commandline stuff.

Oh well put that project on hold and start working on other ideas I have.

[SC_Dawg]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Questions? Suggestions?

Markus, thanks for looking into this and taking suggestions. Here is what, at this time, I would like to see.

1: Give the commissioners the ability to choose what compression format they want to use in creating the league file. I have read where the new .7z format is compressing better than the old .zip format.

2: Integrate into the league reports generation/compression the option to use Fidel Montoya's routine for compression/archiving/uploading/remote side unarchiving.

[TheRedder]

If the files could be included in the resulting zip file in memory without having to be written to the disk I think it would speed up exports a lot. Writing out thousands of little files takes forever!

[alinkens]

Markus, any plans for allowing owners to play their games again? The Export/Import game feature is critical for online play.

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by alinkens

Markus, any plans for allowing owners to play their games again? The Export/Import game feature is critical for online play.

I bet the number of leagues allowing their owners to play their games out and then export them to the commish could be counted on less than one hand. I assume that's what you're talking about.