JBB 5.8 Bugs (PBEM Team Creator)

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 11:55 pm

1. Its really complicated to go to the "Results" directory and pick up your new team Roster. I wish JBB would simply overwrite the original one in the "Teams" directory and at the same time create a "Team Name.bak" file so you can restore your team to pre last game status if you really want to. I think once the bugs are gone that should be a very seldom action for a coach to do.

2. JBB deletes the Apothecary. If you load a teamroster created by the JBB team roster update function into the BPEM Team Creator, the Apothecary is not recognised. This is because JBB defines the Apothecary by "YES", and PBEM-TC by "1".

3. JBB does NOT RECOGNIZE changed player characteristics. This is because BPEM-TC highlights changed characteristics BOLD (). The characteristic counts as being 0, and is invalid when a updated team roster is loaded into PBEM-TC.

4. The Colors get reset all the time, same with custom Team Logos. This goes for both, JBB Update Team Roster and PBEM-TC. If this could be fixed, it would be nice.

5. Something is wrong with the Team Rating calcualtion if a JBB Updated Team Roster is loaded into PBEM-TC. I know JBB Update doesn't recalculate the team rating, but PBEM-TC does, and it does _wrong_ if JBB Update was used, for whatever reason.

Conclusion:

PBEM Team Creator cannot be used with Java Bowl, because even if you completely manualy update your roster, without using JBB auto Update at all, then still you get Players with AV, ST, AG, MA 0 (!!!) loaded into JBB.

This really sucks. I know fumbl works - but JBB doesn't really work comfortable "stand alone" in terms of Team Creation and Team Roster Updating.

Ski, why not integrate a proper Team Management Module into JBB without using outside Tools like PBEM-TC. ?

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 12:02 am

cause he has other stuff to fix that has higher priority, I am sure its on his list to do though

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 12:10 am

just a sidenote: the readme for the 5.8 refers to PBEM-TC compatibility so i think/hope its feedback on what Ski just did.

Sorry if my above posting sonds harsh. Well i must admit im a bit disapointed because there is no sadisfing way of updating rosters exept via notepad manualy editing the html files.

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 12:29 am

It seems like the Teamrating Problem is caused by the Update of the Treasury.

I guess if the Team Rating simply was increased by Winings/1000 then the Team Rating would be correct after loading the roster into the Team creator.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 12:33 am

you can use the halfling scribe, or use christers league manager software like i have said before

fumbbl wasn't always automated christer used to updated all the teams by hand using his league manager software, which is why i suggested it

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 12:46 am

The PBEM-Team Creator is the best tool for my (our) purpose so far.
It allows coaches to create a Blood Bowl Team without knowing hardly any Blood Bowl rules at all. It differenciates betwwen creating a team rules and updating Team Rosters rules. You can update your team roster by recording the data from the last games's "TeamVSTeam.HTML" very quickly, and again with only a minimum knowledge of Rules.

Every coach can updates his Roster on his own, as well as his match records chart, which is a seperate *.XLS file that does calcualtion for a Ladder Ranking.

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 2:07 am

The new "i" and "alt-i" hotkeys are great

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 2:55 am

Toby ....

Ski, Ronald, and I are all trying to work together to fix Ronald's HTML creator to be fully compatible with JavaBowl.

A lot of changes have already been done to move the two programs closer together.

Now here's what I need you to do. DON'T GET FANCY, get the basics to work first before asking for ANYTHING custom. If your comment is not 100% related to the LRB ... don't ask for the improvement.

Things like 1 vs Yes for the Apothecary are things that Ronald or Ski can fix on one end or the other to make the program work better. (The reason its a number is because Ronald's HTML creator is made to create rosters for Upgradable Apothecary leagues where you can have things like a Level 5 apothecary (so the Apothecary shows a 5 for this as he costs 250k)).

So put together the list of things that need to happen to make JavaBowl and Ronald's HTML creator work properly together and send it to the following 3 people:

SkiJunkie@collegeclub.com
ronald.lokers@hccnet.nl
tom.anders@blood-bowl.net

And the last thing ... I read your 1st message and to be honest, it sounded like an impatient child. Your input on improving the programs will be very useful, but PLEASE remember that the 3 of us are working in our FREE time for something we do for fun. You jumping up and down frustrated that it doesn't all work now is not going to inspire Ronald at all ... and definitely not me ... and I don't know about Ski, but from talking to him, I get the feeling this would turn him off immediately also.

So no extra comments about your frustrations, because to be honest we don't care. But the 3 of us have already agreed to make the 2 programs compatible, so let us know what is needed in a straight-forward manner, and I'm sure that we'll check it out as soon as time allows to make it all better.

Galak

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 4:57 am

GalakStarscraper wrote:If your comment is not 100% related to the LRB ... don't ask for the improvement.

Huh ? what do you mean ?

I put the things that keep the TC tool from working with JBB into my 1st posting as "straight-forward" as it can get.

I was disapointed because the readme was promising but it turned out not to work. If my posting sounds like uh it still doesn't work, then I'm afraid thats how it is. I don't think it is really necesary to first state how much apreciated the efford of in this case Ski is every time. It is more than appreciated.

However, I think it sucks, that JBB relies on 3rd party tools for creating & updating Rosters, because it puts up a unnecessary hurdle for new players who are not familiar with blood bowl rulebooks. I said it before, coaches using default teams pick up JBB very very quickly via "learning by doing" but as soon as it comes to Rosters, people are lost.

Galak, seriously maybe you should think about the fact that my vocabulary is limited so that I am unable to paint my sentences in such different emotional shades you seem to read out of it.

ZanzerTem · Post by **ZanzerTem** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 5:53 am

Sorry Toby, but you are trying to fix something that isn't broken.

If someone has a question (like I did) about how to properly use Javabowl, the FUMBBL site, or anything else for that matter, they have many different outlets to get their problems answered. They can ask here on TBB, they can use the FUMBBL forums, or they can talk live to someone in the FUMBBL chatroom.

If someone has an issue, and does not take enough initiative to at least ATTEMPT to solve or research it, then they don't need to be using the JBB tool and should have their head examined. It irritates me to no end when people try to "over-simplify" things for the morons in this world. If they did that, the LRB would be a thousand pages long, and people would STILL have questions.

You say that JBB should not rely on 3rd party programs to accomplish things. IT IS A 3rd PARTY PROGRAM! Perhaps you should impliment JBB on your computer so you don't have to rely on the online version of it

I may be sounding like a major flower of an undescript sort right now, but I don't care. I just hate to see people requesting changes to something that isn't theirs. If you want to modify it, go right ahead (pending Ski's approval of course). Just don't ask the creator to change it just so you are happy. Take up the initiative and do it yourself. If you don't know how to do yourself, either learn or sit down and shut the hell up.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:57 am

Okay sorry Toby ... its just you came off sounding very demanding of the fact that it all doesn't work yet when bugs happen especially when two seperate projects try to collaborate.

And believe it or not, I was saying you had great bug finds ... just didn't like the way you expressed the fact that you found them.

Lately I've been updating the PBeM Tool and Ronald has been working on a more robust version of the HTML creator. So email the 3 of us like I said and we'll add it to the list to get the two programs in synch.

Galak

SkiJunkie · Post by **SkiJunkie** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 8:04 pm

1. Its really complicated to go to the "Results" directory and pick up your new team Roster. I wish JBB would simply overwrite the original one in the "Teams" directory and at the same time create a "Team Name.bak" file so you can restore your team to pre last game status if you really want to. I think once the bugs are gone that should be a very seldom action for a coach to do.

You'll have to live with that. Not everyone wants their roster updated. Some people don't want it updated using LRB rules. And in my opinion, it is very logical to have your updated roster show up in the "results" folder, at they are results from the game. Plus, you have to go to the results folder to see any of the other results files written for that particular game.
One day I may add an option to overwrite the existing roster but that pretty low on my list.

2. JBB deletes the Apothecary. If you load a teamroster created by the JBB team roster update function into the BPEM Team Creator, the Apothecary is not recognised. This is because JBB defines the Apothecary by "YES", and PBEM-TC by "1".

The next version of JBB will output a "1" or "0" for the apoth field.

3. JBB does NOT RECOGNIZE changed player characteristics. This is because BPEM-TC highlights changed characteristics BOLD (). The characteristic counts as being 0, and is invalid when a updated team roster is loaded into PBEM-TC.

Ronald might change the PBEM tool to have an option to leave out the BOLD tags. You should ask him nicely.

4. The Colors get reset all the time, same with custom Team Logos. This goes for both, JBB Update Team Roster and PBEM-TC. If this could be fixed, it would be nice.

It seems to me that once you take the jbb roster and load it into the PBEM tool, then resave the roster the colors go back to the PBEM tool colors.

5. Something is wrong with the Team Rating calcualtion if a JBB Updated Team Roster is loaded into PBEM-TC. I know JBB Update doesn't recalculate the team rating, but PBEM-TC does, and it does _wrong_ if JBB Update was used, for whatever reason.

You should research what JBB needs to do to have it work as I don't have the time. Take an JBB roster and manually edit it until the team rating is correct when loaded into the PBEM tool. Then let me know exactly what need to change. Keep in mind I cannot fully calculate the team rating as I don't store the reroll cost, but I can do some simple things like add winnings/1000k to the current team rating.

Ski, why not integrate a proper Team Management Module into JBB without using outside Tools like PBEM-TC. ?

Because I don't have the time. Creating a fully functional tool is not trivial. I do hope to one day make a team editor but most likely the first version would be very basic (slightly better than the team editor exe I have a link to on my website). I doubt you would be happy with that.

From time to time people offer to help me make one, but they always start out enthusiastically then disappear when they realize how much work is involved.
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Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 9:16 pm

SkiJunkie wrote: From time to time people offer to help me make one, but they always start out enthusiastically then disappear when they realize how much work is involved.

Ski,

Ronald and I are willing to help with this ... Ronald's team creator is pretty much got the goods in it ... so its just a matter of working together to iron out the bugs. If folks give it time and have patience then it will happen.

Galak

SkiJunkie · Post by **SkiJunkie** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:11 pm

Ronald and I are willing to help with this ... Ronald's team creator is pretty much got the goods in it ... so its just a matter of working together to iron out the bugs. If folks give it time and have patience then it will happen.

I agree. The PBEM-TC tool should just about cover it for everyone once we get the reading of each others stuff all worked out. Once that's all done I don't see the need to reinvent the wheel, especially when I have so much other stuff I want to get done.

Probably the only reasons to have a java TC would be to have one packaged with jbb that can run where ever jbb can run. But I think non-windows user are the minority, and a lot of the non-windows users I hear from are in FUMBBL anyway, which doesn't have a need. If I ever get around to making a java TC it will probably be quite basic. Just a means to add/delete players, skills, etc. without much intelligence involved. I'll leave that tough stuff to the PBEM-TC since it seems quite good and it is already there.

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 1:13 am

as soon as JBB is bundeled with the Team Creator and the both work together, the situation will indeed be very sadifactory.

While I understand that there are a lot of things to be done and more important, I imagine a version 10.xx that has a menu and the game starts with user options like "Play Game", "Watch Replay", "Create Team" "Update Team".

Ski, with so many people on this board and others I am surprised that JBB is still done by you alone. Aren't there more people who have the skill to help you? However, by all means keep up your superb efford everybody i showed JBB was amazed that this is done "as a hobby". Its really really good.