Yeah, Verge snuck in there, and it really shouldn't be. I didn't realize that was a one-of. Huh. Interesting.
Well, basically, I like charts. So I've got that going for me.
Secondly, I make a LOT of decks. Some are good, some are bad. Some are bad, but I want them to work, so I use better lands in worse decks to make them less bad. Some are already pretty good, so using worse lands is acceptable. I realize that's a bass-ackward way to do it, but there ya go.
Generally speaking, I want them by color, since most of my decks are two colors, so I can flip to the "green/blue" section and figure out what lands would work best in the deck. I don't want to organize by set, since that's what I'm moving away from. I've been playing long enough that cards get reprinted, and at the end of the day I don't care which version I'm using, I just want to find my lands.
Similarly, having them in a consistent order (even if it is highly arbitrary) just makes it easier to find things and/or remember if a particular land would be better for my deck. IE: I may want to trade/buy some more. And on that note, I can print off a chart (yay charts!) and keep it in my trade binder and go "Oh man I need some more green/blue versions of Glacial Fortress Hinterland Harbor"
[Edit] The image viewer popup sucks, here's a direct link.
All that said, I made a chart thingy. Maybe people will find it useful/interesting. I'd be interested to see what people think.
Note: I excluded some old dual lands that have more recent (more plentiful) versions, as well as some old dual lands that are unplayably bad.
Group into 3-4 "tiers"
> Tap Lands
> Misc Lands
> Fetch Lands
> True Duals
Obviously this isn't perfect, and could vary based on the land's colors, but generally speaking, CIPT is the weakest, CIPT with benefit comes next, then some misc lands, Fetch Lands, then the true dual lands, with both land types. I ended the list with the Shock Lands, and then the Alpha duals, since those are obviously the most powerful overall.
I'm re-sorting my cards and decided to put dual lands into their own binder to simplify deckbuilding. This includes un-typed duals; I'm not made of money.
Anyway, it got me thinking about how to organize them, besides color. I figured sorting by "power" would be a good starting point, but wasn't sure where to go from there. Then I got curious what others might think. So here I am.
How would you sort dual lands, after grouping by color?
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Casual Magic player since Onslaught. 70% TIMMY, 30% Johnny.
After reading that vehicles, if crewed, can pilot other vehicles, now I want to live the dream of playing several vehicles, each bigger than the previous, a Doomed Traveler and a board wipe, then use the spirit token to initiate a Gurren-Lagann-like chain and attack with a huge mechanical behemoth
No! No actual creatures allowed! It needs to be turtles all the way down! The chain must start with a Fleetwheel Cruiser that has just been flickered!
Gideon is beefy. The game needs iconic male eye-candy just as much as it needs female eye-candy. While I'm personally just as fond as Ajani as Gideon - I'm strongly in the minority there.
Haha! As much as I love how MTG has some awesome/badass female characters, I gotta agree with this. We could use a few more dudes in general, but I would like to see Elspeth come back and get over herself. From what I hear, she's rather "woe is me," kind of like Nissa is/was with her "the land is in pain" thing. I get why Nissa was like that, I think perhaps they over-did it a little. I'm hoping Kaladesh helps her get over it, because I really WANT to like her. Same with Elspeth..
FWIW, Chandra is my favorite, followed by Gideon. Pyromancers are just lots of fun, and Gideon is basically the Colossus/Wolverine, and I always liked those characters too.
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Holding a spark don't make you immune, as Glissa, probably the spark must be ignited for it to protect against the oil.
Pretty sure Glissa's spark was stolen by Memnarch's Plot Device Machine, but Slobbad got it instead of Memnarch. Then he gave it up to Dragon-Ball-Wish lots of people back to life? Something like that. Point is, Glissa's spark was used up, so she's not immune.
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... and out the other side of the experiment comes Emrakul? Too soon?
All roads lead to multiversal horrors beyond mortal comprehension. Magic is in permanent Lovecraft mode now.
Actually, I'm thinking that Kaladesh might become the plane that knows about Planeswalkers... Mom is still here, and I can't imagine Chandra NOT telling her. Guess we'll see where that goes. But with the teleporter and stuff, it seems pretty inevitable they'll figure SOMETHING out.
Oh snap. I just realized. This is a magepunk block. They've already got vehicles. They're going to make a spaceship. That means Space Pirates!
Just imagine in 5 years. Return to Kaladesh: Space Pirates.
Weatherlight 2.0 may just be a thing... I'm... not sure how I feel about that? It's kind of strange that the Ship idea was abandoned like 15 years ago, and yet it's very very possible that we could see them again some time in the next few years.
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It's a little interesting to me that the elf inventing the teleporter is GU. Not colours I would have expected of an artificer.
Actually, I kind of think it makes sense. Simic study the biology aspects of nature.
Rashmi, however, is studying the natural world itself. I could see the argument that astronauts and physicists are UG. This is basically that same idea, applied to a steampunk world.
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I'm a week late to the race this time, but I think the wait was worth it.
Lots things are starting to come together, and I think the overall program is still improving noticeably
I've grown weary of major changes for a while, so I instead focused on lots of little features I wanted to experiment with, or fix little things that irritated me. Of course, I then got 3/4 done and got busy with Life, and was slightly bewildered when I got back to work and had forgotten what I'd changed. I did quite a bit of debugging/testing, which is one reason this update is late.
Just run the Setup file and follow the Wizard, wheather you have a previous version or not!
Summary of New Features:
Changes
> Status bar shows before/after of every change to inventory
> "Enter" button triggers search again (somehow got removed during GUI update)
> Right-click the button-searches to select only that option
> Log events catalogued
> System Icons added
> Default search changed to Extended, rather than latest block
> Improved Data Import features (MOL 3)
> HTML Rules updated
>> File I/O events logged
>> Searches logged
>> Net Inventory changes logged
>> Log can be viewed by clicking the status bar text
>> Many more features to come
Database
> New Command category, or Planes, Archenemy, and Vanguard
> Debugged filters, everything should work properly now
> Search Expansion - searches larger group of sets if no result
> Search Loading Bar finally works
New Cards
> Added some new promo cards
> Scars of Mirrodin
>> Art
>> Watermarks
>> Tokens
Ideas
> Security settings, to lock changes or searching
> Wish List
> My Cards
> Trade List (+/-)
> Deck Categorization
Detailed Explanation
Log Events
I changed the status bar to announce the before/after of any inventory change you make. This means that every time you click an up/down arrow, the status bar summarizes the change, and compares the results with the file's saved data.
In addition, actual changes to the file are logged in the Event Log, which you can review by clicking on the status bar's text region.
All in all, distractions to your counting should be much less annoying!
Once I got the Log Event working, I started adding other things to the log.
File opening, creation, and saving are included, as well as a summary of each search executed. In the future, I'd like to allow clicking on a logged search to re-run that search, though there are some complications with that strategy right now.
The Status Bar
In addition to the Log Events, the Status Bar has been improved in a number of ways.
First of all, the loading bar finally works.
The current page/chapter/volume you are viewing is shown in the bottom right.
Two icons have been added to the bottom right. One is for accessing other Profile tools, but none of those work yet. The other is an option to lock your save file, which doesn't work yet either. See Plans for details.
Searching
Right-clicking on a search-button now does the same thing as double-clicking. I don't know if it's just me, but double-clicking was really picky about the timing.
Pushing the "Enter" button will now start a search. This used to work, but got disabled when I re-engineered the layout. Now it works again!
The Advanced Search sort options have been fixed, and should work properly now.
One other annoyance was forgetting to change the set or block I'm searching, and get an error because the card wasn't in that set. With that in mind, I added a "Scope Expansion" that will search the Extended and then the entire card pool if a result isn't found.
In other words, searching for "Darksteel Reactor" with the SET filter set to Scars of Mirrodin will still fetch your Darksteel Reactor. Best of all, the SET filter resets itself when the Scope Expansion is done, so you'll never have to change it back.
Menu Options
I found a nifty website called FamFamFam.com which has an absolute boatload of tiny system icons, all for free! I added many of them to the mostly-neglected Menu Options and ended up re-working the entire thing.
I also updated the Hyperlinked Comp Rules, via the ever-useful www.yawgatog.com/
This page is saved for offline viewing, under the TOOLS > COMP RULES entry.
Plans
There's only a few major things I haven't tried yet, and I'm convinced the next challenge will be the addition of a User Profile.
In addition to the obvious advantages of saving your display settings and default search, I've just recently thought of some other features.
Accessing other tools
I've thought long and hard about how to access other tools when everything is complete, and I finally decided on the Profile icon on the bottom right. From here, you will be able to open other inventory files, wish lists, trade lists, and generally manage your collection.
In addition, the deckbuilder toolkit will be available through the menu. Categorizing decks should help keep decks organized by set legality and/or theme.
Security: Lock your File
I added the lock icon because of an experience I had a while back. I've let people use my computer to try the program on occasion and never gave it much thought.
One time, however, someone was taking quite a while and I suddenly realized how much information they had access to, just within a single program. This person could have changed some data and I might never know. They could also look up money rares, and potentially learn about the value of my collection.
That's bad. The feeling suddenly made me very nervous, and since then I've only demonstrated the program, and never let strangers use it themselves.
On the other hand, this severely limits the usefulness of having an inventory program on a laptop. If the interface is intuitive enough, just about anyone should be able to use the program without conscious thought. If that's the case, just letting them drive for a moment would be easier than asking repeated questions.
When the Trade List feature is done, letting a stranger browse your trade list should give you a feeling of secruity, not unease!
All of these thoughts lead me to one conclusion: There should be a way to password-protect your save file from accidental or malicious changes. By clicking the LOCK icon, you will be able to protect your file in a number of ways, including:
Change Prevention - This would prevent changes to the save file (including opening/closing) until the file has been unlocked.
Search Lockdown - This would prevent any new searches from being executed, effectivley locking the guest to whatever view you have now.
Data Masking - This would prevent the guest from seeing any of your inventory. Basically, the program would be locked to view only blank save files. This could be useful for a demo, or for questions on card wording on a public-ish terminal.
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Casual Magic player since Onslaught. 70% TIMMY, 30% Johnny.
I can't give you shiny things today, but if you stick around a while that's exactly what I'm working on.
Between work and daily life it's kind of slow going, but I expect I'll reach some deck functionality sometime next spring, barring more unforeseen events than normal. >_>
I do have a collection manager, and if you want to use different save files for individual decks, I'll include a conversion utility when everything else is done.
Hopefully that was vaguely helpful...
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Casual Magic player since Onslaught. 70% TIMMY, 30% Johnny.
The first item of note is that you shouldn't have to uninstall any previous editions any more, since I found out how to use the version-upgrading feature. Just download the Zip file, open it, and run the "Setup.exe" file.
Note: I forgot to turn off my "debug" button, located at the top of the screen, with the text "!!"
I don't recommend you click it. All it does is show the data from the save file (the latest thing I was reviewing), but if you have a lengthy save file it will take a while to do anything.
Changes included in the 5.0 version:
> New sets included: Magic: 2011
> Re-engineered GUI engine, more robust and paving the way for future improvements
> Status Bar, located on the bottom of the screen, to display messages
> Search by Inventory has been debugged, and should work again. That somehow got messed up recently.
Next update: Shortly before or after FTV-Relics.
Expected features:
> Oracle wording update: My macro for updating the text bugged out, and I ran out of time to find out why, so I settled with just adding new M11 cards.
> More improvements to the GUI, hopefully including some new features, and actually getting some buggy features to work right, once and for all.
> FTV-R, and other minor sets released in recently that I haven't really finished with.
> Some way to deal with Archenemy cards.
5.0 Changes, in detail
GUI Changes: I know it looks like not much has changed in a while, but most of the improvements recently have been under-the-hood type things. With the plans I have for other features, I'll still need most of the functionality that exists now: search options, ways to display the cards, etc.
Rather than re-create everything from scratch, I've started converting everything that exists now into a "blueprint," which can then be used dozens of different places for dozens of different reasons. I'm sure I've used the blueprint metaphor before, but I didn't see it in a recent post, so whatever. Maybe that was an IRL conversation.
It's like the difference between a hand-made painting, and a paint-by-number, if you could somehow engineer the paint-by-number to look the same as the painting when it was done.
The Status Bar: This is something new that I've been meaning to add for a while. I wanted to give some sort of loading bar for long searches, so you could tell the program hadn't locked up.
Unfortunately, this didn't quite work, because the computer doesn't refresh the screen when it's working hard on something else (like the search), so it kind of sits there half-done. In theory, there's a way to make it update.
The other use for the status bar is for keeping track of Inventory changes. On several occasions, I've bumped the keyboard/mouse and been afraid I changed a number on accident. But how could I know for sure?
So I added a message to the status bar that tells you what's been changed, as well as some other messages on occasion.
This has the potential to evolve into a fairly robust log-system, where you can see the last several changes.
There might be a way to recall previous searches, create an Undo/Redo log, and other things like that.
Upcoming Changes: I think I'll change Planechase, Archenemy, and Vanguard cards to their own category of "Format" cards, since recently evidence shows WotC thinks new formats are the Best Thing Evar.
The database-connected Set filter has worked quite well, but I've grown frustrated by the "Recent Block" default setting.
I think I'll add "Standard Sets" and "Extended Sets" options, which would only show the appropriate sets, rather than every printing of the appropriate cards.
I'll then make Extended the default, which should be a nice balance of useful search volume, and reasonable startup/search time.
I'll try to make more of the Advanced Search features fully functional (sort by Card Type, in particular)
i've written to you before about this issue, but forgot to follow up on it. When i open the program, the number boxes for each card are missing, and the cards are kind of cut off. Here's a screenshot so you can see what i mean. Do you have any suggestions as to how to fix it? i'm dying to use this program to its fullest. Thanks in advance
Now that is really weird.
I've had some alignment issues, but never anything that serious.
I've been re-working the GUI on and off, and the next release will have a completely re-engineered layout system. That should fix the problem.
New release will be ready when 2011 comes out.
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Casual Magic player since Onslaught. 70% TIMMY, 30% Johnny.
Well, I didn't get all the upgrades I wanted to complete done, and my version of the program is only half-working because I've currently got the pieces scattered around my room (figurativley speaking), so I won't be able to release a full update right now.
I did get all the Rise of the Eldrazi changes done though, so I'm releasing a "Beta 4.3.5" update. This update is just the new art files and the updated database. No program changes for now.
I also purged the database log, which shrank the file size back to a minute 22 MB, rather than the 98 MB monstrosity the last update included.
To install the new updates, navigate to your "Card Tracker/Resources" folder (there's a menu option that opens it, but I forget where) and put all the files in their proper places.
It should be pretty straightforward, but there are 4 things to remember.
1) Planeswalkers have their own folder in the "Frames/Unique/Planeswalkers" folder
2) Unqiue frames (Eldrazi frames and Level Up creatures) go in the "Frames/Unique/ZEN" folder
3) All other card art goes in the "CardImages/ROE" folder; ROE being a new folder for Rise of Eldrazi
4) The database goes in the "Data" folder. It may be a good idea to keep your old database, just in case I goofed something. Just rename the old file or put it somewhere else (like a new folder) and replace it with the new database.
I tested as much as I could, and I haven't made any structural changes to the database so it should all be good. Having said that, it's late, I'm tired, and Homer no beer function well without.
Let me know if you have any trouble.
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Casual Magic player since Onslaught. 70% TIMMY, 30% Johnny.
Hey everyone, the Beta 4.3 update is complete, including Worldwake.
Unfortunatly I didn't have time to implememt (or really look in to) a better update procedure, so you will still have to uninstall your old version then reinstall the new one.
Again, no worries, the save files aren't effected by this process at all.
MAJOR CHANGES:
Worldwake
Gurrak vs Lilliana & Slivers
Lots of flavor text added (Zendikar - Onslaught complete, and I'm working my way back)
The default search is now "LATEST BLOCK" to vastly decrease the program's load time.
Various database tweaks and bug fixes
This is still my first draft of Worldwake, so there might be errors here and there in the card text, but nothing major. I plan to remove the Multikicker reminder text and add flavor text at the verry least. Let me know if you find anything and I'll fix it for the next release.
For that matter, I may include a WWK 'patch' with better-res WWK art files and an updated database in a week or two (after MC.info releases some scans).
This (tottally optional) update would simply be a database and art file, so no need to uninstall or reinstall; just replace the database.mdb file with the new one.
I never got around to completing the Garruk vs Liliana or Sliver records, so the art for those is missing. I changed the way foil/normal printings are handled to be more efficient, but I think some records were updated incorrectly in the database when I did so. Again, nothing major, just some cards will have a FOIL numeric box when they shouldn't. Let me know about any of these you find as well, and I'll add them to the WWK 'patch'
The update process was pretty smooth, with just a couple of minor problems, namely the fact that Gather output has changed slightly (in the background code) and now adds HTML line breaks throughout card text for some bizarre reason.
I had to figure out how to remove that weirdness and finally just removed all HTML 'BR' tags for the old-new comparison. Once I managed that I discovered a grand total of about four changes in all of Gather.
Piece 'O cake.
Other than that and some minor mistakes on my part (forgot to enter some info) it went perfectly. Less than 24 hours after Gather was updated I have a new up-to-date database, and even got a sane amount of sleep and went to the prerelease today.
Well, basically, I like charts. So I've got that going for me.
Secondly, I make a LOT of decks. Some are good, some are bad. Some are bad, but I want them to work, so I use better lands in worse decks to make them less bad. Some are already pretty good, so using worse lands is acceptable. I realize that's a bass-ackward way to do it, but there ya go.
Generally speaking, I want them by color, since most of my decks are two colors, so I can flip to the "green/blue" section and figure out what lands would work best in the deck. I don't want to organize by set, since that's what I'm moving away from. I've been playing long enough that cards get reprinted, and at the end of the day I don't care which version I'm using, I just want to find my lands.
Similarly, having them in a consistent order (even if it is highly arbitrary) just makes it easier to find things and/or remember if a particular land would be better for my deck. IE: I may want to trade/buy some more. And on that note, I can print off a chart (yay charts!) and keep it in my trade binder and go "Oh man I need some more
green/blue versions of Glacial FortressHinterland Harbor"[Edit] The image viewer popup sucks, here's a direct link.
All that said, I made a chart thingy. Maybe people will find it useful/interesting. I'd be interested to see what people think.
Note: I excluded some old dual lands that have more recent (more plentiful) versions, as well as some old dual lands that are unplayably bad.
Group into 3-4 "tiers"
> Tap Lands
> Misc Lands
> Fetch Lands
> True Duals
Obviously this isn't perfect, and could vary based on the land's colors, but generally speaking, CIPT is the weakest, CIPT with benefit comes next, then some misc lands, Fetch Lands, then the true dual lands, with both land types. I ended the list with the Shock Lands, and then the Alpha duals, since those are obviously the most powerful overall.
Tap Lands
Generics - Meandering River
Guildgates - Azorius Guildgate
Zendikar Refuge - Sejiri Refuge
Generic Gain Life - Tranquil Cove
Tribe Lands - Wanderwine Hub
Scry Lands - Temple of Enlightenment
Reveal-From-Hand - Port Town
Fast Lands - Seachrome Coast
Already-Control - Glacial Fortress
Man-Land - Celestial Colonnade
Misc Lands
Reverse Lands - Nimbus Maze
Pain Lands - Adarkar Wastes
Filter Lands - Mystic Gate
Fetch Lands
Double Fetches - Krosan Verge
Slow Fetches - Flood Plain
Good Fetches - Flooded Strand
Dual Lands
Cycle - Irrigated Farmland
Slow Lands - Prairie Stream
Shock Lands - Hallowed Fountain
Alpha Duals - Tundra
I'm re-sorting my cards and decided to put dual lands into their own binder to simplify deckbuilding. This includes un-typed duals; I'm not made of money.
Anyway, it got me thinking about how to organize them, besides color. I figured sorting by "power" would be a good starting point, but wasn't sure where to go from there. Then I got curious what others might think. So here I am.
How would you sort dual lands, after grouping by color?
Would Ensouled Scimitar or Haunted Plate Mail work?
OMG, equipment on vehicles!
Haha! As much as I love how MTG has some awesome/badass female characters, I gotta agree with this. We could use a few more dudes in general, but I would like to see Elspeth come back and get over herself. From what I hear, she's rather "woe is me," kind of like Nissa is/was with her "the land is in pain" thing. I get why Nissa was like that, I think perhaps they over-did it a little. I'm hoping Kaladesh helps her get over it, because I really WANT to like her. Same with Elspeth..
FWIW, Chandra is my favorite, followed by Gideon. Pyromancers are just lots of fun, and Gideon is basically the Colossus/Wolverine, and I always liked those characters too.
Pretty sure Glissa's spark was stolen by Memnarch's Plot Device Machine, but Slobbad got it instead of Memnarch. Then he gave it up to Dragon-Ball-Wish lots of people back to life? Something like that. Point is, Glissa's spark was used up, so she's not immune.
Actually, I'm thinking that Kaladesh might become the plane that knows about Planeswalkers... Mom is still here, and I can't imagine Chandra NOT telling her. Guess we'll see where that goes. But with the teleporter and stuff, it seems pretty inevitable they'll figure SOMETHING out.
Oh snap. I just realized. This is a magepunk block. They've already got vehicles. They're going to make a spaceship. That means Space Pirates!
Just imagine in 5 years. Return to Kaladesh: Space Pirates.
Weatherlight 2.0 may just be a thing... I'm... not sure how I feel about that? It's kind of strange that the Ship idea was abandoned like 15 years ago, and yet it's very very possible that we could see them again some time in the next few years.
Actually, I kind of think it makes sense. Simic study the biology aspects of nature.
Rashmi, however, is studying the natural world itself. I could see the argument that astronauts and physicists are UG. This is basically that same idea, applied to a steampunk world.
I'm a week late to the race this time, but I think the wait was worth it.
Lots things are starting to come together, and I think the overall program is still improving noticeably
I've grown weary of major changes for a while, so I instead focused on lots of little features I wanted to experiment with, or fix little things that irritated me. Of course, I then got 3/4 done and got busy with Life, and was slightly bewildered when I got back to work and had forgotten what I'd changed. I did quite a bit of debugging/testing, which is one reason this update is late.
Card Tracker (Beta 5.1) Download
Just run the Setup file and follow the Wizard, wheather you have a previous version or not!
Summary of New Features:
Changes
> Status bar shows before/after of every change to inventory
> "Enter" button triggers search again (somehow got removed during GUI update)
> Right-click the button-searches to select only that option
> Log events catalogued
> System Icons added
> Default search changed to Extended, rather than latest block
> Improved Data Import features (MOL 3)
> HTML Rules updated
>> File I/O events logged
>> Searches logged
>> Net Inventory changes logged
>> Log can be viewed by clicking the status bar text
>> Many more features to come
Database
> New Command category, or Planes, Archenemy, and Vanguard
> Debugged filters, everything should work properly now
> Search Expansion - searches larger group of sets if no result
> Search Loading Bar finally works
New Cards
> Added some new promo cards
> Scars of Mirrodin
>> Art
>> Watermarks
>> Tokens
Ideas
> Security settings, to lock changes or searching
> Wish List
> My Cards
> Trade List (+/-)
> Deck Categorization
Detailed Explanation
Log Events
I changed the status bar to announce the before/after of any inventory change you make. This means that every time you click an up/down arrow, the status bar summarizes the change, and compares the results with the file's saved data.
In addition, actual changes to the file are logged in the Event Log, which you can review by clicking on the status bar's text region.
All in all, distractions to your counting should be much less annoying!
Once I got the Log Event working, I started adding other things to the log.
File opening, creation, and saving are included, as well as a summary of each search executed. In the future, I'd like to allow clicking on a logged search to re-run that search, though there are some complications with that strategy right now.
The Status Bar
In addition to the Log Events, the Status Bar has been improved in a number of ways.
First of all, the loading bar finally works.
The current page/chapter/volume you are viewing is shown in the bottom right.
Two icons have been added to the bottom right. One is for accessing other Profile tools, but none of those work yet. The other is an option to lock your save file, which doesn't work yet either. See Plans for details.
Searching
Right-clicking on a search-button now does the same thing as double-clicking. I don't know if it's just me, but double-clicking was really picky about the timing.
Pushing the "Enter" button will now start a search. This used to work, but got disabled when I re-engineered the layout. Now it works again!
The Advanced Search sort options have been fixed, and should work properly now.
One other annoyance was forgetting to change the set or block I'm searching, and get an error because the card wasn't in that set. With that in mind, I added a "Scope Expansion" that will search the Extended and then the entire card pool if a result isn't found.
In other words, searching for "Darksteel Reactor" with the SET filter set to Scars of Mirrodin will still fetch your Darksteel Reactor. Best of all, the SET filter resets itself when the Scope Expansion is done, so you'll never have to change it back.
Menu Options
I found a nifty website called FamFamFam.com which has an absolute boatload of tiny system icons, all for free! I added many of them to the mostly-neglected Menu Options and ended up re-working the entire thing.
I also updated the Hyperlinked Comp Rules, via the ever-useful www.yawgatog.com/
This page is saved for offline viewing, under the TOOLS > COMP RULES entry.
Plans
There's only a few major things I haven't tried yet, and I'm convinced the next challenge will be the addition of a User Profile.
In addition to the obvious advantages of saving your display settings and default search, I've just recently thought of some other features.
Accessing other tools
I've thought long and hard about how to access other tools when everything is complete, and I finally decided on the Profile icon on the bottom right. From here, you will be able to open other inventory files, wish lists, trade lists, and generally manage your collection.
In addition, the deckbuilder toolkit will be available through the menu. Categorizing decks should help keep decks organized by set legality and/or theme.
Security: Lock your File
I added the lock icon because of an experience I had a while back. I've let people use my computer to try the program on occasion and never gave it much thought.
One time, however, someone was taking quite a while and I suddenly realized how much information they had access to, just within a single program. This person could have changed some data and I might never know. They could also look up money rares, and potentially learn about the value of my collection.
That's bad. The feeling suddenly made me very nervous, and since then I've only demonstrated the program, and never let strangers use it themselves.
On the other hand, this severely limits the usefulness of having an inventory program on a laptop. If the interface is intuitive enough, just about anyone should be able to use the program without conscious thought. If that's the case, just letting them drive for a moment would be easier than asking repeated questions.
When the Trade List feature is done, letting a stranger browse your trade list should give you a feeling of secruity, not unease!
All of these thoughts lead me to one conclusion: There should be a way to password-protect your save file from accidental or malicious changes. By clicking the LOCK icon, you will be able to protect your file in a number of ways, including:
Between work and daily life it's kind of slow going, but I expect I'll reach some deck functionality sometime next spring, barring more unforeseen events than normal. >_>
I do have a collection manager, and if you want to use different save files for individual decks, I'll include a conversion utility when everything else is done.
Hopefully that was vaguely helpful...
Hi everyone! As the giant text above proclaims, Beta 5.0 is ready for download.
The first item of note is that you shouldn't have to uninstall any previous editions any more, since I found out how to use the version-upgrading feature. Just download the Zip file, open it, and run the "Setup.exe" file.
Note: I forgot to turn off my "debug" button, located at the top of the screen, with the text "!!"
I don't recommend you click it. All it does is show the data from the save file (the latest thing I was reviewing), but if you have a lengthy save file it will take a while to do anything.
Changes included in the 5.0 version:
> New sets included: Magic: 2011
> Re-engineered GUI engine, more robust and paving the way for future improvements
> Status Bar, located on the bottom of the screen, to display messages
> Search by Inventory has been debugged, and should work again. That somehow got messed up recently.
Next update: Shortly before or after FTV-Relics.
Expected features:
> Oracle wording update: My macro for updating the text bugged out, and I ran out of time to find out why, so I settled with just adding new M11 cards.
> More improvements to the GUI, hopefully including some new features, and actually getting some buggy features to work right, once and for all.
> FTV-R, and other minor sets released in recently that I haven't really finished with.
> Some way to deal with Archenemy cards.
5.0 Changes, in detail
GUI Changes: I know it looks like not much has changed in a while, but most of the improvements recently have been under-the-hood type things. With the plans I have for other features, I'll still need most of the functionality that exists now: search options, ways to display the cards, etc.
Rather than re-create everything from scratch, I've started converting everything that exists now into a "blueprint," which can then be used dozens of different places for dozens of different reasons. I'm sure I've used the blueprint metaphor before, but I didn't see it in a recent post, so whatever. Maybe that was an IRL conversation.
It's like the difference between a hand-made painting, and a paint-by-number, if you could somehow engineer the paint-by-number to look the same as the painting when it was done.
The Status Bar: This is something new that I've been meaning to add for a while. I wanted to give some sort of loading bar for long searches, so you could tell the program hadn't locked up.
Unfortunately, this didn't quite work, because the computer doesn't refresh the screen when it's working hard on something else (like the search), so it kind of sits there half-done. In theory, there's a way to make it update.
The other use for the status bar is for keeping track of Inventory changes. On several occasions, I've bumped the keyboard/mouse and been afraid I changed a number on accident. But how could I know for sure?
So I added a message to the status bar that tells you what's been changed, as well as some other messages on occasion.
This has the potential to evolve into a fairly robust log-system, where you can see the last several changes.
There might be a way to recall previous searches, create an Undo/Redo log, and other things like that.
Upcoming Changes: I think I'll change Planechase, Archenemy, and Vanguard cards to their own category of "Format" cards, since recently evidence shows WotC thinks new formats are the Best Thing Evar.
The database-connected Set filter has worked quite well, but I've grown frustrated by the "Recent Block" default setting.
I think I'll add "Standard Sets" and "Extended Sets" options, which would only show the appropriate sets, rather than every printing of the appropriate cards.
I'll then make Extended the default, which should be a nice balance of useful search volume, and reasonable startup/search time.
I'll try to make more of the Advanced Search features fully functional (sort by Card Type, in particular)
Now that is really weird.
I've had some alignment issues, but never anything that serious.
I've been re-working the GUI on and off, and the next release will have a completely re-engineered layout system. That should fix the problem.
New release will be ready when 2011 comes out.
I did get all the Rise of the Eldrazi changes done though, so I'm releasing a "Beta 4.3.5" update. This update is just the new art files and the updated database. No program changes for now.
I also purged the database log, which shrank the file size back to a minute 22 MB, rather than the 98 MB monstrosity the last update included.
Download Link
To install the new updates, navigate to your "Card Tracker/Resources" folder (there's a menu option that opens it, but I forget where) and put all the files in their proper places.
It should be pretty straightforward, but there are 4 things to remember.
1) Planeswalkers have their own folder in the "Frames/Unique/Planeswalkers" folder
2) Unqiue frames (Eldrazi frames and Level Up creatures) go in the "Frames/Unique/ZEN" folder
3) All other card art goes in the "CardImages/ROE" folder; ROE being a new folder for Rise of Eldrazi
4) The database goes in the "Data" folder. It may be a good idea to keep your old database, just in case I goofed something. Just rename the old file or put it somewhere else (like a new folder) and replace it with the new database.
I tested as much as I could, and I haven't made any structural changes to the database so it should all be good. Having said that, it's late, I'm tired, and Homer no beer function well without.
Let me know if you have any trouble.
Hey everyone, the Beta 4.3 update is complete, including Worldwake.
Unfortunatly I didn't have time to implememt (or really look in to) a better update procedure, so you will still have to uninstall your old version then reinstall the new one.
Again, no worries, the save files aren't effected by this process at all.
MAJOR CHANGES:
Worldwake
Gurrak vs Lilliana & Slivers
Lots of flavor text added (Zendikar - Onslaught complete, and I'm working my way back)
The default search is now "LATEST BLOCK" to vastly decrease the program's load time.
Various database tweaks and bug fixes
This is still my first draft of Worldwake, so there might be errors here and there in the card text, but nothing major. I plan to remove the Multikicker reminder text and add flavor text at the verry least. Let me know if you find anything and I'll fix it for the next release.
For that matter, I may include a WWK 'patch' with better-res WWK art files and an updated database in a week or two (after MC.info releases some scans).
This (tottally optional) update would simply be a database and art file, so no need to uninstall or reinstall; just replace the database.mdb file with the new one.
I never got around to completing the Garruk vs Liliana or Sliver records, so the art for those is missing. I changed the way foil/normal printings are handled to be more efficient, but I think some records were updated incorrectly in the database when I did so. Again, nothing major, just some cards will have a FOIL numeric box when they shouldn't. Let me know about any of these you find as well, and I'll add them to the WWK 'patch'
The update process was pretty smooth, with just a couple of minor problems, namely the fact that Gather output has changed slightly (in the background code) and now adds HTML line breaks throughout card text for some bizarre reason.
I had to figure out how to remove that weirdness and finally just removed all HTML 'BR' tags for the old-new comparison. Once I managed that I discovered a grand total of about four changes in all of Gather.
Piece 'O cake.
Other than that and some minor mistakes on my part (forgot to enter some info) it went perfectly. Less than 24 hours after Gather was updated I have a new up-to-date database, and even got a sane amount of sleep and went to the prerelease today.
Have a great February everyone!