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.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Casual Magic player since Onslaught. 70% TIMMY, 30% Johnny.
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
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.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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 don't know if this has been addressed previously, as i didn't see it posted. I had an error pop up when trying to install: "This version of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is not supported for the current processor architecture."
I believe this is an issue with 64 bit OS but what do i know. If there is a fix i would love to hear it.
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.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Casual Magic player since Onslaught. 70% TIMMY, 30% Johnny.
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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.
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.
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)
I believe this is an issue with 64 bit OS but what do i know. If there is a fix i would love to hear it.
NVM found a post on the other forum.
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: