15-12-2008 19:53

NickE

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Is it [fairly] easily modified for other games?

15-12-2008 19:58

Akash Rastogi

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

The type of data you guys are gathering is spot on. So clearly you guys do know what to scout for. Once you know that, it is easy to adapt and format of scouting to a new game. btw i like the GUI

15-12-2008 21:01

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Yeah, I could probably change it to the new game pretty quick once I know what we need to scout for. When I finish all the basic functionality (hopefully within the next week) I'll upload it to my team's web site with the source code. It's a fairly simple app.

Later on, I want to make it show pictures of the robots and maybe analyze the data and rank them to the different categories.

I imagine this would be a really good use for a netbook.

15-12-2008 21:14

Billfred

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

I like this concept of being able to store the data locally to offload later. With wifi likely to be unavailable (and wired networking tricky in the stands), the idea of being able to run six distinct laptops and merge later (at the end of the day or right before alliance selections) seems like the best approach. I'd be interested to see how this works in practice.

15-12-2008 21:23

alectronic

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

i would love to see a copy of that code when its ready. it looks like a really cool idea. for a while the Titans (492) have set-up a wireless ntwrk in the stands and had 6-8 scouts all connected around the same area to dump data in, then one computer captures it all for reports. it seems to work fine, but the usability and visual sides have never turned out too good.

15-12-2008 22:27

R.C.

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

BTW, will be uploaded and the source code will be available to download @ www.team1323.com: Resources/programming/C/C++. I like the GUI too.

15-12-2008 22:55

daltore

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Perty. Really nice, looks like it'll make scouting soooo much easier (this coming from a team that didn't really set aside any people/time to scout at all last year and ended up with an alliance we didn't really fit in). Thanks for the hard work!

A couple of questions:

-Is the merging standardized already (standard file locations based on particular OS's which can be automatically cross loaded through a serial connection)? Don't worry too much about that kind of support, flash drives are awesome and shell/batch scripts are easy, I'm just curious.

-Are the two viewer windows children of the main window (with the logo)? i.e. if you minimize or X out of the main window, do the other two go away also?

-The "export" button, what does it export to? Excel, PDF, text document? What are the individual team records stored as?

-If activated from the command line, is it possible to route some kind of output through an external command?

15-12-2008 23:49

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

I was planning on having a directory (set in Preferences) with one small file per team and when you load a team it just searches for the file in that directory with that team number as the title. Therefore if you just combine all the directories (transferring with a flash drive) it will be able to read them all.

Yes when you close the main window it destroys all objects including the other windows and exits the program.

Currently, the export button does nothing. Exporting as a text document would probably be easy to implement but if I can figure out how to do it as an excel spreadsheet I would do that instead.

I could add that kind of functionality if you have any specific ideas.

16-12-2008 02:15

Vikesrock

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

So if multiple people on different machines have collected data on a single team can it be merged into one file?

16-12-2008 03:27

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

I hadn't thought about that. What would it do when merging? Find the average of the data?

16-12-2008 14:45

Vikesrock

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

What does it do now when one person collects multiple sets of data on the same team? Or is it only made to scout each team once?

16-12-2008 15:47

daltore

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

For every match in which you collect data for a specific team, does the program create another instance of data in the team's file? If so, then merging two files of the same team could just add all of the different instances into the one merged file (any instances of the same match would just take one of them, possibly the one with the longer comment, or combine comments, etc.) To make this easier, it would probably help to add in a "Match #" field. For data submission, you type in the match number, and for data recollection, you could have a drop-down menu with all of the available matches for that team as well as one of all of the averages and/or totals. Sorry if I'm making this harder, but that would probably provide the largest amount of useful data over the course of the game, because you could see their cumulative results, average results, and improvement.

16-12-2008 15:47

EricH

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

I wouldn't do that when merging. There are good reasons that you'd want the data separate (say, finding a team that had a "Nirvana moment" late on Friday). You could, however, [theory] have an Excel sheet with a separate tab for each team or group of teams and have the merge put the data on separate lines.[/theory] Then you do whatever you like with the data.

[Edit] See daltore's response for a clearer description. It will be harder. It will be worth it.

16-12-2008 18:58

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Currently it overwrites the previous data.

Good idea, I'll do that. It'll be a fun challenge.

Don't be sorry I like the challenge. Like I said I want this to be as useful as I can make it. Detailed analysis is actually my long term goal. For now, I'm going to finish the functionality pictured and release that on my team web site in a day or two. Then I'll start adding the more complicated features. Hopefully those will be done in a few weeks.

Right now when you select "Save" the program creates a file titled with the team number (without an extension) and when you click load it looks for the file with that team number for a name. For multiple matches I could add the match number field next to the team number field and when it saves it could name it "teamnumber_matchnumber".

16-12-2008 23:14

synth3tk

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

This looks to be a really awesome program! I like that it's not a niche-app, so that makes it even more useful for teams like mine, where there are a good amount of members that run Linux, along with the Windows users.

17-12-2008 01:26

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

I'd like to upload what I have so far but the cross platform library is like 60 megs and I want to find a way to make it smaller first.

17-12-2008 01:36

Bomberofdoom

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Hmm.
I'm making something like that too for my team (or other israeli teams).
I have a bit of a problem cotrolling the Dialog Window's properties (say, of a combo-box), and I'm thinking of trying to use a text file to "encrypt" (save) and "decrypt" (load) info from and to the scouting application, becuase I haven't found any other easier way to do that.
Plus, I had to make a manual (and too simple [as in, not too effective]) File Manager to open and save the text file.

Hopefully I'll get the property problem figured out soon so I can release it working and get some feedback.

17-12-2008 01:47

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

What API or toolkit are you using? What you are trying to do is actually extremely simple in Qt but not so simple in others. All I did was save the index numbers of the combo-boxes to a file and then read them back and re
set the index parameters to the retrieved values. Also I would avoid generic text files for storing data. You might be working harder than you have to.

17-12-2008 02:36

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

I uploaded what I have so far. It's Windows only because I don't have access to another OS at the moment.

http://rapidshare.com/files/17414191...couter_0.1.zip

I have not yet implemented the export button so it does nothing and the preferences are empty so ignore those.
I would like as many people as possible to play with this and reply.

If anything is not working properly or as expected please let me know.

17-12-2008 03:20

synth3tk

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Will do, chief! I'm excited, as this seems to be one of the best systems available so far.

17-12-2008 04:24

R.C.

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

We are looking forward to have a completed scouting app that teams can use. So could everyone please download this and test it. Congrats Joey on the Alpha Build. Do you guys want a different mirror?

17-12-2008 04:29

synth3tk

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

If you'd like, and with your permission, we can also mirror the program on our site.

17-12-2008 04:51

R.C.

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

If you would like, when we come out with our final version you can mirror it. The reason i wanted to mirror it right now was the fact that rapidshare only offers 1 download per every 1.5 or so per user. But for sure when we come out with the final version you can mirror if you like. Thanks for the help, testers are needed!

17-12-2008 16:31

Bomberofdoom

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Fixed the property problem. Apparently, you have to click on a specific location on the dialog window near the combo-box in order to set the hieght of the combo-box when opened.

I'm currently working in pure API, win32.

About the generic text files, I can handel doing what you said about indexing for any checkbox, combo-box, list or radio button, but I have to copy the text from edit boxes. Shouldn't be too hard to set it. The problem will be if I have to add new items into the application after release and then I'll have to remember to set a certain value to save the info about that new item.

Expect a release on Friday/Saturday.

17-12-2008 17:12

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

I was right, you are working harder than you have to. I use to use the windows API but (in my opinion) it over-complicates things and holds you back. I would recommend learning Qt or wxWidgets, both are great. Good luck on your program.

17-12-2008 18:15

NickE

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Another feature that would be appreciated would be to have it ask to make sure you saved the data before exiting the data entry window.

17-12-2008 18:28

comwiz7

Re: pic: Cross Platform Scouting App

Yeah I'll definitely add that.