FOF MP Draft Utility
 

I've been working on updating J David Baker's FOF Conscriptor for the past year. It started as an attempt to resolve the reported chat server overload problems, and evolved into adding lots of cool new features and lately modifying it to handle the release of FOF7 to include the staff draft as well as adapting it to the Action PC Football game.

FOF7 Release: FOF7 Conscriptor v 2.7.1
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/WheelsVT/FOFConscriptor

Here is a list of some of the new features:
- Support for FOF7 player and staff drafts to include mock draft for players, and priority queues for staff that are "amenable aware".
(Currently under redesign, do not use for staff drafts yet)
- Support for FOF7 allocation drafts with random order and snake draft options.

- Multiple chat options, the original, admin specified embedded code, and an off-site 3rd party Flash-based chat. More on this below.
- Multiple email system options: sendmail, SMTP, and the original mail command which had reliability issues but still a fallback.
- Site admin can designate other GMs (and their own team) as draft admins which have all the rights as the site-admin except for setting up a new draft. This means they can select for other teams, change draft settings, pause/rollback, etc.
- GM names matched to team names and they can have profile links (ex: for a direct link to sending a PM) on selections page. GMs logged in and active in the utility also have an "(online)" indicator next to their name.
- GMs have the option to register their phone number (not visible to anyone else) to receive SMS text updates on their phone. The utility does this by sending an email to their provider's SMS gateway.
- Draft options have been updated to allow setting selection time limits for each round prior to the draft.
- Hidden attributes for players can be included in addition to popularity such as intelligence, loyalty, leadership, etc. Also added DOB to player detail with popup that suggests other birthdays that the player would have affinities with.
- League specific icon and link on top menu to tie utility to the league's main site
- Priority queue up/down/pause buttons in addition to drag-drop
- Separated admin email settings from overall draft email settings.
- Added "Force Pick" option so draft admins don't have to wait for time to expire and can force a team to select as if their time expired: off their list, scout, or BPA.

Special thanks to Yoda for volunteering the GEFL and GEFL2 for beta testing, to W24olfpack for install testing with the TFL, Ben for his troubleshooting assistance, and to others for their feedback. Without your help I wouldn't have had so many great ideas for improvements, or found the bugs to work out prior to this release.

Chat:

Some leagues, and I witnessed this happen, would have their host shutdown the whole site due to server resource utilization when chat was used. I have added a draft option to use either the original chat or switch the chat to a 3rd-party off-site flash version where the utility automatically creates the room if you're the first to enter.

Flash Advantages: no signing up for a service, users don't have to register, PMs work, admin can easily modify chat.html with a link the their site's current chat solution.
Flash Disadvantages: PMs disabled by default for unregistered usernames, Flash doesn't work in some situations like on smartphones.

The first disadvantage is mitigated by the first person in the room clicking "Options"-"Unregistered PMs", or by users registering their nicknames inside the chat.

Can we get some feedback from those who have used the new version? Any issues or quirks?

It works great. The only issue was the chat overloading the server, so Wheels put in a free chat that opens up in a separate window. I still think an integrated chat is possible- there are some php chat scripts out there I came across, was thinking about checking the server load on those and seeing about finding one that worked and adding it in.

But, it worked really well for the gefl and gefl2 draft.

We have it in tfl and it is great having the additions and is running smooth.

Nice work, Wheels. I will definitely use this for the next RNFL draft.

Thanks guys.

I could use some help in validating the SMS text message options. I unfortunately could only test AT&T. I used Wiki's definition of SMS gateways (List of SMS gateways - Wikipedia) to build this list of options, but some providers have multiple listings.

If you have one of the providers below send an email to the proper email address and PM me to let me know if you did or did not get a text message, or what you had to do to get one to work:

number = 10 digit phone number with no dashes no leading '1'
Confirmed [email protected] AT&T
[email protected] Nextel (Sprint)
Confirmed [email protected] Sprint (PCS)
[email protected] TMobile
[email protected] US Cellular
Confirmed [email protected] Verizon Wireless


edit: Also let me know if 1) I have one marked confirmed that doesn't work for you or 2) you have a carrier I should add to the list.

Really cool stuff, can't wait to see it in my leagues soon.

bighouserulez asked:

Wheels is there a way to show who is logged in the draft for the admins.
Example TFL has the "other" chat set up and i cannot tell who is logged in or is in the draft room at all.
I was not sure if we could add an asterisk or something along those lines next to teams that were logged on or signed in.

Since i am throwing ideas out there what about a link connected to the teams that directs to the team site when available.
So if TEN is on the clock and i wanna look at their roster i can click on the team name(or something else if we choose) to see who they have on the DB if available.

Good points. Yes, I'll see if I can put some indicator next to GMs that are logged into the utility.

Team roster - an easy one would be to add another user option for team roster link, but better would be to pull from the file needed to run the mock draft. I'll look into it.

I'm also going to add back in the old chat and give the site admin the option of setting chat as either the new flash version or the old php-database version. Along similar lines I'm looking into adding an option to use a 3rd party email solution for those servers that seem to backlog or not send email notifications.

Upon trying to do the initial setup.

CREATE TABLE 'team' ( ... )

Not sure if that's a cut&paste error but your example isn't closed.

Hey there Ben. I found the problem there and updated the file. You can redownload it, or just edit ./includes/mysql/install.sql and change the line from

`draft_admin` int(11) default '0';

to

`draft_admin` int(11) default '0',

Cool. That worked.

Oh, yeah! <--

In the IHOF draft, lots of folks are having trouble with the SMS options. They enter their number, pick the carrier, hit the button, and it resets those settings.

Conscriptor Is Up And On. ***EVERYONE MUST REGISTER*** - IHOF Forums

I should add an error message. The phone number must be without dashes and no leading '1' before the area code - a 10 digit number, or the utility will not accept it. I'll check the regular expression to make sure it's set correctly.

Example: phone number of 1-222-555-1234 would be 2225551234

Yes, it states that and we followed the instructions. It just resets to the default settings for whatever reason.

Great enhancements, btw, thank you!

Fixed it (thanks Dutch). The regex was marking some valid phone numbers as invalid - if you had a 0 or 1 for the second digit in your area code. It is now fixed in the version linked at the top of the page along with an added error message. You just need to replace options_set.php with the one in the zip file.

OR you can edit options_set.php line 54 and replace it with this line:

if (strlen($_POST['team_phone'])==10 && preg_match("/[2-9]{1}\d{9}/", $_POST['team_phone'])) {

but you wouldn't have the nice error message.


Edit: The link at the top of the page is updated as of 1/28 17:20

Version 1.7 Released:

-GMs that are logged on and active will have an "(online)" indicator next to their GM name on the selections page.

-Original chat added back in and admins given the option to select which chat system to use: original integrated or flash chat. This can be done on the fly mid-draft which will come in handy if the host has issues with the original chat and shuts down the server.

-New Email system options added. Site admins (the admin account) can select from sendmail, SMTP, or the original mail() command and adjust based on what is available on the host server. This should help situations where GMs did not get timely email notifications, if at all, under prior versions because the host could not process the mail() command quickly.

-Added button on draft settings to send a test email to make sure the selected email system will work.

Great work Wheels will be excited to try some of this out in my next draft.

I found a bug from the original code that the IHOF draft admins may have discovered. Draft Admins only see a blank queue for teams using the "Player Queue then Best At Position" option for their autopick. The code must not have been changed to handle that option when it was introduced. Working on a bug fix for 1.7 now.

If you are using a Conscriptor version prior to 1.7 including the original Conscriptor versions (1.2...) - I suggest letting teams know that if they use the "Player Queue then Best At Position" option autopick will still work, but admins can't see their list to help or select if needed.

One suggestion: can you set it so that the admin account has the option not to receive emails?

One option that might be helpful for the future is to add a notification feature that alerts you when your pick is X picks away. So let's say I want to know when my pick is 5 picks away and I have the 10th pick. When the 5th pick fires, I receive a notification.

That gives me a heads up that I need to the draft utility and be ready to pick.

Thanks for your work on this Wheels, as an iOS user, the UP/TOP buttons are a life saver. I am increasingly likely to only have device access during drafts, and that alone is worth TWICE THE PRICE OF THE LATEST UPGRADE.

Hatzoff.

Oh, and now that I've sucked up a bit...

Sorting columns - I know it's currently click to sort low-to-high, then click again to sort high-to-low. That's okay, but (especially when remote) it's a bit tedious -- especially when probably 2/3 (of course) of the sorts that I want to do are going to be high-to-low.


You be the judge if any of this meets the worth-the-bother test:

Could these be created as "smart" sorts? When I click on Dash or Agility, I am pretty much *always* interested in the low numbers, but on nearly everything else, I'm interested in the high numbers? Could each column-topper become a custom sort based on what the user is most likely to want there? (And possibly just reverse the sort on a second click?)

No idea how tough that would be to code, but I think it would be a nice improvement.

Failing that... maybe just reverse the default, and make a high-to-low the default sort? I'm looking at the player screen now, and the entire list of sorts where low-to-high seems most useful is: #, Volatility?, 40-time, and Agility. The list of things that seem to call for high to low is really long -- all the other combines, things like height and weight, and of course every single bar for every single position.

Version 1.7b - link updated

-Fixed bug where draft admins would not see queues for GMs with the "Player Queue and Best At Position" autopick option selected.

-Now allow draft admins to view GMs queues for their currently selected autopick method even if their autopick is currently off.

-Added option to allow site admins to turn email off for GMs and only receive rollback notifications. Email system can be completely disabled as well as of 1.7.

Enhancements under consideration:

-Intuitive sorting (I remember seeing Quicksand ask for this before ;) )

-Ability to request notification from X picks away in addition to on-the-clock

-View team rosters - doubtful. Not easily done without adding a lot more to the Utility database or linking it to DBupdater's tables.

Had a crazy idea for a new chat option. It's a user-defined option that lets you paste in the HTML code for your own chatroom. This works for services like addonchat.com and is running on my test server now.

Ditto. You rock.

It wasn't just with "Player Queue then Best At Position"(where it obviously has to be present), but I've noticed a lot of blanks in the "queue info" for teams with "autopick on" as checked. For some it shows "Scout pick", but in our current (just ended) draft in IHOF, I see 8 teams with a blank in "queue info", despite "autopick on" checked.

That's probably because their queues ran out.

Yeah, just checked it for the first team with that combo (BOR). Autopick is on, but they have no players in the queue.

Those would be awesome.

On the second one: once a team is on 0% clock, it becomes pointless for them to receive any "your pick is up" notifications, because that pick will already have fired. Coincidentally, X-picks away will have the same effect if a lot of people in between have autopick on.

rather than a blank, then shouldn't it show: queue is empty?

Is there any way to have the "has password" either:
* be visible further to the left?
* have an "off" setting highlight, in a way that the admins have some alarm bells visible or ringing to act toward said owner/team?

Btw, I'm pleased to see somebody picked up the project to improve and enhace. Thanks for that, WheelsVT!

This. Next time you'll see it's set to show queues, even empty ones.

Admins now have the ability to change the autopick option and build or modify queues for a team if needed. It also means Ben won't have to run a script to switch the autopick default pre-draft. :)

Yep. Every team now has a link to the queue that would be used even if it's empty.

Good point, but it at least has the potential to give more advanced warning if you weren't at 0% and/or guys in front are delaying. Perhaps you'd be around to start scrambling earlier when the guy 2 picks before you picks that key guy off your list.

I was just thinking about this too. The Users tab has a lot of info on it now. I think moving "has password", aka "is registered" to the far left would be good. We'll see if I can highlight it in some way for teams that aren't registered yet.

Thanks. I appreciate the encouragement. It feels good to know that I'm helping the community get more out of the game.. or drafts.

sigh, some bug fixes...

Version 1.7c

Fixed bug where SMTP password was being overwritten with ***** values when it was not changed. Introduced in 1.7.

Fixed bug where rollback would work correctly but generate an error to the admin running the rollback. Introduced in 1.7.

In the end, it's just a good idea for people to try to avoid getting penalized into a 0% setting. :D

I like that thinking, the far left sounds like a good idea. It's usually just for the early part of the drafts to make sure all are on board and to figure out which teams need to be take care of.

On a related note, what about putting the autopick checkbox and the queue info next to each other?

Ugh. Please don't move everything around in an interface that has worked fine for several dozen drafts.

I'm not suggesting a complete overhaul. I'm asking how easy it would be to put things back closer together like they were before the addition of the username and profile link text boxes.

While working on the "notification X picks away" and intuitive sorting updates I think they could take a little while. So here is version 1.8 because it has some good changes that should be released sooner.

- Added Chat Template option where admins can set the chat system to use their own embeded chat code from providers like sigmachat.com or addonchat.com.

- Moved "has password" on Users tab to far left and added highlights to those without a password to be more obvious that the team
has yet to register.

- Disabled GM notification options when the admin has turned email off so GMs understand when they can't elect to receive notifications.

- Added popup message when clicking on a players DOB that indicates what birthdays the player would have affinities with.

- Added option for draft admins to change autopick settings for a given team, and view and modify the associated GMs queue for their selected autopick setting. All of this even if the team's autopick is currently off.

ooh, i like that. can we take it one step further, and be able to enter in our position leaders' birthdays so we can see every potential pick that is either a conflict or an affinity?

Yes, but it will take some new DB tables whereas this was a quick add and at least helps a little there. I knew that question was coming though. :D It's "on the wishlist".