FOF MP Draft Utility

[Ben E Lou]

Thanks for the email updates, but I think you might have misunderstood what I'm asking for, so let me walk through the scenario:

I'm the commish, so my email address is in the main admin screen. The portion of the text there that I've bolded below pretty much explains my issue, actually:

Enter an e-mail address to receive notification of each pick. This address will also be the address that the notifications are sent from, so you must have an address here

As things are now, in order to allow league members to get emails on every pick, *I* also must get emails on every...single....pick. I'd like league members to have the option to get every pick, or just when they're on the clock, but for me to receive no emails as admin. If I want emails, I should be able to log in as my team and get them there. I could put a fake email address in the admin box, but I'd be concerned about the emails not being received due to spam blocking. Plus, I want the league members to have my real address in case they need to email me about something during the draft. Does that make sense?

[dzilla77]

Problem with the BFL draft priority list:

When I try to do a quick add I get the following error in Firefox:
The page isn't redirecting properly
Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

When I try with IE, the page just redirects to the selections page.

In both cases, the player is NOT added to the priority list.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Thanks for the email updates, but I think you might have misunderstood what I'm asking for, so let me walk through the scenario:

I'm the commish, so my email address is in the main admin screen. The portion of the text there that I've bolded below pretty much explains my issue, actually:
As things are now, in order to allow league members to get emails on every pick, *I* also must get emails on every...single....pick. I'd like league members to have the option to get every pick, or just when they're on the clock, but for me to receive no emails as admin. If I want emails, I should be able to log in as my team and get them there. I could put a fake email address in the admin box, but I'd be concerned about the emails not being received due to spam blocking. Plus, I want the league members to have my real address in case they need to email me about something during the draft. Does that make sense?

Thanks Ben. I understand. I'll get that in there.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by dzilla77

Problem with the BFL draft priority list:

When I try to do a quick add I get the following error in Firefox:
The page isn't redirecting properly
Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

When I try with IE, the page just redirects to the selections page.

In both cases, the player is NOT added to the priority list.

That's odd. Quick add in the latest revision works fine on the test site. Actually, it works but seems a little hokie like it wants to add the first one I highlight. I'll walk through the code and see if anything stands out. In the meantime you could always find the guy in the player list and add him from there.

[WheelsVT]

Ok, the quick add is annoying me and currently it's the only way for draft admins to build lists for teams that need help. There should be a better way. I'll work on it.

[dzilla77]

Another problem with the priority list, I went in to look at a player's info from the priority list and when I backed out to the list using the back button the order had changed. Had about 30 players in the list, that I need to re-sort.

[dzilla77]

More issues to report with the priority list - players are not being removed from the list when picked.

[WheelsVT]

Thanks dzilla77. Are these with your priority list or when trying to use another team's list as a draft admin?

Edit: I just tried selecting players as both a GM and draft admin and they were removed from all queues. Can you PM me specifics on how to replicate the problem?

[dzilla77]

I sent you a PM, but multiple owners in the BFL are reporting that selected players are not being removed from their priority queues. Also, we had an autopick that did not fire for an owner (time was set to 5 mins). I suspect the second issue is related to the first.

Here is the conscriptor link
BFL Front Office Football Conscriptor version 1.8

[WheelsVT]

Sorry to hear that. It's been a busy few days for me at work, but I'll look at it late tonight when I get home.

[WheelsVT]

BFL is using the latest version so I went through changes between 1.7c and 1.8. Based on the error BFL is now seeing when trying to just bring up conscriptor the issue is definitely in the functions.inc.php file which handles the sending of email and removing from queues.

I believe the problem was with how I was starting to try to implement the "X picks away" notifications. The new SQL query there was probably causing issues. I removed this code and have changed the link to the new file.

Download that zip and overwrite the files and this should be resolved. Keep me posted, and my apologies to the BFL.

[WheelsVT]

I went ahead and posted the latest 1.8.1 which allows site admins to set email preferences independent of GM email settings as Ben described above (ex: off for the admin while GMs can elect to get everything).

Ben graciously helped me track down some email bugs that will be patched soon, but here they are and the workarounds until I get a chance this weekend to put in the patches:

1) Rollback will throw an error for trying to send an email to a blank email address if a GM somehow stores a blank email address in the database. I'm investigating how that happens.

2) Setting Chat disabled forces email disabled and causes lots of issues. So set chat to "user defined embed code" and leave the code textbox blank for now if you don't want chat.

3) Using the "mail()" email system and minimal email settings will cause an error to be thrown if it tries to send an email to nobody. Safe to ignore for now. You should use sendmail() if possible.

4) GM Options shows an invalid phone number message even when you're not setting the phone number. Annoying.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by WheelsVT

I went ahead and posted the latest 1.8.1 which allows site admins to set email preferences independent of GM email settings as Ben described above (ex: off for the admin while GMs can elect to get everything).

Ben graciously helped me track down some email bugs that will be patched soon, but here they are and the workarounds until I get a chance this weekend to put in the patches:

1) Rollback will throw an error for trying to send an email to a blank email address if a GM somehow stores a blank email address in the database. I'm investigating how that happens. - Likely occurred in the draft admin user tab where regex testing was not set.

2) Setting Chat disabled forces email disabled and causes lots of issues. So set chat to "user defined embed code" and leave the code textbox blank for now if you don't want chat.

3) Using the "mail()" email system and minimal email settings will cause an error to be thrown if it tries to send an email to nobody. Safe to ignore for now. You should use sendmail() if possible.

4) GM Options shows an invalid phone number message even when you're not setting the phone number. Annoying.

These are now patched in v1.8.2 which I just posted at the top of this thread.

[aston217]

Wheels I know there's a lot on your plate but I'm curious, how is the mobile support on the current new draft util? I checked out the old one on my new android phone and it seems...lacking.

Is it just a matter of a separate mobile stylesheet needed here?

[WheelsVT]

Mobile support: The priority queue now has buttons so it can be used with a smartphone like iOS where the drag & drop doesn't work. Otherwise there hasn't been any effort to create a mobile stylesheet yet.

[WheelsVT]

Updated to v1.8.3.

- Added private_chat.html for the built-in chat which was missing for some reason.
- Added extra error checking to prevent the issue of mail() erroring when sending a blank email.

[RedKingGold]

CCFL is using 1.8.3, but players are still not coming off the queue list after being drafted.

[WheelsVT]

Yes, I'm in touch with Ben. It's likely due to email erroring out where Ben had reset email addresses to "" instead of NULL in the database at the start of the draft. I believe he's now set those blanks to NULL and you should be ok. I'll be standing by.

Sigh. I did find an issue for drafts using the infamous mail() email setting this evening. So I've uploaded a patch, 1.8.4. If you're not using mail() then this won't effect you.

[PackerFanatic]

I intend to download this at some point this week and the RNFL will be using it very soon for our next draft. I will let you know if we run into any issues! Very excited to try it out

[aston217]

Originally Posted by WheelsVT

Mobile support: The priority queue now has buttons so it can be used with a smartphone like iOS where the drag & drop doesn't work. Otherwise there hasn't been any effort to create a mobile stylesheet yet.

Do you think the backend code is going to work with mobile as is, and it's just a stylesheet that is needed? Or would it take more work than that?

[QuikSand]

No idea if this is easy to do...

The new tool features the ability to (at the commissioner's discretion, I presume) view the various personality features on the player card. Nice touch.

Any way to get that data populated into the sortable fields? (Right now it seems the only way to get that data there is to do interviews and use one of the screen capture tools to get it to import) That would be a great benefit for leagues that use it.

Again - love the toy, glad you're working with it, keep on keepin' on.

[WheelsVT]

Aston - I'm not sure. I think it works fine for smartphones since they are the same as browsing the web, but there's no mobile specific version. I haven't done a mobile style sheet so I'd have to look into it.

Quik - off hand I'd say that, yes, it should be possible to add them as a column option. Not a bad idea. On your intelligent sorting request - harder than I thought just on the way JDB implemented the list class. It'll annoy me until I figure it out so hang tight.

PackerFanatic - thanks! Things are busy for me outside of FOF-land so I hope I'm done with bugs for a little while. I'm going to let this version stabilize before adding anything else.

[dzilla77]

Getting this error in the CCFL draft when selecting the player from the priority list:
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Swift_TransportException' with message 'Expected response code 250 but got code "550", with message "550 Access denied - Invalid HELO name (See RFC2821 4.1.3) "' in /home/benelou/public_html/ccfl/draft/includes/lib/classes/Swift/Trans in /home/benelou/public_html/ccfl/draft/includes/lib/classes/Swift/Transport/AbstractSmtpTransport.php on line 386

The pick gets made ok, but this error shows up.

[WheelsVT]

This is an SMTP error response from the destination system. Most likely it means that the host server is not identifying itself with a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to the destination. I'm not sure there's much you could do to fix that besides ask your hosting support. Other options are that the admin's email service does not allow relaying or the SMTP authentication encryption settings are not quite correct.

If you can't make headway there try switching to sendmail() instead of SMTP.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by WheelsVT

This is an SMTP error response from the destination system. Most likely it means that the host server is not identifying itself with a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to the destination. I'm not sure there's much you could do to fix that besides ask your hosting support. Other options are that the admin's email service does not allow relaying or the SMTP authentication encryption settings are not quite correct.

If you can't make headway there try switching to sendmail() instead of SMTP.

It was already on sendmail.

On another note, the CCFL draft (HEAVY queue and scout picks at this point) is hanging fairly frequently now in the late rounds because players aren't being removed from queues on auto-picks (maybe scout picks). I'm having to DELETE from selection where play_id={the id of hte first guy in the queue of the team that is on the clock, because he has already been picked} fairly often. Just did it for the fourth time, and 6 teams had the guy in their queues.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

It was already on sendmail.

On another note, the CCFL draft (HEAVY queue and scout picks at this point) is hanging fairly frequently now in the late rounds because players aren't being removed from queues on auto-picks (maybe scout picks). I'm having to DELETE from selection where play_id={the id of hte first guy in the queue of the team that is on the clock, because he has already been picked} fairly often. Just did it for the fourth time, and 6 teams had the guy in their queues.

Thanks Ben. I'm fairly certain the not being removed from queues is being caused by the email issues. I'll have some time tomorrow morning to work on it. First thing I'll do is move the SQL stuff in front of the email processing.

I guess the SwiftMail package isn't as great at enabling different transports as I had thought.

[WheelsVT]

Ok, I've updated it to 1.8.5. This should reduce the impact of an email error to just a notification message and a missed email to be investigated.

- Moved queue processing ahead of email processing in functions.inc.php since email errors were causing queues to not update.

- Added exception catch clauses when sending email to allow execution to continue in the event of an error. Error should still be reported like an "Options Updated" message, but I haven't had an error in testing to confirm.

[PackerFanatic]

Got everything installed and am just poking around a bit before loading the draft class and getting users on it this week. One thing I noticed - in the chat (the integrated one), every few seconds or so I see a "0" printed to the chat window. It keeps appending zeroes to the same line, and then when I try and chat, it doesn't seem to send anything until I refresh the chat page. Something funky with my server maybe?

[PackerFanatic]

Also - in the draft options, it seems to save all my settings except for start time, end time, and time zone. No matter what I set them to, when I hit save, it reverts them back to the default.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Got everything installed and am just poking around a bit before loading the draft class and getting users on it this week. One thing I noticed - in the chat (the integrated one), every few seconds or so I see a "0" printed to the chat window. It keeps appending zeroes to the same line, and then when I try and chat, it doesn't seem to send anything until I refresh the chat page. Something funky with my server maybe?

I believe the NAFL had a similar refresh issue with the built-in chat. Now I'm betting there's a file missing from when I added it back in. I will compare later this evening.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Also - in the draft options, it seems to save all my settings except for start time, end time, and time zone. No matter what I set them to, when I hit save, it reverts them back to the default.

That usually means that it didn't accept your input and failed to give you an error message why. It's likely due to it being entered in a different format than it's expecting . What's the exact text you putting into start time, end time, and time zone?

[PackerFanatic]

Start: 12:00PM
End: 11:00PM
Timezone: CST

I even tried changing the start to 11:00AM, thinking it might not like the range - still no luck.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by WheelsVT

I believe the NAFL had a similar refresh issue with the built-in chat. Now I'm betting there's a file missing from when I added it back in. I will compare later this evening.

I finally replicated it. Quick fix: change the > symbol in line 13 of chat_text.php to a >= symbol.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Start: 12:00PM
End: 11:00PM
Timezone: CST

I even tried changing the start to 11:00AM, thinking it might not like the range - still no luck.

After working with PF we found that this was occuring because he had no draft configured yet.


More detail: The hidden field that enables start/stop to change is part of the per-round-timeouts which are only there if you actually have a draft loaded. I'll still look at moving this hidden field to a better location.

[PackerFanatic]

Well, I don't get the line of zeroes anymore...but now when it does refresh, it refreshes the entire chat history, instead of just the one line I added. It also does the entire chat refresh every few seconds (much like it was with the zeroes previously)

[WheelsVT]

Is this with or without a draft class imported?

[PackerFanatic]

Still without - would the draft class have an impact on the chat area as well? I can check again after I import for sure

[PackerFanatic]

Got the draft class loaded - no issues with the start and end times (also, REALLY like the feature to set the pick time limit per round - very awesome). However, I am still seeing the issue with the chat.

[PackerFanatic]

Another thing I noticed - in the mock draft, every comment is "XXX has already picked at all positions, and this is the best player still on the board.". XXX is replaced by the actual team, but that seems odd - it seems to just be going by BPA instead of actually using my roster and draft preview that I uploaded.

[PackerFanatic]

Not really a huge deal for the mock, but I want to make sure that isn't going to affect the scout picks (I have a feeling it would, based on those comments)

[PackerFanatic]

BTW - I would be happy to add you as an admin if you want to see the issue I was referring to with the chat. No one else is signed up yet (although I would like to start by Saturday at the latest), so if I need to re-run anything, I am fine with doing that.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Got the draft class loaded - no issues with the start and end times (also, REALLY like the feature to set the pick time limit per round - very awesome). However, I am still seeing the issue with the chat.

Thanks. Chat - I guess I'll need to see it.

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Another thing I noticed - in the mock draft, every comment is "XXX has already picked at all positions, and this is the best player still on the board.". XXX is replaced by the actual team, but that seems odd - it seems to just be going by BPA instead of actually using my roster and draft preview that I uploaded.

Yes, that is odd. It does not sound like the mock ran properly.

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Not really a huge deal for the mock, but I want to make sure that isn't going to affect the scout picks (I have a feeling it would, based on those comments)

Yes, I think it would mean that it would fall back to Best Position Available.

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

BTW - I would be happy to add you as an admin if you want to see the issue I was referring to with the chat. No one else is signed up yet (although I would like to start by Saturday at the latest), so if I need to re-run anything, I am fine with doing that.

That could help me pinpoint it. Add a team like "WVT", send me link, I'll register, and you can mark me as an admin.

[Ben E Lou]

My leagues all allow picks before the clock is on, and something related to that appears to be causing some issues in the GML draft. One thing in particular that is happening is that for the last few picks (including the one currently on the clock), pick_time has not been populated. My scripts that create my draft widget depend on something being there for a pick that has been made. Also, evidently something different is happening when a team is on the clock and not registered for the draft yet. It used to be that my scripts properly identified that team. Now they can't. I haven't been able to dig in yet to figure out what code I need to change to adjust to the latest changes.

[Ben E Lou]

Oh, and no email notifications have gone out. I just double-checked and every team's email is populated or NULL. Could it be because some teams have email notification on and are unregistered? (NULL email)

[WheelsVT]

Ok, FYI though we can't identify it specifically, we believe PackerFanatic's issues are server related. His draft is up and running on a different server for now.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

My leagues all allow picks before the clock is on, and something related to that appears to be causing some issues in the GML draft. One thing in particular that is happening is that for the last few picks (including the one currently on the clock), pick_time has not been populated. My scripts that create my draft widget depend on something being there for a pick that has been made. Also, evidently something different is happening when a team is on the clock and not registered for the draft yet. It used to be that my scripts properly identified that team. Now they can't. I haven't been able to dig in yet to figure out what code I need to change to adjust to the latest changes.

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Oh, and no email notifications have gone out. I just double-checked and every team's email is populated or NULL. Could it be because some teams have email notification on and are unregistered? (NULL email)

I think your last point is very logical and likely the cause of all of it after looking at the code in functions.inc.php where pick_time is updated. You would think that unregistered teams should have email notification off. I'm checking where the defaults are set, and can add an additional test when picks are made. I'll post it here in a couple...

[WheelsVT]

Version 1.8.6: Patches

1) Added = to chat_text.php so that updates work correctly with the built-in chat
2) Added error checking to functions.inc.php for situations when email or sms notification is on but the email or phone number is empty
3) Added new default settings to set email and sms notifications to OFF for all teams when importing a new draft.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

No idea if this is easy to do...

The new tool features the ability to (at the commissioner's discretion, I presume) view the various personality features on the player card. Nice touch.

Any way to get that data populated into the sortable fields? (Right now it seems the only way to get that data there is to do interviews and use one of the screen capture tools to get it to import) That would be a great benefit for leagues that use it.

Again - love the toy, glad you're working with it, keep on keepin' on.

Quik - This will be in the next feature update. In the meantime, if your commish want's to add this it's a simple SQL query to run and they will be available as sortable fields:


INSERT INTO `column` (`column_id`, `column_query`, `column_style`, `column_header`, `column_exec`, `column_date_format`, `column_number_format`, `column_order`) VALUES
(32, 'player.player_loyalty', NULL, 'Loyalty', NULL, NULL, NULL, 290),
(33, 'player.player_winner', NULL, 'Play for Winner', NULL, NULL, NULL, 300),(34, 'player.player_leader', NULL, 'Leadership', NULL, NULL, NULL, 310),(35, 'player.player_intelligence', NULL, 'Intelligence', NULL, NULL, NULL, 310),(36, 'player.player_personality', NULL, 'Personality', NULL, NULL, NULL, 320);

[Ben E Lou]

Emails still aren't going out. I just noticed that there's a team that turned email on but did not enter an email address. I'm still on 1.8.5. Is this case covered in 1.8.6?

[Ben E Lou]

...and that still didn't fix it. Pick 12 fired without pick_time being populated once again, and no email went out for pick 11 or 12.