PHP Draft (moved to Github) / News: Recent posts

Sweet mother of development, it's finally done.

9 months, 15 days ago (290 days!!) I made the first commit on the 2.0 branch, and today the day has finally come where I can release it to the public for use and consumption! Months ahead of the MLB 2016 draft season (and even ahead of the Super Rugby draft season apparently!), the software is out there.

Go ahead and take a look at http://www.phpdraft.com ! Sign up for your own commish account to run some drafts! Or get your own instance fired up!... read more

All,

Just wanted to give a quick update to everyone interested on the progress I've made on the version 2 rewrite. It's in closed beta, and I have been making performance improvements to the board (shared hosting is a lot slower than I expected!) as well as rounding out the features. All public facing and commissioner features are done (so you can technically run drafts with it now!) but I'm currently working on adding the site admin features (user management, other things only admins get, etc.)... read more

Hey all! Quick update for anyone who actually reads these.

Version 2 is more than well underway, we're well past the 75% done mark on the rewrite. Most of the public pages and views have been written (except the big kahuna - the draft board itself), and I'm working my way through all of the commissioner pages. Before long I will be updating PHPDraft.com to run version 2, and once it's been released publicly I will be asking everyone to start using it and giving me feedback, as well as reporting any bugs you find.... read more

The complete re-write for version 2 is well underway now! Check the JIRA board for more details, but here's a summary:

-Version 2 will introduce a client-API model. The backend will still be written in PHP (hence the namesake), and the web client will be an Angular app. This split now will allow a mobile app (or apps, depending on target platforms) to be written at a later date.

-The first tasks tackled were re-writing the API itself. Using the Silex micro framework, about 70% of the API has been written. Most of this has been setting up boilerplate code that the rest has been able to use.... read more

The newest version of PHPDraft is here! I apologize to all managers who have already drafted, I tried as hard as I could to get the project updated for the upcoming weekends for drafts.

The newest, and BEST part of 1.2 is the draft board has been updated! The draft board had run its course and became a bit outdated, so I re-wrote it to fully utilize asynchronous AJAX and HTML5 features. Before, bandwidth usage was a bit of a concern for more active leagues, but now bandwidth use should be a bit more streamlined across the board.... read more

If you're running drafts with a previous installation of PHP draft - you'll want to update your PHP Draft with the new CSVs for the NFL, NHL and NBA!

I also updated the source code to account for the team changes (especially in the NBA) - so it might be easier to update your source code with it too.

A note, though - I did NOT update the Initialize SQL file for the project - so anyone wanting the most up to date rosters will have to do so through the CSV. I will eventually be removing the "add pro players" from the init script - the CSV uploaded will be utilized from now on.

This is quite a milestone release, the first new feature release since 1.0! Now, trades are a formal feature (previously supported through a "hack" like method) and are tracked in quite a slick UI. But the cream of this release crop must absolutely be the autocomplete feature in the pick entry screen. Along with this feature is over 4,000 player records for the four major American sports leagues: NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. When you enter two or more letters into the First Name or Last Name boxes on the Add Pick screen, PHP Draft will suggest any players that are similar or match what you've typed. Clicking on one of these results auto-fills all fields - so all you have left to do is click "Add Pick!" Easy!... read more

A new release that fixes a minor issue related to the commissioner screens, and also centralizes almost all of the file includes to the global_setup file.

Keep an eye out for the next version of PHPDraft - 1.0.4 *should* be the last critical fix release that's put out for 1.0 - all fixes will most likely be put into 1.1 where we're adding some great functionality to the project. We're also bringing a learning dev onto the project - Chusko! He'll be responsible for adding some great Autocomplete functionality that has been one of the most requested features by commishes!

The latest version of PHPDraft at the time of writing is now 1.0.2, which is the second critical fix release that has been made after the official 1.0.0 release.

This release contains some of the new code from version 1.1, but I found some bugs in 1.0 (mainly regression-related bugs) that I was able to catch while I was implementing. PHPDraft now implements PHP Data Objects (or PDO), which is a step up in terms of application security and application portability. I highly suggest you download to update now.... read more

Hey all, just wanted you to know that there's now a narrated video walkthrough of the latest version (V1.0.0) of PHPDraft! I narrated it myself on just the rudimentary hardware I had, but it gets the job done and helps you get a good feel for what PHPDraft is all about and what it can help you do. Feedback as always, thanks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooasfrTWQyo

Just for everyone to know, the newest version 1.0 has been released!

This was a complete architectural re-write, and the project is far from "done", but it's much more solid than it was previously. It now uses OOP just about everywhere, along with a Model-View-Presenter architecture and organization. Things should be far easier for you to hack around rather than the old procedural style.

This was initially supposed to be release 0.99 or something like that, but after getting 70% through a lot of the work, I ended up re-doing quite a few of the pieces of the site that I did not like before, and tried to add a few neat small features here and there without introducing feature creep. But, the project is mature enough to where I feel it's a public 1.0 release, so please enjoy. Let me know how it is for you! Just in time for Fantasy Football 2011!

So, if you've been checking the Mercurial repository, you can see that I've been busy this past week as I've picked up my development efforts again (don't ask me why I started again - I'm just glad I am!). I've actually put most of my changes into a new branch called "MVP Changeover", because I wanted to make sure that I was committing more often, and pushing up when I was done, even if that means I'm submitting broken code. I'll often also leave myself comments in the code so that I can quickly resume my progress, because I realized I was spending too much time getting myself re-acquainted with the problems every time I started.... read more

Development has ceased due to most fantasy sports being under way, but this project isn't dead! I promise I will dedicate some extra time I have to adding some new features in time for the Fantasy Baseball drafts that will be coming up in the springtime months.

For the time being, please be sure to download the software, check it out, and if you have any suggestions be sure to let me know!

Friends of PHP Draft recently performed a full live, 10-manager NFL draft online using PHP Draft, and it was a success!

No bugs or errors to speak of, and hopefully more feature requests to come for future releases.

I've uploaded all the code into Mercurial, and even included an install text file.

Unfortunately, I haven't the time to create a zipped version of the files for public downloading, but if you have the know-how in Mercurial you can grab the code from the public end of the repository.

Please remember that a lot of this code was created with the hope to create a working project first and foremost - I wanted to be sure I had a working project before I spent time to make it architecturally sound. So there are a lot of things in the code that I know myself are not top-notch, but they were merely quick fixes for the time being.... read more

Well, I got a lot of administrative things done for the SF.NET project on PHPDraft!

For those wondering where any beta release is or any of the source code... I haven't had the chance to upload it yet.

Currently I have a pretty stable beta PHP application, but I haven't the time to upload it right now.

I'm looking for some help from a few brave souls who wish to install PHP Draft in time to use for an upcoming NFL/NHL/NBA draft, your input would be greatly appreciated. For you, the source/release will be going up soon.... read more