A few bits of feedback as I've just set this up. Take this with a grain of salt since this was the first PHP app I've set up, and I used a web hosting service (borrowed some space on a relative's actually), so some of what I comment on might be quirkiness with that particular vendor.
The biggest pain was in editing all of the include/require paths. The scripts had trouble including files that were in subdirectories, so I had to remove the forward slash all include strings starting with "/dirname/…" to get the pages to display correctly. I was able to do intelligent global search/replace but either FileZilla or the ftp server were not cooperating and some of the file overwrites did not seem to stick when doing a batch upload of the edited files. Obv that second part is not your fault, but in regards to the first it would have been nice to have a global root path vairable that used by all of the include/require strings.
I also noticed that after creating a draft the name shows up on the main page, but is not clickable. In fact, the only way to get to the draft page is to log in as commish, go to control panel and select the draft from there.
I can also get to the draft by entering the URL directly (e.g http://somesite.com/phpdraft/draft.php?did=1), but that requires a log in and I didn't see a page/instructions on how to create other user accounts other than the commish. Would that be done from the update user page by just substituting the new username for "admin_commish"?
Finally, some key features that would be great additions would be a database of NFL players to use on the make a pick page, some functionality to view the list of players, sort by who's left/etc, ensure all picks are valid (valid players, no duplicates, within roster limits). I may try some of this on my own, but I've never worked with PHP (I'm a C++ graphics engineer, no web experience) so we'll see. If you're already working on any of this please let me know and I'll skip that piece.
There are a few other navigational quirks, but overall it's a great piece of work. It's exactly what I was looking for to allow remote people to follow along with a live draft. Thanks for the hard work you put into it! If I add anything I will let you know.
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Thanks again for the kind words (and I think you're the same one that posted your NFL players hack in the Help forum - nice work again!).
I'll take a lot of these thoughts and turn them into possible new features in the next cycle of development, and I'll make a few responses here:
One - the slash issue. After I released version 1.0.0, I deployed to my own server that I use for my own drafts, and had the same issue, so I *believe* I fixed that issue. One thing that I will do in the next release, though, is I think I'll just include all code files in a single area, because there's really no benefit to spreading all of those includes and requires around. I apologize for the headache to go through and fix those - duly noted!
Re: non-clickable draft name on the main page - this is something I thought I might have to improve, but it's not clickable because the draft itself is not in the "drafting" state, it's setting up. Once you start the draft, you don't have to login to view the draft.
Re: multiple logins - currently, the system really only supports a single level of user - admin, and it really only supports a single login. Technically you can create multiple admin logins by hand in the DB, but there's 0 benefit to doing this. Kind've hackish. In the future I plan on releasing PHPDraft in a Software as a Service format, where you signup for an account, and you can run your drafts off of my server, but I need to seriously restructure the architecture and do some other heavy lifting before that occurs.
Take a look at my thoughts in the Help forum about the NFL player database (and since PHPDraft supports NHL, NBA and MLB, too, for those leagues too), but essentially for now it's an enter-em-as-you-go method. If I get some more feedback about getting a feature like this, I'll definitely look into it. Duly noted as well.
I got some great feedback from a friend of mine that runs some pretty crazy drafts (I've attended a few as a bystander), mostly they include trades. Usually players that have already been drafted, but sometimes draft picks for drafted players, picks for picks, etcetera. It's a feature that will indeed get implemented in the future, and I hope to have that in by the spring for MLB drafts.
Also looking into a simple chat feature that lets managers "login" with their email addresses as their username, and then chat with one another (as well as draft picks and trades being posted by the system as "announcements").
Just a few things on the horizon. Thanks again for the kind words!
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Just want to put some feedback into this - I took your feedback to heart, and fixed a lot of these gripes. I tried to localize all pathing and editing to a single file. Also, draft names are now clickable, and the page auto-updates once it opens.
Also, auto-complete is available for NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB and I'll try my best to keep it updated yearly as players change.
I really appreciate the feedback I get on this, and if someone has more suggestions, I'll do my best to fit it in during a future development cycle (within reason).
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I think the software is great, and I have to agree that a great add-on will be:
" some functionality to view the list of players, sort by who's left".
That's mostly the only thing that will be left to be perfect.
Obviously the "simple chat feature that lets managers "login" with their email addresses as their username, and then chat with one another.." will be superb…
Thanks for a great tool!
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I am dreaming of building a fantasy application for the fishing industry. I'm wondering if your script here might be customizable enough to allow me to add a user sign up and allow each user to pick their own pro's and at the end of an event, show the winners based on their picks.
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Denny - I don't see why not. Currently PHPDraft has a single user, but there is a Users table that contains hashed passwords and such (I should probably up the amount of password security it uses!). In the future I have plans for adding enough functionality to PHPDraft so that I can run it in a "Software As A Service" mode, where non-tech people can just sign up and host their own drafts for free, so I would imagine some of that work would help your case - unfortunately I can't tell when that work will be done (sorry!).
The good news for you, though, is that all of this code is open source. In addition to being able to just download the code and hacking away at it, if you're a developer I strongly suggest you fork the code on Bitbucket into your own repository, and hack away there. It's open source, but be sure to follow the guidelines set forth by the open source license I release the code under (GPL version 3). I'll save everyone the horrible rendition of those guidelines and just suggest you read their version :)
Good luck, I hope my code can help you in your endeavor!
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
A few bits of feedback as I've just set this up. Take this with a grain of salt since this was the first PHP app I've set up, and I used a web hosting service (borrowed some space on a relative's actually), so some of what I comment on might be quirkiness with that particular vendor.
The biggest pain was in editing all of the include/require paths. The scripts had trouble including files that were in subdirectories, so I had to remove the forward slash all include strings starting with "/dirname/…" to get the pages to display correctly. I was able to do intelligent global search/replace but either FileZilla or the ftp server were not cooperating and some of the file overwrites did not seem to stick when doing a batch upload of the edited files. Obv that second part is not your fault, but in regards to the first it would have been nice to have a global root path vairable that used by all of the include/require strings.
I also noticed that after creating a draft the name shows up on the main page, but is not clickable. In fact, the only way to get to the draft page is to log in as commish, go to control panel and select the draft from there.
I can also get to the draft by entering the URL directly (e.g http://somesite.com/phpdraft/draft.php?did=1), but that requires a log in and I didn't see a page/instructions on how to create other user accounts other than the commish. Would that be done from the update user page by just substituting the new username for "admin_commish"?
Finally, some key features that would be great additions would be a database of NFL players to use on the make a pick page, some functionality to view the list of players, sort by who's left/etc, ensure all picks are valid (valid players, no duplicates, within roster limits). I may try some of this on my own, but I've never worked with PHP (I'm a C++ graphics engineer, no web experience) so we'll see. If you're already working on any of this please let me know and I'll skip that piece.
There are a few other navigational quirks, but overall it's a great piece of work. It's exactly what I was looking for to allow remote people to follow along with a live draft. Thanks for the hard work you put into it! If I add anything I will let you know.
Thanks again for the kind words (and I think you're the same one that posted your NFL players hack in the Help forum - nice work again!).
I'll take a lot of these thoughts and turn them into possible new features in the next cycle of development, and I'll make a few responses here:
One - the slash issue. After I released version 1.0.0, I deployed to my own server that I use for my own drafts, and had the same issue, so I *believe* I fixed that issue. One thing that I will do in the next release, though, is I think I'll just include all code files in a single area, because there's really no benefit to spreading all of those includes and requires around. I apologize for the headache to go through and fix those - duly noted!
Re: non-clickable draft name on the main page - this is something I thought I might have to improve, but it's not clickable because the draft itself is not in the "drafting" state, it's setting up. Once you start the draft, you don't have to login to view the draft.
Re: multiple logins - currently, the system really only supports a single level of user - admin, and it really only supports a single login. Technically you can create multiple admin logins by hand in the DB, but there's 0 benefit to doing this. Kind've hackish. In the future I plan on releasing PHPDraft in a Software as a Service format, where you signup for an account, and you can run your drafts off of my server, but I need to seriously restructure the architecture and do some other heavy lifting before that occurs.
Take a look at my thoughts in the Help forum about the NFL player database (and since PHPDraft supports NHL, NBA and MLB, too, for those leagues too), but essentially for now it's an enter-em-as-you-go method. If I get some more feedback about getting a feature like this, I'll definitely look into it. Duly noted as well.
I got some great feedback from a friend of mine that runs some pretty crazy drafts (I've attended a few as a bystander), mostly they include trades. Usually players that have already been drafted, but sometimes draft picks for drafted players, picks for picks, etcetera. It's a feature that will indeed get implemented in the future, and I hope to have that in by the spring for MLB drafts.
Also looking into a simple chat feature that lets managers "login" with their email addresses as their username, and then chat with one another (as well as draft picks and trades being posted by the system as "announcements").
Just a few things on the horizon. Thanks again for the kind words!
Just want to put some feedback into this - I took your feedback to heart, and fixed a lot of these gripes. I tried to localize all pathing and editing to a single file. Also, draft names are now clickable, and the page auto-updates once it opens.
Also, auto-complete is available for NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB and I'll try my best to keep it updated yearly as players change.
I really appreciate the feedback I get on this, and if someone has more suggestions, I'll do my best to fit it in during a future development cycle (within reason).
I think the software is great, and I have to agree that a great add-on will be:
" some functionality to view the list of players, sort by who's left".
That's mostly the only thing that will be left to be perfect.
Obviously the "simple chat feature that lets managers "login" with their email addresses as their username, and then chat with one another.." will be superb…
Thanks for a great tool!
I am dreaming of building a fantasy application for the fishing industry. I'm wondering if your script here might be customizable enough to allow me to add a user sign up and allow each user to pick their own pro's and at the end of an event, show the winners based on their picks.
Denny - I don't see why not. Currently PHPDraft has a single user, but there is a Users table that contains hashed passwords and such (I should probably up the amount of password security it uses!). In the future I have plans for adding enough functionality to PHPDraft so that I can run it in a "Software As A Service" mode, where non-tech people can just sign up and host their own drafts for free, so I would imagine some of that work would help your case - unfortunately I can't tell when that work will be done (sorry!).
The good news for you, though, is that all of this code is open source. In addition to being able to just download the code and hacking away at it, if you're a developer I strongly suggest you fork the code on Bitbucket into your own repository, and hack away there. It's open source, but be sure to follow the guidelines set forth by the open source license I release the code under (GPL version 3). I'll save everyone the horrible rendition of those guidelines and just suggest you read their version :)
Good luck, I hope my code can help you in your endeavor!