EHM 2007 Updater (A Pre-Game & Saved Game Editor)

[archibalduk]

I've added player rights for both staff_new and contract_update. For staff_new, you can add up to 2 rights. For the contract_update you can add an unlimited number of rights as well as remove rights.

If rights already exist for a team in the same league as the team you're looking to add, the Updater will automatically edit the existing rights to the new team. I probably haven't explained that well so here's an example: Let's say Player X's NHL rights are held by the Caps. If you try to add NHL rights for the Oilers for Player X, the Updater will remove the Caps' rights and replace them with the Oilers' rights. So you don't have to mess around with switching rights yourself; the Updater will do it for you automatically. All you have to do is enter the name of the new team.

You can also remove all rights for a player by entering "_remove_all" in the contract_update file.

[CJ]

So you don't have to mess around with switching rights yourself; the Updater will do it for you automatically. All you have to do is enter the name of the new team.

Good stuff!

[Manimal]

I've added player rights for both staff_new and contract_update. For staff_new, you can add up to 2 rights. For the contract_update you can add an unlimited number of rights as well as remove rights.

If rights already exist for a team in the same league as the team you're looking to add, the Updater will automatically edit the existing rights to the new team. I probably haven't explained that well so here's an example: Let's say Player X's NHL rights are held by the Caps. If you try to add NHL rights for the Oilers for Player X, the Updater will remove the Caps' rights and replace them with the Oilers' rights. So you don't have to mess around with switching rights yourself; the Updater will do it for you automatically. All you have to do is enter the name of the new team.

You can also remove all rights for a player by entering "_remove_all" in the contract_update file.

Nice!

What if I want to remove a players junior rights but not his NHL rights? Or the other way around?

[archibalduk]

What if I want to remove a players junior rights but not his NHL rights? Or the other way around?

Here is how the contract_update looks now:



The Add Rights 1 and Add Rights 2 columns are where you can add/edit rights. I have added two columns because of how common it is for a player to have NHL and CHL rights at the same time. There is nothing special about either column - they are both identical and it doesn't matter which one you use (you can use one or both of them).

To answer your question: The Delete Rights column is where you list the rights you want to remove. You should enter the name of team whose rights you want to remove. If, for example, you want to remove Sarnia Sting's rights to a player, you just type "Sarnia Sting" into the column. If you want to remove all rights then that's when you use "_remove_all".

Perhaps it would be helpful if it was also possible to enter "_nhl" into the Delete Rights column to remove all NHL rights for a player and "_chl" to remove all OHL/QMJHL/WHL rights. Would that make things a little easier?

Btw, Pass Tendency calculation is almost finished too.

[Manimal]

Excellent!

Perhaps it would be helpful if it was also possible to enter "_nhl" into the Delete Rights column to remove all NHL rights for a player and "_chl" to remove all OHL/QMJHL/WHL rights. Would that make things a little easier?

Unnecessary IMO

[archibalduk]

Investigate and fix the issue with the player awards update for the TBL Rosters v6.0 which seemed to a cause a memory/pointer error with the Pre-Game Editor

I just can't figure out this issue. The Updater is definitely adding new records correctly and they seem to work in EHM fine.

It's fine if I create a blank file and import one record, but the Pre Game Editor gives an error if there is more than one record added. What I can't understand is why the Editor used to be fine with additional records and now it crashes.

I have also tried taking the v5.3d rosters (which work fine) and using a hex editor to delete all but the first two entries. Then I used a hex editor to update index.dat. But this also comes up with an error. This makes absolutely no sense!

[archibalduk]

I have finished the initial work on the next version of the Updater. I just need to do some testing and update the readme.

I will post a changelist when I release it, but you can see what I've done from this post: http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 50#p164650

[archibalduk]

Version 2.0.4 is now available. Here is the link: http://sdrv.ms/1dgNmzS

IMPORTANT! I highly recommend NOT importing Staff Award History at the moment. I haven't yet been able to fix the crash with the Pre-Game Editor which arises when editing Staff Award History. The same goes for erasing Staff Award History.

V2.0.4 includes quite a few bug fixes as well as a couple of new features (e.g. Team Rights updating, Pass Tendency Calculation, Auto Name Correction and Birth Year Editing). As I mentioned previously, I never publicly released v2.0.3 and so I have incorporated those changes into the changelist below so that it shows everything that has been changed since v2.0.2:

• Added Team/Player Rights editing using contract_update and staff_new.
• Added ability to export Team/Player Rights.
• Added a Pass Tendency calculation function.
• Added an Auto Correction function for team and league names.
• Added Birth Year editing for attribute_update, nonplayer_update and staff_new.
• Added support for tab delimited csv files.
• XML files with incorrect <Title> tags can now be imported so long as their filename is the default filename.
• Added the EHM Updater version to the <Author> tag of XML spreadsheets.
• Corrected the heading cells for the duplicate_staff spreadsheet.
• Partially fixed the bug with misaligned header columns in exported csv files where the cells are spanned across multiple columns (more work needed to full fix this bug).
• Fixed a bug with staff_awards_update which prevented award names from being correctly matched.
• Fixed the Erase Player Awards History function so that it leaves a blank entry in order to be compatible with the Pre-Game Editor.
• Fixed the staff_new_errors file so that the error messages are shown in the correct column (and not at the end of each row).
• Upgraded from Qt v5.0.1 to v5.0.2.
• Fixed a bug where imperial measurements weren’t working in updater spreadsheets.
• Fixed a bug where the Birth Nation in staff_new was being ignored when assigning a player/staff’s Birth City.
• Newly-created goalies now have a Def Role of 20.
• The Optimise Database and Player Update functions now set all goalie’s Def Role to 20.

Here is a brief run-down of some of the new features (the Readme file has all of these details too):

Team/Player Rights Editing
Team rights can be added a to a player using staff_new.

It is also possible to add/edit/delete rights using contract_update. Team rights can be added and edited using the Add Rights 1 and Add Rights 2 columns (both columns are the same - you can use either or both). There are just two of them because it makes it easier if you want to add/edit multiple sets of rights. To add rights, just enter the name of the team under one of the two columns. If the player already has rights for a team within the same league as the team you’re trying to add, the existing rights will be removed. Thus to move rights between teams in the same league, you just have to enter the new team’s name because the Updater will automatically remove the old team for you.

To remove rights in contract_update, use the Delete Rights column (just enter the name of the team whose rights you want to remove). If you want to remove all rights from a player, enter _REMOVE_ALL.

It is also possible to export Team/Player Rights as a spreadsheet.


Auto Correct Names (accessed from the Settings Menu)
This setting will attempt to correct common abbreviations of team and league names which may have inadvertently been used in an Updater spreadsheet.

For example, if you accidentally wrote “NHL” rather than “National Hockey League” in the staff_history_update spreadsheet then the Updater would ordinarily give an error because the league name is not spelt correctly. However, with the Auto Correct Names setting enabled, it would automatically correct “NHL” back to “National Hockey League” when importing the data, thereby avoiding an error.
The Auto Correct Names setting is nothing intelligent. It just checks erroneous team and league names against a pre-defined list. If the erroneous name is found in the list then the Updater will correct the name. If not, it will give the usual NO MATCH error.

This function has been primarily designed for the staff career history update (but it will work with any Updater spreadsheet). The difficulty we have faced when updating career history using online sources is that the websites tend to use abbreviations or shortened names for teams and leagues. Thus once we have compiled all of the data in an Updater spreadsheet, we must then go through all of the names and manually correct them using the Find and Replace function in Excel/LibreOffice. This often takes many hours to correct. In order to save time, the Auto Correct Names function does the equivalent of the Find and Replace function.

The pre-defined list of names is hardcoded into the Updater and is something that is currently a work in progress. I will be working on expanding the list for version 2.0.5. If you wish to see how many names are in the pre-defined list, enable Debug Mode from the Settings menu. You will then see two greyed-out entries in the Settings menu which shows how many names are in the pre-defined lists.


Pass Tendency Calculation
Automatically calculates players' Pass Tendency ratings according to their player career history (the most recent 3 seasons' worth of stats for each player). More details on how this works is in the Readme.


Birth Year
It is now possible to create a player in staff_new with just a birth year. Just leave the Day and Month in his DOB blank (or set them both to zero - it doesn't matter which you do) and set the Year to whichever year you want. This will create the player with a DOB of 31/01/1900 and a Birth Year of the year you entered.

It is also possible to do the same using nonplayer_update and attribute_update. In the New DOB columns (located at the far right hand side of each spreadsheet), set the Day and Month to zero and the Year to whatever you want. Note that for these two spreadsheets, you must enter zeros in both Day and Month - if you leave either blank then it'll just update the Year in the DOB rather than editing the Birth Year.


OpenOffice/LibreOffice Improvements
Tab delimited CSV files are now supported. This will solve the problem whereby Open/LibreOffice strip out the comma/semicolon delimiters and replaces them with tabs.

It is also possible to use XML files edited in Open/LibreOffice. This is so long as you do not alter the default filenames of the spreadsheets (using custom filenames for XML files is only possible if using Excel).

[Manimal]

Do we need to replace all the files or just the Updater?

[archibalduk]

Do we need to replace all the files or just the Updater?

You need to replace all of the previous DLL files in your Updater folder with the new ones. Normally you don't have to, but I upgraded to the latest Qt and so this requires a newer set of DLLs (Qt is the application framework/library I use for programming the Updater).

All of the previous csv/xml files should be compatible. I.e. you can use your older contract_update, etc files with the new version (you don't need to add the Team Rights columns to your file).

[bruins72]

So since I don't really do any editing, I haven't played with this utility until now. I can't believe all of the things you can do with it! I love the exporting. Is it possible to include "place of birth" in one of the exports?

[archibalduk]

So since I don't really do any editing, I haven't played with this utility until now. I can't believe all of the things you can do with it! I love the exporting. Is it possible to include "place of birth" in one of the exports?

That's a very good idea. I will definitely add that to one of the exports.

[bruins72]

Thanks!

[Thanos]

Hello from Greece. I have a question (i am new in this game). I have downloaded the game and then downloaded the Updater. My game version is 3.0.4. When i try to run the Updater.exe it says that a dll is missing. Then i diwnloaded the dll and it says to me that the program wasn' t able to launch properly. What' s going wrong. Help me please.!!!

[archibalduk]

Did you copy all of the DLL files from the Updater's zip file into the Updater folder?

Did you follow the Minimum Requirements as stated in the readme?

You must have the following installed in order to use the Updater:

Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/de ... px?id=5555

[Midas]

Fantastic work as always Archi.

In your next update, would it be possible to add a field for "birth city" in the exported_player data file? I love adding 'Quebec' as a playable nation in my own offline games as well as randomizing players; but it becomes rather tedious to input so many cities in game. Having it directly in the export file would mean all I'd have to do is copy and scramble birthplaces from existing players rather than generating them all on my own.

[archibalduk]

In your next update, would it be possible to add a field for "birth city" in the exported_player data file? I love adding 'Quebec' as a playable nation in my own offline games as well as randomizing players; but it becomes rather tedious to input so many cities in game. Having it directly in the export file would mean all I'd have to do is copy and scramble birthplaces from existing players rather than generating them all on my own.

Yes, I can certainly do that. If I remember, I'll add it for the next version. Otherwise it'll be the one after that.

[Asbeen]

Is there a way to have Height and Weight in imperial mesure in the editor?
(I mean when exporting player attributes)

[archibalduk]

Is there a way to have Height and Weight in imperial mesure in the editor?
(I mean when exporting player attributes)

Not at present, no. But that's a fair point. There ought to really be an option like that. I'll put it on my list of things to do.

[wildguy108]

Hello,

I was wondering if I could use this to quickly generate players? I'm creating a custom league and it takes forever to make players in pre-game editor right now so I could I more Quickly do it in this? Like just have the computer generate some random bad attributes for some players instead of individually going in pregame and fixing it ?

[nino33]

I was wondering if I could use this to quickly generate players? I'm creating a custom league and it takes forever to make players in pre-game editor right now so I could I more Quickly do it in this? Like just have the computer generate some random bad attributes for some players instead of individually going in pregame and fixing it ?

The Updater does not generate players.

If you've edited using the PreGame Editor you've seen how some Attributes can be "0" - when a new game is started the computer generates those Attributes that are "0" (the CA or Current Ability of a player influences the value of Attributes generated, but the range is wide enough that "some random bad attributes" are generated for most players)...so in this way the computer is already assigning random Attributes (including random bad Attributes)

The Updater allows you to edit existing EHM databases using excel...while it still takes time and effort, many editing tasks are much much faster using the Updater; I would think you'd find the Updater very helpful in creating a custom league (using copy/past or excel formulas you'd be able to quickly edit hundreds of players)

[wildguy108]

Oh thanks! I'm downloading the updater right now

[archibalduk]

Whilst the Updater can't generate random players for you, you can create players via an Excel spreadsheet. If you load the Updater -> click on the Spreadsheet menu -> click on Generate Spreadsheet Templates. This will create all of the different types of spreadsheets for you. One of these is called staff_new. You can quickly create players and staff using this spreadsheet. There is a lot more info on how to use this spreadsheet in the Readme, but if you're struggling then let me know and I'll be happy to help.

[Asbeen]

I've been updating players attributes in a saved game. Some players where updated but others not, I'm receiving the "NO MATCHING PLAYER" error but I have their name and dob entered.
What else could give this error?

I'm updating height and weight and some position with their dob.

[Manimal]

I've been updating players attributes in a saved game. Some players where updated but others not, I'm receiving the "NO MATCHING PLAYER" error but I have their name and dob entered.
What else could give this error?

I'm updating height and weight and some position with their dob.

Do you use the correct date format? Have you spelled them correctly?