new tournament software in approx 3 to 6 months

All Things Chess
1

hi all,

i am a former novice programmer and electronic engineer who’s currently got a lot of time on his hands. i’m working on some chess tournament software for myself and my friends. i estimate that it could be as early as a couple months, or as late as 6 months before i have a fairly solid worthwhile standalone software finished. it’s going to be free, including all future versions and i intend to keep working on it forever to make it better and better. it will be completely open source and not copyrighted. you could even rename it and try and sell it if you wanted to!

major stuff it’s going to be lacking for a very long time after the rest of it is up and running relatively smoothly (i want it to overcome these flaws eventually but not 'till i get a lot of other more important basic stuff working):

  1. no dbase/.dbf file reading or creating capabilities. (i thought some people might not mind this who are already entering in tournament results manually or who have non-uscf ladder play or already have swiss sys or winTD and can have a TD run mine and a different tournament software at the same time to get the benefits of both worlds.
  2. Initially it will only be able to handle 1 section per tournament. (i don’t consider this a major flaw except in not meeting general current demand, it’s an intentional design feature that i i’ve compensated for by other special features i’ll mention in a bit).
  3. at first it might not self install completely but have instructions which should be easy to follow. i’m making it for windows users and am unsure how it will fair for macs and other OS’s. it won’t be able to do a certain unique and special feature for a long time unless you have microsoft word.
  4. it won’t do swiss pairing for the first few versions at least.

a few original things it can do:

  1. it can already generate certificates of achievement on microsoft word which include personal pre and post tournament stats and round information and results. specific data that can be placed on certificates so far: full name, first name, uscf #, seed, overall win percentage, estimated post tournament rating, estimated tournament performance rating, overall rank, color played each round, result for each round, and opponent name, uscf #, quick and regular rating for each round.
  2. it can handle infinite number of rounds or players so long as the computer using it has enough memory space and cpu power. (i haven’t finished it to start testing it yet but i think it would take an insane amount of memory to run for a 30 round tournament with 300 players for instance).
  3. it will be able to automatically pair players of the closest ratings together for the first round and automatically pair winners of highest ratings against each other and losers of lowest rating against each other in subsequent rounds. this allows for 1 open section, no matter what the varying skill levels of opponents. (i still haven’t written the brute force pairing code, nor the round result entering user interface yet.)
  4. it can keep make use of infinite databases so it’s possible to have separate club databases and it would adjust everyone’s ratings appropriately for you.

if anyone with any knowledge about how to copyright software and thinks they could make enough money in advertising with it to pay for the price and hassle of copyrighting would like to enter into a mutually beneficial business arrangement with me please let me know. dishonest, uncaring people need not apply though! :frowning:

the basic idea is that the standalone software will always be free, including any updates so that anyone without any prior knowledge could download my software and easily run their own chess tournaments however they see fit and be able to submit the results directly to the uscf if they wish (eventually when it’s capable of working with Dbase files). but i think that a fair amount of money can still be made by the following ways:

  1. it has room for advertisements.
  2. it can open up the user’s default web browser to any web page desired. (like your company or club’s website!)
  3. it could be distributed on a website that has advertisements and possibly some club non-uscf database ratings and tournament handling and/or club organizational capabilities currently not available with the uscf but designed to work in tandem.
  4. in order to help people show their support they could be asked to consider purchasing merchandise directly from us.

(for those of you who don’t know this is the howard taylor - schlock mercenary business model, but for chess, schlockmercenary.com check it out!)

if i could get a good team together to help with the stuff i am not good at or don’t yet know how to do i could speed up the creation process so i can start working on chess clocks to go with the software. if i ever get the tournament software done to the point that it works with Dbase files, runs multiple sections, pairs my way, normal swiss, single, double, tripple, and quadruple accelerated swiss then my plan is to start to work on cheap, multifunction chess clocks that can hook up to a computer using my software with a usb cable and take game results directly from the players from their chess clocks so they don’t have to write down their results on a wall and a tournament director wouldn’t have enter it in from a sheet of paper. if i keep having to work on my own with little income than it could be decades before i ever get my dream accomplished though.

so anyways, if anyone would be interested in seeing what my software looks like so far, or would like for me to let them know when the first working version is ready you can pm me. like i said though, it’s not much yet, i’m learning as i go and i don’t expect it to be working for months yet. and even then, like i said, even though it’ll be great for a small percentage of prospective tournament directors who just happen to want this sort of stuff, there will be a large amount of now-standard TD software features painfully absent.

take it easy & best regards everyone,

luffy z anderson

2

Copyrighting is easy, just put your name, the word Copyright or the symbol (c), and the year in each file. This reserves all rights in the software to you.

If you don’t plan to sell the software, and only make money (if at all) off of related services, then I recommend that you use the GNU General Public License. See gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html for instructions.

The advantage of using this license is that any mods or enhancements to the software done by others will be available to you to incorporate, if you want to.

Jim

3

I think you are correct with the exception that you can stop infringers but cannot collect damages unless you have registered your copyright with the Copyright office. But if you aren’t planning on making money off it then that shouldn’t matter anyway.

4

wow, that was simple, thanx guys. :slight_smile: now i just need a website, some stuff to sell, some adds to put up, and some extra services to offer. lol!

5

i have a simple working version of my tournament software. here’s the direct links to the files:

.exe file (this file is ready to go, anyone can just download it and click on it to run it):

autohotkey.net/~luffyzanders … 20v5.1.exe

.ahk file (this is the code, i’m including it in the hopes that some one will decide to help me make the software better):

autohotkey.net/~luffyzanders … 20v5.2.ahk

originally i planned on making it closed source but i changed my mind at least for now since it’s such a large project that doing it alone would take years. my greatest hopes are that people will help me make the software better, my greatest fear is that people will steal my code, develope it into something crappy, and not give me any credit or help me develop my code… i decided that i’d cater to my hopes instead of my fears.

i’d appreciate any help and/or feedback. i really appreciate honest feedback, be it negative or positive. i really, really, really appreciate honest, cunstructive feedback.

6

Excellent news. Could you include a good ladder program for clubs to use? Thanks!

7

why did you quote that entire post? see how i responded you you without quoting what you said?

8

Because I wanted to. Why, I hear you asking. Because one habit I’ve gotten into with Usenet and other forums is to rarely cut a quote because the original can be difficult to find should the need arise down the road. Assuming, and this may be unreasonable given the aging USCF population, that you are not suffering with arthritis that makes scrolling difficult, it seems to me that you protest much about something of little consequence. :smiley:

9

oh, ok.

10

:fondly recalling the days when we had posting limits based in part upon the length of one’s posts:

11

By Jove, I think you’ve got it! Carry on!!

12

when i originally started the program i wanted something to use for small, 1 section, uscf tournaments, with the intention of making it able to rate and track club ladders as well as seasons at a later time. i’m still working on basic functions for use in small uscf tournaments, ie: tournament stats, wall-charts, and auto-pairing. it’s become very time consuming and complicated to integrate even the most basic functions and get them working with everything else, so i’ve made it open source and asked for help from other programmers. as soon as i get the basics done i will start working on the club ladder and points season tracking abilities. it’s already rating players, based on their performance, i just need to make player files to store their rating’s changes.

here’s the link to where you can directly, quickly, and easily download the basic working software and discuss it with me and hopefully other programmers:

autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=66571

(you only need to download the .exe file if you just want to use it and not examine my code)