Beginning MTH v2

[PrincipalSkinner]

Let me say for starters that this is an extremely valuable program for me; moreso than pokertracker or the headsup display programs.

I have no desire at all to buy thousands of dollars worth of monitors and then have to beat my brains out moving my mouse pointer over acres of screen space to play the 14 tables that I now play with your program.

My three concerns with the current program are:

1. I am entirely dependent on Party and skins. Party is doing their best to eliminate rakeback, which is an important part of my income. Naturally I would like to see this program adopted to other sites, probably Prima, since there seem to be several lucrative bonus and rakeback schemes on Prima sites. I think it would be a waste of time to adopt the program to crypto sites since their software is so vexing in general and their new "speeded-up" games (shorter response time) would drastically reduce the number of tables we could effectively play. Pokerstars with their 5-table max would also be kind of pointless.

2. I purchased a cheap LCD monitor at Walmart and run it off my laptop for table selection (keep the games on the main screen and the lobbies and the tables window on the monitor). This works very well. However with the present program, the game tables have to be on the main screen. I would love to have the program work with the games on the auxiliary screen so that I could read email and surf the net while playing.

3. My last concern is the "multiple-car-pileup" effect already alluded to above. Literally EVERY SINGLE TIME I PLAY I experience this at least once. I laboriously load my 14 tables and get everything running smoothly for awhile, and then it starts:
(connection is very good) turns to connection is good, poor, lost, internet delays 12 seconds, 14 seconds, etc., trying to reconnect, action keys become frozen on the few tables that are still functioning, etc. This is really a nightmare, but in no way do I consider it the fault of your program; nor do I visualize any way you could alter your program to deal with this. It is either the fault on the sites or my ISP (I have a chespo dial-up connection). I'd like to know if other prople are experiencing this and if there is any cure and if it would be just as bad or worse if we were running prima sites rather than party sites.

If you'd like some money, tell us where to send it--Thanks again for a great program. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[mmbt0ne]

Ok, here's an idea. A lot of people here use the 2001fp too, so this will be extra nice for them.

From what I've noticed it seems that your program swaps the active table with the next table in the queue as soon as an action has been taken. I use it 8 tabling sngs right now, so for purpose of discussion, let's lable the positions as follows (with a half-assed screen diagram)

1.(5)...2.(6)
3.(7)...4.(8)

where the numbers in parantheses are behind the other numbers.

So, instead of swapping the table in position 1 with the table in position 7 when it's up, what if you rotate 7 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and so on. Assuming this would keep recent tables on the top layer of screen, it would be a lot easier to follow the action.

[OrcaDK]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, here's an idea. A lot of people here use the 2001fp too, so this will be extra nice for them.

From what I've noticed it seems that your program swaps the active table with the next table in the queue as soon as an action has been taken. I use it 8 tabling sngs right now, so for purpose of discussion, let's lable the positions as follows (with a half-assed screen diagram)

1.(5)...2.(6)
3.(7)...4.(8)

where the numbers in parantheses are behind the other numbers.

So, instead of swapping the table in position 1 with the table in position 7 when it's up, what if you rotate 7 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and so on. Assuming this would keep recent tables on the top layer of screen, it would be a lot easier to follow the action.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually implemented this in v1 in the beginning. The tables would slowly move further and further away from the active table, as new tables became active - and inactive. It didn't work very well though. When multiple tables lay on top of each others, they would constantly swap places by themselves. Party activates the windows constantly at weird places, when a new hand is dealt and so forth. So it really just ended up with a lot of code resulting in no real use.

I'm thinking about somehow giving each table a unique color, and then overlaying this color on the title bar, to indicate the tables color. Then you could press the color on some kind of "taskbar", which would result in the corresponding window going to the top so you could follow the action.

Another solution i worked with involved making some API calls forcing the most recent windows to become topmost, meaning that no window could be placed on top of it. It actually worked great, until MTH crashed for some reason (which does, and will happen if we're realistic), then those tables would persist their topmost status, meaning that you suddenly had some tables that covered a lot of the screen, and no matter what, you couldn't hide them, you had to close them. Obviously that wasn't a stable solution [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

A function that allowed you to identify table(s), such they they don't get buried after you act, so that you could continue to follow the action through showdown. This is critical for multi-tabling when there is substantial, sometimes total, overlap (e.g., when I'm 10-tabling on two average monitors, two of those tables are completely buried when not in focus, and most of the others have so much overlap it is very difficult to see the action).

Specifics: When a table comes into focus that you want to follow after acting, you hit a key that causes the table to go to a position immediately adjacent to the main focus location, and to remain in focus (on top of any other tables already in that position) until the next hand begins at that table. Ideally, there would be 2-3 such secondary focus locations).

Alternatively, you might simply have a key-based function that kept a table of interest on top when it returned to its original location (i.e., so it doesn't get buried) until the start of the next hand.

This is outstanding work already. Thank you.

[ProsperousOne]

I'm creating a psuedo MTH (using AHK) until your program is complete for Crypto sites...

I'm only working with it on 4 tables now, but I've got the same problem... What to do if you're 8 tabling and want to follow or activate a window..

Here's a thought: Have a "window Lock" key, where you can force that window to stay on top so you can follow the action on that table. If another window steals focus, after you act, that "Locked" window will return. I guess you'd have to have any lockded windows on the upper left and the non loced in the lower right? Not quite sure what I'm saying... Damn.. no wonder I'm having so much trouble coding my program!!!

[OrcaDK]

Just a little update.

V2 now supports multiple monitors. It only supports multiple monitors horizontally though, i have no idea how it'll behave if you've got quad monitors in a rectangle (anyone with such a setup using MTH anyways?).

V2 also supports simply marking the active table with a colored border.

It plays a sound when a table is activated (can be turned on/off, several sounds to choose from).

You can now select an active location on any of your monitors, in any of the four corners.

Keyboard controls is under way, in a revised form.

There's now also a an easier way for you to customize MTH using the options window, instead of manually editing a config file.

EDIT: Of course it also supports any Party table you'd want, that includes MTT's, Step's, named tables and so on. Crypto/Stars support is next, probably Stars first. Currently i don't recognize a real need for MTH to support Prima as the mini-view is superb there.

[OrcaDK]

I've got the first beta ready for ya.

Please note, as always, it is a beta, i really cannot predict what errors might occur, so please, be careful [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

You can get MTHv2 at www.improve.dk/MTHV2.rar

As with v1, you still need the .NET Framework

You also need WinRar to unpack the file.

There is no need for installation, just unpack it and run it. Your preferences should be saved between versions.

By changing the preferences, you should be able to use it in almost any way you want. Often you'll get the best result by restarting MTH after changing the settings on the behavior tab.

Enjoy, and please give comments [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

OrcaDK,

I wasn’t able to use V2 for more than a few minutes b/c of a few problems:

1.Most importantly, it would not return the tables after action was completed, but instead moved them to a new spot (as if auto position were on, even though it wasn’t). I had them placed manually on a 2nd monitor; they were moved to new positions on the laptop screen.

2.My laptop screen size appeared to be misidentified, as the right most 1” was never used. The screen resolution listed under one tab was incorrect (and couldn’t be changed so far as I could tell).

Recommedation for a new feature for those who want to multi-table beyond their monitor capabilities: allow tables in which you are active after the flop (or through some manual identifier) to remain on top of other tables until the start of the next hand. The idea is to be able to follow the action in a subset of tables in which you are especially interested. I am currently 12-tabling on two monitors and the only way I can follow a specific table is to place all 12 tables on my 2nd monitor, have the focus on the primary monitor, and then drag a table of interest to the main monitor for the duration of a hand.

Thanks for your ongoing work.

[BaThR0oM]

Hey OrcaDK, I wanna start off by saying I love your program. I downloaded the latest update of MTH v2 and for some reason it keeps erroring on me or just closing. The message I keep getting is "setup error" - Failed to load resources from resource file. Please check your setup. I play 8-12 tables. The whole night I kept getting the error and kept reloading it to play poker. Is there any way for me to fix this? Thank you OrcaDK~.

OrcaDK,

I’ve given the current version a swing and explored all of the functions, which appear to work fine except for some monitor issues, which now seem a little different then I described previously.

Laptop 1400x1050
2nd 1280 x 1024

Now, the second monitor is recognized, and if I use auto position, the tables will be organized on both monitors. However, the program misidentifies the dividing point between monitors. It thinks that the division is 1” from the right edge of my laptop (my 2nd monitor is to the right of the laptop). So, a table which should start at the left edge of the 2nd monitor, instead starts 1” from the right edge of my laptop and extends onto the 2nd monitor. I think the reason I didn’t see it this way last time, was b/c my 2nd monitor was on the left side of my laptop and your program didn’t see that. Instead, it ignored that monitor. Regardless, V2 doesn’t properly identify the right side of my laptop.

I really like options for key control! I am playing while typing, although, I just “C”hecked my QQ on the xxx flop. I seem to get more security checks when using keys instead of AHK, that moves the mouse.