[Release] web-application "Player Tracker 2010"

Player Tracker 2010

Link: fm.virtualist.eu

FM Genie Scout 10 layout-file: playertracker.glf

What is that? It's an application that allows you to record the training progress of your players and view them in a clearly arranged way, much like the attribute-history in Football Manager itself, only on a larger scale. Instead of viewing the past 12 months, you can see your players and their attributes at any point in their career. If you want to know more, look at the more detailled explanation on fm.virtualist.eu. Here are some screens that show what's possible at the moment:

<List of players that's currently in your club>

<detailled view of one player; (+1) denotes the attribute changes to the previous year>

<chart which shows the declining attributes of an aging player>

<chart which shows the ca progression in a long career of Aaron Ramsey at Arsenal>

What do I need? To use Player Tracker 2010 you only need a modern web browser with the flash plugin and everything should work fine. The app has been tested with Firefox 3.6 and 4 beta, Opera 10.54 and 10.61, Internet Explorer 8, google chrome 4 to 6 and Safari 5. In all those browsers, the site is displayed and working as intended. Only Safari 4, Opera 9.21 and google chrome 3 - which I have only looked into briefly - have some issues with the site design which I don't plan to fix. If you're working with a recent and stable version of any popular browser, be it Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera or Safari, you shouldn't have any issues.

How do I upload data? After registering an account, you will first need the external application FM Genie Scout 10. This tool is essential because it allows you to open your save games, filter the players and then export the data in a .csv file which will be processed after uploading it to the website. Here's how it works: 1.) download the playertracker.glf layout-file and put it into the appropriate directory of FM Genie Scout 10 (FM Genie Scout 10\Layouts\), 2.) open the tool, load the layout-file 3.) load a save-game 4.) filter your players 5.) export the result as a .csv file and 6.) upload the file(s) on fm.virtualist.eu Note: if you get continuous upload errors, try the workaround as described under "current bugs".

What are projects? They're categories into which you will upload your files. Using projects allows you for instance to track the players at several of your rival clubs in addition to your own, but it's also a great help if you're playing several save-games at once.

What more can I do? Well, by using FM Genie Scout 10 you have more than enough options available. You don't necessarily need to filter by club (ie only players from your own, or another club) but you can also export shortlists from in-game and use those for filtering purposes. If you're playing with a small database you can also filter players of smaller countries by their nationality. There are some limitations currently in place that limit you to a total of 250 players per file and once you've reached 30 years of data, the oldest will be replaced each time. (This is a server issue, because it is currently hosted on a shared webhost with limited space)

Public profiles and hot-linking? If you add a public project (in opposition to a private one), then other people can view your player stats without them needing to register an account. I've done some work by holiday'ing a savegame until 2026 and have uploaded yearly statistics for two Premiership clubs: Arsenal FC and Manchester United. Have a look and maybe you want to use that hotlink-feature in forums, chats or IMs.

Dev-notes: This application is a beta release and a work in progress, as you may see from some missing links. If you have registered an account and receive repeated error messages, please drop me a private message with steps that led to the error and I'll try to fix it. Until now it's only been tested locally by myself and my brother, so it's possible that porting it to the web-server may have mixed something up as well. All that being said, if you like this app or even if you don't, I can certainly use some feedback, because I have only just begun playing FM and am anything but an old pro. The same is true for feature requests - while I don't guarantee anything, if it makes sense and is reasonably easy to implement, I'll probably give it a shot.

Current bugs:

• international number delimiters like [1,000] [1 000] or [1.000] cause problems (status: fixed)
  
• FM Genie Scout 10 doesn't load the layout-file correctly (status: mostly fixed) - Workaround: AFTER EACH TIME starting Genie, load the layout-file. This problem should NOT occur anymore, if you use FM Genie in localized languages of English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish or Turkish. If you're using Russian, Ukrainian or Chinese, please change to English or another language before exporting data.
  
• Goalkeeper not recognized if using FM Genie in other languages than English (status: mostly fixed) - Works for any language but Russian, Ukrainian or Chinese, please change to another language before exporting data.
  
• deleting of data from single file gets a 403 error message (status: fixed) - solved an issue with mod_security
  

That looks great mate,will definitley give a try.

Looks great, but I can`t upload my .csv file.

Unsuccessful

Database error. There has been an error while adding your players to the database. Please try again and if the problem persists wait until later. Please go back to the upload form and try again.

Do I did something incorrectly?

Hi Perla, well it's working for me so you may have an issue with your .csv file indeed. Here's a more detailled description of the process:

1.) download the playertracker.glf file from the first post

2.) put it into the FM Genie Scout 10 program folder. There's a sub-folder called "Layouts" where it will be recognized by the tool

3.) load Genie, choose the just downloaded layout file

4.) open a save file

5.) filter some players by whichever means (for example by squad with the right outermost icon in the quick access toolbar)

6.) export the results to csv

7.) save the file and upload it to the website

Because you're having this problem, I've turned on logging. If the problem persists, I'll try to fix it as soon as I can (probably today after work).

I still can`t upload my .csv file.

I created new project, chose the file, set correct ingame date so I think that I did everything correctly.

Got it. Now that logging is enabled, I have spotted the error. FM Genie exports wage and value in the pc system's numerical configuration exactly like it's displayed in the application itself. While it's usual in the German language area to use "1.000.000" for 1 million, other countries use "1,000,000" or like you have done "1 000 000" with spaces as 1000 separator. Since I have only ever tested this stuff on my own PC with my own data, stuff like this can happen and it's most likely happening to others as well, seeing as this is mainly a non-German audience.

If you check back later tonight in 5-6 hours, this will be fixed!

edit: should have been fixed

Getting the same database error as Perla, using the same instructions

Getting the same database error as Perla, using the same instructions

I suppose you're Matthew? In that case, the data you're uploading is not 100% correct (at least as far as I'm parsing it). There is an issue with FM Genie 10 where it mixes up the table columns order of custom layouts and that error is also continued in any .csv files you export. Because the script I have written works on the exact column order (to allow for Genie to run localized in other languages), it has problems allocating data to the correct columns. You can work around that problem by choosing the layout "playertracker.glf" AFTER each time you start the savegame viewer and it will reset to the correct order! I'll be trying to fix that problem tomorrow and at least those people who use the English language version of Genie will not have to bother with this workaround anymore.

Thanks for pointing out those two bugs. Despite their similar error message, they have different reasons and if you're using the workaround I have just described, uploading should work fine.

Grand! It has uploaded now...thanks!

It took a few more days than expected, but the upload errors should be a thing of the past now. I have tested with the FM Genie Scout 10 languages English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish (having some character set issues with Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese for the moment) and for any of those languages, the workaround is not required anymore. In the process I've also seen and fixed another bug that didn't recognize goalkeepers if your localized language of FM Genie was not English.

Should any of those not supported languages be requested, I'll add that to my task. But for now that software localisation is done, I want to add some more statistics and I'm looking for some suggestions. Don't be shy