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Old 12-22-2022, 07:01 PM   #1
headhawg
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HHX program

Over the last few months a couple of members contacted me asking me if I am going to work again on Handifast or anything else. While it's true I helped with some of the code on Handifast, that program was always Handiman's baby which was based on douglasw32's original VB program. Handiman continued to develop Handifast until his health no longer let him spend much time on it. (I hope Handiman is doing well.)

Lately I have had the bug to write code. Mostly this was in response to a family pet dying recently; I needed to keep my mind occupied as a distraction. So I thought what the hell...I'll dig up my old ideas based on my version of Handifast which I had named Handifast HHX. For all intents and purposes this new program is the spiritual successor to Handifast. Why just "spiritual"? None of the code is the same (different language). None of the algorithms are the same. None, as in zero. But the general idea of HHX is the same as Handifast and other similar programs -- the user chooses from a list of factors, assigns points or weights to the factors, the program does some magical calculations, and the information is output to the screen so that the user can make a betting decision.

I've attached a couple of screenshots, mostly to show that I am actually working on this. The interface is a work-in-progress, so don't take anything to the bank. It is clearly not finished but should give an idea of how things function. Same thing goes for the factor list; they are placeholders at the moment.

I don't know when (or if) I will finish the code. I tend to start projects and not complete them. But I have a strong desire to finish this as I still need to keep my mind occupied. If all goes according to plan I should have a beta version released toward the end of January. The HHX Basic version will be free to use, and hopefully PA Mike will let members download from this site. (I am not sure what the finished file size will be but I know it will be larger than I what I can upload.) If that is not possible I will upload it to a cloud site, and with Mike's permission post a link here.

Please remember that coding is a hobby for me; I am not a professional. Contrary to what a former vendor here wrote, I never bragged about my programming skills. That said I try not to do shoddy work. If you have any questions just post them here. I will try to answer as soon as possible.

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File Type: png main_screen.png (81.6 KB, 160 views)
File Type: png config_screen.png (21.1 KB, 138 views)
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Last edited by headhawg; 12-22-2022 at 07:02 PM.
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Old 12-22-2022, 08:59 PM   #2
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Curious. What language are you using?
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Old 12-22-2022, 09:12 PM   #3
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PowerBasic, the updated version of Turbo Basic. Not sure what will happen to the language now. The creator passed away several years ago. I believe the rights were purchased but there haven't been any updates in a long while. Plus it's 32-bit only. Not a problem for many things, but not for large projects. Rumors were that a 64-bit version was in alpha, but I am not sure of that.

Eventually I will move over to C# but I have other things on my plate.
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Old 12-23-2022, 01:39 AM   #4
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And what is the data source?
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Old 12-23-2022, 07:56 AM   #5
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The user will provide his/her own data. The program will work with Bris drf or mcp files as well as jcp data.
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Old 12-23-2022, 09:48 AM   #6
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Sorry for the loss of your pet. I know how terrible that can be. Good luck on everything. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
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Old 12-23-2022, 09:51 AM   #7
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I would have no problem hosting the program and having a download link available...you can also put it up on a hosting site...either way or both ways would be cool...
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Old 12-23-2022, 12:24 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisl View Post
Sorry for the loss of your pet. I know how terrible that can be. Good luck on everything. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks Chris. She was a very special cat. My wife and I are still going through the grieving process. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
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Old 12-23-2022, 12:27 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage View Post
I would have no problem hosting the program and having a download link available...you can also put it up on a hosting site...either way or both ways would be cool...
If you can host the program that would be great. Besides, HHX will be a big traffic draw for paceadvantage.com. The three horseplayers who are not members yet will be sure to sign up!
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Old 12-23-2022, 03:45 PM   #10
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Color me interested.
Sounds exactly like the program I am looking for.

Be cool to get a user group thread going here
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Old 12-24-2022, 10:53 AM   #11
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Your new program is very interesting to me. I look forward to it's completion.

I'm so sorry to hear of the loss of your very special cat. I'm an animal lover as well and I have a 13 year old cat so I can easily imagine your grief.
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Old 12-26-2022, 10:23 AM   #12
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"So what did you do on Christmas Day, HH?"
"I wrote some code and worked on UI designs."
"Oh...that's a little sad, isn't it?"
"Yup."

I hope all of you had a nice holiday weekend. Attached is an alternative main screen for HHX. Picture buttons replace the horse-on-fire logo. Hovering over the buttons will reveal a corresponding "tool tip". (The screen capture doesn't show the mouse pointer.) The obvious advantage to this design is the larger window for outputting race/horse info. With the original screen's left-side buttons moved and made smaller, the tabbed output area can be bigger without increasing the entire form size. Doing this will allow for more columns if needed, and/or a larger font size to make things easier to read.

Personally I prefer the original design but we'll see which screen design works better overall. BTW, the big white area is for the race conditions. Summary conditions are nice, but I think it's important for handicappers to read the entire set of conditions. Sometimes races are written for a particular horse or horses and it behooves (pardon the pun) the horseplayer to know the information.

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Old 01-06-2023, 10:46 AM   #13
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Just a quick update: yes, I am still working on HHX Basic (as well as some other projects). My original plan for HHX was to allow for users to load multiple datafiles so that they could switch between tracks without having to close one file to load another. Having second thoughts about that, but we will see. I am still shooting for the end of this month to have a beta version completed. It might be a bit stripped down from my original intended release, but it's only a beta anyway. Other things have taken precedence.
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Old 01-17-2023, 09:26 AM   #14
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Still plugging away, although admittedly I did not get much done on HHX last week. I have decided on the 15 factors to be included but there's still a chance that some can change before release. The biggest stumbling block at the moment is designing and coding an easy way for users to assign profiles to each race. I don't envision people trying to do a "one-size-fits-all" approach but rather creating profiles by race type. At the very least this will include a profile for sprints and one for routes, but some users might want to create profiles that are class or track specific. I don't want the process of selecting the profiles to be cumbersome so I am working on a couple of different designs.

Release is still targeted for the end of the month but the date is more likely to move into early February. I probably should just release a more basic version than I had originally planned, but I want the program to be useful to the people who want to try it. Otherwise, what's the point.
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Old 05-03-2023, 11:56 AM   #15
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What happened to this project?
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