GoDraw Development

GoDraw V 6.4.0 is available for general use as from its release date of 24/02/16.

Please Download Players [1] separately if you are downloading godrawv640.exe more than a week later than the release date. The current GoPlayers.gdi file is updated regularly and replaces the one issued with the program - its default location is C:\GoDrawSys.

Our club names and codes change infrequently and are published below in the Download Club Names link.

If you are using Vista Home Premium, or Windows 7 and beyond, then please be aware that it has been reported that the help file system used by XP is no longer supported. You will be directed to a Microsoft support page which explains how to download the program WinHlp32.exe needed by GoDraw to run the help files.

Please see the Introduction and Quick Tour sections of the Manual to get a fast overview of the system. The Manual is included in the download file.

[Install [2]] [Online Manual [3]] [Download GoDrawV6.4.0 [4]] [Download Players [1]] [Download Club Names [5]]

If you Download Players, you will get a file called 'GoPlayers.gdi' from 'http://www.kaniuk.co.uk/godrawsys/GoPlayers.gdi'. This is automatically updated 3 times a week. Save this file to the same folder which contains the program 'GoDraw.exe' and the existing file 'GoPlayers.gdi' - this is usually 'GoDrawSys'. Ensure the file extension stays '.gdi' as some browsers have the default to change it to '.html'. Then when you re-run GoDraw, newly entered players will have names, grades and clubs as up to date as at the last tournament.

The Download Club Names link gives you a text file containing the 3 and 4 letter club codes as used by E.G.D along with proper club names.

If you have any issues concerning GoDraw please contact draw-program at britgo dot org

SAME-CLUB GAMES: GoDraw aims to avoid same-club games below the bar. We now give priority for choosing an alien opponent to those with the largest number of same-club games.
NO CLUB: Players entering with club 'No Club' are no longer kept apart.
EDITING THE DRAW: You now get a warning message that any printouts refer to the previous round, not the currently edited one. Also mis-clicks while editing no longer produce an operator error, but the information is quietly displayed in the status bar of the GoDraw window.

SEEDING A NEW TOURNAMENT: When creating a new tournament by seeding from a previous one and then deleting unwanted players, resulted in spurious blank lines at the top of the register.
CLOSING REGISTER: Running a non-McMahon tournament produced a spurious message regarding setting the bar.
SWISS HANDICAP: Assigning a large handicap manually produced a display of the form hcap++komi.

BAR SETTING: The setting of the bar has been improved by limiting the bar-depth to less than 3 grades difference. The bar depth is the difference between the maximum entry grade and the bar grade. This restriction avoids the frequent occurrence where high dan players are drawn in even games against kyu players. It has been shown that if players are correctly graded, the latter have have extremely low probability of winning the tournament.

If you change the bar before close of registration, you now get a message warning that the bar will be recalculated when you do close the register. Furthemore at that point you will get a message stating where the bar has been set and explaining that you can change the bar if this is needed.
SMALL TOURNAMENTS: When running small McMahon tournaments you may experience the situation where the draw is incomplete. The pairing method works well when the number of players is at least 3 x number of rounds. If there is an incomplete draw you now get a message with hints as to how to manage the situation manually.

REVERSE REGISTER SORT: Some actions would leave the register sorted in an order different to the displayed order. So clicking a player produced the wrong details.
KOMI STONES: If the handicap exceeds 9 stones in an edited draw, komi stones are awarded to black. The handicap and komi strings were merged without an intervening "+" leading to excessive handicap and a complaint when the draw edit was saved.
ACCESS VIOLATION: There were instances where some action would result in an access violation message, but GoDraw could continue without harm. This was experienced when importing a register from a file with blank lines containing invisible characters. It was also seen when ending a manual draw resulted in not all players paired.

THE FOLLOWING IMPROVEMENTS/BUGS HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED in version 6.3.8 on 12/01/12:

DRAW IMPROVEMENT

The draw above the bar has been improved with a final pass which reduces the McMahon Score differences in each sequential group of 4 boards.

Player names were mangled, losing (,) and gaining (_) following ratings export during tournament.

HIGH HANDICAP: Now possible to enter a handicap > 9 stones and correctly shown in the .web export.
END MANUAL: Error message on End Manual fixed
RATINGS EXPORT: Automatic replacement of spaces in names with _. Full integration of 4 letter club codes including backup. Display of bar and population on wall-list in EGD.
PLAYER EDIT: The confusing OK and Cancel buttons on the dialogue replaced by Save and Restore.

NAME EDIT: Editing a players name resets the initial McMahon score to zero.; Changing a player's name to an already entered player gives an error message but then did not properly cancel the edit.

HIGH HANDICAPS: You can get handicaps > 9 by setting Points per handicap stone to 0 in the Settings|Rules menu. This was not working properly.
Handicaps > 9 were erroneously truncated to 9 in the file sent in for ratings.
GRADE EDIT: If you edit the grade of a player you are now warned that you might need to change the handicap of the game by editing the draw.
MANUAL DRAW EDIT: If you inadvertently pair players the wrong way round GoDraw was giving negative handicaps. It now gives a user error message and no handicap.
SWISS HANDICAP: The Swiss Handicap style tournament was not recognising a Handicap adjustment of 2 or more .
ADDING THEN REMOVING PLAYERS FROM THE DRAW: If you add a player to a new draw, then immediately remove the player, GoDraw was put into the 'entering results' state instead of the 'draw done' state.
PLAYER EDIT FORM: The titles of the tie-break fields were not properly set.

EXPORT RATINGS: The header for the exported file has been upgraded to comply with EGF requirements following the move of the ratings system to EGD.

NEW PLAYER: When you enter a new player whose name is not recognised, any fields left over from a previously partially recognised name are cleared
MISSING PLAYER IN DRAW: If a player rejoined the tournament after missing some rounds, it was possible for that player's colour not to be set properly when the draw was done.
GARBAGE MMS IN EDIT PLAYER FORM: The initial and current MMS fields on the form displayed garbage when the grade field was cleared and you then press Enter to accept the player details.

PRIZE PRINT: This now displays a message stating what the prize threshold setting is. You can adjust the setting from the menu system: Settings | Rules | Prize Threshold

PLAYER'S OPPONENTS LIST: For a tournament of more than 6 rounds there was a missing scroll bar in the Edit Player form.
REMOVING PLAYER FROM DRAW: This sometimes caused the display of a software error message.
LARGE FONT IN DRAW PRINT: The font in the printout of the draw was set too large when changing to a different printer.
PREFERENCES: Startup using previous window co-ordinates was not properly working.
WINDOW RESIZE WHILE DRAW EDITING: The list of unpaired players was not properly re-positioned when resizing the window.

EDIT PLAYER

NEW in version 6.3.2 issued on 16/10/08: To edit a player's details you click on the cell you wish to edit. GoDraw now displays a form showing all the details with the particular field you clicked on already highlighted. You complete your edit by clicking the form's OK button or pressing the Enter key. The form remains running and you can scroll to another player from a scrollbar in the form. To close the form, press the Close button.

To enter a new player you click the last line of the register (or scroll to the end of the player list if the form is running). All the fields of the form are cleared, allowing you to enter the new player.

Auto-completion has been improved and you can switch it off temporarily. When entering names everything up to a typed comma including spaces is treated as the family name. If you do not type a comma, then the first space marks the end of the family name.

There is a number field on the form allowing you to access a player by typing the player's number.

REGISTER

Registration has been made more efficient and is achieved via a single click in the Reg column of the register. You no longer need to press enter. Note that this will dismiss the Edit Player form if it is running.

The Fast-Reg feature has been improved. You start it by pressing the Start Fast-Reg button. You end it by pressing the End Fast-Reg button which occupies the same place as the Start Fast-Reg button. You can end it as before by pressing the Escape key.

BARLOW

There is now a new tournament type 'Bar Low' useful for the Cambridge and Scottish tournaments. The handicap rules for a pairing are:

If both players are above the bar there is no handicap.
If both players are below the bar then normal McMahon handicap rules apply.
If one of the players is below the bar, then a handicap is given according to Grade difference.

Note that the handicap given can be trimmed by the Handicap Adjustment setting in Rules and this has the default value of -1.

ERROR REPORTING

Information messages still appear on the lower status bar of GoDraw, but operator error messages now appear in a message box. You will need to read the error message and then click the OK button to proceed.

HELP

The Edit Player form has extensive on-screen help accessed via its Help button. The remainder of the on-screen help system has been updated to reflect the change in the register interface.

MANUAL

The Quick Tour section is updated to refer to editing a player via the Edit Player form.

SOSOS: An error in the SoSoS tie-breaker calculation has been fixed.
CHANGING NUMBER OF ROUNDS: Increasing number of rounds, then decreasing number of rounds left tournament in a bad state. Fixed.

PREFERENCES: In the new Preferences tab - 'Display Format', available from Settings>Preferences, you can specify how the players' names are to be displayed. These can be either name(grade) or name(MMS) or just name as in the Printing Format options. The default is name(MMS) for any tournament style.

PRIZES: The expected prize count is now correctly updated to the true prize count when all results are completed.
WINS: Player's wins now correctly includes any free wins.
HANDICAP EDIT: You can now enter handicaps up to 31, and get a meaningful error message if you try to exceed the limit. The limit on extra komi is +-999
ROUND NUMBER: For Manual pairing, the displayed round number updates immediately rather than waiting for the 'End Manual' button to be pressed.

SWISS HANDICAP: Draw displays Grades rather than MMS. Also during editing of draw or Manual draw again we show Grades, not MMS
MANUAL: Update DrawMaster section to refer to new Handbook rather than repeating the material.

ROUNDS FIELD: The editing of the rounds field is now achieved via a drop down list for improved reliability.
REGISTER IMPORT: Extended register import fields to include separate columns for Given and Family names. Also now accepts the fields Group and Rounds
ON-SCREEN HELP: New section Register Edits explains how to navigate round the register, delete players and edit any of the fields.
MANUAL: Update to include all the new register import functionality.

IMPROVED AUTOCOMPLETION: Deletion restarts autocompletion
EDITOR SCROLLING: You can scroll through the list of names in the player list using the up/down arrow keys without opening the list.
REGISTER IMPORT: You can import player details into the register from a text file. Please read the new section 'Import Register' in the Manual for format details.

BUGFIXES at version 6.2.3:

Viewing ranklist for previous round now shows correct ranklist, not final.
Autocompletion was incorrect after typing illegal character then Escape.

BUGFIXES at version 6.2.2:

Delete trailing characters in names restarts autocompletion before typing.
Misleading message when both tiebreaks set to 'None'.
Missing warning in Swiss manual pairing when weaker player is white.
Viewing player details while editing may cause edit undo.
Adding single board to new room, rather than to last room.

BUGFIXES at version 6.2.1:

Cursor jumping to end of field while editing register.
Sleeping players above the bar counted at close of registration.
Draw comment displaying 'handicap' for 'no komi' games.
Spurious scrolling in the Groups form.
Unsafe Group edits in Swiss or All Play All tournaments.
Need to press Enter twice to get next batch of 5 results, if there was a missing result in the batch.