Respectfully, your underestimating the complexity of this issue. This may be caused by our lack of a full explanation of how the HUD subsystem works - but that is necessary to keep our trade secrets (and the likely reason why only PokerTracker 4 supports Winning). In the end the simple explanation is all that is really needed. Of the 19 poker sites we support with our HUD, 18 poker sites support seat placement, only Winning does not - that is their problem to fix, not ours. They know and acknowledge this is their issue to solve as well, but I cannot say if they intend to solve it or not... I can only share that they know that their software is lacking this functionality that all others have.
I'm certainly not denying that the WPN client, well, sucks. No argument there at all. But we're talking about PT4 making an effort to work around shortcomings in a poker network's client (that is now growing due to the turmoil at Merge) that would give it a competitive edge over its competition. Nobody is asking PT to "fix" WPN software, but we'd like to see you take some action in working around its problems when you can. And I insist that this is not only doable, it's relatively trivial to do.
At this point we've pretty much devolved to a technical ePeen measuring contest, but that's okay. It's an interesting discussion albeit a bit of a derail, although this is your support thread so other than taking it to the PT forum it's as good here as anywhere I guess.
I think you're underestimating that many people actually understand how HUDs work, and that yours is not really that unique at the lowest level. I'm talking about when it comes to drawing a HUD on the screen -- there's only so many ways that can be done, and I expect I've done them all. But despite that, even if you did have some unique and never before seen mechanism to apply a video overlay on another window, you're missing my point entirely, because what I'm proposing has nothing whatsoever to do with your interaction with the WPN client beyond what you're already doing.
Look, PT4 can obviously determine the seating positions assigned by WPN, or else you'd never place the HUD correctly in the first place. All I'm saying is to add an option to ignore the seating assignments but keep the player order relative to each other. That's it. Relative player position doesn't change -- when I "sit here" in the WPN client, I'm only adjusting the orientation of players as is displayed on my screen. I'm not actually disturbing the player order, so it doesn't change HUD sequence, only its orientation. You don't need to know *anything* else from the WPN client at this point -- you have everything you need to know to adjust my seating based on where I've told you I want to sit. You'd draw the HUD overlay like you always have. There's nothing magical about your "HUD subsystem" that I have to understand, because nothing about it is changing other than it's relative orientation based on where I want to sit.
I'm not asking you to "recognize" that I moved to seat #3, or that WPN needs to tell you I moved to seat #3. I'm asking you to *assume* I'm always going to move myself to seat #3, and draw the HUD exactly as if WPN has assigned me to seat #3. If I want the default behavior, I simply disable this option and it works as it does now.
So let's walk through an example. Let’s say my favorite seat is seat #3 on a 6-max table, and I’ve configured this in my site preferences in PT4. I start a new WPN tournament and sit down, where it assigns me to seat #6. Currently, PT4 recognizes this and draws my HUD panel at seat #6, as well as all other player panels at their correct seat.
What I'm proposing is simply a rotation of the HUD layout based on the difference between where WPN sat me and where I’ve told you I want to sit. I select the option to ALWAYS draw my HUD panel at seat #3, regardless of where WPN initially seats me, and you draw the other players' HUD panels relative to that. That's it. In this case, you rotate your HUD orientation 3 positions. There's nothing magic or special or new about your "HUD subsystem" at play here. You just draw it at seat #3 instead of seat #6. Then when the client sits me at seat #6, I immediately move myself to seat #3 by right-clicking on seat #3 and selecting "Sit Here." Now my HUD is properly aligned. It's a simple one-click correction for me to have a proper HUD now, as opposed to having to either rearrange each HUD panel manually, or accept whatever random seat WPN assigns me.
BTW I realize there's not a seating preference in PT4 (at least I don't recall one). But it's easy enough to add, and your competitor has it (going back to v1 actually). It's just a minor GUI exercise and a half-dozen new numeric columns in the site configuration table.
Our developers left some of the biggest video game and database companies to work for PokerTracker, perhaps you underestimate our reach in the market and their compensation? We take very good care of our developers... thats why we keep some of the best talent for so long even when offered prestigious jobs with major dev houses.
Well this is really a derail, and my comment wasn’t intended to be insulting or disrespectful, so my apologies if it came across that way. I wasn't speaking to what I thought you paid your developers, I was only speaking to the fact I couldn't take a similar job knowing what I know of the market.
But I’m glad to hear you take good care of your development staff. I'd just be surprised if you're paying developers that much above market value. But obviously I don’t know, and maybe you’re completely off the curve with regards to similarly sized shops with a similarly sized market.
I was very clear that I was joking, please do not take the intention of that quote out of context. All of our user's opinions are importent, we listen to everything that is shared with us, and in turn we consider everything... even when the suggestion is not possible such as yours we consider it and weigh alternatives if necessary. My comment was because your words insinuated that a promise to switch would make your opinion more important, when in reality that does not factor into our decision process.
I figured (hoped) that's what you were joking about, but it wasn't clear from your post, so no worries. My intention certainly wasn't to imply what you suggest -- my opinion shouldn’t be any more or less important than any other customer’s or potential customer’s when it comes to making suggestions to improve your product.
I was not trying to “blackmail” you by threatening to use your competitor. I already own your competitor’s product, so of course I realize neither of you have any further revenue impact from me making either decision, other than of course my decision on future upgrades or additional purchases. I was simply stating that I’d prefer to settle on one or the other, if one would cover all of my needs. As it stands, neither does. If PT4 got there first, that would be a big benefit in its favor.
I’ll stop the derail since if I’ve not got my point across about the WPN seating issue by now, it’s not getting across. But should you or your crew wish to discuss further technical ideas or just shoot the software development breeze, we can always PM or start another geek thread.
