My second (semi) big project

[smoore]

Okay so I posted my first large project a few weeks ago (2 or 3 i think) and now I finished another one! It is smaller then the 1st (about half the size) but still pretty cool I think. Anyway. It is called uCount and it is something I put together to help someone practice/learn to count cards (for blackjack purposes). I watched the movie 21 the other day and decided to put together a little program that flips through a deck (or decks) and keeps the count for you. You can hide the count so you can practice and then view it when you want to to check yourself.

There are 4 different decks of cards you can use if you want to mix up the images and I made alt+left arrow and right arrow short cuts for flipping through faster. anyway here is the program, feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for looking.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ucount/

[VernonDozier]

Okay so I posted my first large project a few weeks ago (2 or 3 i think) and now I finished another one! It is smaller then the 1st (about half the size) but still pretty cool I think. Anyway. It is called uCount and it is something I put together to help someone practice/learn to count cards (for blackjack purposes). I watched the movie 21 the other day and decided to put together a little program that flips through a deck (or decks) and keeps the count for you. You can hide the count so you can practice and then view it when you want to to check yourself.

There are 4 different decks of cards you can use if you want to mix up the images and I made alt+left arrow and right arrow short cuts for flipping through faster. anyway here is the program, feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for looking.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ucount/

Comment 1 - Have a README. You have batch file to run the program, but no README to tell you to run the batch file and to say what is inside the batch file. People have (hopefully by now) been trained to not just double-click stuff.

Comment 2 - Have a batch file to COMPILE the files, then run them. Yes, and this contradicts my first comment, I was dumb (or trusting) enough, to double-click a batch file that ran a .class file that contained God-knows-what, but hopefully just the card counting game. Yes, I know the risks, but I did it anyway, I guess I just trust the people on Daniweb. The point is that most people are either smarter or less trusting (the two could well be the same in this instance) and won't click the batch file.

Comment 3 - The deck image change doesn't do anything MID-GAME. You have to do it before the game starts. You need to grey it out or give a warning message that the deck image change won't happen until you reshuffle or whatever. Otherwise people won't know that and just assume it doesn't work.

Comment 4 - The "About uCount" option opens a frame that isn't big enough to see all of the text and there's no scroll option. You have to manually drag to esize. Make the frame big enough or make it scrollable.

Comment 5 - And this is probably too picky, but you wanted fedback, so what the hell. I'd put the "Exit" option under "File", but the other two options don't really have anything to do with files, so make another pull down menu called "Game" and put the "New Shuffle" and "Change Deck Image" options there. Stuff like "Open", "Save", "Save As" should go in the File menu.

[smoore]

Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely put a reed me file next time. I don't know why I forgot that as I got the same comment last time as well... guess just kinda excited I put together a program that doesn't break when I use it.

Also I will adjust the size of the about uCount window, I dunno why it worked on my screen, fonts must be different or something.

My main question is about the batch file. You say I should have it compile and then run, does that mean I should just not include the class files to begin with and just have them generated when the batch file is run?

Oh and I uploaded another version with a read me file, updated batch file that compiles the java files (no class files included). I am still working on a better way to update the deck images and keep the count but for now there is a note on the image selection screen that says you have to have a new shuffle to change the deck images.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ucount

Btw, my read me file is kinda lame right now >_< so if I could get feedback on that also that would be awesome

[llemes4011]

Cool program, but I think it should be distributed in a .zip file. More people can open .zip than .rar, even if .rar has better compression... Just a little thing I noticed.

[VernonDozier]

Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely put a reed me file next time. I don't know why I forgot that as I got the same comment last time as well... guess just kinda excited I put together a program that doesn't break when I use it.

Also I will adjust the size of the about uCount window, I dunno why it worked on my screen, fonts must be different or something.

My main question is about the batch file. You say I should have it compile and then run, does that mean I should just not include the class files to begin with and just have them generated when the batch file is run?

Oh and I uploaded another version with a read me file, updated batch file that compiles the java files (no class files included). I am still working on a better way to update the deck images and keep the count but for now there is a note on the image selection screen that says you have to have a new shuffle to change the deck images.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ucount

Btw, my read me file is kinda lame right now >_< so if I could get feedback on that also that would be awesome

You posted in the Java forum, so most of us won't just have the JRE. Thus we can compile programs and you can put "javac *.java" or whatever in a batch file and we can run that. If you just give us the .class files, for all we know, the program will delete everything on our hard drive. If we have the source code, we can glance at it and see that that isn't going to happen, so more people on forums like these might be willing to compile and run it.

Most non-developers are going to have just the JRE, which I believe doesn't contain the "javac" file, so they CAN'T compile it, so if you want non-developers to run your program, you need to provide them with the .class files or a Jar file.

My point is that in order to see your Help text, you need to have already RUN the program. Put a lot of what's in your Help text into a README so people know what's going on. Give them an option to simply run the files or to compile them and explain what they need to do in the README file. Something like:

The source code is included.  For people who want to see the source code and recompile the program, run this batch program, which contains the line "javac *.java" (then name the batch file that does that), which will recompile the .class files.

For people who simply want to run the program, run this batch file, which contains the line "java mainWindow" and will execute the program. (then name the batch file that does that).

Above all of this, a couple of paragraphs about what the program does, a few words about you, stuff like that. Don't assume anyone has any idea that the program is a card counting program. Tell them explicitly.