Share My Creation MLB Stats

I converted my Lahman's Baseball database from Microsoft Access to Android SQLite and would appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Features:
Preference Activity
Licensing
ScrollView side scrolling (No SeekBar)
Large SQLite database with over 180,000 records
Help Screens

Google Market:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mlbb.stats

 

[dlfallen]

Nicely done! This is something I have had on the back burner for a long time.

One problem -- Name sorting is done by first name rather than by last name - not very useful.

I did a Name search for Taylor and I do not see Leo Taylor in the returned list. Any idea why?

Also when I sorted by name, the Name filter (Taylor) disappeared and I had to re-enter the filter. The same thing happened when I sort by H. It would be more convenient if sorting were done withing current filters instead of resetting them.

Are there any plans for implementing custom queries, such as debut year or place of birth for example.

On the whole this app was very, very well conceived and implemented. It is very useful just as it is and I like it a lot. I'll be buying the upgraded version.

 

[dlfallen]

Sorry, more issues.

While watching the Seattle/Oakland game tonight Oakland brought in a relief pitcher named Blevins. I did a search on his name and up came his records for 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Missing were his records for 2007 and 2009. I "selected" his name to get career stats and up came all the records, including 2007 and 2009. A name search should turn up all matching records, not a hit-and-miss result.

At one point I pressed the Help button and nothing happened (I was looking at a grid screen at the time). Pressing the back arrow, I backed out of that view and the help screen appeared. I haven't been able to replicate this but I think the menu screen should be deactivated when it loses focus (and the help button enabled).

At the moment I can only display one year at a time. I tried entering a "0" in the Minimum Year Filter, but that doesn't help. Also tried a blank. I also tried checking the Defaults setting, but I still only get one year at a time. I cannot figure out how to get back to displaying all years.

 

[Bonzai543]

Thanks for your input!

I found that Leo Taylor played in 1 game in 1923, with 0 at bat's. I restricted 0 At Bat's because of the Batting Average calculation - Hits/AtBats to avoid errors. I can change my query to include those records in the data. What about Moonlight Graham? He's missing, too! I have to get them in there.

I designed the Search as a 1 time filter, but will certainly re-think it. I like your suggestion.

When viewing a particular player's Career numbers, if you touch/click on the Red rectangle on the lower left of the screen - Player Bio Totals - the Player Bio screen will display with birth place, debut date, final game date, nick name, awards and more.

2nd post response:

Blevins had less than the Minimum innings (probably still set at 25) to qualify for record retrieval in 2007 and 2009. This can be changed in the Settings. Filters are not used when displaying the Career of a player.

I need to work on the Help screen action. I just implemented it this last weekend and obviously haven't tested it much. I need to include some of these concerns in the Help section. Thanks again for the input!

I usually set the Minimum Year to 1900 to filter the out the 1800's. Entering a zero will disable the Minimum Year filter and only show the Max/Current Year.

Again, thanks! It sounds like you used it as I do - watching a game. It's also great when watching the MLB channel. Yeah, I'm a baseball stat junkie!

 

[dlfallen]

IMHO, the default should be to retrieve ALL records from the Lahman database. This would mean:
(1) Retrieving batters with 0 at bats (there are many of them).
(2) NO filters as the default setting.

If you make the change suggested in (2) above, then you could change "Defaults/Reset All Setting To Defaults to "Remove All Filters". This would be much more clear.

Having developer imposed Defaults is difficult for the user. One doesn't know what those defaults are without checking each filter individually. And when restoring the Default filters, unless one has them all memorized one is back to not knowing what the parameters of the queries are. I think the filters should be intentionally set by the user, things are much clearer this way. One way to improve clarity would be to have all of the filter settings observable at once. You could easily implement this by appending each filter's value to its title.

I'm do not understand the need to disable the minimum year filter. My initial interpretation was that by disabling this filter I would get all years up to the current, not that I would get only the current year. If I wanted (say) only 1923 I can get there by setting both minimum and maximum filters to 1923.

I hope these suggestions are helpful.

 

[Bonzai543]

I agree with you. I set the defaults that way because that's the filtered data I personally wanted to see, which is poor thinking from a developers standpoint. Anyway, I've made a quite a few changes based on your suggestions. I also added all zero At bat records to the database. What I am not sure is, will the database be replaced when it updates? I added a manual database update option in the Settings. I'm curious if Leo Taylor and Moonlight Graham will show up automatically or if a manual database update is necessary.

The Batting/Pitching By Year screens were really designed to display only 1 year, but any range of years can be queried. Setting both to the same year has that effect, it's just easier to type a 0 or backspace to blank.

 

[dlfallen]

I downloaded and installed the update and the database was automatically updated - Leo Taylor is now displayed.

Any chance of getting to sort by last name instead of first name? Not a deal breaker for sure, but it would be nice.

Thanks for the update - I'm sure I will find many uses for your program. I'm tucking inside now to purchase the expanded version.

 

[Bonzai543]

Good to know about the database update. Thanks!
Actually you can sort by the playerID field. The playerID field is the last field on the right. It's shows as blank by design. It's the first 5 letters of the player's last name and first 2 letters of the first name, followed by a 2 digit sequence code. If you click on the column header, it will sort by last name. It's blank until I figure out what I need to do for copyright issues, as the data is from the Lahman Baseball database. I not sure what I need to do for acknowlegement, so until then it will be left blank.

 

[dlfallen]

Thanks for the sorting tip.

I downloaded and installed the paid version. Rather than updating or replacing the free version, it installs separately So I now have two identical icons on the home page - one launches the free version and the other launches the enhanced version. I can manually uninstall the free version but that issue should have been automatically dealt with when upgrading. To further complicate things, from the android app management menu, both are listed as Version 1.3.0 so it is unclear which one should be uninstalled. Within the app itself, the help menu identifies the free version as V1.2.2 and the paid version shows 1.2 -- I think users will expect a little more consistency in version numbers.

I hope you don't think I am being too nit-picky -- I am just trying to help.