Usage
This guide explains how each element of the application works. For detailed information, please refer to source code.
Main window consist of menubar, single page and navigation buttons. Back button goes to previous page and next to next page.
Key navigation:
- Next button reacts on Return (Enter)
- Back button reacts on Backspace
- Tab changes focus onto next element
- Spacebar presses current element with focus on
Login page only checks if provided username and accesskey are correct. This is a necessary step for searching players or updating application. If the login information is correct, application will switch to next page, otherwise, error will appear with possible explanation, i.e. not authorized (which means wrong username and/or accesskey). If there's no explanation or just question marks, it means program couldn't fetch error message (i.e. no internet connection) or BBAPI is not working at the moment (server error).
On grid page you select countries you want to search in and nationalities of players you are looking for. To ease selection, you have few tools you can use: sorting, lookup (updates results on each key press), select all countries/nationalities, unselect all and show selected. Clicking on a desired country, shows search dialog.
Key navigation:
- CTRL+F puts focus on search bar
- CTRL+G puts focus on grid
Following shortcuts work only with grid having focus
- Right Arrow moves right in the grid
- Left Arrow moves left in the grid
- Up Arrow moves up in the grid
- Down Arrow moves down in the grid
- C selects highlighted country (with default parameters) as 'country to search in'
- N selects highlighted country (with default parameters) as 'nationality of player'
- CTRL+Spacebar popups search dialog for highlighted country
In search dialog you can specify the details of a search for the given country. If you want to search for players in this country, enable the first groupbox by clicking it's checkbox. This will allow you to choose in which divisions exactly you want to search. Keep in mind that, the more divisions you select, the more time it will take to gather data.
Total number of requests for each division (including bot teams):
- (1 + 1 + 16) = 18
- (1 + 4 + 4 * 16) = 69
- (1 + 16 + 16 * 16) = 273
- (1 + 64 + 64 * 16) = 1089
- (1 + 256 + 256 * 16) = 4353
- (1 + 512 + 512 * 16) = 8705
In practice, with the option 'search in bot teams'=no, numbers of requests for division 5 & 6 will be cut down drastically. Still, it's better to not choose them at all (or at the very least the 6th).
Once you are done with selecting divisions, you can save your selection as default. This is useful if you want to select all countries at once (via tool button) or select country through key navigation. Note that the selection will persist even if you close application.
Selecting players nationality is similar, enable the second groupbox by clicking it's checkbox. The selection of parameters does not affect program speed. It's fine to set parameters range as broad as possible (you can always filter data in office application). Option 'save as default' in this groupbox works identical as the other one.
By clicking Ok, you apply the changes. Clicking cancel discards any changes.
Progress page shows only progress of the running search. Numbers next to 'Divisions', 'Leagues' and 'Teams' mean number of requests - 'done / total'. Whilst numbers next to 'Players' mean number of filtered players. Pressing back button during search can freeze application (very rare).
Summary page shows only number of players found (that meets your criteria). With the open buttons you can open result file in your default application for .csv files or open directory in which the result file is located.
For best viewing experience of results file you should open them in office like application (LibreOffice Calc, Microsoft Excel, etc.)
You can open settings in menubar -> tools -> settings.
Concurrent taks: Number of threads used to fetch all data. The general idea is to use X threads (where X is the number of your CPU cores - set by default). However, in applications like this (IO bound), you can gain some advantage by setting higher number. The optimal number can vary depending on your CPU, OS and number of selected leagues. Setting too high number can lead to application or OS freeze.
Note: for N leagues, program will use at most N threads.
Metrics: Used to format player height to specifiec metric.
Search in Bot teams: Specifies whether program should include players of Bot teams in search results. Bot team is a team controlled by computer.
Update calls external program (Updater) to update binary and data files. Updater always updates country data - adds new countries (if there are any) and updates number of users and divisions. If there's new country, flag will be automatically downloaded. Updater also checks for new releases, if there's any new, it will be downloaded, unpacked and copied to your original folder (replacing old files), finally it will clean up after itself and run NTScout. Updater doesn't delete your results, but it does your settings! Updater generates log file in logs folder, in case of failure please send me your logs!
Report a bug opens github issuse page in your browser, however you need to have account to add new issues. If that's a problem you can always post issues in original thread at buzzerbeater forum.
About NTScout opens original thread of this application at buzzerbeater forum in your browser. You may need to be already logged in, or else buzzerbeater will just display login page.
If there's something unclear, ask me to improve this guide!