Mtgdb.Gui: search MTG cards, build decks, manage collection

[hidalgo]

My only suggestion so far is actually related to the thread, not the tool itself. Instead of putting an attachment for the newest versions in the post where the new version is announced, it'd probably be better to always but the attachment in the OP. Just have new version announcements point there. This way, it's never a question of whether or not someone is downloading the right one.

Agreed. Removed all obsolete attaches, moved the current to the Opening Post.

[hidalgo]

Fixed some weird behaviours with drag-n-drop and zoom.

[hidalgo]

Bugfix - deck order was not actually saved/loaded

[hidalgo]

Now supporting Forge deck format.
You can actually play the deck you've built with Mtgdb.Gui. To do this

• Select Forge format when saving your deck in Mtgdb.Gui
• In Forge deck editor load the deck from previously saved file.

HINT
To skip importing deck in Forge you may save the deck to C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Forge\decks\constructed
This is somewhat riskier than manually loading the deck from file in Forge and then saving it, because Forge makes some adjustments when saving the imported deck, like assigning particular card image variants to the cards in your deck.

[hidalgo]

Will this program have the ability to use my card images kept separately?

Configurable location of directories with card images. You may store images separately from Mtgdb.Gui directory. To tell the program where to find your images edit the configuration file \etc\Mtgdb.Gui.xml
To prevent your edit from accidental loss I recommend copying \etc directory to a location higher than Mtgdb.Gui directory in directories tree. Mtgdb.Gui will find and use the copied config.
Note that the entire \etc directory must be copied, not just the config file lying inside.

Particularely you may use images from Forge cache located at C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Forge\Cache\pics

[aidscoi168]

Hi, can we manual update the json file or have to wait your official update include new sets ( like Aether revolt and commander 2016 already available in mtgjson.com ) ? also about the images did we just need keep the name of each card images exactly same or have specific rules for naming images?
I update the allset-x.json myself and take new HQ images for AER set in this link viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18786 , change the xml file for image directory like your new patch instruction but nothing happen, can't find any AER card in search result.

[hidalgo]

Hi, can we manual update the json file or have to wait your official update

Hi, Aidscoi. Remove the file AllSets-x-sorted.json. It will be re-created on program launch from your new allset-x.json containting new cards.

[hidalgo]

• Aether Revolt set included.
• Better support for manually updating data from mtgjson.com
  Just replace \Resources\AllSets-x.json by current version from mtgjson.com
• Reduced download size from ~70MB to ~60MB

[aidscoi168]

Hi, lot of cards had reprint from older sets, so do you think we can configure to show exactly card on the new set ( by setting path or some other way ) or add feature that show all the cards have same name ( different artwork ) from different sets ?

[hidalgo]

do you think we can configure to show exactly card on the new set

Hi! Make the folders structure contain subdirectory with name equal to set code. For example I saved Aether Revolutioin images to
D:\Distrib\games\mtg\AER
This way the program can match the image by set code.

[hidalgo]

• Supporting Magarena deck format.
  To export deck to Magarena
  
  • Select Magarena format when saving your deck in Mtgdb.Gui
  • Save your deck to

    Code: Select all

    \Magarena\decks

    subdirectory of Magarena application.
  • In magarena threre are 3 groups of decks - "Prebuilt", "Player" and "Firemind top decks". As you may have guessed, your deck will be in "Player" group.
• Translations to non-english languages for new sets Aether Revolt and Commander 2016

[hidalgo]

• Faster startup and scrolling.
  
  • The startup delay decreased from ~12 seconds to ~4 seconds.
  • Previously the scroll was fast only when scrolling up after scrolled down or vice-versa. Now to get the scroll slowdown you have to scroll fast during several seconds. When scrolling normally the speed is ok from the very beggining.
• Possibility to replace pictures in Forge by those you use with Mtgdb.Gui. See \ets\Mtgdb.Gui.xml <ForgeIntegration/> tag for instruction.
• Scroll on zoomed card to see other variants of card image.
• Fixed compatibilty issue when importing some decks from Forge.
• Fixed some minor usability issues of intellisense in search textbox.
• Minor visual enhancements e.g
  
  • Prettier visualization of dragged card
  • Partially showing the word that doesn't fit the last line.

[hidalgo]

Image downloader. After loading the program it will suggest you to run Mtgdb.Downloader.exe to retrieve card images unless you already have them downloaded or turned off the suggestion in configuration.

In this post I would like to thank two guys:

• aidscoi168 for his very reasonable suggestion
  

  Also do you think we can have an addition small app to download new cards's images from XLHQ like yugioh pro 2 ? ( github . com / jonas-vanen / image-updater ), update new version of this app through this topic is good but i think we need more easier way to manual update images is good too ( need more step to check mega link and search for new folder of new sets ).

• Ondrej Jirman - the author of megatools. Megatools actually does the work for Mtgdb.Downloader.exe. Wihtout it there would be no downloader, sure.

[hidalgo]

Match layout
Initially seems overflexible - it's entirely up to you how to arrange things to make you fill comfortably. And honestly, it wasn't easy to me to find a compromise between conflicting purposes

• Divide all screen height between your table and opponent's. As the table normally splits into 2 rows of cards - for lands and for spells, the cards make 4 rows - 2 your's and 2 opponent's.
• Keep table width not less than half screenwidth. Narrow table isn't looking good, oh no.
• Give the hand most screen width - as 7-8 cards require quite some width. Conflicting with the previous 2 points.
• Give the game log most screen height

After all the hand loose the competition for space and was left with only half screen width. Here is the resulting layout:

match-02.zip

from C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Forge\preferences

(509 Bytes) Downloaded 267 times

you can see 4 rows of cards on players' tables

Deck editor layout
I also made a layout for deck editor to make screen structure similar to Mtgdb.Gui

editor-04.xml.zip

from C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Forge\preferences

(416 Bytes) Downloaded 266 times

Got the layout similar to Mtgdb.Gui

HINT: Did you notice how Ctrl+scroll does zooming in/out the whole panel with cards by changing 'columns per row' value?

Turning off panel tabs with Ctrl+T
Actually you only need tabs to move panels when rearranging layout. All other time they consume a lot of space with no use. Many thanks to Forge developers for making that awesome Ctrl+T shortcut for toggling tabs visibility! With tabs hidden you are really starting to percieve the cool vastness of your big display

Theme
Among many skins/themes Forge comes with, some are really worth looking for - for substantially improved readability and neatness of User Interface over the default skin. Personally I stopped at "Journeyman".

Turned off background image
Distracting you from gameplay elements.

Unlocking title bar
to make it hide over the top of screen saved some more precious screen height.

HQ card images
Also, I made the card images quality higher by replacing Forge's pictures by HQ versions used with Mtgdb.Gui. It added that hack in v1.2.9. Surprizingly with good layout the effect of HQ was not that huge. What I was aming at was to make Forges's zoom feature reasonable because with LQ images the piture you get when zooming was shown actually smaller than the card image scaled in table layout. But after all, layout gave enough space for static panel always showing last hovered card zoomed. So the most important effect of HQ over LQ was clearly readable text on cards with a lot of text where you had 3-4 pixels per char in image itself.

To conclude - all the complexity of skinnable customizable layout proved to me worth the effort. You can actually get the result substantially more comfortable than the default state.
Thanks for reading this and have a nice time playing Forge!

P.S. The deck editor in Forge is awesome!

[hidalgo]

• Improved Forge pictures replacement. Previously only existing pictures were replaced. Current version also adds pictures missing from forge pics directory.
• Separated Forge pictures replacement feature to a separate executable Mtgdb.Integration.Forge.exe