tio tournament organizer

manual and readme

program version 1.1 by Neal Terrell

Overview

tio is based heavily on the design of Tournament Maker 2, a popular program for running single- and double-elimination brackets. Users with TM2 experience will find tio's functionality very familiar; however, tio presents a number of changes and upgrades to the Tournament Maker 2 standard that may confuse migrating tournament admins. Below is a summary of these changes.

Terminology

Tournament Maker's terminology can be imprecise and cumbersome. tio uses a different set of terms that help distinguish the different components of a tournament:

Events renamed tournaments
Games renamed events
"Game" now refers to the actual game being played in an event

In tio, "tournament" represents the entire collection of people who organize to compete in some form. "Events" organize entrants into a particular bracket style for a specific game. This removes the double-use of the term "Game" in Tournament Maker, in which "Game" refers to both the video game being played and the bracket in use.

Bracket Capabilities

tio's single- and double-elimination brackets build upon Tournament Maker's while adding small conveniences and optimizations:

Players can be swapped around in the losers' bracket. This allows the director to move a player to another portion of the bracket if the director feels it necessary. For example, there are times when two players might meet for the second time in an event in the losers' bracket; this double-jeopardy match can sometimes be delayed by swapping one player to the other end of the bracket. The mouse wheel can be used to scroll the bracket viewer. You'd be surprised how convenient this is!
Searching for players in the bracket is much faster thanks to a streamlined search interface.
The keyboard can be used to navigate and update the bracket. Keyboard users should check out the Tips & Tricks section for details.
Hovering the mouse over a match will show how long each player has been waiting for the match to commence; if only one player is ready to play, you will see a note of how many matches must complete before the selected match will be ready to play.
A "view" list allows you to change the visual style of the bracket viewer between standard (draw all information) and "current matches", which will gray out all matches that are completed or waiting for a second player, leaving only those that can be run at this instant. The keyboard can be restricted to moving between "ready" matches only when in this view.

tio also features a robust round robin bracket style, which organizes entrants into a group of pools where every player plays all their pool mates. Results from a round robin can be used to automatically seed a new bracket, seeding lower-ranked players against higher-ranked players from a different pool. This is a very powerful tool for running larger tournaments where round robins are commonly seen.

User Interface

tio's user interface differs in appearance from Tournament Maker's, but the underlying functionality is nearly identical. The main components of tio are arranged horizontally in tabs at the top of the application window. The Touranment tab corresponds to Tournament Maker's "Event Details" section; the Events tab contains a second set of tabs, one for each event being run at the tournament, much in the way Tournament Maker adds nodes beneath the Event Details section for each game being played.

Each tab in tio's Events section contains the same information as each game's node in Tournament Maker. Event editors are separated into four sections (Details, Entrants, Bracket, Results). Entry fees, payments made to the "house", seeding options, and other descriptive information appear in the Details section; the list of entered players and their entry fee status is organized in the Entrants section; the Bracket section shows and updates the current bracket; and the Results section contains a sophisticated set of results, including each player's entire match history.

tio also distinguishes between single players and teams. Separate lists of every player and team in the tournament are kept in the Players tab at the top of the user interface. The final tab, Stations, contains options for working with the built-in station manager.

Feature Comparison

Feature	TM2.1?	tio?
General
Bracket types	Single elimination, double elimination.	Single elimination, double elimination, round robin.
Seeding options	Random; relative skill (three groups); absolute skill; specify order; location; location + relative skill.	Random; absolute skill; relative skill (three groups) + absolute skill; specify order; location; location + absolute and/or relative skill.
Game station tracking	None	Queue any match at a station; view station queues; view length of time since match was assigned; view overall station usage.
Data formats	Binary. Custom database for saving players across tournaments.	XML. Tournaments and their players are completely distinct from one another.
External requirements	None.	Microsoft .NET Platform 1.0 or greater.
Players
Data fields	Nickname, name, location.	Nickname, name, location, skill.
Separates players/teams?	No.	Yes.
Note players on a team?	Through "Name" field. Name can be shown on bracket instead of nickname.	Dedicated "Players" field. Can be shown on bracket and results instead of nickname.
Saves locations for future use?	Yes.	No.
Saves players to application database?	Yes.	No. Players can be imported from a separate data file.
Events/Games
Distinguish event name from the game played?	No.	Yes.
Entry fees	Entry fee for each event; house cut (absolute or percentage); bonus pot.	Entry fee for each event; house cut (absolute or percentage); view pot size.
Payouts	Pre-sets; custom for 1st through 4th places; percentages only.	Pre-sets; custom for all placings; percentages or absolute amounts.
Results	Customizable text output, copy bracket image.	Text output, copy bracket image, view match summary for each entrant, post to web server.
Double/single elimination bracket capabilities
Add/remove entrants after creation?	Replace a Bye with a player; set player as "forfeited" (treat as Bye going forward).	Replace a Bye with a player; replace a player with a Bye.
Bracket rearranging	Click+ drag first round only.	Click+drag first round; losers' bracket through right-click "manual swap."
User interface	Mouse only. Mouse updates matches, scrolls canvas.	Mouse and keyboard. Keyboard can move a "current selection" around the bracket and update the selected match. Can scroll bracket with mouse or keyboard.
Searching	Find specific matchup; find next match for a specific player as selected from a drop-down list; must use mouse when searching.	Find next match for a player. Specify player by typing all or part of their name. Entirely keyboard-driven.
Match status	Not running; in progress (draws in red [customizable]).	Not running; in progress (draws in green); queued at a station (draws in red).
Match diagnostics	None.	View amount of time since a player's last match. View number of matches & rounds a player is waiting on before he can play. View amount of time since match was set "in progress." View station the match is assigned to.
Bracket options	None.	Set win/loss count for each match. Set number of games per match. Change number of games on a per-round basis. Rearrange losers' bracket through "manual swap" option.
Display options	Show player names instead of nicknames. Change bracket colors. View "current matches" instead of bracket (shows a list of matches that can be run right now).	Show a team's players instead of nickname. View win/loss results for each match. View "current matches" on top of bracket (grays out all matches in the bracket that cannot be run right now). Ignore mouse double-clicks (to prevent accidently updating the bracket via errant mouse clicks).
Break ties?	No.	Yes, via Results section. Can split ties to achieve 6th and 8th place finishers, etc., instead of two 5ths and two 7ths.
Miscellaneous
Game types	Pre-built list, can be added to & edited. Can group games into categories.	Pre-built list, can be added to & edited. No categorization.
Help	Microsoft Windows Help database. Can be indexed and searched.	HTML manual. No searching. Integrated tutorials for new users.
Overall tournament summary	Text listing of each game and its top finishers.	None.
Interface navigation	Mouse only.	Mouse and keyboard. Keyboard can move between tabs and sections easily. Input areas have shortcut commands for increasing productivity: Control+A to select all items in a list/text box, Enter to trigger a related "add" or "update" button, Delete to remove items in a list, etc.
Automatic version updates?	No.	Yes (message box on launch when a new version is available).
Recent files list?	No.	Yes (4 most recent tournament files).
Printing?	No.	Round robin brackets only.
Multi-monitor support?	None, beyond simple mirroring application to second monitor.	Can launch secondary windows to show the current bracket. This window can be linked to the main application so scrolling one will also scroll the other. Can also launch windows to show all station assignments and which pool each player is assigned to in a round robin bracket.