Recently I have found this feature more and more helpful and thought I update the community and share my thoughts.
Background
- The Lineup Assistant feature was introduced as a test with v4.5 for iOS. Historically I have not used and under appreciated its value. I tried it initially but did not find it fit my situation very often. That said, I recently have found it very helpful when used in conjunction with Discovery Team and I wanted to update the community on its value in those situations. I mention this so others may learn from my experience on when best to use.
I also want to credit the developers for their innovation and updated my prior post on the features usefulness. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10449
LINE UP ASSISTANT
- This feature is designed for the very frequent situation when you do not have lineup in advance and have to scramble to figure out who is batting as they step up to the plate. Lineup Assistant when combined with Discovery Team, can make setting the lineup much less hectic in this situation and helps ensure the scorecard is correct.
how it works? if you start your game with your opponents batting lineup empty (aka all players set to batting = no) . Then the program will prompt you to select the next batter from a pop up list. You will continue this for each at bat, until you indicate lineup is complete, aka back to top of order . Not only does this remind you to verify the batter each time at the plate, It reduces your button presses, and it also helps keep the PDF scorecard formatted correctly, as long as you identify the correct return to top of the order.
My updated findings:- When Discover Team provides BOTH the player number and name, the Lineup Assistant is most useful. (the player number is key to me)
- When Discover Team provides name only, but not number, less helpful, unless they announce players name at walk up.
- when roster does not have player numbers and they do not announce players names, I tend to use "Misc > Show Starting Lineup to manage the lineups (not lineup assistant). I suggest you may want to try both ways and see which is easier for you
- When discover team is not available, I still find Quick roster is the easiest way to manage opposing team lineups. I start with generic players 1-x, and then use misc > show starting lineup to edit the player name and number over time, but am not pressed to do it immediately - just as time allows. As long as i am sure to have the right number of batters batting (see caution below).
- Under the covers, the program assigns the lineup position in the batting order to the play activities you enter. It is this batting lineup position, not the human readable information, that is most critical to the program. This 'lineup position programming', is what allows the user to move the players around in the starting lineup before during or after the game. (When you understand the concept that the position is what matters, It makes it easier to understand how you adjust/move/edit the starting lineup including editing the name and number when ever time allows without confusing the program. A critical byproduct of this approach, is you must make sure the starting lineup, has the "exact right number" of batters set to yes, before you roll over to top of line up. Once the top of the order ("lead off '1 hole' batter") bats twice, the program "internally marks" the number batting, and builds the PDF scorecard around that number. If the batting number is wrong, the PDF scorecard format gets confused and that is one of the few post game edits that I have never figured out how to correct without re scoring the game
previous related post updated at
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10449