Number Groups Builder

[therealpoorboy]

Hi Stan

Would it be possible to have a Number Groups builder?
I use Number Groups with every draw.
Currently I need to build at least 4 Number Groups with 50 sets in each Number Group.
The Cut and Paste feature has been a great tool when copying from Excel, but having a Number Groups builder that would import a .csv file to a new Number Group would be a definite time saver

What are your thoughts?

[stan]

And how the builder should work then?

[therealpoorboy]

Hi Stan

Thanks for considering this.
Below are my thoughts and possible ideas for user process pseudo code

We would need a third option in the "Number Groups Tools" Creator

I.e Menu Drop Down ->Tools -> Number Groups -> 'Click Green '+' -> Import .CSV [ currently there are two types of Groups [Number ranges or Discrete numbers]

At this point the user would a select a .csv file that they had previously created.

They would select the .csv file and they would be prompted to enter the number of groups, this would correspond to the number lines in the file.

See Example below:
This number group file below has 5 lines and therefore 5 number groups
99 groups is the current max limit for number groups so that would have to be the max limit

File1.csv

Data1,3,14 26,31,
Data2,5,13,28,31,45,49,
Data3,48,45,13,11,12,37,2,5
Data4,11,22,33,44,1,3,4,5,46
Data5,40,31,32,21,12,34, 48,44,34,12,

//Syntax
The first data would be text if the user wanted to name the Number Groups as the number groups are created, (i.e Data1....Data5)
After that would be the actual numbers for the each number group.

//Error Checking
There would have to be authentication for error checking that the numbers can be played in the game.
I.e There could not be a 50 if they were playing a 6/49 game

There could not be a 0

The numbers in the lines would not have to be sorted from lowest to highest
i.e Data5,40,31,32,21,12,34, 48, 44,34,12, // this line or group is not sorted from lowest to highest ,and it should be able to be read in regardless

//Duplicates in the line
If there was a duplicate number in line, there should not be a problem either.
Since this is an advanced method of creating Number Groups, some owness should be placed on the user
The user created the .csv file they should be a aware of the numbers in the each line.
But you may wish to have a check box [ either except duplicates or not do except duplicates] //but this maybe a little too tedious though

//Number Group Creation
As the .csv file is read in it would perform the above error checks and then spit out any exceptions with a dialogue box.
If there are any errors the user would have to go back to the original .csv file and make the corrections and try the above process again.

Once the .csv file is successfully read in the user would be prompted to Name it.

The Number Groups would then appear, in right pane as it does now.

These are just my thoughts and a starting point to consider.
It definitely would be a time saver for creating large and multiple Number Groups

Thanks for your consideration

[stan]

And do you expect that number groups imported this way would just reference the original CSV file or should the numbers be copied from the CSV file to application's internal storage so it would be possible to remove the CSV file and keep the number groups working?

[therealpoorboy]

And do you expect that number groups imported this way would just reference the original CSV file or should the numbers be copied from the CSV file to application's internal storage so it would be possible to remove the CSV file and keep the number groups working?

I think it would be better if the file was not referenced.
I think it would be better if the number groups from the csv file were copied to the apps internal storage, so if the .csv file was removed the newly created 'number group' would still exist to keep the number groups working for future draws
Currently that is the way I use the Number Groups feature, 10% are reused and the 90% are created/'hardcoded' for the specific current draw.
Once the I know the Number Groups has expired for my purposes I delete it.
I really rely Number Groups as I find it to be a very powerful feature of Lotto Expert, it is just the creating of them that is time consuming and the possibility of a data entry error to be my biggest concern when I am manually creating them from Excel.