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What is New in RaceMate 9.0

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Welkin has done significant improvements in RaceMate's new version 9.0. In order to fit in with the latest operating system Windows Vista, we have redesigned part of RaceMate's structure. There are also many exciting feature enhancements in version 9.0. The main objective of this version upgrade is to make RaceMate a unique professional tool for organizing race information and getting useful betting hints. Below is a highlight of part of the new features.

 

Changes Related to Windows Vista

Microsoft has implemented radical changes in the security design of Windows Vista. Part of the program code of RaceMate was rewritten in order to make the software fit in with the new operating system.

New Default Installation Folder

RaceMate is a dynamically updating software. Users can download new data everyday from RaceMate's data server. During data updates, program files may also be renewed in order to enhance the software's features and to deal with occasional changes implemented by the Jockey Club. Therefore RaceMate must be installed into a writable folder. One major change of Windows Vista is the new read-only default of the "C:\Program Files" folder. Because of this change, RaceMate can no longer reside in "C:\Program Files". The default installation folder of RaceMate has been changed to "C:\RaceMate". You may change C: to other drive letters if you want RaceMate resides in another drive.
This default installation folder change will not affect existing RaceMate users running RaceMate under Windows XP or earlier.

In Case You Upgrade Your Windows

In case you are going to upgrade your Window to Vista from an earlier version, no matter you are doing an in-place upgrade or moving RaceMate into a new Windows Vista computer, please follow the steps in the pages About UpgradingWindows and Moving or Uninstalling RaceMate.

 

New Features about Statistics and Record Filtering

Unless you regard horse racing as pure gambling, you should know that statistics and record filtering are the most important actions for winning good betting returns. The new statistics and record filtering power make RaceMate a professional unique tool of data analysis for getting best betting results.

Unlimited Number and Complexity of Criteria

The "Race Query and Comprehensive Statistics" form has been completely rewritten. In old versions, only one level of "AND" criteria can be formed. In version 9.0, you can create any number of AND or OR brackets in your criteria in unlimited levels (a criteria tree with any number of AND and OR nodes).
In old versions, there is a set of predefined data columns for showing the results of all queries and statistics. You can neither get rid of any of them nor add a new one. In version 9.0, you can customize your queries and statistics results. You can create different views for different queries.
While keeping the user interface simple, a number of new criteria items have been added into the criteria list of the Race Query and Comprehensive Statistics form. You can now do almost any statistics under any grouping by simple mouse clicks.

Statistical Views and Criteria Library

In prior versions, only a predefined set of criteria are available for choosing. In version 9.0 you can define new criteria by inputting MCL functions. You can even add your criteria into the new MCL Criteria Library for future use.
In old versions, the system will not keep any record of criteria selections that you make on the query form. That means you have to reselect all the criteria next time you want to carry out the same statistics. In version 9.0, you can save what you selected as views. The views will be available in the view list of the query page for future access.

Views in Horse, Jockey, and Stable Forms

Views are now available in the horse, jockey, and stable forms. You will see a couple of built-in views in these forms. You may also design your own views to retrieve the data that you need and calculate the statistics that you want. A new Stat Views page will replace the History page.
You can now create user input columns in the new Stat Views for entering comments and ratings.
You can edit input columns of other views. In other words, an input column can be shared by more than one view.

Sharing and Hiding Views

As described above, a view is now shared by different forms. Therefore you will have a centralized location for editing a view and any new changes to the view will take place in all forms.
The new view sharing design brings statistics and filter features (which are only available in the Comprehensive Statistics form in order versions) to the Horse, Jockey and Stable data forms. This will provide you with new angles for studying statistical results.
In case a view is not suitable for a particular form, you may hide the view from that form. Whenever needed, you can show the view again on the form. In case you save a built-in view as a new view for editing, you may then hide the original built-in view from the view list of the Stat View page.

 

Differences between New and Old Views

In RaceMate 8.0 or earlier, views (starter views) can only be found in the Race Data form. In the new version, views (statistical views) are available in Comprehensive Statistics, Horse, Jockey and Stable forms. Please note that the views in the Race Data form of RaceMate 9.0 are still old type views. Actually there are many important differences between these two types of views. The major differences are listed as follows.

Views in Different Languages Mode

Each starter view in the Race Data form is only created for a particular language mode. You will not see a starter view created in English when you are in Chinese language mode, and vice versa. On the contrary, the new statistical views can be for both language modes. There is a checkbox on the view property editing form which enables bilingual support of the view.

Column Names and Column ID Numbers

Duplicated column names are not allowed in starter views while they are legal in new statistical views. This design is to facilitate the new tree structure of criteria, particularly "OR criteria groups". That means a criteria title can appear multiple times in the view structure table.
Each column in a statistical view is assigned a column ID number. In the new version, the Column( ) function will accept either column ID numbers (e.g., Column(15)) or column names (e.g., Column('FP')) as argument. Since now column names are not necessarily unique, we recommend users to use column ID numbers in the Column( ) function in new statistical views. Column ID numbers are guaranteed to be unique and will not be changed when you switch language modes while names of columns will generally be different in different language modes.

Differences about Built-in Views

There are two types of built-in starter Views: modifiable and read-only, while there is only one type of built-in views in the new statistical views of version 9.0: modifiable with auto-reset. The changes that you make to an old modifiable built-in starter view will be permanent while changes made to a new built-in statistical view will be lost (auto-reset) when you restart RaceMate. If you want to keep your change to a built-in statistical view, you can save the changed view structure to a new view name. You can then make further changes to the view without worrying about losing your work.
The reason we don't want to keep the changes to a built-in view made by a user is that we will enhance and update built-in views on a regular basis and we don't want to overwrite users' change during the updates. The reason we allow temporary changes is that user can change statistics grouping of a built-in view to compare the results of grouping changes (drill-down and roll-up). We will prepare video demos about this technique later.

Pause before Data Retrieval

On the data forms with a new view selection list, changing views by single-clicking on a view name will not immediately retrieve data. You will only see the data grid is shaded. You must then click on the [Load Data] button to start data retrieval. The reason for this design is that in a starter view of a Race Data form, there are limited number of records because there are only less than 14 horses in a race, while in other data forms number of records can be over thousands. Loading thousands of records with statistics can be time consuming. Therefore we place a pause before data retrieval so that you can adjust view criteria and data range before data loading. If you really want immediate data retrieval without pause, please double-click on a view name rather than single-click on it.

Relocating Columns

In new statistical views, you will not be able to relocate a column by directly dragging it into a new location. In order to move it, you need to open the structure of the view in the "Definition of Statistical Views" form and use the arrow buttons at the right bottom of the form to relocate a column line.

 

 


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