color warning not coordinated with in-play timer

[flok]

hi, i have a big problem with the in-play timer:
if i open a market when the race has already started, the timer indicates the right time (since the market is gone in-play) but the color bar at the top of the ladders starts from the beginning, like if the race started in the same moment when i opened the market.

can it be fixed? i mean, if a minute after the start i open the market of a 2 minutes race, can the color bar be already at half instead of starting from zero?
thanks, ciao

[custard]

If you do not open the market before the off, you have to take the timer as it is or use a watch. Geek cannot make The Toy monitor markets which you have not opened. He's good, very good, but even he can't do that. :)

[flok]

but, if i open the market 1 minute and 30 seconds after the off, the timer shows 1:30, not 0:00, there must be a way to make the color bar follow the timer?
(i'm not a programmer, excuse me if i say something wrong)

[custard]

If you want the timer to work, I believe that the market should be opened before the "off" and not after it.

I think I now understand what you are saying as you second post makes more sense. You want the timer to reflect the elapsed time of the race as it is shown above the grid ? This may be possible but only Geek will know for sure. So, over to him.

[Cran]

If you do not open the market before the off, you have to take the timer as it is or use a watch. Geek cannot make The Toy monitor markets which you have not opened. He's good, very good, but even he can't do that. :)

It would be possible to monitor horse race markets that aren't open and track the start time without any significant increase to API calls.

Would just need one call per second on each market, and only after it's start time until it went in play, and then if you decided to open the market after the off TT would now how long it had already been running...

Maybe in the next version...

Please!!! :cool:

[custard]

It would be possible to monitor horse race markets that aren't open and track the start time without any significant increase to API calls.

Would just need one call per second on each market, and only after it's start time until it went in play, and then if you decided to open the market after the off TT would now how long it had already been running...

Maybe in the next version...

Please!!! :cool:

What happens when two races are scheduled to start at the same time ? Or, if the races run into each other because of delays at a track ?

If it can be done, and if it is to be a feature, I would urge that those who did not need it should be able to switch it off.

I used to know everything about The Toy but as it has grown I have lost touch.

[Cran]

What happens when two races are scheduled to start at the same time ? Or, if the races run into each other because of delays at a track ?

If it can be done, and if it is to be a feature, I would urge that those who did not need it should be able to switch it off.

I used to know everything about The Toy but as it has grown I have lost touch.

tbh even a check once every 10 secs would be good enough...

The polling would only need to be from scheduled start time until it went in play, so yes sometimes a race could be 30 mins late, but it would mean you get a in play timer if you open a horse market late.

[flok]

exactly, this costed me 600 euros today.
i was trading a race, hedged my trade, closed the market and opened another, that in the meantime was already started.
i didnt consider the timer, but the color indicator (my mistake, i know), so, when i was in a losing trade i thought "ok, the race is at the beginning, let's wait there's plenty of time to close it" while instead it was almost over, and the market was suspended when the color bar was advanced by 20-30% of its total lenght

[1/4 of a millionaire fund]

exactly, this costed me 600 euros today.

Probably not keeping track of time cost you the 600 euros. To be honest I'm surprised the geek even includes it within the program as it's just one of those things that'll always attract hassle rather than praise. I can understand why none of the other vendors include one. It's pretty much a lazy way of keeping track of a race rather than watching it on TV or one the the feeds available, and we all know where shortcuts end up.

As for polling races every 10 seconds how many races do you want to continually poll, there's hundreds each day. It'd be much better to take it out of the toy and leave it as a standalone either as it used to be or for it to track races via the website or free api feeds and just have tick boxes against any races you wished to poll and keep track of.

[flok]

i find it particularly comfortable, since watching the race distracts me from the ladders (and anyway it's too delayed) and calculating the remaining time before the end of the race from the timer distracts me too.
i find the color bar pretty intuitive, fast, and the best way to take a look at the timing of the race without stopping to "read" the race from the movements of the ladders, as i do since 2-3 years.

i understand that every user has a different way or working and different needs, there are so many functions in the toy that i dont even know (auto-stoploss? never used it), but it's not a good reason for me to complain when someone else uses them or asks if it's possible to improve them

[flok]

You want the timer to reflect the elapsed time of the race?

exactly, would be great!

[Cran]

As for polling races every 10 seconds how many races do you want to continually poll, there's hundreds each day.
Just one or two.

The polling would only be for races past the scheduled off until they start, and would only need to do one market per race.

Not everyone knows the name of the horses or uses pictures. There are other ways to make money IR and the timer is useful for indicating when it's time to start/stop looking for bets/trades.

[1/4 of a millionaire fund]

I'm not saying it's not useful cran, just saying you'd always be on a hiding to nothing.

As soon as you include something in the program people expect it to do it perfectly. I'm not saying it can't be done well as I can think of lots of ways to track upcoming markets but they're all likely to come with trade offs and hassle to do properly.

[flok]

actually i wasn't thinking about polling the markets even if they're not open, but to set the color bar to follow the timer.

example: as soon as i open the market, if the timer says 1:00 and the previewed lenght of the race is 2:00, the bar will start from the middle instead of the beginning.
but in this case there will be the problem that the timer doesnt really know if the race started at the scheduled time or not... right?

[The Geek]

Sorry to hear about this. The problem we have is that Betfair only tell us the scheduled start time of the market. As such if you open a market that is already in play, we can only go by that time. { Hence why there is a * either side of the race time. }

The race timer is there as an indicator only, and is never 100% accurate as course, going, race class and how they decide to run on the day can vary the time significantly.

If the market is already in play when you open it, DONT trust the timer / IP bar. { It's not supposed to show anything if the market is in play when you open it, but I suspect some dodgy data from Betfair may have caused it to show in this case. }

[flok]

everything's clear now, thanks.
so in the future if i open a race that has already started i'll not consider the timer, but the average duration of that particular type of race

[The Geek]

No. If you open a market that is already in play, do not trust the timer or the progress bar, as unless the race went off dead on time { and most don't } both will be wrong.

[flok]

yes, that's what i thought just after i wrote the previous post (it's edited)

[valve]

Do not believe what the bar shows, I was watching this feature (new to me) and I found out that even in in-play is not precise, so be careful.

[valve]

wanted to say that even when the market goes in-play