The Magic Behind Quidditch

Once you have it open, it will look like this (without the bright green writing on it ;):

1. The Menu Bar - below you will find information on each of the items in the Menu Bar - 

• File
• New Game - resets the program to start a new game.
• Open Question Set - this will load a question set into the program. You will not see any visible change. More information about how to create your own question sets in another part of the lesson.
• Load Team Info - Load a saved team information file.
• Save Team A/B Info - if you know the teams and their positions ahead of time, then you can enter the information and save it.
• Exit - closes the program
• View
• Compact - allows those with a smaller monitor resolution to use the program... 
• Full - if you can see the whole program in full view mode, please do.
• Tools
• Set Team Colors - ah, sometimes it's nice for the teams to see their colours! The Four HOL Houses are "preset" but you can also play around with the settings to come up with your own combinations. The IRC colours is what will show when the program sends to your IRC client.
• Set Score - if you need to reset the score for whatever reason, do it here.
• Set Situation - sometimes we make a mistake and will need to reset a situation during the game - this is is where you can do it.
• Set Snitch Value - The snitch is currently worth 50 points. When the program was created, there was some debate over the value of the snitch. If it changes, you can change the value here.
• Mouse Rollover - when it's "on" if you put your mouse over the text boxes for "situation, question, answer, or scoring", it will copy the text of that box to the clipboard, and you will be able to paste it say to a P2P (private chat) window, or another channel. Default is OFF though.
• Reset Labels - will reset all player/team information to the default setting
• IRC
• Connect to mIRC/Pirch client - in order for your program to "talk/interact" with the IRC chat window, you must tell it to connect to your IRC client. (Helpful to have IRC open first, then open the Ref program and connect.) You will not see anything visible happen.
• Begin IRC Play - choosing this will start the game going by announcing the situation, sending the 5 "second" countdown, and asking the question. Either from the beginning, or restart it from the current situation if you halted (see next item)
• Halt IRC Play - this will stop the program wherever it may be.
• Set IRC Channels - two options here, either broadcast to the "current active channel" - that means whatever channel you are chatting in - so if you switch to another chat window while the program is running, it will broadcast to the new window - even a private chat window. The other option is much better if you are using more than one chat window - you will get to set the channels you want the ref program to set to. It can even talk to two chat windows at a time (broadcast to a spectator channel, like #grandstand)
• Announce Teams - what you will do before you "Begin IRC Play" - this will send to the channel the player names of both the teams. :)
• Help
• Instructions - opens the readme.html file that comes with the program. Godrics Ghost has not had a chance to correct some of the information, so please ignore anything that is inaccurate.
• About Quidditch Assistant - just a window to tell you who created this program and such.

2. Team Name Entry

• Type the names of the Teams in these boxes.

3. Player Name Entry

• The boxes that you see "Chaser 1, Beater 2" etc is where you will type the names of the players for each team. The "buttons" beside each player name are the ones you push when that player has answered a question correctly, and it will send that information to the chat window.

4. Score

• Just tells you the current score

5. Buttons & Timer

• All Chasers Button - a shortcut button to send the situation back to all chasers
• New Question Button - clicking this will choose a new question to replace the old one (sometimes there is a dubious or badly written question in the question sets, so you will want a new question)
• Bludger Button - clicking this button will send a bludger into the pitch (irc chat window). The "bludger situation" can be quite confusing, even to a seasoned referee, please make sure and read carefully the Bludger Section on the Quidditch FAQ, and take this Bludger Mini-Quiz.
• Timer Box - this is just for the ref's "information". Default setting is 30 seconds. You can turn it on or off by just clicking with your mouse on the box. It resets to 30 seconds for each new question. It's up to the ref when to call "time" for answer. We want to keep play moving as quickly as possible.

6. Game Play Information

• Situation - this tells you what team positions turn it is - i.e. All Chasers, Chaser vs. Keeper
• Question - the current trivia question - if it is a long one, you may not be able to see the whole thing.
• Answer - the answer to the current trivia question - if you cannot see the whole thing, place your mouse cursor in the box, and use your right arrow key on your keyboard in order to make the answer appear.
• Scoring - the current score of the game
• buttons - those little buttons next to each of the words (Situation, Question, Answer, Scoring) will send what text is in that box to the IRC channel when you push it.