MFP for Dummies

Hi Tim, Oxa et al,
I joined sometime last year and have since been impressed with this wonderfully flexible product and the enormous help offered by Mark, mcbee Oxa and one or two others including 1oser. I sometimes wonder with my seemingly never ending help requests if some are muttering in the background "Oh not him again". Equally I am amazed at the knowledge displayed by new members with a handful of posts to their name, who trot out long coded formulas and wonder how did they know this stuff. Is there some secret MFP society that I am unaware of?
This brings me to the subject of this post and that is the possibility of having a full manual or book either free or at a price. The current manual as I see it is a list of terms/codes etc and a brief description of their meanings. Unless there is a full manual that I am unaware of. Also I am aware of the sample triggers on the website.
The book I had in mind would ideally include some of the following chapters:
1) An introduction to automated (robot) betting.
2) How to construct triggers (with step by step illustrated examples)
3) Trigger blocks and how they function.
4) How 'conditions' are written and interact with the trigger blocks.
5) 'Close Blocks' When to use and how to design them.
6) A complete list of codes including or excluding those in the manual.
I do realise many of the codes are in the existing manual but the explanations are too brief in my humble opinion and would be better served by showing them in a trigger example.
I do realise what I am asking may involve a book so big that subscribers may have to take on a weight training course to pick it up In which case a series of booklets may be the answer and I would be happy to pay for them.
I seem to recall there was mention of a training course planned or am I mistaken ?
In any case I feel that life in my case would be a lot better if more meaningful 'How to' reading material with actual trigger examples was available. DVD's may be a bit too much to ask but would be nice
I'd like to give Mark, mcbee and others some respite from my endless questions !
I must be the only 5 star hero still in boot camp
Are there others out there that feel the same or am I the only dummy ?
Best regards
R

Hi,

nice idea, would imagine it would take some serious work.

Like the idea of a course too.

Keep up the questions, we all learn from the answers

larp

That ideia is the best!!

I can help if welldone stuff wants.

My problem is English (spoken and written) :S

pcal72

pcal, I am already impressed with what you do in the Portuguese speaking camp, both on the forum and outside! I cannot imagine even more help from you without serious damage to your personal time.

racepro, I do think positively about your suggestion, and in fact I took to it several times, even writing a few chapters. I will copy your post, and the posts of any other member who would like to share their thoughts, to my "todo" file which I try to tick off regularly. I especially value your input as a customer, i.e. the user of the program that I created and know every bit of it, so it all seems obvious to me and I might not have an idea of how everyone else is struggling with particular bits.

The problem I envisage here is the lack of will to read through all this stuff. I mean, how many of you have digested the whole BetFair online manual? I am not one of those to be sure, as most of my skills came from experience. People keep asking us questions that are covered in the "Getting Started" chapter of the manual, and that one is pretty simple with loads of screenshots and examples. No matter how user-friendly I try to make the comprehensive book you are suggesting, it's still going to be technical. I mean, to what extent can a book on differential calculus be user-friendly? Probably, up to the introduction chapter, and then comes the "boring stuff" that most people prefer to skip altogether.

MarketFeeder Pro is not close to the difficulty of differential calculus, but it is a fairly complex program for solving almost universal problems in betting.

Having said that, I see a positive trend in that more and more users are getting to grips with it and are willing to learn, not just have a quick fix. Sometimes they even suggest a way of using MF Pro that I would have never though of myself.

I will listen with great interest to what members have to say in this topic, and then let's see, if there is high demand for this kind of learning materials, I will try to allocate time and resources.

Hi Oxa,
Thanks for your response.
One idea worth consideration is to provide a comprehensive trigger complete with several blocks and an array of conditions and appropriate closing blocks. Together with a detailed description how the triggers, conditions and closing blocks were constructed.
This is more or less what Mark and mcbee are doing with their answers to members questions.
Just an idea to add to your list.
Cheers
R

MFP Magicians

I have been using MPF for a couple of years or so and as an almost 80yo I struggled with Trigger building to the point of frustration until I finally accepted my need for, and employed professional help from "Clint" to develop a number for me.

Racepro's suggestion is full of merit but Oxa's response is also quite understandable and for most of us non-coders this excellent program will always only offer ongoing "possibilities".

So far MFP has been a break even situation for me but I still hold out high hopes.

I wonder if David Walsh and Zeljko use MFP or do we compete with them and their programs for the declining gambling dollars?

Mike.

Great one RP. Nice to see this one is on it's way. I don't mind waiting.

Mike,

I doubt Zelijko would bother with commercial API's. He'd probably have his own programmers
write a customised one direct link to Betfair for use on Aussie races.
Oxa sounds positive so hopefully we can have something in a few months.

R

Hi all
Racepro that post could have been written by myself but i wouldnt have worded as good lol
I will add my pennys worth here i dont think a book or booklets would really help as answers are already in the manual.
Maybe something along the lines of a help page with a how to do section along with a list of codes and how to use them.
Andrew