Beginner Programmer ( Third Party Program Enhancement Software )

IWill NotTilt

Hello everyone, I am new to the forums and to programming. I just started programming, and after reading a little bit about the benefits and negatives of various programming languages, I decided I would learn C#. I have written the classic 'hello world!' program, and a calculator program. I am at the very early stages in development, I am aware of this. I already have a big project in mind that I would like to be able to write, sometime in the future. I have no illusions, and I realize that I may be a year or two years away from where I need to be before I can even start to right a program like the one I am thinking about. What I would like is some direction. The project I have in mind would be a program that reads the amount of chips you have in your stack at an online casino, and then displays that number to my screen in big blinds. I would like to know what sort of programming techniques I should be looking into. What sort of technologies will most likely need to be leveraged on a project like this. This program is completely legal and would have to fall within any sites TOS before I would sell it, or use it, but I have read up on that, and it is completely legal, and not considered cheating. That being said, after this project I would like to work on others, trying to improve upon third party apps. If you have any videos, tutorials, books, or just some sound advice, I would appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

14 Replies

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Sam Hobbs14y ago
In that code "data" is an instance of a class; look at its declaration. Then "dealerPos" is a property or member of that class. The decimal indicates membership. Usually instances of a class are called objects but that is more of a convention than anything official. Classes consist of methods and data; data can be variables but there are things called properties that are somewhat of a combination of methods and data variables.

The best way to learn about all that is to read a book or articles that are written to explain things like that. Use of a decimal in that manner is extremely fundamental in object-oriented programming except in other languages such as C++ the exact syntax varies. In C++ a "::" (double colon) might be used instead of a decimal and sometimes "->" is used instead. There are articles and books you can get for free in this web site; go to the home page.
IWill NotTilt14y ago
Thanks again for the response. I did notice that it was for debugging. The thing that got me (and I probably shouldn't have posted the debugging code, since it has probably side tracked my question); is the "data.dealerPos". I believe 'data' and 'dealerPos' are two different things, but they are joined together with a decimal. Why is this so?
Sam Hobbs14y ago
As for suggestions relevant to the question of this thread, it will help to have more details as explained previously. I think the most relevant articles would be articles about Windows API programming but since you are not developing a Windows API program you are probably not interested in learning Windows API programming.

As for the other code, it is using "Debug.WriteLine" to write debugging data. It will be written only when a debug build is executed using the debugger. The output will appear in the "Output" window in Visual Studio. Try to find articles about the debugger (and what a debug build is if you are not yet familiar with that) and then if you still have questions create a new thread.
IWill NotTilt14y ago
I was just looking through an old open source program, and I found some code I don't understand. Can you explain any of this to me?

if (data.dealerPos >= 0) Debug.WriteLine("Dealer position: {0}", data.dealerPos); else Debug.WriteLine("Error on reading dealer position");
IWill NotTilt14y ago
Thanks so much for the help! If you have any other suggestions, books,tutorials, etc. Please, they would be greatly appreciated.
Sam Hobbs14y ago
The process id, thread id, start address, and window handle are all temporary and not useful in other execution. The commands being sent are definitely useful, both for your education and for potential use in your development. There are many other useful messages. You will learn that there are a few high-volume messages, such as WM_MOUSEMOVE that are seldom relevant and just get in the way so I turn them off. What I often do is to log the messages, then go in and turn off the high-volume messages then do another run.

As I indicated previously, you should explore the controls for the application. In the General tab, the Window Caption is useful for many controls; it is the contents of edit (textbox) controls and some other controls such as buttons. The Windows tab can be useful; many controls actually have child controls. In the Class tab, the Class Name is important. For controls that are actually Windows API controls, the Class Name will be meaningful. Nothing else in the Class tab is useful most of the time. The Styles tab is not likely to be useful except for you education.

Something very different that can also be educational and potentially useful is a network sniffer such as Wireshark or this Network Monitor. If the data is coming from a web site or anywhere using networking, then you can probably see it coming in.
IWill NotTilt14y ago
I used Spy++ on the the game client, and let me just say, that program is amazing, it opened my eyes so much. I don't believe it is a browser though. I could not find anything that implied that it was a browser, and I used the messages logging feature on top of exploring the thread tree. I did find some interesting things though, like commands being sent, process id, thread id, start address, and window handle. I wonder if these are useful?
IWill NotTilt14y ago
Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. I will check that out and let you know what I find out.
Sam Hobbs14y ago
You need to determine what the UI is using. Avoid describing what you need using poker terms; it will be better if you speak in developer terms, such as what the control is that you need to get. Go to Visual Studio and find "Spy++" in the Tools. Use that to explore the window(s) of the application.

If the application is communicating with a web site, then it is likely doing that using a browser. Please understand that it is a possibility. So you need to start by determining what the UI is. In Spy++ there is a Finder tool you can use by dragging and dropping onto windows. You need to learn ho to do that. Then use that to determine the "class name" of the client arae of the applicaiton. The "client area" is essentially the entire window except for the title bar. The client area includes the menu area. Learn how to use Spy++ to find the parts of windows such as those.

I will be surprised if the applicatio does not use a browser. So I am trying to guide you so you can determine that yourself.
IWill NotTilt14y ago
It doesn't use a browser, unless it is one that the company created. Their is an application name pokerstars.exe. I have been in the IT industry as a technical support analyst for over eight years. I know what a browser looks like, I am just new to programming. Here is a screen shot of the main lobby.

http://www.google.ca/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1309&bih=737&tbm=isch&tbnid=jvp6UzdISmWIhM:&imgrefurl=http://www.compareonlinepoker.com/pokerstars-vs-full-tilt-poker/&docid=PcsCFB8nxN_lJM&imgurl=http://www.compareonlinepoker.com/wp-content/themes/revolution-magazine/images/pokerstars-lobby-575x430.gif&w=575&h=430&ei=hnZ-T6_kC46q8ATimcSRDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=690&vpy=286&dur=394&hovh=135&hovw=180&tx=119&ty=109&sig=100827256735892187157&page=1&tbnh=128&tbnw=171&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0,i:85
Sam Hobbs14y ago
Please do not use the term blinds and do not even try to explain what.

The thing you need to tell us is what is used for the UI and graphics. My guess is that it does use a browser. If it does then please read what I said.
IWill NotTilt14y ago
It is an application, it doesn't use a browser. What happens is, you start off with a certain amount of chips, you either can or lose chips, so your stack is dynamic, but it is visible as a number. For example, in most tournament structures, everyone starts off with 1500 chips and the blinds are 10/20. That means that we start off with 75 big blinds. I want to somehow scrape these numbers, and create an output display on the table that would show the text '75BBs' or whatever amount of big blinds I have is. So I will have to somehow be able to read the stack size from the screen of the program and convert that to the amount of big blinds that equals, and display that on the currently active table as '75BBs' or whatever the current amount of BBs is. Here is as an example of the type of screen I will be dealing with. Notice that the blinds are .05/.50 and are visible are the top of the screen. The stack size is visible underneath the players name, and I would like to the program I write to display how man big blinds are in my stack and display it in red color on the poker table.

http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=pokerstars+classic&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1440&bih=775&tbm=isch&tbnid=Mas-HT3xm-aooM:&imgrefurl=http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerstars-skins.php&docid=Jvkf0hK3hAeumM&imgurl=http://www.flopturnriver.com/images/pokerstars-classic.jpg&w=500&h=367&ei=fF9-T5POPIrs8wSap7yuDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=170&vpy=205&dur=1482&hovh=192&hovw=262&tx=150&ty=88&sig=114556121363475706666&page=1&tbnh=126&tbnw=162&start=0&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:66
Sam Hobbs14y ago
It depends on what you mean by "reads the amount of chips you have in your stack". Do you mean you need to read a web page for an online game? Most sites like that will intentionally make it dificult. Regardless, you are more likley to get help if you are more spcecific about what you need to do.

I am not sure what to say. My article Introduction to Web Site Scraping might help but I do not know.
IWill NotTilt14y ago
I realize that my question itself may have come across wrong. I am willing to accept that I may not even know to ask the right questions right now. I am just looking for some direction.