Another fun year of fantasy drafting is upon us, and for the new year a new version of the DDT. For 2009 I focused on usability rather than new eye-popping features. During my drafts last season I took many notes on usability improvements I wanted to incorporate into the 2009 version. I also scoured the message board for suggestions from the community. Here are the main improvements that have been made to the 2009 version of the DDT:

Improved Draft Status



I frequently found myself wondering how many picks remained before my next pick. In DDT '08 there was no great way to figure out how many picks came before your next pick. In DDT '09 I've reformatted the upper-right corner to show the current owner & pick, and then how many picks remain before your next pick. The text changes to red when you are 2 picks away from being on the clock, and bold red when you are on deck.

Auto-Focus On Player Filter

In previous versions of the DDT you'd have to click your mouse on the filter above the player names to begin searching for a player. In DDT '09 the focus is automatically placed in the player name filter after each pick is made. This means you can use your keyboard to filter the name, use the down arrow to highlight the player to draft, press Enter to draft, and then DDT will automatically clear the filter and put you right back into the player name field. You should be able to make many consecutive picks without using the mouse at all.

Show/Hide The Owners List & Roster



Sometimes you want to see more of the players list, or more of the draft board (especially true on low-resolution monitors). In the past you had to resize the windows to expose more of the players list or draft board. In DDT '09 there are buttons above the Owners List and Roster that let you minimize or restore them very quickly.

Auto-Save



DDT '09 has a new Auto-Save feature that will automatically save your .ddt file after picks are made. By default the Auto-Save is enabled to save after every 3rd pick is made. Each time you turn it off and back on again you can set how frequently to Auto-Save. So, you can set it to save your league after every pick if you desire.

Auto-Save ONLY works if you have previously saved your league. New leagues will not be Auto-Saved until you save it for the first time.

Despite the fact that I've never had any crashing issues with DDT in the past, I found myself saving after every pick anyway. So for this year I made the DDT Auto-Save for me.

Apply Default Stat Modifiers

For most leagues the rushing & receiving stat modifiers are the same for QB's, RB's, WR's & TE's. With DDT '09 if you are setting up a new league and change the QB rushing stat modifiers the RB will also change to match. Of course you can override each position, but in most cases this will just save some time and reduce errors in your league setup.

Inversion Hints For Stat Modifiers



In the New League setup DDT will now let you confirm that you're using the right Stat Modifier. This serves as a sanity test before you create your league and get wacky rankings because your Stat Modifiers weren't correct.

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That's is for now. I had a few more features I wanted to incorporate for this season, but lack of time limited what features I decided to include for this season. I hope these new features make the DDT a little easier to use for this season.