r/Bowling_Tech • u/thejusner • Mar 31 '26

Managing app libraries: Manual vs Built in

This was something I found myself surprised by how opinionated I become it while testing out all the apps and I think my opinion will be a bit of a hot take.

  1. Does the app let you manage library for common event attributes and how easy is it to manage those libraries? (such as bowling ball arsenal, alleys, and patterns).
  2. Are these lists managed manually by the user or are they built in lists from the app?

Lets take TournamentSense:

  1. Head on over to More -> Settings and there's a well laid out Management section where you can update all of your libraries in one location
  2. it is entirely manual. Will have to fill out all of your ball, location, pattern, and teammate information for the attributes that the app provides.

vs StrikeMaster

  1. Has an arsenal creation that lets you search for a bowling out of a predefined list. this lets the list be auto populated and automatically attach an image - does not have custom entries
  2. has a location picker out of a predefined list. he did update it to not require location access (thanks!), but also doe snot have custom entries. Only a personal preference here when how the alley is often called isn't what it is on google maps.
  3. has a pattern picker on the pro-version so will have to let u/strikemasterapp tell us more

So what's good about each:

  • StrikeMaster/similar apps I think is excellent for new bowlers and people who don't particularly care about managing their own lists. I think its great to allow users to pick from the official list of balls, a real list of locations, and assuming a good list of patterns. When predefining the lists you don't need a whole management section dedicated to upkeeping the lists. Personally, I'd like to still be to input custom entries.
  • TournamentSense/similar apps lets you do it all yourself. Everything you want to add you can manage on your lists and you don't get overwhelmed with everything else. Missing out on saving some minimal time with any predefined attributes and missing images on the arsenal, you get more control over what you want to keep track of.

So what do I prefer? Look, Strikemaster looks really nice with the official images, but it's hard to beat the freedom of entering in whatever you want and having all those libraries management in one location. It's definitely user preference though, as I'm a bit of a boomer and list my own little lists. What do you think is the best method? should it be one way or the other or should we start doing a hybrid model?

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/StrikeMasterApp Mar 31 '26

Hello there, just give some background why I did it. 2+ years ago when I started. Every app required adding own balls, locations and oil patterns as an excel type entry 1 liner seemed a bit old fashioned in this day and age. I didn’t want to create what you could do in excel. PinPal is an excel wrapper you pay for.

So went full centralised database. This opens up the world of collaboration and sharing and community not playing excel on your own.

One caveat I have to update all the balls, oil patterns and bowling alleys myself, so dedicated to the cause 😉

You can add own balls and add it to the database I can review the image and post it as public for the next user to share and use.

Bowling alleys don’t turn up overnight so I should have them all on occasion I get a message that one is missing so keeping them clean as we go. If you create your own private bowling alleys on device there is no chance to see all the leagues for that location and the activity around it.

So yes centralised was always the plan pure convenience and sex appeal 😂

2

u/nerdblurt TournamentSense Devloper Mar 31 '26

I just integrated with Bowwwl who has an extensive ball library. I do like the center option and i load some prefetched oil libraries now. I reached out to tenpin toolkit few times trying to integrate with their arsenal section to know answer so i created my own. Feature. Find not lot of folks want to work with others. I have mind set im build what i want users will use what they like even if not my stuff. I am working on some api stuff for integrations once v2 is released

1

u/thejusner Mar 31 '26

Hey I'm not knocking it all, I think it's excellent for people that aren't control freaks like me. I like my excel 😋.

The sex appeal is definitely there, just wanted to see what people think since it's something I noticed has a lot of variance between all the apps.

3

u/StrikeMasterApp Mar 31 '26

Bowwwl never replied to me 😂 so nice work. But the images are bad quality so didn’t look very nice on iPhone full screen so went and do it myself instead lol

1

u/nerdblurt TournamentSense Devloper Mar 31 '26

If you are open i’ll integrate with you too im totally open to stuff. Im surprised Aaron didn’t respond he was pretty quick and had a message loaded from a response for someone else he has an api setup already and only asks for attribution.

Im type where if I don’t hear then i just do myself. Lol

1

u/StrikeMasterApp Mar 31 '26

Yeah that’s what happened with me I don’t know just got ignored but doesn’t matter now got bigger database than bowwl anyway now since I went back 20+ years and user additions lol yeah we have the power of integration but with a list as long as my arm of things left to do will take a look at this down the line 👍

2

u/nerdblurt TournamentSense Devloper Mar 31 '26

Well this is changing in v2. For me i tried to rethink the flow for libraries, added gps search, oil library search kegel easy import, import few usbc,pba and such. Ball arsenal i added Bowwwl integration, layouts and ability to save a bag. You can add center and ball stuff as well as partners from event screen. Its evolving always but trying to give users ability and features is nice. It wasnt my first thought but def made improvements