LaxTV Forums | A Forum About The MCLA

Does anybody know of any quality playbook software designed for Lacrosse? Not just some thing for stats, but where X's and O's can actually be diagramed and printed for playbooks. The only ones I am finding are dead links.

Doesn't exist yet. At least not to level you're probably looking for. There are a couple of very basic play illustrator things out there, and there's a team organizational system software by Sideline Sports that includes the capability to diagram plays, but none of them really work to create playbooks. Powerteam Sports was working on something last year, but as far as I know they scrapped it.

Most coaches I know use Powerpoint.

I use Flash MX to do this. It is not the easiest software to learn, but for animating plays and such it is nice. I spent about 2 hours with an online tutorial and learned enough to get my plays down. Once you get the core template set up each subsequent one is pretty easy. The two downsides though are Flash MX is not cheap, and it is strictly and graphics/animating program, not a play manager. One upside is that Flash is very web friendly if you are considering putting plays on a secure site for your team.

I've actually used Flash MX and it works excellent when you animate plays. You can put in X and O's and then simulate how the entire play works. You can use a projector in a classroom and go over them with your entire team.

To be simple, you can also make a playbook using Microsoft Word believe it or not. You can make X and O's and diagram with arrows and have passes made with dashed lines. You can burn the plays on a CD and distribute it to your team.

Believe it or not, powerpoint can be used really easily for animating plays. You just have a ton of slides.

Programs like LRS Sports can help with the breakdown and reorganization of game film, which can be just as helpful as an online play diagram program. Digital game film is changing the way coaches can look at film...

A quick and cheap way is to use the "Playmaker" tool (free) at e-Lacrosse.com. What I've done is to make a series of slides by capturing each image using Alt/Print Screen keys, edit each slide on MSPaint, and save each image as a JPEG. Once you have your screens, simply watch them in slide-viewer format or, as mholtz mentioned, dump the slides into a Powerpoint presentation. Or, download a free copy of any GIF animation software and plug your slides in that way.

In the convention program, there's an ad for www.playsinmotion.com , which claims to allow you to animate lacrosse plays. It's $149.

I've used Plays In Motion for about 6 years. It's very handy.

I have the old version of the software. I understand the latest is very good.

You can also use AutoCad..... i use it for landscape architecture here at georgia.... you can do anything with it.... the only downside to it is it costs 115$ for student use for a 1year liscense.....

so if you have access to it then its great.... but there are probably other programs that can used that are cheaper.

for analyzing game film.... imovie works well for breaking down game DVD's

buzzing around great atlantic today I found this. its pricy but if youre looking for something pretty good, this seems like it would be nice.

http://www.lacrosse.com/IWCatProductPag ... _Id=182151

Laxref,

Your link is bad. A comma on the end causes it to fail.

Also, their website is currently down.

http://www.playsinmotion.com/

Adam Gamradt

John Paul and others:

What features would you coaches desire in a good playbook editor?

Adam Gamradt wrote:John Paul and others:

What features would you coaches desire in a good playbook editor?

I like the way Flash allows you to set the motion path of an object. There is a lot of flexibility with this allowing you to show different situations rather than a formulaic approach to playmaking. Flash is just very cumbersome if you dont know how to use it, but the result is excellent and gives you a lot of freedom.

Ideally, you would have a list of player icons that you could drag onto a field. Set motion paths for the player icons, then motion paths for the ball. Tie these to the simple timeline (MS MovieMaker, Flash, etc) process without loading it down with all the layers. Then allow for the file to export as an .avi or Flash file. I can see an advantage to Powerpoint in that you are going step by step allowing for discussion of each motion in the play, so that could be a nice aspect as well. Like something that triggers the next step in the playbook.

Perhaps a playmaker tied to the Flash code and possibly linked with Access for play management. Also, a feature allowing you to export a playbook to disk or web would be nice.

Take a look at what some of the really good football and basketball playbook editors are doing. Some things I'd like to see, stolen from what others are doing:

Multiple templates for page layout (one play diagram and text, two diagrams and text, all text, multiple diagrams, etc.)

Very costumizable (fonts, sizes, custom field layouts and icons, insert pictures, master pages)

Logical catalog system of plays and diagrams

Option to include motion and overlay over film clips

Incorporate good practice planning software

Ability to script, like in football practice, for situational periods in practice

Incorporate tablet PC software (not sure how yet, but it won't be long before that will be the best way to teach on-field with combination of playbook and video)