This afternoon I uploaded v0.2.482 of wp-SwimTeam. This release introduces the new Jobs module (aka Volunteers). Please back up your database before upgrading as this version changes the structure of one of the tables and introduces two others.
Please let me know if you have any problems with this version. I’ve done a fair amount of testing and I have it up and running on the MacDolphins web site.
The jobs module introduces two new short codes:
- wpst_job_descriptions
- wpst_meet_job_assignments
Example usage of these two new short codes can be found on the wp-SwimTeam demo site here and here.
There is also a new release of the phpHtmlLib plugin which wp-SwimTeam requires available. This build addresses a minor issue exposed in Wordpress 3.0 beta testing.
Hopefully the new Jobs module will be helpful for your team, I know it will be helpful for mine!
Development, Release, download
demo, download, jobs, volunteers, WordPress
If you have followed my posts on this blog you know that I have been frustrated by Hy-Tek Team Manager and Meet Manager along with Hy-Tek customer support.
While I may not care for Hy-Tek or their products, the fact is they have a dominant market share and a lot of teams use Team Manager, Meet Manager, or both. I was contacted this week by a high school coach who was looking for some SDIF assistance in getting his roster into Meet Manager. Now I don’t have access to Meet Manager but I do have pretty good understanding of the SDIF specification so I was able to help him out with some example SDIF files.
In the process of helping him out I came across an old e-mail regarding importing a roster into Meet Manager. At the time I was interested in Team Manager so didn’t give it a lot of thought. Looking at the old e-mail I realized that if it worked, I could export the file format very easily from wp-SwimTeam. I went ahead an implemented it, now I am looking for someone to try it out.
Sample Reports
The zip file above contains three versions of the same roster – CSV, SDIF (.sd3), and Meet Manager Registration (.re1). Extract the Meet Manager Registration file from the zip file. It is an ASCII file that contains swimmers records, one per line with the following fields delimited by semicolons:
- Registration number
- Last name
- First name
- Middle initial
- Sex
- Birthdate
- Club abbreviation
- Club name
- Preferred first name
- ?? – unknown what this last field is; it’s always “N” in the examples provided
To import the file into Meet Manager, follow these steps:
- Set up a new meet database. You only need to go through the first setup screen, the one where you put in the meet name, date, and length of course. To make my particular file work, select “USA Swimming” for the ID format. If you have something other than USA Swimming numbers for swimmer labels, select “Other”. Normally, for a kids’ meet, you’d select “USA Swimming” for the ID format or “Other” if you are not using USA Swimmer numbers for simmer labels.
- From the main Meet Manager menu, select “FILE”
- Select “IMPORT”
- Select “REGISTRATION FILE”
- Locate and choose the .RE1 file that contains the roster.
After completing these steps, go to the “Athletes” screen in Meet Manager. The swimmers contained int he RE1 file should bYou should see all of the athletes’ names that you saw in the RE1 file.
If this works for you, please leave a comment!
Development, Progress, download
demo, download, Hy-Tek, Meet Manager
I have an initial demo site up and running at http://demo.wp-swimteam.org/. The demo site still has a few issues but I expect to flush those out of the next week or so. If you are interested in this plugin and want to play around with it, feel free to register with the demo site and add some sample swimmers. It will give you a feel for how the end users uses the site.
If you’d like to explore the administration aspect of the plugin, go ahead and register and I will give your User Id the appropriate permissions. The demo site has been populated with a bunch of dummy users and swimmers and a few swim clubs. A sample schedule has been set.
One thing about going through the process, it exposed a few things I failed to include in the GUI redesign! I’ll fix those issues in the next couple days.
Progress, demo
demo, GUI, wp-SwimTeam
When I am working on the plugin I find that I frequently need to populate the database with a bunch of user and swimmer information. It is easy to add a few opponent swim clubs and some other information but adding a bunch of dummy users and swimmers takes a while.
This past weekend I started working on a separate plugin that will populate the database with a random number between 25 and 100 dummy users each with between 1 and 4 swimmers, each registered for the current season. This generation of users and swimmers happens when the plugin is activated. The plugin can be deactivated and then activated again to add additional users and swimmers.
This plugin was used to populate the database on the new wp-SwimTeam Demo site.
Development, Progress, demo
demo, plugin, wp-SwimTeam
Now that I have fixed the Google Maps problem, I have the demo site up an running at http://wp.winswim.com. Feel free to register and play around. In order to advanced things you’ll need to contact me so I can change your permissions. The demo is hosted by WinSwim.
Development, Progress
demo, WinSwim
While trying to get a demo site up and running I ran into an issue that has taken me down a path I didn’t expect to head down at this time. But now that I have run into it, I have decided to fix it correctly.
The wp-SwimTeam plugin depends on phpHtmlLib and the 2.x version of the library requires that it be installed in the web site’s root directory. This typically isn’t a big deal but in some cases can be inconvenient. It also requires the library be named phphtmllib as the path is (was) encoded into quite a few of the widgets.
When I uploaded the library to the new demo site, it didn’t run correctly. The demo site is running PHP5 which I immediately suspected as the problem. So I loaded PHP5 and phpHtmlLib into a new virtual machine (I love VMware, it is wonderful for configuring different environments) and all the examples ran just fine. Odd, very odd. Digging into it further, it looks like the hosting provider’s PHP virtual directory support setting is different than what I had locally and affects how include files are handled.
A couple of tests confirmed my suspicions. Since this hosting provider is large, I suspect this PHP configuration is pretty typical and it provided sufficient motivation to go back and fix phpHtmlLib 2.x so it can be loaded with appropriate configured PHP define() statements. If you look through the phpHtmlLib forums you’ll find this is a fairly regularly requested item (including by me) and phpHtmlLib 3 (which requires PHP5) is configured this way.
Over the last couple days I have been updating the phpHtmlLib 2.x branch to support this configuration method and now have it all running correctly in my development area. Before I commit all the changes, and there are a lot of them, I need to verify it all works in the suspect hosting environment.
The trickle down of setting up a demo site resulted in an overhaul to phpHtmlLib. It needed to be done anyway and doing it will allow phpHtmlLib to be loaded as a WordPress plugin eventually.
Development, PHP, Software
demo, phpHtmlLib, plugin, WordPress
I have had a couple ask recently about a demo site for wp-SwimTeam so I think I am going to set one up that people can play with. The plugin is current live on the MacDolphins web site but since that is a real team and real data, it isn’t a suitable sandbox for people to explore.
If I can set up another instance of WordPress underneath this one to demonstrate the plugin, I will make it available for play with. I am not sure how to assign new users the necessary permission to admin the demo site since that would provide them a fair amount of control over the actual WordPress install itself. Hmmm … need to think that through before I turn it on!
WordPress
demo, plugin, sandbox, WordPress, wp-SwimTeam
