wp-SwimTeam

It will be summer swim team season before I know it so it is time to start gearing up for the upcoming season.  I haven’t really looked at wp-SwimTeam since last fall and WordPress has had several updates since then. I found out today that one of the updates causes the “real name” for the users not to be returned so that is first on my list of things to fix.  There are also some GUI inconsistencies that I’d like to fix.

This is my short list of items which I want to implement this season:

1. New/update Swim Team theme.  This really isn’t related to wp-SwimTeam per se but our site is looking a little dated and it is time to freshen it up.
2. Results Import:  I said I was going to do this last season and I never finished it.  I really want to get this done this year.
3. Export of Meet Entries:  The wp-SwimTeam plugin has all of the informtation (roster, scratch list, event list, etc.) to generate a Meet Entries file in SDIF format.  Providing this file will greatly simplify getting a team’s entries into either Hy-tek or WinSwim (or any other tool which imports meet entries).  This will likely be first on my list after fixing the name bug and the GUI inconsistencies.
4. Document all of the short codes on the wp-SwimTeam demo site.  I really need to do this.  It would make it much easier for new people to pick up the plugin and do something useful with it quickly.

There was a typo in one of commits I made over the weekend which resulted in the Opt-In/Opt-Out CC address not working correctly.  This release fixes that problem (which was affecting the MacDolphins).  The release is available from the Download page and has also been committed to the Plugin repository.  It should appear via the Auto-Updater in the next hour or two.

Update: I had the version number wrong in the post title – the correct version is 1.12.662.

About a week ago one of the volunteers inadvertently registered (Opt-In) our entire rosters for a swim meet.  An Opt-In will supercede any existing Opt-In or Opt-Out information so we lost our entire scratch list for our meet this past Tuesday.  I was out running errands getting my son ready to go on a mission trip when I started seeing numerous registration e-mails coming across my phone.  Yikes – what happened?  Initially I thought someone had gotten administrative access to our database and was playing games.

As it turns out the mistake our volunteer made was an honest one and I tracked it down by examining the Opt-In/Opt-Out records in the database.  I have always logged the user ID for the user who submitted an Opt-In/Opt-Out request but never displayed it as I never had a need.  It would have been really useful last weekend – imagine digging through your database using phpMyAdmin on an iPhone which is how I found it because I wasn’t anywhere near a computer at the time.

As a result of this exercise I have enhanced the Swim Meet Report on the Report menu to optionally show the user detail for the user who submitted the request.  I also changed the Time Stamp so it can be shown if desired.  Both of these options are on by default.

This release also addresses a bug where Opt-In/Opt-Out email confirmations were being sent to the Registration e-mail address.  For a lot of teams this is probably same address but for the MacDolphins it is not.  The result was our Accountant was being flooded with Opt-In/Opt-Out email confirmations and has been for the past three years!  She never mentioned it to me until recently.  Oops!

The release is now available from the Download page but has not been committed to the WordPress Plugin Repository yet because WordPress changed all of their passwords last week.  While I can login to WordPress.com without any problems, I cannot get access to the plugin repository.  Hopefully I will get this sorted out soon and then it should appear as an automatic update from the WordPress plugin repository shortly.

Update: I finally got my WordPress.org password issue straightened out and have committed the latest set of changes.  The automatic update process should proceed within a couple hours.

I have just released wp-SwimTeam v.1.5.579, you can find it on the download page and shortly, via the automatic plugin updater.  This release fixes an issue which has bothered me personally for a long time.

There was a problem in the E-mail Confirmation code for both registrations and opt-in/opt-out.  This same code was used for the new Jobs module so it existed there too.  For a long time the confirmation e-mails were duplicated and if a swimmer had to two contacts, only one of them would receive the e-mail.  I have finally found and fixed this problem so e-mail confirmation should be cleaner and sent to the appropriate people.

This evening I released wp-SwimTeam v1.4.573.  It can be downloaded from this web site or from the WordPress plugin repository.  The plugin auto-update will also update to this release.  New and fixed in this release are:

• Fixed bug in Opt-In/Opt-Out e-mail confirmation which duplicated recipients.
• Fixed bug in handling Country when set to US Only.
• Added Club Profile initialization based on State or Province in Team Profile.
• Added E-mail confirmation for Job Assignments.
• Added Job Options tab on Options page to configuring Jobs module.

Make sure you visit the Job Options tab to configure your jobs module.  There is still work to be done to report the number of credits a user has signed up for and to flag which users have not met the threshold.  Hopefully that functionality will come in the next week or two.

Update: This release had a minor update due to a file missing from the WordPress plugin repository.  The missing file prevented the Jobs Options tab from rendering.  Other minor tweaks were also made to the Jobs Confirmation e-mails.

A new release of wp-SwimTeam is now available for download.  It is also available via automatic update from the WordPress plugin repository.  This release fixes a couple of bugs and adds two new features, one of which addresses functionality that was coded but never exposed correctly.

1. Fixed bug in wpst_meet_report short code.
2. Fixed bug in Add/Update Club Profile due to invalid URL field(s).
3. Added showmaplinks option to wpst_meet_report short code.
4. Added URL sanitatization to Google Maps and Mapquest URL fields on club profile.
5. Added notes to use Google URL shortner for URLs that don’t validate.

I am not sure when it was added but MapQuest now generates “shortened” URLs when mapping an address, I wish Google would do likewise.  The URLs that Google Maps generates tend to be a mile long and full of characters.  My suggestion is to use Google’s URL shortener to generate a simple URL that can be saved within WordPress easily.  That is what I am doing for the MacDolphins web site.

The phpHtmlLib library which wp-SwimTeam depends on has also had a minor bug fix which I found testing URL validation.  This plugin can also be updated t v2.6.2.3546 using the WordPress plugin updater or can be downloaded and installed as in the past.

I have just uploaded a new build of wp-SwimTeam which addresses the bugs in the Jobs module I posted about last night.  The bug would partially allocate a job but it would fail resulting in incomplete data in the database.  The build fixes that bug.

If you had allocated jobs and can’t see them to sign up for them, the database records in the job allocation table may have to be removed manually.  If you need help, contact me.

wp-SwimTeam plugin – updated 2/24/2011 @ 17:21

A new release of wp-SwimTeam is now available.  This release addresses a number of issues encountered when running on a server with PHP 5.3.5 installed.  This release requires the phpHtmlLib plugin to be updated to v2.6.2.3545 or later.

Make sure you backup your database before installing this update.  This update also fixes some database table issues, deleting fields and columns which have been deprecated.  Please report any issues you find, I have tried to test everything but I may have missed something!

wp-SwimTeam plugin – updated 2/20/2011 @ 18:11

Update:  Bad link fixed!  2/21/2011

An update to the phpHtmlLib plugin which wp-SwimTeam depends on is now available.  This update addresses a number of issues found running against PHP 5.3.5, the latest release of PHP.  There are number of changes between PHP 5.2.x and 5.3.x which were exposed and have been addressed.  This update is ABSOLUTELY necessary for anyone running on a server which has PHP 5.3.x installed.

wp-SwimTeam plugin – updated 2/20/2011 @ 18:11