1.58 PROGRESS SUMMARY
PERFORMANCE
Just a note for 1.58 beta users. You may notice a slow down in speed of scoring. If you find the performance 'irritating' (if you see what I mean), use the Help+Logbook menu and identify the lines that show the bottlenecks - it will identify a particular part of the scoring algorithm - for example calculating corrected times. Feedback of these bottlenecks in such circumstances would be appreciated. NB: you can paste the logbook content into the windows clipboard using the button provided. There is scope to get another couple of orders of magnitude speed up - it's just that I don't worry about speed until it becomes an issue; it eases implementation.
PROGRESS
Work is continuing on greatly enhancing the rating/handicapping capabilities of Sailwave. A boat's rating has now become a tab (instead of a field) containing a list of all possible ratings from all possible rating systems from all possible sources; e.g. defaults (there are defaults now), your local rating files and (new) remote mySQL databases - which clubs and associations can set up to share. Swapping rating systems to see how it changes things is now very easy. I have also introduced the concept of remote rating files with a http://… address for the same purpose (in case you don't want to use mySQL). Access databases will be possible as well (etc, etc) in the future.
STARTS
The editor that defines competitors in a start has been generalised from the currently hard-wired possibilities. It's now a list of rules and you choose whether all the rules must apply or whether any of the rules apply. A simple rule may be Fleet="Mono". Similar to email filters etc etc. A preview of the competitors in the start is shown as you tweak the rules. The same editor is now used everywhere where you can apply an operation to a selection of competitors; e.g. the seeding tool.
PERSONAL HANDICAPS
I've design it now in conjunction with the rating work; it may or may not make 1.58 final release. If not it'll be the first thing done in 1.59. NB: the quick hack, wasn't!
Regards,
Colin J
www.sailwave.com