ET Champs and URL import

Imported from Yahoo
1

Hi Jon,

Many thanks for all your work on the results over the weekend and it was good to speak with you in the evening.

Just quickly following up on the conversation that we had about the possibility of SailWave loading results from a web URL...

Like many people at the moment I am playing around with the possibility of recording results electronically on the water, along with a paper back up of course. But I love SailWave so I don’t want to use any of the online scoring options that are available.

I could have whatever tool I write emit a CSV file which gets sent to the office and imported but honestly I am not confident that the people in the office will be able to deal with that.

My first stab at this will be as an online tool so it would be even easier to produce the results data in any form that SailWave would like and make that available via a URL to be imported directly. That could be CSV or JSON or XML, whatever works best for you really.

All SailWave would need would be a menu option and some UI to allow someone to pick a URL then download the data and import it as for current CSV.

What do you think, is that something that it might be valuable enough to add? I am sure that other tools would end up integrating with it.

Many thanks again for the ETs!

Ian

2

Hello,

Seems a great idea,

Wouldn’t it be possible to use something like Dropbox or icloud for example to store the csv file from a mobile and then create a subroutine via the Dropbox API to read the particular results?

Apologies if i have misunderstood.

Just a thought

John

3

Hi,

For me, the fewer moving parts, the better so not having to use DropBox or iCloud would be preferable.

Given that those services all provide HTTP URLs as well, if SailWave were to support loading results data from a URL they would also be covered for anyone who does want to use them.

Ian

···

On 10 May 2017, at 13:54, ejwjohn@gmail.com [sailwave] sailwave@yahoogroups.com wrote:

Hello,

Seems a great idea,

Wouldn’t it be possible to use something like Dropbox or icloud for example to store the csv file from a mobile and then create a subroutine via the Dropbox API to read the particular results?

Apologies if i have misunderstood.

Just a thought

John

4

Hi Ian,

I have been doing a lot of thinking about on water results capture and to that end have written an Excel macro that I am prepared to share.

This macro will not work on Excel on Tablets as they do not seem to support macros. A suggestion was made that I use Google sheet but that requires Javar Script to program and at that point I ran out of time, and I would need to learn Jarva Script.

The macro was set up to allow in the input of a boat ID and when the enter button was pressed it recorded the boat ID and the Time Of Day (TOD) on the computer. In the event of close finishers pressing the enter button just recorded TOD. Doing this I can capture several times in less than 1 second on land, and a bit slower on a pitching boat (all to do with hand speed and hitting the target).

It is an absolute must to have a hand made hard copy of the boat ID and finish place at a minimum.

Other problems I encountered including getting into a position to be able to read the computer screen and see the finish line, in fact I got seasick for the first time in my life on my last outing trying to manage the computer below deck looking out of a porthole.

I used a hand held Bluetooth numbers pad to try and speed up entering boat ID but with pitching etc that only gave a marginal speed increase.

Regatta toolbox has an on water system that only captures placings and can be set to predictive after the first race so the leaders are at the front of the file and disappear after they are selected.

Topyacht to me seems to have a much better system that allows the input of up to 6 boats coming up to the finish line then a final selection from those boats as they finish with the ability to just record time and easily go back and enter boat ID when there is less action.

The other aspect of regatta management that I am keen to see move to electronic capture is sign on and sign off so a race officer can vew very quickly who is on the water and who is on land. The systems I have found to date are Topyacht and Regatta toolbox.

Regards JohnL.

···

From: sailwave@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sailwave@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: 10 May 2017 22:38
To: Jon Eskdale jon@sailwave.com [sailwave]
Subject: [sailwave] ET Champs and URL import

Hi Jon,

Many thanks for all your work on the results over the weekend and it was good to speak with you in the evening.

Just quickly following up on the conversation that we had about the possibility of SailWave loading results from a web URL…

Like many people at the moment I am playing around with the possibility of recording results electronically on the water, along with a paper back up of course. But I love SailWave so I don’t want to use any of the online scoring options that are available.

I could have whatever tool I write emit a CSV file which gets sent to the office and imported but honestly I am not confident that the people in the office will be able to deal with that.

My first stab at this will be as an online tool so it would be even easier to produce the results data in any form that SailWave would like and make that available via a URL to be imported directly. That could be CSV or JSON or XML, whatever works best for you really.

All SailWave would need would be a menu option and some UI to allow someone to pick a URL then download the data and import it as for current CSV.

What do you think, is that something that it might be valuable enough to add? I am sure that other tools would end up integrating with it.

Many thanks again for the ETs!

Ian

5

Hi Ian,

I have been doing a lot of thinking about on water results capture and to that end have written an Excel macro that I am prepared to share.

This macro will not work on Excel on Tablets as they do not seem to support macros. A suggestion was made that I use Google sheet but that requires Javar Script to program and at that point I ran out of time, and I would need to learn Jarva Script.

The macro was set up to allow in the input of a boat ID and when the enter button was pressed it recorded the boat ID and the Time Of Day (TOD) on the computer. In the event of close finishers pressing the enter button just recorded TOD. Doing this I can capture several times in less than 1 second on land, and a bit slower on a pitching boat (all to do with hand speed and hitting the target).

It is an absolute must to have a hand made hard copy of the boat ID and finish place at a minimum.

Other problems I encountered including getting into a position to be able to read the computer screen and see the finish line, in fact I got seasick for the first time in my life on my last outing trying to manage the computer below deck looking out of a porthole.

I used a hand held Bluetooth numbers pad to try and speed up entering boat ID but with pitching etc that only gave a marginal speed increase.

Regatta toolbox has an on water system that only captures placings and can be set to predictive after the first race so the leaders are at the front of the file and disappear after they are selected.

Topyacht to me seems to have a much better system that allows the input of up to 6 boats coming up to the finish line then a final selection from those boats as they finish with the ability to just record time and easily go back and enter boat ID when there is less action.

The other aspect of regatta management that I am keen to see move to electronic capture is sign on and sign off so a race officer can vew very quickly who is on the water and who is on land. The systems I have found to date are Topyacht and Regatta toolbox.

Regards JohnL.

···

From: sailwave@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sailwave@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: 10 May 2017 22:38
To: Jon Eskdale jon@sailwave.com [sailwave]
Subject: [sailwave] ET Champs and URL import

Hi Jon,

Many thanks for all your work on the results over the weekend and it was good to speak with you in the evening.

Just quickly following up on the conversation that we had about the possibility of SailWave loading results from a web URL…

Like many people at the moment I am playing around with the possibility of recording results electronically on the water, along with a paper back up of course. But I love SailWave so I don’t want to use any of the online scoring options that are available.

I could have whatever tool I write emit a CSV file which gets sent to the office and imported but honestly I am not confident that the people in the office will be able to deal with that.

My first stab at this will be as an online tool so it would be even easier to produce the results data in any form that SailWave would like and make that available via a URL to be imported directly. That could be CSV or JSON or XML, whatever works best for you really.

All SailWave would need would be a menu option and some UI to allow someone to pick a URL then download the data and import it as for current CSV.

What do you think, is that something that it might be valuable enough to add? I am sure that other tools would end up integrating with it.

Many thanks again for the ETs!

Ian

6

At the risk of being branded a heretic, it seems a shame that the best Sailing Results program is in technology terms something of an antique.

What would be nice would be to have and API riven web app version of SailWave as a ‘service’ with the code in a modern WebApp language like Python/GoLang/Ruby … Then these integration of ‘addons’ like electronic sign on / off, electronic point of capture finishes, could be built as separate but integrated projects, and at the same time the UI could cater for the less adept, whilst allowing advanced admin where required.

I dream of rebuilding SailWave UI in Material Design as a web app, but I know that it would become a lifetimes work.

7

Hi Alan,

  A one person development is probably going to go with what they

understand and enhance using the tools they know, without trying
to re-write Sailwave using a new toolset.

  However, did you now that the NHC functionality in external mode

communicates with Excel bi-directionally using using Windows
Messaging Interface [WMI]. This is how some people have been able
to develop their own spreadsheets do rating changes that suit
their circumstances.

  There is a web front end available to populate Sailwave with

initial competitor data and push finish line data into Sailwave
which is then triggered to calculate the results and push them
back out to the web site. Take a look at

SailEvent.net

Integrated Sailing Event Management in The Cloud

  SailEvent.net combines the power of modern IT with the expertise

of results software to provide flexible multi-user access and
rapid results publication. []

  I am aware of another conversation that Jon was having on doing

something similar for a European event, but this has gone quiet.

Kind regards,

Huw

···

http://sailevent.net/
On 19/05/2017 17:14, [sailwave] wrote:

alan@sailfun.co.uk

          At the risk of being branded a heretic, it seems a shame

that the best Sailing Results program is in technology
terms something of an antique.

          What would be nice would be to have and API riven web

app version of SailWave as a ‘service’ with the code in a
modern WebApp language like Python/GoLang/Ruby … Then
these integration of ‘addons’ like electronic sign on /
off, electronic point of capture finishes, could be built
as separate but integrated projects, and at the same time
the UI could cater for the less adept, whilst allowing
advanced admin where required.

          I dream of rebuilding SailWave UI in Material Design as

a web app, but I know that it would become a lifetimes
work.


Virus-free. www.avast.com

8

Just a quick update on this topic. All my good intentions went out the window when I had a large tree fall on the house this week! Luckily the damage is only £200-300 excluding labour. But cutting the tree up and removing it all has used up a lot of time but thanks to my two sons who turned up for the weekend and got stuck in together with me and my partner we have managed to clear it all. Just the repairs to be done now.

Some work was done several years ago for users wanting to enter results on the water. For ease of development at the time this was included in the SWGP program https://sites.google.com/site/eskdalesite/home/sailwave-multi-lap-finishing-grand-prix rather than a separate program, but is still usable.

Scroll down to the section Results import section.

There are two options to import from

a) A csv file, this is used to import results from a simple csv file and at some events it has been used where the user has entered the positions into and excel sheet on the the water emailed that into the results person who used it to enter the results into Sailwave via this option.

b) A url, this is used to import results from a Web url. It was originally developed to import results from url supplied by Sailracer but it doesn’t have to be Sailracer as you can specify the url to import from so it can be any server. I guess this is along the lines of what Ian would like.

These are for one design classes and don’t support times but they could if there is a demand. As they were developed a long time ago it is a stand alone program but again if there is the demand then they could be incorporated into Sailwave menus.

On the topic of electronic tallies, I’m now currently developing a system for use at a Europeans and two World championships this year using RFID that will be partially integrated into Sailwave. Will then decide how it filters into the standard Sailwave.

Jon

···

Jon Eskdale
07530 112233

Skype “eskdale”

On 20 May 2017 at 17:01, Huw Pearce huw.pearce@bcs.org.uk [sailwave] sailwave@yahoogroups.com wrote:

Hi Alan,

  A one person development is probably going to go with what they

understand and enhance using the tools they know, without trying
to re-write Sailwave using a new toolset.

  However, did you now that the NHC functionality in external mode

communicates with Excel bi-directionally using using Windows
Messaging Interface [WMI]. This is how some people have been able
to develop their own spreadsheets do rating changes that suit
their circumstances.

  There is a web front end available to populate Sailwave with

initial competitor data and push finish line data into Sailwave
which is then triggered to calculate the results and push them
back out to the web site. Take a look at

SailEvent.net

Integrated Sailing Event Management in The Cloud

  SailEvent.net combines the power of modern IT with the expertise

of results software to provide flexible multi-user access and
rapid results publication. [http://sailevent.net/]

  I am aware of another conversation that Jon was having on doing

something similar for a European event, but this has gone quiet.

Kind regards,

Huw

On 19/05/2017 17:14, alan@sailfun.co.uk
[sailwave] wrote:

          At the risk of being branded a heretic, it seems a shame

that the best Sailing Results program is in technology
terms something of an antique.

          What would be nice would be to have and API riven web

app version of SailWave as a ‘service’ with the code in a
modern WebApp language like Python/GoLang/Ruby … Then
these integration of ‘addons’ like electronic sign on /
off, electronic point of capture finishes, could be built
as separate but integrated projects, and at the same time
the UI could cater for the less adept, whilst allowing
advanced admin where required.

          I dream of rebuilding SailWave UI in Material Design as

a web app, but I know that it would become a lifetimes
work.


Virus-free. www.avast.com

9

Hi Huw

Thanks for giving SailEvent a mention.

I’ve spent most of this century, off and on, looking at ways to publish results from committee boats. My first experiments in about 2002 quickly demonstrated that a) the average human can’t type fast enough to enter sail numbers as they cross the line, and b) you can’t use a mouse, and hence a laptop, on a rolling boat!

The answer to a) is the traditional finish sheet and a pencil - sorry but there is no alternative, The solution to b) had to wait until the wide availability of touch screen devices.

At the 2011 the Youth Nationals at Hayling, you, Jon and I devised a system which did a pretty good job of transcribing finish sheets into my Symbian phone out in the bay and transmitting them to Sailwave running on a PC in the clubhouse. The technique is documented at http://sailingclubsoftware.com/results/a_technique_for_publishing_sail_racing_results.pdf and we got time from last finisher to results published down to 15 minutes. The slight snag with it was that if the sail numbers on the water didn’t match those in Sailwave it took a bit of sorting out.

I subsequently developed a much smarter approach with a database of competitors in the cloud and a web app on tablets on the committee boat. The app is used to transcribe finish sheets and transmit them to the cloud but this time with error checking so that any issues can be sorted out on the spot. Then the system automagically drives Sailwave to calculate results and send them back into the cloud from whence they are immediately available on the web.

This technology has been used successfully at Chichester Harbour Race Week (aka Fed Week) and other events for the past 3 years. In favourable conditions it takes less than 5 minutes from last finisher to results published. Less favourable conditions are when the recorders need time to get their finish sheets straight. You can read all about it in my blog at http://sailevent.net .

Last year I set about turning all this into something that everyone could use. Phase 1 is available but at that point the consensus on the SUG was that Sailwave could be run on cheap Windows 10 tablets and there was no need for anything more fancy than that. Consequently I moth-balled the project.

I have now tried using Sailwave on a tablet and I’m thinking of unmoth-balling! I find it really cumbersome mainly because the sail number wizard and the soft keyboard don’t work well together (unlike the SailEvent web app approach).

But the real snag with all of this is people. We are all lazy and it is so much easier to just bring the paperwork ashore and dump it on the results officer’s desk or perhaps photo the sheets and email them ashore. And I don’t see a solution to that one but it will be interesting to see how others get on.

BTW other results systems that do all this already are of course available!

ATB

10

Sorry to chip in.

Richards solution is excellent although limited by the hardware as mentioned.

If you want to look at all options then may be my solution might go some way towards

Always happy to help

http://www.sailracesystems.com

I hope you don’t mind me chipping in…

···

Get Outlook for Android

On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 5:31 PM +0100, “richard@radixsoftware.co.uk [sailwave]” sailwave@yahoogroups.com wrote:

Hi Huw

Thanks for giving SailEvent a mention.

I’ve spent most of this century, off and on, looking at ways to publish results from committee boats. My first experiments in about 2002 quickly demonstrated that a) the average human can’t type fast enough to enter sail numbers as they cross the line, and b) you can’t use a mouse, and hence a laptop, on a rolling boat!

The answer to a) is the traditional finish sheet and a pencil - sorry but there is no alternative, The solution to b) had to wait until the wide availability of touch screen devices.

At the 2011 the Youth Nationals at Hayling, you, Jon and I devised a system which did a pretty good job of transcribing finish sheets into my Symbian phone out in the bay and transmitting them to Sailwave running on a PC in the clubhouse. The technique is documented at http://sailingclubsoftware.com/results/a_technique_for_publishing_sail_racing_results.pdf and we got time from last finisher to results published down to 15 minutes. The slight snag with it was that if the sail numbers on the water didn’t match those in Sailwave it took a bit of sorting out.

I subsequently developed a much smarter approach with a database of competitors in the cloud and a web app on tablets on the committee boat. The app is used to transcribe finish sheets and transmit them to the cloud but this time with error checking so that any issues can be sorted out on the spot. Then the system automagically drives Sailwave to calculate results and send them back into the cloud from whence they are immediately available on the web.

This technology has been used successfully at Chichester Harbour Race Week (aka Fed Week) and other events for the past 3 years. In favourable conditions it takes less than 5 minutes from last finisher to results published. Less favourable conditions are when the recorders need time to get their finish sheets straight. You can read all about it in my blog at http://sailevent.net .

Last year I set about turning all this into something that everyone could use. Phase 1 is available but at that point the consensus on the SUG was that Sailwave could be run on cheap Windows 10 tablets and there was no need for anything more fancy than that. Consequently I moth-balled the project.

I have now tried using Sailwave on a tablet and I’m thinking of unmoth-balling! I find it really cumbersome mainly because the sail number wizard and the soft keyboard don’t work well together (unlike the SailEvent web app approach).

But the real snag with all of this is people. We are all lazy and it is so much easier to just bring the paperwork ashore and dump it on the results officer’s desk or perhaps photo the sheets and email them ashore. And I don’t see a solution to that one but it will be interesting to see how others get on.

BTW other results systems that do all this already are of course available!

ATB