I thought the basic user interface was fine you do not have to activate the advanced features.
If you do need these features then you cannot avoid complication.
I cannot think on anything more simple but I have been using it for years.
Mike Butterfield
Mail](https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986) for Windows 10
From: alan@sailfun.co.uk [sailwave]
Sent: 11 July 2016 13:58
To: sailwave@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sailwave] Future of SailWave
Yes, once you have been using it for years you can be blind to the complexities.
Unless I am missing something, I have all ‘advanced user interfaces’ turned off.
For a race officer just doing scoring - assuming that a series has been set up by an admin - these are not required
Menu Items (not needed for Race officer in a series setup)
File - Everything under Save as - except exit
View - Everything
Edit - Mark competitors ( 2 functions )
All except Print - which is obscurely called Publish - and publish series to website - obscurely requires using the same feature as print
Tools - everything except Rescore Series
Setup - Everthing
Plugins - Everything
Buttons (not needed for Race officer in a series setup)
New series
User Interface
Series Properties
Scoring System
Prizes
Global Options
Columns
Hide unsailed
Hide Excluded
Hide Property bar
Hide discard format
Score series
Just having a ‘Data Entry View’ that hide the above from non admins (so maybe needs an ‘admin button’
would be a great start to stop RO going ‘off piste’
Then when we are down to editing results
SailNum Wizard
Screen 1
Put the Race Date next to the Race Number rather than under it
hide the edit race button
hide the select entry option (usually SailNo)
Screen 2
Have the ‘New’ competitor button that opens the edit competitor window so that it allows all necessary detail - e.g. Class / Helm Name to be entered without dropping out of SailNo Wizard
Remove the ability to change the ‘Record result as’
Change the ‘Finish’ button to Enter Next Competitor (which is what it does) and have a button ‘All Entries Complete’ to exit (rather than close the popup.)
Results Matrix
So hide all that and you start to have something that a race office can’t damage.
The main issues with ‘workflow’ are SailNo Wizard having to jump out to add competitor name/class and teh unintuitive Print process. A print this race button would be good.
And there is one strange bug at least in usability on ‘edit result’ popup when start / finish is selected the input field isn’t formatted as an input filed - unless you know that you can type there it is impossible to guess.
As I said, its great for experienced admin users and having now had around a years experience I think I have just about got most things related to PY racing, but just allows too much to go wrong or ‘off piste’ once a series is set up and you just want results entered quickly and cleanly, printed and published to website by a ‘once a year’ race officer…
We at Sailing Club Software, the people who bring you DutyMan, have been working, with much valuable help from Jon, on automating the user interface to Sailwave. Initially this has been for Chichester Harbour Race Week (aka Fed Week) and now we are in the process of making the technology available to all.
You can read all about it at http://sailevent.net but, in a nutshell, the concept is to provide the race team with a simple web app into which they transcribe the information recorded on their finish sheets. Once it’s in the system everything is automatic – the software drives Sailwave which calculates and returns results. The results are then immediately available on the web as a responsive web page and/or a rolling display for the screen in the clubhouse.
The web app is designed for smartphones and tablets so, provided you have a reasonable internet connection, it can be used on the committee boat. But it is equally at home on any computer so can be used back in the clubhouse.
After trialling the latest version during Chi Race Week next month we get to work on readying it for use by all. Meanwhile we have available for beta-testing the necessary first step of uploading a Sailwave blw and having its results published as above. You can see what the output looks like at http://sailevent.net/hisc. If you would like to try it at your club please get do get in touch; we want as much feedback as possible.
Good plan, that was what I was thinking, if nothing was happening in improving the UI, that I would build a web app as a front end. I even started sketching flow designs the other night.
Looks like I wont need to code it.
Hi Alan,
For some reason I did not see your original post and saw it via
reply to it. There is no formal roadmap for Sailwave, there is
list of things that might get implemented.
In my view a simplified UI would require a ground-up re-write which
I do not think will happen - the lead developer does have a
full-time job and works on Sailwave as and when (which is actually
an awful lot of time).
I will be interested to hear what you think of Richards web based
front end user interface to Sailwave and if you think it will
address the ‘phased out’ Race Officers at you club.
Kind regards,
Huw
On 11/07/2016 14:01, Mike and Patricia
Butterfield [sailwave] wrote:
I thought the basic user interfacewas fine you do not have to activate the advanced
features.
If you do need these features thenyou cannot avoid complication.
I cannot think on anything moresimple but I have been using it for years.
Mike Butterfield
Sent from
Mail for Windows 10
From: alan@sailfun.co.uk
[sailwave]
Sent: 11 July 2016 13:58
To: sailwave@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sailwave] Future of SailWave
First,
I want to make it very clear that I am verygrateful for the effort that has been put into
Sailwave.
What I want to ask, respectfully, is there aroadmap for the future of SailWave.
I am particularly interested in the userinterface, in respect of Race Officers.
I'm not sure if our club is unique (I don't thinkso) that the Race Officers enter results at the
end of the days racing.
We have been using SailWave now for just under ayear, and I have been ‘supervising’ Race Officers,
and the issue is the User Experience is pretty
much awful for a novice. The system has so many
features and abilities, and very few can be locked
down. The user interface is acceptable to
power-user / administrators but really phases out
the run of the mill race officer.
What are your thoughts?
Alan
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.