As you’ve probably guessed by my erratic
engagement I’m having a little crisis with Sailwave. I need a fresh
start with it. The existing design is flawed but has too much inertia
to nudge the way it needs to go. I expected to be earning some cash
form it by now in the form of a title sponsor but results get scattered
all over the place and their origin gets lost - and it’s not attractive
to anybody any more - I’ve tried. People do donate now and again
(thanks) but for every user that does there are hundreds that don’t, so
that is not a viable model either. I can’t sell it as a product
because I cannot guarantee to support it - it would be unethical of me.
I may have said this before but I (really) have decided to retreat from
big events and concentrate on perhaps what I should have been
concentrating on all the time - grass roots sailors - personal
handicaps - small clubs - many without “web2” websites. There are
people out there already concentrating on the big events, so this makes
sense.
Sailwave will become “Sailwave for Windows” - I will probably still do
small changes and bug fixes as necessary - I will definitely do a
publishing tweak so that enterprising users can publish anything they
like using javascript. It has come to the end of it’s life - and is
struggling on Windows7 a bit - because of the development env - which
itself if struggling.
The new Sailwave will be trimmed right down and will run on
Windows/Max/Linux/iPhone natively.
There will be a very simple new model for a “regatta” (.blw file). By
rearranging the data structures I’ve figured out a way to add more
flexibility while removing confusing elements of the existing Sailwave
- aliases (don’t worrk Mark!) - inherited fleets - multiple starts etc.
A “regatta” contains a list of competitors and N “events” - each event
is represented by a subset of those competitors - not necessarily
mutually exclusive (as now) - this is the big change - so you can have
an events called “everybody”, “cats” and “monos” for example. Or if
you want to experiment with scoring “everybody py”, “everybody SCHRS”
etc.
Each events has it own set of races (with ability to link to another
race rather then re-enter data) and the start data is just in the race
- no multiple starts.
Each event has a scoring system associated with it.
This is a much easier model to understand.
There will be minimal hardwired code. Extra scoring systems can be
written by users and added to a library.
Every Regatta can have an optional auto web presence on the Sailwave
site. This facilitates web2 for those clubs that don’t/can’t have/get
it. You can post results to it etc etc. I also envisage competitor
entry and this is a route to make a little cash for myself maybe.
Apart from essential competitor fields like “points” the user will
speficy the field names he wants to use.
Ratings will be in a library not in the competitors.
Currently I’m leaning towards Adobe Air as the platform - Sailwave hits
nicely into a HTML model cos essentially the UI just a load of tables
and forms.
I want to maximise the opportunity for user involvement - designing
scripts, layouts for results etc, but keep control of the ‘harness’.
Anyway, as of tdoay - those are my thoughts.
Colin
