cubecomps.com - for delegates and organizers

[shelley]

Unfortunately, I can't try this by me. The way it works is by a simple Javascript code. Did the rest of features work fine? Was JS enabled?

JS was enabled and the rest of the features worked, and the navigation works on Firefox on Linux. I'm not sure if it's a browser issue or OS issue; I'd test Chromium on Linux but the password seems to have expired.

I already implemented the importation of the registration details inside the CubingUSA's XLS file. In fact, this ability was already available for the time of your competition. Steven was informed, and I thought that it was he who imported the final file. Please let me know if I'm wrong.

Yeah, Steven was the one who did the final import. That point was just based on my own observation when I was trying it out before the competition. I got the competitor info to import, but not their registered events.

I'm not sure to understand this point. You mean that if someone left an event on second or next rounds, you'd like to see that line removed from the .XLSX results file? If so, wouldn't it cast more light about what happened if we left the line blank?

Apart from this, I understood that the XLSX file will be better if I remove any reference to a competitor that didn't compete at all. Please let me know if I'm correct here.

Right, if someone advanced to a next round but didn't compete, we typically just omit him from that round's results entirely.

As for people who didn't show up to the competition at all, I typically remove them from the spreadsheet. I've been told that's not strictly necessary (as in nothing will break if we leave them in), but the perfectionist in me just feels it keeps things neater, especially if competition spreadsheets are archived somewhere for record keeping purposes.

[Luis]

Ok. Now it's clear. I will consider all your suggestions and will be implementing some of them soon.

The following:

- Confirmations for deletes - it seems like it would be too easy to accidentally delete something, which could potentially be an issue.
- I use the numpad on the keyboard to enter results (and actually invested in a USB numpad for laptops), so I liked being able to select a competitor by typing the ID number. Following this, it would be awesome (and probably not hard to implement) if I can use numpad symbols for DNF and DNS (perhaps / and *) so I don't have to "regrip" the keyboard at all.
- Show the total number of competitors somewhere. Just makes it easier to figure out WCA dues.
- The scorecards are pretty and all, but I'd like to see a version that's more economical on printer ink.

are already implemented.

[Luis]

A new type of schedule has been implemented. See an example at:

http://live.cubecomps.com/live.php?cid=14&schedule=1

More appealing, linked to the open rounds, and time-sensitive: when you enter the schedule on competition days, the active part of the schedule is shown at the top of the page.

I took some ideas from me and several suggestions of people who already used the system to implement it. Thanks to all them

[Lorenzo VP]

Hello everyone!
I used Cubecomps at the Milan Cube Open 2012 and I was really satisfied.
It's really intuitive and easy to use, so I guess we'll surely use it again for Italian competition.
I'd like to thank Luis for his work, it really implements efficency in the process of managing results.

[shelley]

Oh, I thought of something that we didn't have to deal with at Berkeley but comes up fairly often: How does cubecomps handle combined rounds? It doesn't seem like it will let you submit a competitor's results if he doesn't have all five results.

Also something simple to streamline award ceremonies - a listing of the top 3 from the final rounds for every event. So I don't have to flip between a bunch of different results pages when I write certificates at the end of the competition.

[Luis]

As long as the round is time limited, the system accept two (or one) time only if they are over the cut off. I note down your suggestion about the listing of podiums. Thank you.

[Luis]

A couple of improvements have been implemented, following your suggestions:

I did not see a good way to remove no-shows from advanced rounds of an event (e.g. if a competitor left early). I had to remove them manually from the generated Excel spreadsheet. Maybe add an option to mark someone as a no-show so that he doesn't show up in the final spreadsheet?

Now, the produced XLSX file doesn't include information about people who didn't show up. Besides, if someone couldn't participate in any round, their empty line is not appended at the end of the sheet.

Also something simple to streamline award ceremonies - a listing of the top 3 from the final rounds for every event. So I don't have to flip between a bunch of different results pages when I write certificates at the end of the competition.

The 'special classification' report has been replaced by a 'classification' report, which encompasses the old special classifications (oldest and youngest competitors, fastest female...) plus all the podiums.

[shelley]

Thanks for being so responsive to feedback, Luis!

[JBCM627]

We used this at CMU spring 2012. It seems to work great Certainly a huge improvement over the workbook. Given the potential of this, and seeing how you have been very responsive, here are a few more things to consider:

• A display designed for scoreboards would be useful. While the live results pages can be used for this, they don't have a layout tailored to it.
• In general, a lot of things I want to do are 2 or 3 (sometimes non-obvious) clicks away from where I am. By considering some things people may commonly want to do, interfaces can probably be made more streamlined and usable. For example, while typing in results, it would be useful to be able to add/remove competitors from an event without having to leave the page.
• For me personally, the live results menu system would ideally have all items expanded (along the same lines as the last point - lots of clicking required to navigate). It would also be nice to not have to reload to see if new events have opened - just clicking on a menu item could bring up a message that the event isn't yet available.
• Also with regard to reloading, a lot of the interfaces are just begging for ajax. The number of page reloads could probably be reduced quite a bit.
• It is a good practice to avoid inline css and js. It is always of course a good idea to read up on web design / application development best practices to learn what works best
• A higher contrast layout could help usability, both in terms of colors, and separation of menus/content. Perhaps de-emphasis of menus and titles, more emphasis on function and content.
• I agree with comments that typing in the first few letters (approximately) of a name would be better than searching for an ID and typing that in. Even something as simple as a <select> containing names would let you type in the first few letters of a name to jump to that entry.
• When entering data, if you change the data entry field by pressing "tab", the [print] link comes into focus. So then when going to submit, pressing enter not only submits, but also hits the print link.
• When you zoom in on tables (eg, for displaying live results on a projector), the header table and body tables are separate, and thus scale separately. This results in the header columns misaligning with the body columns.
• I agree that descriptive urls would be useful, even if it means just adding in a dummy parameter.
• I often can't use my browser's navigation to go between pages; I get 404 errors (makes no sense why I'd get such an error for a page that should certainly exist).
• It would be nice to have sessions last a whole day instead of timing out so quickly; then logging back in won't be necessary during lulls in the competition where no data is entered.
• I would find it useful to have all rounds with incomplete data open by default, instead of having to open them manually. Once all data for a round is entered, the next round (if there is one) becomes open.
• Wouldn't hurt to allow inputting 1:00.00 as 60.00

[Luis]

Thanks so much for your comments, Jim. All of them are of my appreciation and my consideration. I'll work on it as soon as I can.