cubecomps.com - for delegates and organizers

[gagou9]

And I hope this message will be understandable (I'm sure my sentences are full of mistakes^^)

Don't worry, i reckon you have a better english than i thought, and i'm sure everyone would understand !!
good job for this feedback, i'll probably use cubecomps for the dolmen open, but i'm still not quite sure if there is no offline version.
and good job luis

 

[Erwa]

Hey Luis,

We used CubeComps at Yale Spring 2012 yesterday, and overall, I think the system made data entry easier and less error-prone. I would definitely use this for future competitions. However, I have a few suggestions for improvements:

- I think on the admin competitors page, you should add a column "checked in" which could be checked once the competitor signs in the morning of the competition. Competitors should not populate the event rounds until they have checked in. This eliminates competitors who register ahead of time but don't show up.

- Add an email field so that I can get the email address of competitors who register the day of, in case I need to contact them after the competition

- You should be able to leave solves blank if a competitor did not make the cut-off to complete all his solves. Tim Reynolds pointed out to me that there's a difference between blank and DNS. Blank means the competitor did not qualify to do that solve while DNS means he did qualify but chose not to do it.

-You should be able to sort by columns -- sometimes I might want to sort alphabetically by competitors' names or I might want to sort by solve 1 time to see who got the fastest first solve.

- It would be nice if on the competitors page, at the bottom of each of the event columns, you had a count of how many competitors were registered for that event.

- Finally, I wish the live results page would refresh automatically without manually having to refresh it

These are all fairly minor points, but little features like these sometimes make a big different for people.

Keep up the great work!
Anthony

 

[Luis]

The incremental search over competitors' names has been implemented in the RESULTS page for both, score-takers and administrators. Now it's very easy to find someone with a few keystrokes.

 

[Luis]

Cubecomps.com - Live Results - Show Mode

The live results page now includes a button to activate the 'show mode': the page refreshes automatically every 2 minutes and the menu at the left hand disappears. Ideal for exhibition at the competition venue.

See an example.

 

[Pedro]

Luis, could you maybe make the show mode to have bigger font?
Since the menu is gone, we have more space for the actual results...

 

[shelley]

- You should be able to leave solves blank if a competitor did not make the cut-off to complete all his solves. Tim Reynolds pointed out to me that there's a difference between blank and DNS. Blank means the competitor did not qualify to do that solve while DNS means he did qualify but chose not to do it.

You can set a time limit for an event before you enter any times. This lets you do combined rounds. Make sure you do it before entering times though, because you can't add or change time limits without having to re-enter all the times for that round.

Luis, I was using Cubecomps on a Mac again last weekend, and the dropdown menu for navigation between events still doesn't work. Browser was Chrome. It seems to be Mac specific as it works fine in Windows and Linux.

 

[Luis]

Concerning your comment about the time limits/cutoffs, Shelley, I think they're talking about the situations where the time limit control of CubeComps.com can't be used (for example, there are a different number of attempts than the default value).

And regarding the issue with the dropdown box, I changed the way it works just yesterday. Hopefully it should work now.

Pedro: bigger fonts...? For projection? Anyone who projected results can confirm if the fonts looked small?

 

[JBCM627]

Pedro: bigger fonts...? For projection? Anyone who projected results can confirm if the fonts looked small?

Fonts are a bit small, but that isn't really a problem since you can just zoom in on the page (ctrl and +/-/0).

 

[shelley]

Concerning your comment about the time limits/cutoffs, Shelley, I think they're talking about the situations where the time limit control of CubeComps.com can't be used (for example, there are a different number of attempts than the default value).

A humble suggestion to handle these situations - instead of doing hard cutoff times, have an option for leaving a solve blank if competitor did not qualify to do the solve. So acceptable inputs for a solve would be a time, DNF, DNS, or blank, perhaps represented with a '-'.

This would provide more flexibility for different situations (for example, we often have a time limit on 3BLD that goes something like "to start your third solve, the cumulative time for your first two solves must be under 7:00"). It would also be more forgiving for those occasions when you forget to set the time limit until after a few competitors have been entered.

 

[Luis]

I thought of something similar, with blank times set by simply leaving "000:00.00". It has been already suggested, and not only for cutoffs, but also to allow the introduction of the first attempts of a long round (like multi-BLD or FMC). I don't like much the idea of the system giving that 'freedom' because I think that pruning stupid human errors is one of the advantages of the system against the XLSX file. Despite this, I still have ways to avoid some of those errors by avoiding blank scores in between non-blank ones. I think I will do it.

 

[shelley]

Well, determining whether a competitor is qualified to complete his average is the judge's job, not the scoretaker's. By the time the scorecard gets to the scoretaker, any human error you're trying to prevent (with regard to qualifying times and cutoffs) has usually already been committed.

 

[Luis]

Several fixes and improvements:

1. A problem with the precision of the scores in minutes inside the XLSX file has been fixed. (Reported by WCA's Results Team.)
2. An option to empty all database and start from scratch has been implemented.
3. Scorecards are sorted according to previous results. (A little number at the upper-left corner helps you keep them sorted once torn.) For the first round, they are sorted alphabetically.
4. Rounds are not numbered (1, 2, 3...) but named (First Round, Semi Final...)
5. Youngest and oldest competitors inside the special classifications report has been changed to youngest and oldest Rubik's Cube solvers.

 

[Luis]

Fixes and improvements

1. Option for a competitor to miss a round / leave event. Available from second round on. He/she is replaced by the next competitor classified (when possible).
2. Arrangement of COMPETITORS page through different columns: IDs, name (default), birthday, country and gender.
3. Fix of several minor errors.

 

[Luis]

New feature: option for printing all the scorecards for opened first rounds. (Located at the "MISC" page, "scorecards" section.) Intended for saving paper and recurrent clicks as well.

 

[lachose]

Thanks That's really awesome know. 6 pages less than the version event by event for LM Open. And also so much simpler and shorter than before !

 

[Luis]

A new feature has been implemented to allow importing a XLSX file filled offline. Although it is intended only for competitions not managed at all online, it is also possible to switch between online management and offline importation repeatedly with some manipulation by the administrator.

I hasten to add that this new feature is contrary to the 'primary goal' of cubecomps.com. Abusing of it would come to make of my website a simple live results site, what is far away of my plans, as you likely know. This is why I want to offer the pure offline management only for special circumstances.

 

[nickvu2]

A new feature has been implemented to allow importing a XLSX file filled offline. Although it is intended only for competitions not managed at all online, it is also possible to switch between online management and offline importation repeatedly with some manipulation by the administrator.

I hasten to add that this new feature is contrary to the 'primary goal' of cubecomps.com. Abusing of it would come to make of my website a simple live results site, what is far away of my plans, as you likely know. This is why I want to offer the pure offline management only for special circumstances.

This is a very important feature that would have come in very useful at our last comp. Thanks so much for adding this, Luis =)

 

[Luis]

Cubecomps.com - new improvements

Two new improvements:

1. Added a new [quit] link at RESULTS page for every competitor without score in the first round. Similar to [miss] in second and next rounds, [quit] removes a competitor from the first round and replaces them with the first competitor in the waiting list, if any.
2. When populating second and next rounds ([open] link) only competitors with scores in the previous round are considered to calculate the maximum of competitors proceeding (rule of 75% maximum). If the resulting value violates regulations, the administrator is warned with a message on screen and the number of competitors proceeding to the following rounds are recalculated.

Strictly speaking, the second point could be interpreted as an error fix. Anyway, forgetting to remove people without scores is not a problem any longer.

 

[Luis]

Cubecomps.com - Important notice

From now on, admin.cubecomps.com is the new access for delegates and organizers. The other two accesses (cubecomps.com & live.cubecomps.com) are intented for public access and go to the live result pages.

 

[Luis]

[Cubecomps.com] - new feature: Winners' Certificates

I'm glad to announce that my first approach to certificates is available for competitions using Cubecomps.com from now on.

The first time you enter here, you will see that the competition's, the delegate's and the organizers' names will be already there. (Taken from WCA's website database.)

Besides, a nice text template (in your language, if already implemented) and a default background will leave you 'one click away' from getting your certificates.

Of course, you can also edit the text and upload your own background image to personalize the result.

Above, a sample of a certificate taken from a real competition database with a single click. (No customization was done.)