Code History

Warning: Undefined array key "t" in /homepages/12/d467534392/htdocs/rowstats/regatta.php on line 529
Fixed by: if(isset($_REQUEST[QS_TIMESCALE]))

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in C:\RaceManager\php\regatta.php on line 724
This is caused by the middle lane... Fixed

Deprecated: strpos(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($haystack) of type string is deprecated in C:\RaceManager\php\include\bladeinfo.php on line 9
This is caused by the middle lane... Fixed

• link to Spiders on the menu structure did not work - the names were missing.
• Various links to entriesbystatus changed to spiders once the Draw has been published.
• Filters have been added to rowertimes - this is a BIG improvement!
• Base information has been removed from rowertimes - it was confusing, and serves no useful purpose.

• Plate Events not shown correctly on Spiders. This turned out to be a bug in GenerateSpider(SpiderInfo, List(Of String), Integer). The bug also affects 3 lane Repechage.
• Plate Events not shown correctly on Seeding control. Annoying, but it doesn't matter.
• Statuses defined in a Custom Question. Not sure how to deal with this...
• Parsing J12AB.4X+ doesn't work, unsurprisingly...

• 3 Dell laptops
• 2 HP 6730b laptops
• 1 HP laptop (battery dead, so mains power only)
• 5 assorted NUCs

• BUG - mb_http_input('UTF-8') is invalid.
• 'trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string)' - fixed using Null Coalescing Operator
• A few undefined variables were found.

• SponsorName has been added
• CTE_Qualifying is obsolete, so has been removed.
• I think that displaying 2nd & 3rd placed crew names is long obsolete, so this has also gone.
• What on earth is 'OARAStatuses.Active'?
• CTEEventID has been removed

It also really did NOT like my results file, complaining that there were too many semi-finals. This was due to Peter moving crews between bands in software, and the SQL for CTE_StatusRaced was joining to Entries, NOT Regatta.Timetable. Oops.

The problem was that [regatta.Draw].[ValidEntries] returned 2, but [Entries].[Statuses_ForDay] only returned 1... So the status wasn't in the draw, and errors were thrown.

The code has now been modified to pick the correct division from existing entries. If it is a new Status, then you can pick the division as normal. And the logic now supports Day 2 as well...

We also need to ability to retime divisions.

Instead, we need to check whether we are actually on the race weekend...

A good point, well made by Walton & Weybridge - a commentator does not need the full UI for finish, so I will expand the grid & make the font larger. New form required...

The whole Handicaps control is a mess, being a relic of the hybrid SQL Server/Access solution. [masters].[GetHandicaps] will be used next year, replacing hardcoded SQL

These ‘major internal updates’ were obviously not very well tested...

My code now prevents the file from being created.

For Crew 101 his edits were even worse.

• All Modules have been converted to static classes.
• The AJAX pages used to use a class level connection. This is probably redundant.

But this throws up a WHOLE can of worms. I have just modified a Finish Time for a crew that raced in the previous division. An unlikely scenario, sure, but the TimesElapsed table is not updated...
[Head.Timing.Start].[ModifyTime] and [Head.Timing.Finish].[ModifyTime] therefore delete from this table.
[Head.Timing.Start].[Problems] and [Head.Timing.Finish].[Problems] now use a DISTINCT Select.
[Head.Timing.Start].[Invalidate] and [Head.Timing.Finish].[Invalidate] are obsolete and have been deleted.
[head].[UpdateDivision] had a totally unecessary CTE, which has been removed. It also no longer performs uneccessary updates.
[head].[Update Crews in Division] also updated so that uneccessary updates are not made.
[head].[UpdateStartFinishFlags] is almost certainly obsolete. The code still calls it, and it does no great harm.

At the same time, I have split each menu down into its own class, using a standard framework. This simplifies the logic, and removes some very odd code.

• Draw - click on a race in the clashes grid for it to be shown. This saves a lot of time scrolling.
• Draw - when moving a race, display its clashes (MouseDown handled instead of Click)
• Draw - buttons update correctly on cancellation.
• Import - hyperlink contains the active day

I can't see the wood for the trees - why not use the Publish button to set EventStage??? The logic is backwards anyway - you have to set the stage to 'Draw Published' BEFORE you can Publish!

• Initially, we populate the combo with Taking Entries & Entries Closed. Even this is probably uneccessary, since Entries Closed can be deduced from Baseline...
• Allow them to publish a draft draw - this has no effect on EventStage

But, I had a brainwave on the drive home today - it was an oddity that had caused issues generating upload files (unreported, but seen during a remote session). Analysis showed that the BandMapping table contained entries in Op.Sch.1X for Band 1 AND Band A...
[Banding].[ApplyBanding] has been modified to remove bands that no longer exist.

They were importing from BROE as well (no idea why they thought scratching crews there was necessary), which didn't help, as the server program didn't know it had to run the default scratching logic.

When the option is set, a boolean value is passed to the constructor of Head_Timing_Timing_Info - this ensures that in normal operation we do not transmit uneccessary data.

This is bonkers. Ultimately, the 2 routines do the same thing.

One further inspection, SanitiseStatusID is only there to fix some of Star's event names, which can contain Division numbers for reasons unknown. I believe that is is covered by [CSV].[ExecuteCompetitionSpecificCode] and so SanitiseStatusID is redundant.

This has come up because Star (it would be, wouldn't it) have created J14B events. Forget using the points system as designed - let's use a concept that hasn't existed for several years.

The new installer package installs competiton specific information (these 2 files) into C:\RaceManager\Config\Competitions. What if a machine is used by 2 competitions, like Reading SBH and Reading Amateur Regatta? In this case, one installer will wipe out the other's data... I found this when I installed Bedford Regatta on BRC's server, only to find the active head race had vanished.

Databases.xml is used to populate cmbRegattaSelection, and could be massively simplified to contain just ID, day, database & display name. We don't NEED host information. The installer could then put files in competition specific folders, rather than the parent.

This problem is in how EventData works internally - it reads the XML files to populate the combo box. This is pointless in ASPX.

But the big problem is that it reads Event_ActiveDay from the database, completely ignoring what has just been selected.

That said, I am increasingly unhappy with most of Databases.xml Why? It has nodes containing host (effectively competition) information. Now that we have Defaults.xml (which can be installed), the host nodes are pretty much redundant.

Reminder

1. Change Standard Progression to Round Robin - OK
   • Note that this is an unlikely scenario, but should be tested for completeness
   • A crew could only be allocated once, and wasn't selectable subsequently. Fixed.
   • Number of Lanes used in a Race is held in the Regatta.Names table, which shows the first race for a crew. This prevents Round Robin from being sent to SQL Server, and may cause other, so far undetected, errors... The Regatta.Timetable table has been modified, as well as the Regatta.Races TVF
2. Create new event from scratch - TODO
   • This does not work at all
3. Event with only 1 crew left - TODO
   • Dialog for changing Progression System should not be shown (it is empty).
   • bar
4. Merge 2 Masters Events to create a new handicap - OK
   • If one of the events is ALREADY a handicap, then the information needs to be cleared from OARAMasters
   • bar

I think all that remains now is the SAVE functionality, which merely needs to update race times for any races in the Undo Buffer...

Sounds OK, doesn't it? But what about the SqlConnection that was opened, but never closed? Oops.

• The Group column is hidden if there are no groups
• On saving to BROE, the grids are refreshed.
• The grid containg the bands is no longer full width - it looked daft! Also, the ResultsOrder has been removed, as it provides no useful information.

• The way the code was written meant that 1 3 lane race could not be edited UNTIL a 3 lane race in that event had been recorded by the Finish program.
• Ampersands in crew selection dialogs no longer are doubled.
• It is not possible to set 3^rd place or 2^nd verdict for a 2 lane race.

• Finish did not work, throwing an overflow exception. This was caused by a bug in Regatta.Server, which was not initialising the Globals class correctly. A static constructor should have been used.
• Modifying race results in Regatta.Finish worked, but the generated Tweets were wrong, stating just (for example) 'Reading beat'. This was because the second placed crew was not recorded. A comment in the source code shows that this functionality was written during St Neots 2014, but was lost when the messages were converted to self-contained classes.
• High DPI screens remain an issue. Draw Modification within RaceManager does not render correctly.

1. Windows Update
2. Notepad++ 8.3.3
3. LibreOffice 7.32.
4. RaceManager 22.4.8
5. TeamViewer

• NUC 6i5 SYK
• NUC 5i7 RYH
• NUC 54250 WYK
• NUC 54250 WYK (WiFi)
• Dell Laptop 1
• Dell Laptop 2
• Dell Laptop 3

Masters merging does, but the grids do not show bands. This will be fairly easy to fix.

The other issue is that it contains a module for globals.

• If the Signature block is shown on Entry Forms, an eight spills over onto 2 pages. This wasted a lot of time & paper when printing forms for Bedford Eights & Fours Head. I have modified the code to make rows 1mm shorter for eights and octuples.
• Support for incremental printouts has been added to the Head Race logic.
• The BR Crew name is now shown on Entry Forms - this is the often meaningless name that they enter the crew as.

The code was actually a bit of a mess - 2 classes within RaceManager.BROE have been merged, and banding update logic previous done by RaceManager.Libraries.Banding.EntryRow is now done by the DLL - a routine for this had been created, but was not actually used.

There are also some unnecessary updates beng made to the Masters table - will try to figure these out, though not tonight. These happened before race day, and I think are down to the fact that Reading never actually set the software to Draw Published.

Double clicking on the Handicap As cell in Masters Merging was doing an unecessary update, though this was not done by Reading.

Yet as more builds were added, it became impossible. New builds were added as selected to existing components, and only 4 were visible at one in their poor UI.

So Plan C - Variables. the DEF_REGATTA constant must be set to a valid competition variable, and this does appear to work rather well.

I should have noticed this ages ago. THINK I have cracked it. More testing required...

Rant over. The code now copes, with a couple of delegates defined in the Custom DLL...

• Most of the dialogs used to beep. Not any more...
• Update Nomenclature never worked properly, and now doesn't work at all!
• Status List now shows ALL events (with a really funky sort order for the Count column). The idea is to enable buttons based on what is selected.
• Dialog for Swap crews is wrongly titled
• In test database, swap crews 1 (exists) and 20 (not exists). Crew 20 has scratched, so nothing is displayed
• Swap crews does not edit the Crews table. Nor does it warn you if the swap is invalid (eg swapping an eight with a single scull)

[head].[GenerateRandomDraw] appears to be the most complete & logically written.

• statuses_entered table modified to include DayID, fixing a long-standing bug. Curiously, the code to update was sending this.
• Crew Lists now available.
• Assorted changes to regatta.php - tidying up & removing redundant code.

• Banded Masters Handicaps now supported
• Bug fix in getting EventID of the youngest crew. It should not have made a difference, due to the way the grids are constructed, but it was wrong...

The code for generating entry forms has had to change, plus several stored procedures. I'm working around their bug.

• The combo boxes for expansion & collapse have been removed. It wasn't obvious enough to users that there were multiple statuses to modify.
• Even more confusing were the combo boxes for new lanes & progression.
• We now have a grid showing all events that can be either expanded or collapsed.
• There is no need to start a collapse operation. It is the most common thing we need to do...
• The Save Collapse button wasn't obvious, so has been removed - you're now prompted to save.
• The AllAllocated event has been removed - SpiderEdited has gained an enum that allows more granular control.
• The Save Collapse button has now gone. We just show a dialog once all links have been allocated...

$1199 later, we now have a new, blisteringly fast control, based on Chromium.

• Marshalling information for a 3 lane regatta showed a redundant header (for completed events). Fixed.
• Regatta page title changed for race day & post race.

The dialog now has an Information button, which displays all of the possible options. cm is supported, but not listed.

Unfortunately, this masked a bigger problem - the code was setting PaymentID to 0, without decrementing the payment...

The aim is to use asynchronous code (available in 4.5+). I've never written any of this before...

The problem lay in [Banding].[ListUnMapped], which failed to notice the new groups, since the band already existed.

A total rewrite has therefore been necessary. The logic is significantly better, using CROSS APPLY to turn the columns of CSV.Bands into rows.
The logic has been extended, providing the number of Bands in use - this allows 'Junior 15 Eights (Group A)' to be generated automatically instead of 'Junior 15 Eights (Band 1 Group A)'.

• Back in November 2017 we filtered out the Adaptives so they did not appear to have won the event outright (they do a short course).
• Other heads have the concept of a short course, so it is useful functionality to include.
• No UI for setting courses up yet, or for defining which events run over which course.
• The Stored Procedure is VERY complex, with multiple stages:
  1. Create Overall Positions, per course. This based on time, plus penalties.
  2. Create position within status. This based on time, plus penalties AND handicaps.
  3. Append '=' to duplicated overall positions, per course. This was tricky to do, but appears to work.
  4. Append '=' to duplicated positions within each event.
  5. Set Time Only
  6. Set DNF
  7. Set DQL
  8. Calculate difference between each time and the status winner's

This is a slow operation, but was the only way that Access could handle it. SQL Server has the EXCEPT operator...

• All cells now support Timing Precision.
• Time Elapsed is updated when a time is altered
• DNF works.

• All endpoints have been tested, with the exception of 'OE2UploadEventBands', which does not work at present, according to the documentation, and 'OE2UploadCrewBands'
• Every 15 minutes, RaceManager checks BR for new entries. If any are found, a red bell icon is added to the title bar - click on that to download...
• On creating a new database, you are prompted for the date, and the API Keys
• Date MUST be correct for import to succeed (to prevent loading off old data by mistake)
• The API key must also be relevant to the competition!

This has actually been a bit of a beast to fix, since many tables need adjustment, BEFORE the new StatusID & Description have been generated.

Quite a few classes have also been removed since they are no longer used.

On second look though, they've reverted to their origial definitions, since ASPX needs both. SpiderEngine has been simplified by just using the divisional variant.

AddMissingLaneInformation is a throwback to Access, which lacks COALESCE. Time to remove it, and do it properly...

• It is based on a grid
• Double click to edit

This brings the size of the exe down by another 500Kb - it is now about 39Mb in total.

This means that Race Manager can now be fully installed by a user.

This means IIS runs out of the box.

This is the beauty of the EventCreation class. ResultsOrder is immutable - StatusID & StatusDescription can be generated in whatever way we wish...

HeadStartOrder moved to Head.StartOrder for consistency.

Also removed the last bit of code that predated urlencode()

1. I have created a new table in MySQL
2. Then created a PHP script to populate it
3. Publish functionality extended
4. On importing entries, publish the configuration & Division statistics
5. Change the Draw page to redirect to Divisions when appropriate (ie before the Draw has been published)

So the draw modification code has gained a couple of extra buttons - to reinstate a crew that has vanished due to draw collapse, and to renumber a crew (necessary here as we want it to have its original number...)

• Server code was using dbo.EventNumbers instead of regatta.EventNumbers, so new certificate generation did not work.
• Old points were shown, not PRI. And the columns were too narrow.
• [regatta.RaceDay].[Winners] is poorly written, but using a CTE to filter dbo.Entries solves the issue. It still needs rewriting though...

Rather than fixing the bug immediately (it should be ALM.8+) I am fixing the SQL so that it will not catch me out in future.

• Finally found the bug that caused the wrong day's entries to be displayed when switching between regattas
• Added notes to the Masters merging control. Note that this requires a change to [masters].[ListEntries] but no error will occur if it has not been updated.
• Composites button is too hard to find (on entries control popup menu) so I have added a button on the ribbon.

This is a huge improvement.

Various improvements have been made that will need to be ported back to Dimaco code:
• Autosize improved to take account of the vertical scrollbar, if necessary
• TextMarkupLinkClicked event added
• ProcessCmdKey added to handle Enter key

Update - it WAS the issue. The software now prompts you to reinstate the crew.

A verdict of = translates to Dead Heat; ? to Not recorded.

I have been meaning to split the table for a while; this is now complete.

I had not noticed it before since I was not swapping crews around. He'd put most of the scratched crews in the middle lane (quite rightly). Yet the viewer ignored this.
It turns out that the control was not making use of the Regatta.Seeding table. An easy fix.

Then i had a thought - why not modify MigraDoc? Being open source, I should be able to figure it out...
I was using 1.32.2608 - I downloaded 1.50.4740 and set about modifying it, using the Underline code as my starting point.
Basically, whereever underline code was found, I duplicated it to provide strikeouts. The only difference is y position above baseline...

So I have finally bitten the bullet & rewritten [Entries].[ListBigBoats] The code copes with duplicate surnames, and even duplicate initials.

And an unexpected, but welcome, bonus is that it sorts out composites, which the previous code failed to do...

This is not really good enough, so I have written a new dedicated dialog, based on the keypad.

Not really surprising - it is a bit cryptic! I've therefore added a proper exception, thrown on RTF, XLSX & PDF generation if files are open.

• Maximum Tweet length increased to 280 characters. Except this doesn't work - Tweets of 151 chars and above (151 is in TVP data) are not tweeted.
  This surprises me, since I tested long tweets using @bedfordrowing
• Names are now taken from the Regatta.Names table to ensure they match what is shown elsewhere. This resolves several longstanding bugs
• Tweet Scratched & Race Rescheduled flags can now be set from the client. This makes them easier to find (Walton issue).

The problem was that the scratched crews were not being shown. The culprit was the RegattaGlobals class, which wasn't initialising a lookup table each time.
The class is legacy, written when MS Access was used - it wasn't fast enough...

I have also finally created Blades.xlsx

It ALSO requires that any draw expansions have been done. I have no way yet of enforcing this.

We also need the Publish button to be available on Race Day.

In the Regatta.Draw schema, modify [ListStatuses], [ValidEntries_Count] and [ValidEntries] to take notice of a new flag, which itself is read by a new scalar function.
This actually helps TVP significantly - rather than the bodge (Temp State column), we can use this...

[OARA2 - Update Entries Reinstated] and [OARA2 - Update Entries Reinstated] need to be modified.

• The control now shows statuses where there is one or more bands/groups to which a StatusID has not been assigned in red. This is a big improvement.
• Auto Banding functionality written - this will save a lot of time. It works as long as they do not change the default band/group names.

The problem lay in [BROE].[LogChange_Scratched] and I suspect the logic is very old.

• Draw - row for Gap between Divisions was not displaying properly. This turned out to be a mistake in CellRange creation - it is slightly different to that used in Merge Masters.
• Finals Sequence did not let you move a row to be the end of the division - when you saved it, this change was undone. It turns out that all of this code was based on Head Race sequencing. Most has been removed, since it did not actually apply!
• And there's nothing like a demo to find bugs. ASPX - Winner of Race 1 was not hyperlinked.
• CRI Max missing from Merge Statuses.

• Active Day removed. This has actually long been obsolete.
• Days - also obsolete
• RaceID & BR CompetitionID are now configured in the XML file. They've been left in, but are now read-only.
• Composite Club Format has never been set, as far as I am aware. Removed.

How? It is actually very easy - If taking entries, or entries have closed, then generate checksums on BOTH the Competitors table AND the Baseline table...

The software ought to cope.

Removal of the SQL Server 2008 Management objects drops it by another 13Mb - a build that was 72Mb is now 49Mb.

1. New Windows Server 2016 configured. This is reserved as 192.168.2.11 on the 4G router
2. 3 Dell laptops have been massively improved by fitting SSD drives.
3. 2 NUC devices
4. 1 HP Core 2 Duo laptop (ex work machine, nothing special). Running Windows 7.
5. 3 old laptops. Very low spec, running Windows XP
6. 2 old PCs. Very low spec, running Windows XP
7. 1 4G router
8. 1 Laser printer
9. 3 gigabit 5 port switches
10. Lots more storage boxes for ease of transport & setup

• [List - Sponsorship for ALL Statuses] had a bug in a JOIN clause, which meant that sponsors could not be allocated to all events.
• 1st Race and 1st Crew for Day 2 have no effect. This is frustrating, as I am sure I had tested this section of code.
• They based their banding on CRI Max. I don't currently display this ANYWHERE.

One bug found relates to the option I've had for years - withdrawing crews that scratch before the Draw. This has always been a bit of a bodge - now that BROE allows us to unscratch a crew and then reject it (which is what I've done) it might be time to bin this rather poorly understood functionality.

Last year's system didn't work - it was entirely web based, and that was a major mistake.

Rudimentary client written, which updates a table on the server. Quite how I do the ASPX visualisation is beyond me.

• New Contacts schema in the database; all stored procedures relating to contacts have been moved into here.
• The contact from BROE used is now the Pre Event contact, NOT the Race Day contact. The latter is still necessary, but ONLY in the BR forms.
• SetupNewCompetition recreates [BROE].[ClubQuestions] & [BROE].[CrewQuestions]. This prevents an error being thrown when a new database is created.
• Delete data from current database no longer clears contacts. The idea is that a new competition will always be completely empty, having been restored from Blank.bak - even then, the tables are initialised, just in case.
• Default state for Paid checkbox fixed
• ALL parameters moved into the main program. RaceOptions is now totally redundant.
• MAJOR bug found in keypress handling. A dialog may be shown BEFORE the KeyPress event has completed, so the KeyUp event happens in the second dialog. This has been a right bugger to find!

  Fairly easy to fix though - override ProcessCmdKey instead of trying KeyPress - the latter just does not work as expected...

• Custom questions added to the Banding Control. This makes Bedford Regatta MUCH easier to configure!
• Setting up regatta division from blank db will need some work.The combo has been moved to a more logical place, but the divisions control does not update yet.
• The nightmare that is TVP & Reading Town has begun early. With an event name defined as '8+ Event for crews who want to double'

• 24/6/17 PHP Repechage flag. This was coded on 20/12/17, but has never been tested.
• 18/7/17 RaceIntervals table
• 20/7/17 Expanded flag
• 22/7/17 Official Warnings - think the UI is written (mainly) but not used yet
• Reading Amateur's request for adding half an hour, let's say, to all races left (if there is a major delay eg sunk cruiser)
• Removal of ClubShortName and replacement with a configurable NameToUse
• 28/12/17 InsertTimeBeforeRace TVP bodge is still there.
• Collapse/Expansion should honour existing results. But then again, what about scratched crews that have been collapsed out?
• Final removal of RaceOptions
• 9/2/18 ListCrewsChangedAfterFormsPrinted

1. Collapse - done.
2. Change Status - done
3. Late entry - direct replacement of scratched crew - done.
4. Late entry - addition of MULTIPLE new crews. This was impossible last year - I could only expand one crew at a time. Which was painful, to say the least!

Regatta.RedrawnStatuses is now redundant, and can be deleted.

• Crew number allocation for Round Robin events fixed in .NET This has never been used, to my knowledge, but testing is always good ;)

1. Stage 1 is use of a saved draw, which means that .NET & VB6 have the same crews racing each other. This has worked fine for a couple of years
2. The next stage is to get the initial draw to have races in the same order. Only then can we directly compare doubling.

   To my great surprise, this is not happening. It turns out that VB.NET's underlying Dictionary object is to blame - iterate through the Keys collection, and you do NOT get the same order that they were added in. Why? Because I derived from System.Collections.DictionaryBase. Deriving from Dictionary(Of Integer, Status) resolves this issue.

3. With that problem resolved, I find that the order in which the racelist is composed is an issue. Because VB6 uses a TreeView control, the last race is listed first - the timetable is composed by laying out the finals first, so this made sense 15 years ago. VB.NET stores the timetable in a dedicated object, creating the grid on the fly - for this it makes sense to have the normal race order displayed.

   Getting VB.NET to lay out heats in the same order is actually trivial, with a reverse SortedDictionary in CreateRaceList...

4. Now that the two frameworks display the same data for 1st round, I can look at the horror that is AppendFullInfo. I suspect that several of my earlier iterations might have been right, but I had not realised that I was not starting from the same point...
5. I am still unable to get the number of clashes to be displayed the same, as the 2 programs work so very very differently. This may pose a problem.
6. After a bit of work, the VB6 software calculates the same number. In debug ONLY.
7. But I drop the interval to 2 minutes (from 3) and the numbers differ. Bugger.
8. It DOES resolve clashes. And significantly faster than the old code, which is really half the point of going down this route.

• Dimaco will have new functionality fairly soon, as I have massively improved the Integer dialog so that it can be used as a base class.
• In the process I have managed to get rid of its own base class, instead inheriting directly from GenericDialog
• SpecialValues have been extended, with an ALL checkbox
• GenericDialog has become MustInherit. This is ongoing development, but the time has come...

This is not a trivial operation. I've had an initialise database routine for a couple of years - this works fine, but requires the XML file to be edited, and a database created.

The new code is rather more sophisticated:

1. The user is given a dialog containing all events defined in the XML file. This year is the default, but if it already exists, you can create next year's
2. SMO is used to create the database, with the files relocated to c:\RaceManager\Databases. This was the hard bit that previously had me stumped.
3. The XML file is modified, adding in entries for the new competition. Note that multiple days are supported.
4. The user is prompted for the location of the BROE export files for each day.
5. Finally, the competition's name is set.

The logic for logging the changes has been improved, since it would not have included entries that had a NULL division.

That said, their data is quite useful, as:

1. They have not specified Division Numbers (see above).
2. Some crews have not been assigned to a division at all (no idea how this is possible). The Regatta import code would have detected this, but the Head Race code did not. This has been fixed.

• The actual Entry Form is the same, whether we're running a Head or a Regatta. The latter has had more development over the Summer - its been moved to a static class that both variants can use.
• Age and Club are now only shown when relevant.
• Rather than checking presence of 'X' in the StatusID, we now use EventCreation.ScullingEvent. This allows points for Mixed Sweep events to be shown correctly - a very rare case, but one that was not previously addressed.
• Copies added to Runners & Riders (since my printer refuses to collate multiple copies).

This proved to be easier than expected, though the custom sorting isn't right; nor is the highlighting of crews racing twice in the same band.

This has taken some considerable effort. I've managed to removed the BROE.Bands table as it is now obsolete, and have a system that deals with bands & groups correctly. The next stage (tomorrow morning) will be to copy CSV.CrewBands to BROE.CrewBands for the purposes of writing UI to actually UPLOAD banding information... Its nearly midnight, and my brain hurts.

Currently I have a sidebar. Clicking on an item causes a new control to be created, and the old one to be disposed. This takes time, and means you can't swap between items easily - state is lost.

Now it is MUCH better. You can be viewing entries, sorting by entry number (descending). Change to a different regatta, and the entries are STILL sorted...

• Custom printing code for TVP. This isn't high priority, but needs writing.
• Further development of the new UI. The Ribbon is going to be most useful for the Entry Viewer control, which currently has a lot of useful functionality rather hidden away in an awkward context menu.
• Regatta Draw will probably also benefit.
• Need to finish the expand / collapse functionality.
• Need to work out why the doubling isn't properly carried through. Suspect this will need a weekend of solid work. (UPDATE - a week is a more realistic timescale)

• Timing corrections must reset focus.
• Insert extra minutes for certain TVP events. Looking at the code, I have hardcoded this in InsertTimeBeforeRace - it needs to be configurable...
• Store using keys, not RaceID
• once draw is saved to database, store its row version. provide a load button that calls initialise first. If versions of entries, seeding or seeding info are greater than the saved value, warn and do not do the load.
• Must call AddMissingData
• need to work out why seeding is not being stored in the database. (all preceding 10/6/17)
• Names uploaded by results feed miss out the sculler's name.
• crews taking up a status change should retain their original number. (11/6/17)
• patterns.aspx should show number of races, not just X (12/7/17)
• Need way of collapsing events once results have been set.
• Also removing races from 'Races to go' if all crews have been removed.

• The TextBox control has been replaced by a WPF RichTextBox.
• The control also has a Ribbon - this can be merged into the Ribbon used by the new UI (what new UI?).
• I have figured out how to modify quite a few properties in WPF code - I can style the hyperlinks how I want, and have also figured out how to strike out text.
• I have a placeholder menu - I intend to use this for things like Undo, and bulk operations.
• The new control was developed in a test application, but the time has come to merge it into the main application...

Update - March 2018. The effort was well worth it, as I now have full draw collapse / expand / merge capability.

• My first challenge is to get SourceSafe up & running. I had a brief experiment with Visual SVN when I first got this laptop, which will not be repeated.
• Got there in the end - had to manually create all of the solution bindings, which was rather painful. I have no idea why it cannot just accept the folder structure - it requires the solution file for multiple project solutions to be located above the binding root... Still, all done now.
• Checked the XML syntax of this document - many errors were fixed...

Fortunately I have managed to persuade Suzy to let me have my laptop - in a side room, I now have everything I need to kill time...

• [Display - Club and EntryNames] is one of the oldest routines in the database. And has finally gone. It turned out that only GenerateNames used the short form of the club name, which is rather what I'd hoped to find.
• Getting shot of [Display - Regatta Names] has been harder. [regatta.RaceDay].[Races_AffectedByDoubling] is mind bendingly complex (and badly written), and [regatta.RaceDay].Winners is just as bad...
• 18 Views left
• I'd managed to delete [OARA2 - List Crews with Substitutions] by mistake. This one was especially tricky, as it was used in .NET code as well, JOINed to other tables. This has meant that I have had to create 2 extra stored procedures. These are candidates for futher work - they're used as a pair to count the number of substitutions, and once I have Cambridge's final data, I will investigate use of the SQL EXCEPT operator. TODO
• 14 Views left
• [List - Racing Sequence] was migrated from Access. I have no idea how it works! It was only used in a few places, and code written from scratch is easier to follow regardless...
• 8 Views left - and 5 of these relate to Payments
• [Statistics].[Payments] needs rewriting - the combined logic is appalling.
• 2 Views left - and they're used in code.
• FINALLY. 0 Views

And now, ALL Stored Procedures are self contained. There are NO dependencies (apart from 5 scalar functions, and one TVF for Regattas). Beautiful.

• [List - Competitors] has been converted to a Stored Procedure, with the doubling code moved to a CTE.
• [List - Composition of Specified Crew (Current)] & [List - Composition of Specified Crew (Baseline)] have also had the doubling code moved to a CTE. In the process it was found that this was a single stage, as opposed to 2 in the original (Access based) logic. Both referenced [OARA2 - List Crews with Substitutions] with a LEFT JOIN, but did not actually use it!
• [List - Composition of Specified Crew (Current)] has been totally rewritten, using the baseline code as a basis, then adding extra JOIN logic as necessary.
• [List - Rowers Doubling Up] was referenced by [BROE].[Append Doubling] but was not actually used.

• There were 2 tables relating to spiders. These are not yet used (though have been on the TODO list for a while) - either way, they've been moved to the regatta schema.
• More importantly, the RegattaRedraws table has become [regatta].[RedrawnStatuses], and a [dbo].RedrawTypes table created.
• All of the Views concerned with Doubling have been converted to CTEs. Any Stored Procedure concerned with viewing doubling has been moved to a new schema.
• All of the Views related to Payment have been merged into [Payments].[Totals_MultiDay]. Unsurprisingly, the resulting code is almost unreadable, and will not be used until properly cleaned up... It requires 7 CTE expressions, at least 1 of which I suspect is legacy code and thus totally obsolete.
• And I have no idea why the [Payment - Totals] view still exist
• I have spent the best part of an hour on this. But [Payment - Totals] is not actually called by ANY VB.NET code. BUGGER.
• That said, [Entries - Payments for Specified Club Multiday] IS used. I see no point in [Entries - Payments for Specified Club].
• [List - Contacts belonging to Club or Composite] was calculating a custom contact name. But it is never used. I have converted it to a CTE where necessary, but it may need to be stripped altogether...

• Victor Ludorum code for Henley extended to include the number of races won, and the number of finals won. This is to give sufficient information in the case of a tie (which looked likely this year).
• regattacompleted page updated to use a non alphanumeric sort on the club name. This is because Henley name scullers...

• The 2 views for detecting female only entries have been merged into a single stored procedure. This is significantly better written - its easier to read, and 2 minor filtering bugs were fixed in the process.
• [BROE].[Append Doubling] has also been largely rewritten, merging the 3 views into CTEs. These were further inproved by removing the ORDER BY clauses, and using yet another CTE to filter out Rejected & Withdrawn entries.
• After the changes (and yet another hunt), 19 obsolete views and 2 obsolete stored procedures have been identified. This is very much an iterative process, as many views depend on each other - as one is marked as obsolete, others become obsolete as well... The problem arises because Access ONLY has views - there's no equivalent to SQL Server's Common Table Expressions, which are a far better solution.
• [Regatta - Update Null Races] update to use COALESCE logic - it is easier to understand. This has not been tested, but will work. NOTE - This logic has now been lost - I must have overwritten the database I was working on :( And it is not called anyway!

• Verdict of Bowball has been coded
• Handicaps ASPX page improved (none of the queries were day specific, which made it incredibly confusing), but it really needs totally reworking to provide a table such as GTD prepared by hand...
• BUGGER - only just noticed that St Neots have the same race numbers on both days. This SHOULD work. But the doubling page didn't...
• TODO - Add Offical Warning capability. I've written the database table, and an ASPX to display it - all that remains is to write the UI on Control. Because the server will need modification, I can't really do that in the middle of St Neots Regatta...
• TODO - remove clipping instructions from Winners Certificates. UPDATE - looks as if this has been done.
• TODO - The data in the Qualifying column (regattacompleted) is wrong - ELI.1.8+ IS qualifying despite what it says. I think that the issue lies in [List - Qualifying Statuses] - this is currently a View, which does not filter by DayID. I'm going to have to change it to a CTE in the morning... That is now done, and STILL it did not work. It turned out that the culprit was a JOIN to OARAStatuses, instead of CTEEventID as used elsewhere (results export, for example)
• doubling.aspx should be ordered by race time, not race number
• This dataset (end of Saturday) is going to be very useful for testing!
• [List - Regatta Winners] needs major work.
• [Statistics].[Lanes] is not day specific. I thought I was going to get away with it, but GTD noticed, and I patched the system ;)

Done. TVP & Reading have their files.

• On loading a saved Draw, gaps between divisions are inserted as appropriate. TVP reported this as a bug - given that the code was written in a marquee during Reading Amateur, my response at the time was that I really didn't care.
• One thing TVP did not notice was that after loading a saved draw, clashes were not calculated until you moved a race. Fixed.
• ICancellable implemented

Minor bug fix as well - GetMaxRowVersionFromMySQL should ONLY be called if the previous call has succeeded. If a web exception was thrown, then the return value will be null...

• Draw modification has been added. There are a few caveats to this, but it does seem to work.
• Draw expansion was not setting the ProgressionSystemID!
• The Draw can now be tweaked AFTER saving it to the database. This relies on you not having changed the status of any entry, or added any new crews. There's no UI to handle this - it just throws unrecoverable errors!

• Change event in draw to separate draw (ie get rid of it). Need to delete the races from Regatta.TimeTable, and set the ProgressionSystem to 7
• Draw expansion
• Browse Entries needs a flag for Rejected. This was actually already coded, but wasn't being added to the toolbar!
• BUG - ListPairsAndDoubles was returning records for ALL days. This caused assertion errors in debug...
• Draw Expansion works. Messy, but works. Note - it is no longer quite as messy...
• Levels for draw collapse / expansion are wrong.
• EventNumbers are being generated for events that are in a separate draw.
• TVP are using the new draw. Looks like it is not saving SeedingInfo correctly - you have to run the VB6 program to initialise them...
• Seeding control was not displaying anything for unknown blade colours. It turns out that the paths were wrong...

• Reports - Race Cards now generated for TVP. This has been an utter sod to write.
• Web Pages - Status Statistics now show the number of races that each status will have, taking into account its lanes & progression system.
• Temporary flag available to 'reject entries' in software ONLY. This actually uses the TimeOnly flag, so is available for Regattas only. It is automatically cleared on re-importing entries from BROE.

• Rescheduling race - the dialog is only big enough to show 2 crews, and components don't scale properly when the dialog is resized. Fixed.
• Draw Collapse broken. It appears that something is truncating the crew from seedinginfo.

Analysis shows that the crews export file contains 2 events for W.J15.2X and 1 event for W.J15A.2X – the same goes for W.J14. I have never encountered this scenario, and the code does not cope.

• Mike Perry entered verdicts of 'r/o' & '4.00 lengths'. The code now copes with both...
• One of our Finish Umpires (I missed his name, but he was from the Lea) had a very good suggestion - display the last race result - winner, time & verdict for passing to commentator. This has been coded now - I cannot understand why I never thought of doing this before!

  I've actually taken his suggestion one stage further, and have provided a grid showing ALL race results. This is a huge improvement. Note that the grid CAN be sorted to find results (I deliberately have not allowed filtering, as it tends to confuse people), but the sort is cleared when another race finishes. Each finished race is inserted at the TOP of the grid, so it is always visible.

• If an invalid race number is put into the Finish software, a KeyNotFound exception was thrown. It SHOULD have been a RaceNotFoundException - this is effectively passed back to the client.
• If the Start clock is running fast (it was 12 minutes out, as NTP was not configured correctly), then the time taken can be negative. This DID cause problems for the first couple of races last weekend, before I worked out what the issue was. The code now handles this with a Date.TryParse statement.

I have also added a Regatta.Distances table, allowing for statistics on Verdicts to be generated.

This can happen in several ways:

1. An Entry has been received after the Draw - I have deliberately left out an entry from Green Templeton in order to simulate this
2. We merge 2 or more statuses, because somebody has scratched, leaving a singleton with no race.

• The first stage was to modify RaceManager.Libraries.Spiders.StatusList.Refresh (hard coded not to apply for Walton or Shrewsbury 2017). [regatta.Draw].[ListStatuses] has been modified to show the COUNT from [regatta.Seeding] - the routine makes use of this information.
• Next stage - amend [regatta.Draw].[ValidEntries] and [regatta.Draw].[ValidEntries_Count]. These need to take account of the Scratched flag, which we will COALESCE in. I love that function!
• Final stage - use the SavedDraw class to regenerate the requisite tables

• The regattadata table is now being populated via a new message
• The EventData table sets EventStage to RaceDay, just in case.
• What I had forgotten when writing this to start with is that I have ALWAYS done a Draw upload to start with, and this populates the Clubs & Statuses tables. Once the code is used in anger by other regattas, this won't necessarily be the case...
• All done. My test database (created this morning with NO data at all) now allows full regatta upload...
• The next challenge is the Marshalling code I promised my Committee I'd write.
  • I have found some good example code that handles authentication. This works, both locally & on rowstats.
  • Getting there. I now have a secure page - if somebody stumbles across it, then they will be asked to login
  • http://www.rowstats.com/marsh will be the link. This page will show a list of all Regattas that are currently on Race Day.
  • Time to call it a day. I've been coding for 6 hours, and now have a system that populates the marshalling table. Tomorrow's task will be to make use of the information...

Why the focus on this, when I have so much else to do? I want to be able to filter out the withdrawn entries, and for this setting to be persistent...

• 3 more obsolete views deleted.
• Importing all code into a new blank database revealed just 2 uses of synonyms. I THINK I have managed to purge them all...
• Found a script to find and generate code to delete all extended properties. I made sure that only MS_SSMA_SOURCE was actually deleted...

More of a problem, though, was the SQL logic in OARAUpdateHandicapNames. It was appending a Masters crew's age category as it was when entered, instead of what it was being handicapped as. This affected one crew from St Neots, and another from Champion of the Thames, both of whom contacted me. There may have been others that I did not spot.

• 3 Inspiron laptops. They're nothing special, but a HUGE improvement over the second hand crap that Bedford College threw away 6 years ago.
• A NUC5i7RYH - a top of the range NUC with an M.2 SATA SSD drive, 16Gb of RAM and an i7 processor. This will be for George Hammond.
• A Proroute H820 LTE 4G Router. This is the 4G version of the excellent device I borrowed from Steve Reece last year, which gave Race Control internet access for ALL machines. The problem was that it took a while to set this up, as Steve & I both had other things to do (he provides ambulance cover), and we had to reconfigure the IP settings on the various laptops. This year I'll be able to set everything up in advance...
• An O2 4G data only SIM, with 12Gb of data valid for a year.
• Excluding the NUC (which I saw on eBay and was too good a deal to miss), this came to just shy of £960, with the NUC being another £360

• We will have a marshal outside Star Club, and hopefully one just upstream of the Suspension Bridge.
• I haven't considered authentication yet - we need to ensure that the marshals can login to the database, since they will be making changes.
• The idea is that each position will type in a crew number, and press a button to save it. They'll also need to be able to delete a record, and to edit a crew number.
• This will be saved in a MySQL Table - EventID, DayID, MarshalID, CrewID
• Gavin wants instant feedback to a crew - what station it is on, and whether their opposition is waiting.

You can tell I have a big coding session to do (the Regatta Draw and Collapse) - I am doing ANYTHING but what I need to do! The Merging control now uses grids instead of treeview controls. This allows for better styling, including grouped headers. I have also added owner drawing code to render the Status description in such a way that it spans multiple columns - merged cells won't allow me to do this directly.

• BROE.CrewQuestions had ARACrewID, though this is created in [CSV].[Create CrewQuestions], which has now been modified.
• BROE.Names had ARACrewID
• CSV.Baseline had CrewID
• CSV.Competitors had Crew ID
• CSV.CrewQuestions had ARACrewID
• CSV.Entries had CrewID
• Checksums had ARACrewID
• Entries had ARACrewID
• OARABaseline had ARACrewID
• OARACompetitors had ARACrewID
• OARACrews had ARACrewID
• OARAPoints had ARACrewID
• StatusChangeRequests had ARACrewID - this table is unused

NOW I can fully appreciate how useful the import routines are - I can map any CSV column to any database column...

With yet another temporary table, and a NOT EXISTS clause, we can calculate the AgeBand (A-K), modify any records that have changed, and then insert any new ones. We can also merge in the code for setting Age Category Entered. All in all, we lose a stored procedure AND about a hundred lines of code.

I fixed a bug in EventCreation at the same time, which was creating Junior A events (which have no meaning in BROE2)...

• Stage one is to modify the view to include the CURRENT crew name. This should have been there from the outset.
• We can then modify the VB code so that unnecessary updates are not done.
• This works absolutely fine, and thus speeds up the import slightly. But I see that Withdrawn entries are still being updated in some way, and I can't figure out what is going on yet.

  Update - it looks as if LogChange_Withdrawn was the culprit. Whilst modifying this so that records affected are returned in an OUTPUT parameter, I noticed that it was always updating the EntryFee to 0 - it doesn't need to do that (obviously) if the EntryFee is already 0...

This methodology ought to be the template for all of the other logged routines (such as withdrawn)

• I have edited EVERY override identifier to use my own nomenclature instead of Phil's. The differences are:
  • He uses Op to denote Open events; I omit anything unnecessary
  • He uses spaces as separators; I use full stops
  • He uses MasA etc; I use Mas.A etc.
  • He uses x for a sculling event; I use X (no minus symbol)
  • He uses x- for a coxless sculling event; I use X
  • He uses 8x+ for octuples; since they are always coxed, I use just 8X
• I plan to create a new database table to handle crew names. This is needed as I edit them in the main entries table AND clubs are also able to edit them.
  • On importing entries, any Crew that is not in the table will be added to it, and the BROE_Name set
  • The next step will be to compare this field to the value in CSV.Entries
  • If they differ, then we will update the dbo.Entries table with the new value
  • Once this is done, we will update the BROE.Names table with the new value.
  • Finally, we will log a change to the Alterations table.
• I only opened for entries yesterday, but have 15 entries already, and have just changed the name of one of them - time to write the code I need...
• CreateFolderRecursively has been moved to a new namespace, & all programs have been recompiled. This change allows me to utilise code I wrote at work - the FileChecksum...

• I clean the test database, and import 23January20171752.zip An Exception was thrown immediately from GenerateStatuses_Other, as EventCreation.GetStatusID had no errorhandling. It turns out that the problem lies in GetBaseResultsOrder, which does not generate the --- code used for banding & grouping.
• The next issue is one that plagued me during the import - missing entry fees. I managed to replicate it in my first import, but now suspect that it was an artefact of an incomplete import, as clearing the database and reimporting fails to generate it..
• First up will be change of boat type. The import I have picked is 04February20171225. This has 2 instances of the problem: Crew 1000480 - a BMS J15.8+ that was changed to a J15.4+ & Crew 1000755 - a BDS J15.4+ that was changed to a J15.8+
• The ASPX page uses [OARA2 - List Changes (Status)] as its data source. This is actually quite a relief, as this View has major problems (it does not cope with banding) and hence needs to be rewritten. It will become a Stored Procedure, and will be extensively tested.
  • The first stage is to move it to a test window, and to tidy it up so that it becomes readable. That's actually easier said than done, as the WHERE clause is complex. If I use 3 distinct parts, it should be easier.
  • Now remove the horror of [Display - Club and EntryNames]. This gets shot of a LEFT JOIN (why was it there?), replacing it with a simple CASE statement. Much cleaner.
  • Replace the LEFT JOIN to OARAMasters with a NOT IN predicate in the WHERE clause. This leaves a VERY simple bit of code...
• I have added a new AlterationType. On finding a change of boat type (note that it doen't yet take account of whether or not the entry fee would differ), it removes the PaymentID, and sets the DefaultEntryFee.
• Banding - DayID & BaseStatusID are now created - these were found to be necessary after the code was originally written.
• Banding - We can now edit a Band's description.
• Banding - on creating a new banded status, we first check whether it exists already. If it DOES exist, then it displays the description stored in the database, NOT the default.
• Banding - Status Descriptions are not generated correctly for U23 or College. I haven't got time to fix this today.
• Now for the most pressing issue - results export. My C & CDE eights give duplicated rows in the export file, for reasons I have not yet found.
• The answer is actually simple - there is no way of do this, as we get the EventID from a ResultsOrder
• We need to generate YoungestEventID instead of YoungestResultsOrder. Generating the correct EventRaced is then trivial.
• The following database objects will need to be recoded:
  • VIEW [dbo].[OARA2 - List Status Raced] - will be marked as obsolete soon
  • PROCEDURE [dbo].[Draw - Add Missing RegattaData]
  • I spent ages transforming [dbo].[Doubling - List Worst Case] to use CTE logic only (ie no old Views). Only to find that it is not used...

Quite frankly, this is not good enough. I am given to understand that Bristol IT have professional developers, though nothing I have seen to date supports that view. Shoddy design, shit coding, and an arrogant, totally unwarranted, belief that they know best - how Regattas & Heads actually run is irrelevant to these utter fucking tossers.

• It breaks down into 3 distinct parts, instead of the original 2 - Normal, Handicapped & Banded
• Of these, Handicapped caused the first issue, as YoungestOrder is not being generated correctly - it MUST include the final 3 dashes. I have not modified the code yet (I'm still trying to generate results), but have instead run an UPDATE on the table.
• Banding was the next one to be recoded. Here, I think that we need DayID - just in case we decide to use the same StatusID for completely different things on each day. Unlikely, I know, but if the table is designed correctly to start with we've got a chance of it working...

As Novice no longer exists, I couldn't create a combination class for these. The Masters Merging code MUST warn (TODO) if this scenario is encountered - otherwise (as here) we'll have multiple winners of the same event, but with non contiguous placings. I have no solution except to create another event on BROE. The SQL now generates the correct number of rows.

The code from [OARA2 - List Status Raced] is now in [head].[BROE_Results] as a CTE (CTEStatusRaced)

Note that the old view has been left alone, and will need to be updated for the regatta code.

• See comment made on 28/9/12
• Characters 1-5 remain the same.
• Character 5 is age specific. H/L for Seniors, A-K for Juniors (age group) and 0-N for Masters (used for determining combination classes).
• I have deleted CRA events, as they just confuse matters with an 'O' suffix (depending on the length of the field, this can be character 5 onwards).
• The new system has the concept of vertical and horizontal bands (the latter will be called Groups, not Divisions as originally proposed, as 'Division' has other connotations).
• I will therefore use character 6 for oddities (College, Club, Alumni etc.), character 7 for Band, and character 8 for Group. The fill character for these will be '-'. This actually makes the field significantly more readable - I had originally planned to use 'G', but this was significantly harder to parse by eye.
• To ease the process, I have removed all handicapping from my entries, then deleted ALL handicapped statuses. I can then run a chunk of SQL to generate my new ResultsOrder
• Under this system, character 6 may not be necessary. Except it will allow the event to offer, let's say, Alumni eights and for them to get fewer points than if they were placed in a high band within a generic category of eights...
• Now for the hard bit - Masters.
• Except it wasn't hard at all - just insert '---' before the handicap data. I can't test combination classes, but think I've got the order right...
• The next bit WILL be hard - creation of 'normal' statuses. But, since I have already imported all of my entries, I don't actually need to do it until after the race (when I'll wipe entries and start again). TODO
• Update - By creating a temporary field in the table, I have managed to generate the correct StatusDescriptions for all Statuses, AND the Groups that already exist... There was one description that was wrong anyway!

This wasn't actually as painful a task as expected, since CommandBehavior.SchemaOnly comes to the rescue again. I'm not sure how it will cope with optional questions (or rather, I haven't configured any, so haven't tested).

Update - it doesn't slow anything down. It just breaks a lot of code. So now we only use Unicode where necessary, checking whether ASCII.GetByteCount differs from UTF8.GetByteCount

• The Additional Information is brilliant, though it makes parsing the CSV files significantly more complicated. This data can be present in the Crew & Club export files. Each now has an additional table within the BROE schema - ANY fields that are not recognised end up here... So the ClubQuestions table for Wycliffe contains the values of the 'Bringing a 52 seater coach' question, which Phil Clements has specified.
• [BROE].[Clubs] is new - this currently contains just BladeImage information.
• [BROE].[Events] is also new. Once Bands are exported properly, this will be used to generate the OARAStatuses table. Probably.

• Each item in the panel is now responsible for determining whether or not it should be displayed. This makes the code in the main form much clearer.
• Each item defines its own event handlers
• A major advantage that comes from merging the Head & Regatta code is that duplicated code can be identified and removed:
  • DeleteAllRecordsFromTable has been replaced throughout with a SQL.Delete object
  • Code for creating the baseline was defined 3 times. The newest definition (in RaceManager.Libraries.BROE.EventStage) was correct, since the deletion is done in the Stored Procedure. The others had a redundant deletion statement, and have now been removed.
  • The ErrorMessage dialog looks to have been an early attempt at standardisation. Only used in Regatta.Clients, it has been removed and replaced with ErrorDialog.
• BROE Results is now redundant as well, as this program now provides that functionality as well.
• I have now added the ability to add & assign payments. Note that the totals are NOT day specific.
• I doubt anybody really uses the Entry Manager. I do for:
  • Making Payments - now available here
  • Editing Club & Composite names
  • Probably the most important - editing Crew Names
  • Exporting email addresses. I have now moved this functionality into Regatta.Libraries (fixing a minor bug with free entries), ready for it to be called here as well.

• Because it is SO useful to have a single UI, I'm adding the Head Race draw to it.
• All of the sidebar items are now generated on the fly.
• A couple of the Head controls have Save Changes functionality - you can't move to another item if something needs saving.
• Clicking on the same item twice no longer casues it to be reinitialised. This is a big improvement.
• Masters.Handicapping has been added.
• Most of the styles need redefining, but Masters Merging is also in.

• The Web Browser control has been removed. I never look at it here, and I doubt anybody else would either.
• I plan to move the guts of this program to 2 controls within Regatta.Libraries
• All of the logic has now been moved, though I still need to do a bit more work on the namespaces...

• This software now handles a divisional Draw - functionality that was somehow lost in translation
• Status Grid is now up & running
• Carrying forward doubling remains an issue TODO
• Race List composition now works from the Seeding control.
• It is VERY fast

NB The .NET version must NOT have its design time property set. There's a workaround for this, I know, but I've not put it in yet...

Further research reveals that this was a scratched crew - because I don't have the files at the point at which entries closed, I don't have the requisite competitor information.

BUT. All of the hyperlinks in the pages that I've moved to subfolders (import & stats) are now broken. Construction of hyperlinks has always been a bit of a mess - this is going to force me to review the code.

• Cracked the problem with sorting hyperlinks.
• Added export capability to completed.aspx
• Added club filter to completed.aspx
• Moved more constants into the Web namespace
• Added export support (no hyperlinks) to a couple of pages that don't officially support it yet.
• TODO Add ability to remove club filter.

• TimeOnly was throwing an error due to the recent addition of DayID to the Crews table
• Scratched was nowhere close to being W3C compliant...
• Sorting implemented for Scratched. Except if 2 day - I have no idea what is going wrong.
• TODO I think the problem is caused by hyperlinked numbers
• TODO - implement ~/

One of the other problems with the merging logic is that it didn't allow you to alter the age category at which a crew would be handicapped. This has also been fixed. More time will be needed to sort out some of the internal kludges. There are many.

• When I first started the .NET conversion, I created the Regatta.Libraries namespace. With hindsight, this was a mistake, as it prevents me from having the Regatta.Results.Regatta & Regatta.Results.Head namespaces etc. The namespace root has therefore been changed to RaceManager.
• All of the utility classes (Numbers, MySQL etc) have been changed to shared routines. Each class has a private constructor to prevent its creation.
• Ideally, GenerateMySQL should be split. But Suzy's woken up after a night shift...
• Handicaps control moved into the Controls namespace
• ctlTrophies, ctlSponsorship moved. As has been MySQL
• Where encountered, private classes are being moved to their own source code file.
• Hanidicaps still has a base class (created during the short-lived transition from Access). This needs to go.
• The next big target will be Spiders, which are an unholy mess.

The database for Reading Town is now the standard

The Finals Sequence control was, inexplicably, showing statuses where there was just a single entry. It shouldn't have made a difference, as entries in these events should be rejected by the time the Draw is actually done, but it feels better to do it properly..

• The constants are being moved to a new namespace within Regatta.Libraries - this allows consistency with the applications.
• InsertAjaxScripts made into a generic routine. This has allowed me to fix a couple of inconsistencies, and makes adding new AJAX functionality much simpler.

• I've moved the Clubs & Composites forms from BROE.Import to Regatta.Libraries
• As I encounter them, single method classes are being converted to static classes
• It looks as if CSVAmalgamation doesn't amalgamate any more, so it has been renamed

• The first stage is to make sure that the code works. It didn't, with a syntax error in one of the SQL statements. This has been fixed.
• Then I moved all of the UI (Nodes, menus etc) into Regatta.Libraries
• Amazingly, the program still referenced the old ADODB namespace, which hasn't been necessary since I abandoned Access totally 2 years ago.
• The program will remain for the time being as I still use it for Head Races. But all it consists of now is a form containing 2 controls...

The first stage, I think, will be to merge the Sponsors & Trophies into the Regatta Configuration program. This is becoming a much more comprehensive bit of software - today its going to get a UI update, with a side bar. Some of the options (thank goodness these are already controls) will come out of the abomination that is RaceOptions...

• This no longer echoes by default. In fact, it never should have done.
• Ignore Tweet now works.

• The BR Logo now displays correctly. I've hardcoded the path, and added it to the installer.
• Henley T&V seemed a bit surprised that a separate page was needed for each contact's Race Control sheets. It is rather verbose. So I've added an option...

• List - Statuses in ReDraw
• List - Statuses in Redraw on Specified Day

Note that this is a rather blasé summary of 600 lines of code, which took about 7 hours to design, code & test...

• Another issue found in [regatta].[Generate Names] - this did not cope with a 2 lane race containing a crew placed 3rd in a previous round, which is perfectly possible when running a repechage.
• If the progression system for an event is set to Repechage, and there is no pattern defined, it now reverts to a normal draw.
• New Schema [regatta.Draw] added. This will mean modification on the HT&V and KAR databases; this needs to be done anyway. To be on the safe side, the old routine will be deleted as it is no longer used.
• A new SP, [regatta.Draw].[ListStatuses], filters out statuses that have just a single entry. This should have been done by the Seeding control. It wasn't.
• The new SP is also used by the new Lanes & Progression tab. Whilst most people configure the number of lanes used based on just the status, HT&V also take acount of the number of entries. Having to go back to BROE.Configuration to make a change is annoying, especially as this program is so slow to load (more on that later, methinks). Lanes & Progression also have nothing to do with BROE...
• Seeding control displays repechages correctly.

Why? Because I'm starting to accelerate development of the VB.NET version, and need to merge the code. Configuration was a much later project, but has outsripped the actual draw in functionality, with new features such as seeding, variable race pitch etc. Maintaining both was only ever meant to be a short term solution...

• Commentary listed Race 1 as being a final. It is not.
• Commentary listed the crew name (Stevens) only, without the club name. Useless.
• Commentary remains at the bottom of my list of priorities.
• PHP spiders need updating to remove hours from time taken - this is being populated from the Live Results Feed software with no intervention from me.
• Steve Reece has lent me a Pro Route 4G router. By assigning two IP addresses to my network card, I can be on the LAN and the internet. Brilliant bit of kit.
• Too Many.aspx needs to ignore scratched crews. Actually, it is simpler to leave them in, and strike out as appropriate. Done.
• Default Verdict should change to Row Over an hour after Race Time. Fixed.
• Regatta Control - Race Modification. Race Time should be displayed as HH:MM, not HH:MM:SS. Fixed.
• When we modify a crew's scratched flag in Race Control Modification, we need to update the cached data on the server, as otherwise the crew still comes up with a strikeout in Finish.
• 3rd boat events are non qualifying. This is according to GWH.
• Finish code - need to truncate verdicts - enter 'bowball' and see what happens. Not a known verdict, and the shortcut expansion produced garbage, but they just ignored it... I've now (the day after the regatta) fixed the code to limit verdicts to the 20 characters allowed by the database.
• If we're running ahead of time, add 24 hours - have just seen '23 hours, 56 minutes Late'. Oops.
• Timescale on Course produces junk. Update - the junk was actually the date, as SQL Server stores Start Time as a date instead of just a Time. And the column order for the Actual Start Time was wrong...
• Use multiple finish terminals. Finish a race, so there are none left on course. The other still displays a race, AND a running clock (from start timing)
• PHP BUG - Scratched1 does not appear to be updated...

• Status Change code has been completely rewritten. The problem was that it did not cope with apostrophes in club names - and my (real) one was Sir William Borlase's. A new class helps, and the SQL Update class does the hard work. Big improvement. The only issue is that the button in Regatta Control is not disabled when there are no more status change slots available.
• Timer added to Live Results
• Live Results saves its information to a log file.
• Twitter is now Day specific
• When a race is retimed multiple times, [regatta.RaceDay].[UpdateTimeOfRace] deletes the original record.
• Lots of little improvements have been made to ASPX pages
• Extra filter added to the Doubling page, allowing me to view close races only. These are defined as being within 110% of the turnaround time. Note - [Regatta - List Races affected by Doubling] needs some fairly serious work - it is far too complex, and could be simplified with a couple of well designed CTE statements.
• Regatta Entry Forms now show the number of available substitutions for each crew, PLUS the names of the oarsmen who have already been substituted out. This is a huge improvement...
• Extra column added to the RegattaNames table to allow easier generation of the MySQL export data, which previously did not take account of crew name shortening. It now does.

It was well worth my time, as people from KAR, TVR & Reading were there. Several requests and comments were made:

• Adrian Champion: Reading use Finals Certificates - need a way of recording & displaying that these have been issued to ALL crews in a race.
• Tony Gordon: in the Regatta Control program, the Crew Details popup would be improved if the web page showed WHY you were showing it. Easy to write, and now implemented.
• Ken Morgan: let's say that the Regatta is delayed by 45 minutes due to a thunderstorm or a cruiser sinking in the channel. It would be really useful to be able to retime all races, possibly removing any scheduled gaps. This would have to apply per division, and I rather like the idea.
• Ken Morgan: in the web pages, the hyperlinks to a Race work, but the menu obscures the race we're interested in. This has annoyed me for a while - now that someone else has mentioned it, I've really got to sort it out...
• Rob Burnage: The verdicts dialog does not allow you to cancel (when in Regatta Finish). So get rid of the button. That said, I need to keep it for Race Modification (in Regatta Control).
• Rob Burnage: again in Finish, you can cancel from some dialogs, but not others.
• Rod Murray: Higgs of Henley don't want the spiders, per se. Instead, they want a list of Crew Names & Race Times. This should be pretty easy to generate. Update - its is an absolute beast to generate.
• Rod Murray: HT&VR needs a crew list for the programme, listing StatusID, then ClubName, then competitor in boat order.
• Verdicts dialog MUST have some help on what shortcuts it accepts.
• The Status Change functionality would benefit from a combo box.

EntryMatrix is a really useful page, but the hyperlinks should really point to the crew list. This change needs [Statistics].[EntryMatrix] to be modified.

Alterations was not W3C compliant. With a modification to [List - Alterations] it now is. In addition, the sortable columns were wrongly defined for a Head Race. NB: I have actually decided to get shot of the View, and do it in code - this page is the only place that the view was used...

The Alterations page could not be sorted. I have no idea why, but upgrading tablesorter from 2.15.10 (13 March 2014) to 2.25.7 (1 April 2016) has fixed it. This library is being actively developed, and the change log suggests that many fixes and improvements have been made in the last 2 years. The new build is also minified, which should help.

• First real test of the new installation package - it just worked, though installed an empty GAC folder and was missing the firewall configuration tool. Couple of shortcuts also missing, though these will need a bit more thought
• RaceOptions was not changing data held on the Admin control - just a missing event handler in a program I'm still very much working on.
• VRP works a treat - now it is time to add extra time for certain combinations. Walton makes this an easy test, as they have Octuples followed by Eights near the end of the day - easy because I don't need to scroll through the draw to find the pair of races in question!

  I've done it with an extra table, and a new TimeTabling tab in RaceOptions.

• Crew Check in required for Reading Amateur Regatta. This will be quite easy to write
• Add sponsor - need to use it immediately
• Labels on numbers
• Check winners certificates
• Need new Handicapping display for Regattas. Because at the moment it is broken! The code now compiles, but I have little clue as to what the numbers it presents mean. And if I can't work it out instantly, what hope has the Starter???

So its now time to move this code into the VB6 draw...

So now, finally, I can implement a Variable Race Pitch. Note that this removes the bodge for Octuples

The problem is that many keys have been changed over the years, and some of the supposedly obsolete ones were still in use (mistakenly). I have therefore removed public access to the Dictionary - ALL properties are now strongly typed.

• Payment assignation is now working in the Control program, though there's no way to actually make a payment yet.
• Possible Crews are now availiable in PHP. This is the critical bit for getting live results working.
• The [Control - Scratch Crew] and similar Stored Procedures in the database no longer have NOCOUNT set. This allows us to return the number of rows affected (should be 1!) and so to catch invalid input data

• Payment modification in Control program.
• MySQL Regatta Update
• MySQL 'Possible Crews'
• Substitutions on PDF Entry Forms
• Message structures converted entirely to XML. This would have no actual benefit, but would make the code significantly cleaner.
• Removal of the Hashtable from the EventData class
• Multithreaded import from BROE

Start & Finish timing programs are a bit of a mess - some places TimeSpan, others string used Update Database did not apply handicaps

• If reinstating a crew after the draw, add it as a crew.
• Manual Entry

Update - It still has problems. I'm now tearing my hair out. I've now got a proper Asynchronous BeginConnect (that times out after 5 seconds and tries again), so I'm fairly certain now that this is not the issue. It turns out that Dimaco's code works slightly differently, with the client socket being created BEFORE the server socket starts listening.

So we do it a slightly different way, using threads properly. On trying to connect, a client program spawns a new thread, and creates a socket that takes a ManualResetEvent as a parameter. It then blocks until the event is set. The ONLY way that this event can be set is by a connection being established. In order to keep the UI responsive, and to allow the program to be exited, the thread is defined as a BACKGROUND thread. This is crucial.

BUT, it should be possible for all of the threading to be done in the client socket itself, absolving the need for the calling program to know anything about threads.

One Bug I HAVE found though, was in the Server Socket, which was not being closed properly when a client disconnected, resulting in a CLOSE_WAIT state until the application closes. Oops.

I now have a new module in the software, containing shared Timing code. It uses Delegates to call back to the original code.

• Each program handled connection / reconnection slightly differently, and none of the implementations were perfect. They all now share the same thread safe code.
• The dialog for entering times really isn't very good. So now it has been replaced with a MUCH improved dialog that uses input masking.
• Marking a crew as racing for a Time Only (Control) would never have worked, due to a bug in hardcoded SQL. Fixed.
• The Status Change button in Head Control just displayed a message box saying that this was TODO. Not impressed. The problem is that there aren't any status change slots to select from. We now download a list of the most appropriate statuses from the server, and allow the user to select one
• Finally got AutoSize working for the Options Dialog.
• On connection, Head Start & Finish call a Protected function to Activate the Form. The first (very ugly) solution was with timers; now that we have menus, these can't be used.
• Timing Program: This has always been a bit poor, as I'm the only one who uses it! All operations are done to a TimeID - if you're editing a Start Time, for example, the dialog did not show you either the Crew number OR the original time. This made it harder to use, as you were never sure whether or not you were editing the right one...
• If you've got really screwed up timing, and delete both the Start AND Finish time of a crew, its REAL time would never have been transferred into the main TimesElapsed table. This has been fixed by deleting records where both times are NULL
• Outstanding Bugs:
  • It can still be a bit reluctant to connect to the server. Problem only seen when running executables.

Having rectified this issue, my new installer works. All I need do now is get the Client software working again...

• It works on 32 & 64 bit Operating Systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10.
• Assemblies can be installed in the GAC.
• PDB (debug files required for line numbers in error logs) and other files the user doesn't need to know about can be installed as hidden. This is very useful, as one of the biggest complaints has always been that there are too many programs...
• Websites can be installed
• Prerequisite components (eg Visual C++ 2010 Runtime) are installed before the main setup, ensuring that everything is present.

A good choice. It just works, out of the box. OK, it needs .NET 4.5, but so does the PDF library I'm using. And, to be honest, how many people are running XP / 2003 server still?

So now we have just one. It needs to determine whether a regatta or a head race is being run

• The program is being flagged by Norton & others as dangerous. Not exactly certain why, but INI files are a good candidate as only this program uses them...
• The database is fully self contained - there are no magic settings stored in the filesystem.

Note that this node applies to ALL databases, but can be overridden for individual ones. So my machine by default uses localhost\SQLEXPRESS but uses localhost\SQL2014 for Cambridge Autumn.

• Most people just use BROE.Import to import from BROE.
• The purpose of BROE.Configuration is not clear.
• There are a lot of client programs that could be usefully merged. We could even merge Regatta & Head into one, and show the appropriate UI.
• MigraDoc, TweetSharp, Chilkat & DotNetBar would be better off in the GAC.

• They want to have each status running at its own pitch. I considered putting this in at the last minute, but they've settled for a standard pitch of 2:30 this time. Its not a bad idea though, and does away with the current peculiarity of 'Gap for Octuples'. Whilst investigating I found that this functionality hasn't been fully implemented when calculating clashes...
• rowstats.com shows the spiders. They want to encourage people to buy their programme, so don't want spiders to be visible. Fair enough, so I've added an option to the RaceOptions program.
• They still plan on printing & updating A3 spiders on the day, and want enough space to write everything in. They also want all spiders to be the same width. I coded this years ago - the Named output file format - so have just added it back in.
• Request for BROE3 - a limit, per status, of the number of entries

One of the problems with moving to ASPX is that all of the blade images have moved. This isn't a problem on the server, but can be a pain on client machines. The answer is to use System.Net.WebClient.DownloadFileAsync My first attempt was in the RaceNode class itself, but this caused problems due to threading. I have therefore added a server routine to supply a list of all clubs; the Finish program can then download whatever files it needs in one go.

Finished coding just before 22:00...

• Twitter up & running, with a few improvements
• Twitter Import written. This stems from an idea that I had last year, but couldn't code due to a bug in the TweetSharp library. I truly loathe Open Source code - the latest version does not build, and I wasted several hours trying to get it to do so. I think that I've found the source to the old version, but have compiled the executable to a separate folder, just in case.

  So, what does this program do, I hear you ask? Well, it scrapes results from HHavox2, which is my test account, and simulates a Finish program. So I can run this on a publicly accessible server (in Bedford RC) and it will update the database in real time, WITHOUT the need for VPN tunnels. Up at the Start, they can print their own update sheets...

  The problem I had with TweetSharp was that I could not use it to DELETE Tweets - this is necessary, since otherwise Twitter.Import will keep on sending the same results to its server...

• Winners' Certificate generation had a number of issues, all caused by the move to SQL Server.
• Start Timing now works - I was using the wrong parameter type.
• Control, Start & Finish now attempt to reconnect when a network connection is dropped.
• More worryingly, terminals occasionally fail to reconnect to the Server. I still have no idea as to why. TODO
• The massive changes made to Spider generation were well worth the effort. It is now a trivial exercise to add strikeouts to denote scratched crews. This makes visualising redraws significantly easier. Note - an hour later, with more events to redraw, this functionality is absolutely fantastic ;)
• I need to redraw several events. The Redraw program has not been converted to .NET and is such an unholy mess that I'm not going to even try to do it in the next 2 days. Instead, I'll use the Race Modification functionality that Regatta.Control provides - its a bit painful, but does work rather nicely.
• TODO - provide functionality to change a crew from a composite to a normal club. The backup taken this morning has a LIC/LEE composite (which has paid) - now they want it to be just Lincoln College...
• BUGGER. Only just noticed that the .NET software does not export Sponsors & Trophies to MySQL... The VB6 code has obviously been significantly improved since conversion to .NET started. Fixed now, though the PHP code does not cope with trophies that begin with the word 'The'. So I've edited the Trophies table...
• Twitter Import has to deal with crews scratching and retimed races. The only thing it CAN'T cope with at present is races being retimed more than once. This shouldn't happen, but cannot be fixed in time for the Regatta on Saturday...
• My Regatta Server is up & running. This means I can spend tomorrow morning doing a final code test.

• Update Names functionality does not work properly under .NET - I'm not going to risk fixing this at such a late stage - the Draw is less than 2 days away...
• VB6 Draw program updated - I had inadvertently removed Gaps!!! Not really surprised, as the code is a bit of a mess.
• .NET Regatta Configuration program (still not sure what to call this) updated to add the extra gaps for Octuples. It still gives slightly different times to VB6, and I don't think that Gaps work at all, but I'm not really bothered as it is still very much Work in Progress.
• Need a PDF export of Blade Colours. I've done it by hand yet again...
• IDEA New functionality in Regatta.Finish - allow the user to lookup a race by entering a crew number. VERY simple to write, and potentially very useful.
• Status Changes aren't quite right, though will do.
• Regatta Specific Reports now written.
• Numbers for Stacys now written
• BROE Import's Refund code is not working QUITE as expected. For anything refunded, it keeps adding a payment and then refunding it, EVERY time we do an import. Looking at the code, it is because Entries.PaymentID was being reset to 0. I've altered the code so that it sets this to -1 instead.
• SQL Server fn_GetAudit (a Scalar Function) now returns TRUE once Event Stage has been set to Draw Published.
• Regatta Entry Forms modified to show only the relevant Points - why bother showing sculling points for an Elite VIII??? This gives us an extra column, which allows us to show Junior / Masters ages.
• Bug in Entry Forms found (both) - the cox's points were being included in the total. Now fixed.

• Plate Spiders now work properly. I've been hunting this since Tuesday - the problem was that InsertCrewName was taking a List of StringBuilder as its argument, instead of just a StringBuilder.
• BROE.Config now handles 3rd boat events correctly - it ONLY creates a private Match for J18 crews. This is a special event for Bedford Regatta.
• CreateSingletons moved from ASPX to BROE Import. It was written in a bit of a hurry and tested in the web pages; we now know it does exactly what is required, so has been moved... Ideally it should move again, this time to Regatta.Libraries.
• BROE Import creates Online Refunds. This has never worked properly; now it does.
• BROE Import allows us to change a crew's status. This is very useful when trying to work out the effects of splitting events, BEFORE you split them on BROE.
• Race Options allows me to initialise a new competition, but not delete info from OARAStatuses. This is only useful when testing, but then saves a HUGE amount of time!
• The VB6 Regatta Draw software now uses the XML configuration file to get the SQL Server database it needs. Previously this was hardcoded for Reading 2014
• Finals Sequence is now configured in the .NET program.

• Check regatta gaps work in the VB6.SQL Regatta Draw program. Rather as suspected, this fails with an 'Variable uses an Automation type not supported in Visual Basic' error. This is because VB6 does not have a timestamp datatype. It is an easy fix - instead of opening the table directly, execute a chunk of SQL that uses CONVERT(varchar(8),[GapStart],108) to format the time as a string...
• Create Regatta Draw editor (INI file manipulation)
• Add BROE files to backup routine and zip the lot
• Reports - remove spiders
• Reports - add Regatta Control
• Create export file for Stacy & Son
• Add the ability to rename Sponsors. This was a trivial task - the hard bit was getting it written for Trophies, which I did yesterday...
• Auto generation of BROE Competition ID from XML file
• VB6 - load current Regatta database name from XML - currently it is hard coded as 'reading.2014'
• Remove Rowability & Adaptives from CreateOverallPositions

So everything has been changed. Spiders are created as just raw text, with all formatting being done by the calling application. This allows for much better control, and quite a bit less code.

The trigger only executes if the scalar function [fn_GetAudit()] returns 1. At the moment this function is hard coded to do so - it will ultimately get a value from the EventData table.

• There are several minor flaws in the ones produced by BROE
• Redundant info such as Coach Name shouldn't be there.
• Lack of an updatable Crew Number on BROE is a major issue.
• The new ones will be sorted in the same order as the Race Control Summaries

So I have turned to PDF

Couple of bugs fixed - although it warns if you try to create a CDEF handicap, it would not warn on a CF handicap. Fixed. Also found the longstanding bug that created invalid ResultsOrder when handicaps for multiple classes were created simultaneously. It was actually a variable that was not being reset.

Eventually I have cracked it, though it has taken almost an entire day of coding. I stuck with the original as it had a lot of complex export code.

And if that wasn't proof enough, try creating the overall & status positions. This takes hundreds of lines of VB.NET code, or a trivial bit of SQL using the RANK function. I'm in heaven ;) Firstly we RANK, then append = as required, and finally...

• The combo boxes for event selection do not currently work. Both types have been moved to a new namespace in Regatta.Libraries, but do not yet update the XML.NB - this was coded on 18/1/2015
• clsComboItem has been purged, at long last ;)
• All parameters have been converted to shorthand syntax, with the exception of the one in MakePayment, which has been converted to an OUTPUT parameter.
• Where possible, queries have been converted to Scalar functions.
• TODO The routines that log changes made on BROE use two Stored Procedures - one to log the change, and then the other to actually MAKE the change. These could easily be condensed to a single SP.
• I have only found ONE bug in the original program - OARACalculateVeterans was calling a complicated UPDATE query inside a loop, instead of outside it. I'm rather pleased to have found so little wrong ;)
• ADODB has gone, making the software pure .NET
• Times.StartTime & FinishTime are now time(2) fields, which means that the separate StartDecimal and FinishDecimal columns are redundant and can be removed.
• Regatta.Server.SQL compiles, albeit with some of the more complex routines commented out...

• Getting MSCOMCTL.OCX to work in the VB6 IDE is painful. You have to manually register it, and also use regtlib to register msdatsrc.tlb (both in SysWow64). It seems that Microsoft broke something quite badly in IE 10
• I've also installed new versions of DotNetBar & Chilkat
• Now comes the hard bit - removing the software's dependence on the Registry. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is very hard to write to (UAC gets in the way) so I've used HKEY_CURRENT_USER for a while, on the assumption that the user who installed the software will be the one using it. Not so. When BRC bought a new laptop last month I installed under my own account. Lydia used it under hers, so it didn't work - I had to repair the installation to add the extra registry key. With multiple users, each of whom may have their own Active Event, we have a recipe for disaster.

  I am therefore going to use XML files in the Config folder. Ultimately, I will install race specific files, which will be appended to the index

• Regatta.Libraries is almost complete - I haven't converted CreateStatusPositions etc yet - TODO
• Perversely, the hardest part of the conversion was getting the Handicap control to work with SQL Server. Masters.Handicaps has therefore been the first application to be rewritten.
• And now we come to the next problem. SSMA has got some of the converted logic wrong - namely the short circuit logic first encountered in [Count - Competitors]. It failed to convert this routine, as the Key into EventData was computed from a parameter; in the case of [List - Racing Sequence subquery] there was a hardcoded value. The View is therefore invalid. All Views therefore need to be checked...
• WHY did [List - Statuses in Draw] need to join to [List - Racing Sequence] ???
• Obsolete Draw - Add Missing HeadStartOrder subquery
• [OARA2 - Points Update] depended on 2 views, both of which can be converted to CTEs.
• Joy - SQL Server lets me use an explicit Time field instead of a DateTime. This corresponds to .Net's TimeSpan class.

• About 200 queries will need to be manually converted to Stored Procedures. SSMA is good, but does not handle even the simplest parametric query.
• I have started by converting the queries prefixed with OARA2. I have written 30 Stored Procedures tonight - SSMA had already created 30 Views. With only 400 odd queries in the Access database, this is a significant achievement.
• UPDATE FROM is Microsoft specific syntax. They really screwed up though, making the syntax different in SQL Server and Access...
• Now that I'm used to the syntactic differences, I think I'll convert the rest of the UPDATE queries, of which there are 53. Then the 31 INSERT queries, and finally the 2 DELETE queries.
• Its 4:30 AM, and the snoring has stopped. Time to grab a few hours sleep.
• The first of the major conversion problems comes with [Count - Competitors]. Access allows a parameter to be defined in a top level query, which any subqueries can then reference. SQL Server does not (unsurprisingly) allow this - it feels more like a bug than a feature! The solution is a nice simple CTE.
• One big advantage of this process is that I'm still finding obsolete queries - 8 so far today...
• [Timing - Append TimesElapsed] is going to be rather difficult to rewrite. I'm leaving it for the time being.
• Another conversion issue lies in use of Values within the EventData table. Access allows the logic to be short-circuited; SQL Server requires that the value is selected into a variable, which is then used in the main body of the query. [OARA2 - Check Minimum Ages of Rowers] shows this in practice.
• 85 Stored Procedures written (and a few Views). 131 queries to go...
• [Regatta - List Races] is used as the base query for many other queries. The problem lies in Access' shortcut - the parameter is declared in this query only. I could write a CTE for each SP that references it, but this has the potential to introduce subtle bugs, as each SP will require its own CTE. So the solution is a TVF...
• Only 67 Access queries left to convert. I'm slowing down, as I've run out of simple ones. Some of the logic is unneccesarily complex...

• Use BROE Priority removed
• ASP options added for Form checked & Form Extracted. I think these are used by Bedford RC only.
• Added Load / Save functionality. This will prove invaluable once I start to upgrade the old databases - it allows me to save EventData & EntryFees to file, and start with a clean database in the new format.

• [List - Collapsible Statuses] depends on its subquery (which is flawed, as it does not include DayID in the JOIN) & [List - Scratched post Draw]. By definition, ALL scratched crews are post Draw! Investigation shows that [List - Collapsible Statuses] is not actually used, and so all 3 queries are obsolete...
• [List - Crews on Specified Day]
• [Doubling - Count Links subquery]
• [Doubling - Count Links]
• [Entries - Change Entries to New Contact]
• [Count - Withdrawn Entries by Status]
• [Entries - Withdraw Entry]
• [Statistics - Club Wins at Regatta]
• [Count - Races Uncompleted] was not day specific. Hardly surprising, as it is obsolete...
• [OARA2 - Append New Contacts] removed when converting to SQL Server
• [Entries - Update Contact Verified] removed when converting to SQL Server

Further reductions are still possible, as quite a few of the server's queries are very simple, and could be done in code.

• I have reordered the fields in the Entries table for clarity.
• [Entries.OARAComments] has NEVER been relevant, so has been removed. The changes have necessitated some other alterations, notably to [Statistics - TimeOnly], and BROE.Import.exe
• The following queries have also been marked as obsolete, as no records of their usage can be found. It has been an iterative process, as obsoleting some queries reveals that those that they depend on can also be removed.
  • [Statistics - Statuses]
  • [Statistics - Specified Status]
  • [Count - Entries Withdrawn per Status]
  • [Count - Crews Scratched per Status]
  • [List - Disqualifications]
  • [Statistics - Payment Total Already Banked]
  • [Statistics - Payment Total NOT Banked]
  • [List - Doubling between Clubs]
  • [List - Doubling between Days]
  • [List - Withdrawn Entries]
  • [Entries - Entries received from specified Club]
  • [Entries - Other entries received from specified Club]
  • [Entries - Add Cheque]
  • [Entries - Payment Summary for Contact Only]
  • [Entries - Payment Summary]
  • [Update Form Checked]
  • [List - Entries by Contact]
  • [Mailing - Entry Addresses]
  • [OARA2 - Update Comments]
  • [OARA2 - List Changes (Comments)]
  • [Statistics - Time Only (Head)]
  • [List - Clubs in Draw after Withdrawals]
  • [List - Statuses in Draw (Divisional)]
  • [Payment - Money owed per entry]
  • [Entries - Payment Details for Entries]
  • [List - Last Entry Made by Contact]
  • [Update Last Entry]
  • [Entries - Payment Missing]
  • [Entries - Payment Missing subquery]
  • [Statistics - Head Uncontested Statuses]
  • [Statistics - Regatta Uncontested Statuses]
  • [List - Clubs with Winners]
  • [List - Head Winners by specified Club subquery]
  • [Mailing - Notification of Draw (Regatta)]
  • [List - Sponsors Addresses subquery]
  • [List - Sponsors Addresses]
  • [Mailing - Notification of Draw]
  • [Mailing - Other Crews Entered]
  • [List - Status entered within Club (Distinct)]
  • [List - Regatta Entry Details by Day]
  • [Entries - Mark specified Club as Active] - replaced with SQL in BROE.Entries
  • [List - Clubs using contact]
  • [Debug - Invalid Draw]
  • [Mailing - Entries By Status]
  • [Mailing - Summary of Entries]
  • [Mailing - Contact Addresses]
  • [List - Entries by Specified Division] - used only in the obsolete entries.asp
  • [List - Entries per Division]
  • [Count - Entries at status for specified Club]
  • [Entries - Details of Specified Contact]
  • [List - Clubs]
  • [Count - Crews per Boat Class per Division Summary]
  • [OARA2 - Update Contact Last Entry]
  • [List - Completed Events by Status]
  • [Update - Log Withdrawal of entries at Specified Status]
  • [Count - Entries Assigned Payment per Contact subquery] was referenced by the same query, but was not used.
  • [Count - Entries Assigned Payment per Contact] - replaced by SQL.
  • [Statistics - Regatta Entries] was only used to export Regatta info for Rowstats. All it really did was select crews where ignored = 0 - ie all crews that have not been excluded by a ReDraw operation. It was actually very easy to convert to a single SQL statement that did not need multiple JOINs...
  • [Count - Entries per Status (All)] can now be removed.
  • [Count - Withdrawn Entries by Status] can also go.
  This means that more than 8% of database queries have been removed this weekend...
• And these table fields:
  • [Entries.Checked]
  • [Entries.FormsOK]
  • [Entries.Received]
  • [Contacts.MailingList]
  • [Contacts.LastEntry]
  • [Contacts.LastEvent]
  • [Contacts.Verfied]
  FormsOK & Received predate BROE, and are now totally redundant. They have not been used in application code for years.
• The worst logic relic was [Payment - Money owed per entry]. This selected 6 fields from a single table (Entries), with no WHERE clause. Yet it was used in 9 other queries...
• The JOIN logic in [List - Entries where payment is assigned] and similar queries appears wrong, joining ClubID and ContactID
• [Payment - Create Time Only Entry Fee] does NOT do what I expected - it applies the Discount pricing structure...
• The [Regatta - Mailshot of Draw] report contains a reference to a missing field. It has not been printed, to my knowledge, in years. [3 Lane - Mailshot of Draw] is even more complicated, and similarly redundant. The underlying query [Mailing - Notification of Draw (Regatta)] is therefore obsolete.

So what's the solution? My actual job has shown that importing CSV files, row by agonising row, is actually very simple and, more importantly, fast enough. Ultimately, it could be speeded up even further in SQL Server with a CLR Table Type...
We already use Chilkat.CSV in BROE.Configuration - this has some very useful logic for handling CSV files, as it complies with RFC 4180.

• [OARA2 - Transfer Boats] can be simplified, so that it only imports new boats. We don't actually care that the OARABoats table will contain records that are no longer used (as people change their mind over what boat they are actually going to be using). This means that the call to DeleteAllRecordsFromTable('OARABoats') can be removed.
• [OARA2 - Transfer Boats (Priority)] can now be marked as obsolete.
• [OARA2 - Transfer Entries (Priority)] can now be marked as obsolete.
• EventData key [Event_UseOARAPriority] is now obsolete. I am not going to change RaceOptions for the time being.
• The CSV import code can also do some data transformations. BROE exports boolean fields as Y/N - it would be better to change these to 1/0 and have the BROE_Crews table contain Boolean fields, instead of text. We can also obsolete [OARA2 - Points - Remove Not Declared] and [OARA2 - Points - Remove Regression] which use InStr (not SQL Server comaptible).

The problem is almost certainly related to HuntWidows - there were several instances where the second placed crew was listed as the Winner of Race nnn. Results for these HAD been set.

• Bug found in the Status Change code - it could not cope with a NULL DivisionID
• Finish code modified so that the 'winner' of a rowover is not marked as having started
• Scratched Status Change crews are no longer sent to Twaddle.

• Finish - if you correct a race that has already gone, the next round is not updated
• Finish - if unlisted race is finished, where does the time go? In fact, why does it ask for one at all?
• GenericDialog - this could do with a Default button.
• Entry Manager - Alter Payment Structure throws an exception. Now can't replicate this
• spiders.asp - it would be useful to display by club, as the PHP code does
• Start - start a race thats already gone. you get an error, but nothing else

• The person using the Start terminal wanted a button to clear the displayed race. No idea why, as they were incapable of using other buttons and called me over to click them... Either way, its been added.
• Twitter - the wrong crew was being stated as having rowed over. Given that they usually don't row over the course at all its is better just to suppress this Tweet. Need to check this code.
• After Status (in the race list) we have (P) - this should be done via round
• Twitter - should use the new Round designator
• Redraws - this should update the Round designator, instead of just wiping it
• Regatta Winners does not show PLATE
• 1/33 lengths was being entered on the finish. Why not just 1/3 ???
• We could do with some help on the shortcuts for verdicts

• All of the dialogs have now been moved so that they don't obscure race information, which was rather tiresome...
• The user can no longer cancel out of the Verdict dialog. This was a bug.

• Support for Skiffs & Adaptives has been added
• If a cell is empty (possible for Skiffs & Adaptives), then creating a new entry fee works.
• Cell merging has been added.

Finding this bug was actually quite easy, given the draw for Egham 2013.

Failing to enter the name on a cheque/card now keeps the AddPayment dialog open.

• The Generic Dialog class has been substantially altered. It started life as a direct code conversion (from c# to VB.NET) of the DevComponents TaskDialog class. The problem is that it class is actually quite restrictive - whilst DNB has many classes derived from BaseItem, the TaskDialog only accepts an array of RadioButtons. For work, I need CheckBoxes as well, and also need to be able to specify the minimum dialog width. So I've broken compatability here, and implemented the functionality.
• The code has been tidied, removing unused properties, and renaming TaskDialogIcon to Icon
• The array has been replaced with a List(Of BaseItem). This allows me to use Radios, CheckBoxes, TextBoxes, ComboBoxes etc in any order I want... I've never liked the ReDim statement anyway.
• This makes the dialogs in BROE.Configuration significantly easier to program - much neater.

• Not sure whether it was worthwhile (because of numerous CType calls), but I now have classes for Heat, RaceGap & GapBetweenDivisions, all of which are derived from Race
• A big change is conversion of the DataGridView controls to DotNetBar.SuperGrid controls. This keeps the look & feel of the application consistent. But the big advantage of this is that I can filter rows and sort as necessary.
• Lots of redundant code has been removed

Pros:

• Fast & efficient. No database bloat
• Fully supported in .NET without having to use ADODB COM Interop
• We can generate audit logs in a separate database. Why would this be useful? Answer: tracking changes made on Race Day itself, and being able (ultimately) to replay these events.

  There are still a few bugs in the system. Being able to replay actions would be extraordinarily useful

• Significantly harder to install - not something that most people could do. However, its fairly straightforward, and I've already created scripts to handle much of this.
• No Reporting engine is built in. However, there's no reason why we could not use Access to perform this task.
• No direct table access. This is used by a few server side routines; recoding these would be quite easy.

To be fair, it's not done too badly...

• OARA2 - Transfer Custom Event IDs. This is redundant now that the intermediate file has been removed.
• OARA2 - Transfer Lanes and Progression. This is redundant for the same reason.
• Select - Last Heat won by Crew. The query's comments stated that it was used by Commentary. It is not.
• Select - Last Heat won by Crew subquery

This has taken me all morning, but the effort has been well worth it. I can now close the Regatta.Server program cleanly; when it restarts, all clients will reconnect.

Obviously, this entails major changes to the various queries. I think I've tracked them all down.

Now that I've realised my mistake, I can move code between the 2 programs. The reason I'm doing this is that both KAR & Bedford Amateur are unable to get an internet connection on the server machine, but may be able to do so (via a 3G dongle) from a client. That client has therefore to be able to tweet itself, but still store the tweets on the server

This is actually quite a tricky one, due to statuslist.csv and the RegattaDraw table, both of which feel like bodges.

Perversely, the page that has given the most problems is blades - it is standalone (doesn't require a RaceID), and is also very, very old...

• Finish - if you correct a race that has already gone, the next round is not updated
• Finish - if unlisted race is finished, where does the time go? In fact, why does it ask for one at all?
• GenericDialog - this could do with a Default button.
• Entry Manager - Alter Payment Structure throws an exception. Now can't replicate this
• spiders.asp - it would be useful to display by club, as the PHP code does
• Start - start a race thats already gone. you get an error, but nothing else
• TextEntry dialog now supports times as HHMM, MMSS, HHMMSS. Big improvement.

Its also gained Actual Start Time.

• Using the generic DaySelectionDialog simplifies a lot of the code used in this program, as cmbRegattaNames is no longer necessary. That said, I'll have to provide some way of switching between days.

The problem is that it was never designed properly - it just evolved. Numerous inconsitencies, several unresolved bugs, and a truly ghastly object model make a straight conversion nigh on impossible. Even if it was possible, I'd be left with a pretty crap program; whilst it works now, its not really very good.

Rewriting is not going to be easy, and needs to be done in stages. I have now got the object model pretty much sorted (see below), as well as the output routines, and the visualisation. Many parts will have to change as my knowledge of VB.NET's inheritance system has changed significantly since I started writing this (in May 2012).

At the moment, clash resolution is not working, mainly because some of the internal logic is incomplete. Conversion is unlikely to happen in 2013, but 2014 might see a very big change ;)

• The Spider integrity program (VB6) has been modified to generate VB.NET source code. The old 'Schemas' were encoded strings held in a dictionary. These have gone, replaced with a proper object model.
  • Instead of 1 class dealing with a number of entries, and having to do different things for plate, repechage etc, we now have one class to handle 2 lane racing with a plate event etc. There are currently 125 of these classes (VB6 had 31) - writing them from scratch would have been a nightmare!
  • Each class has lanes, outcomes & crews.
  • Placeholders in the spider are still encoded. For simplicity, the classes hold this information.
  • Max Level is now stored, instead of being calculated.
  • Several redundant enumerations have been removed from Regatta.Libraries
• Spiders are now created. The new object model makes this significantly simpler.
• Unicode is natively supported. This has necessitated a few changes to the RTF generation code (now hived off into a separate routine).
• SeparateEntriesFromSameClub is made easier by the new object model
• Most of the routines have now been converted; to get the base up & running as fast as possible, most of the code was commented out until the structure had been finalised.
• EnsureStatusChangeInFirstRound is giving me more headaches than any other routine...
• Using the standard CSV import class is a big improvement, though has necessitated several changes as the program was calling [Draw - Add Missing RegattaData] before the import. Duh.

SW is shattered.

• need a way of automatically scratching all crews that have not raced at the end of the day. Was this what torace.asp was meant to have done?
• need to integrate masters handicaps (head race) into the server
• get rid of MPI. we can probably lose the proxy as well
• log timing changes
• if you have done a merge, you cannot adjust times...
• timing - need to be able to correct a time by entering it

• College Eights etc are now displayed properly. The sorting is done via the IComparable interface, which is very neat.
• I have FINALLY implemented a graphical way of splitting duplicate events
• I meant to clear my flat today. But this got in the way, and is now VERY good

She's on nights for the next fortnight, so I should be able to get the February Head fully coded. It will NOT be the disaster that October was!

• LoadStatusDescriptions was case sensitive, leading to all sorts of problems.
• Of all the code that DID work, Masters Handicap calculation was the most pleasing, since it had never been tested in anger. However, had I been fully compos mentis, I would have realised that not even Leon can do the course in 4:28 - that time was recorded by an Adaptive Sculler over 1000m. Similarly, a Primary Four did it in 4:39. So the handicaps were wrong. I have checked each, and this error has made no difference to the eventual outcome. The underlying issue has been fixed.
• Start & Finish Timing programs were in the middle of the rewrite. Whilst they compiled, they failed to work.
• For the first time ever, somebody else did live Finish Timing. Marvellous. The problem was that I was still required to sort out the problems. It would be far better if Start Timing at least could fix their own issues, for which they need a TimeID
• The Start Timing code was the very first routine written, predating a proper networked system, and also predating any understanding of how it would actually be used! It worked very well (11 years or so), but requires admin intervention to fix issues. These might be:
  • Missing Number
  • Wrong Crew Number
  • Pressing RETURN by mistake for no reason at all
  • Late / early RETURN for a crew - easy if MR or JKSM are on the Start
• Its getting there. I now need some people to try to break it...
• Once Start is sorted, I can do the same to the Finish code...

It turns out that removal was quite easy, with a chunk of SQL in the RegattaDraw program replacing the old queries.

• I can find no trace of [List - Racing Sequence (Regatta)] being used - it might have been a first attempt at this change.
• [List - Finals Sequence for Specified Day] is now obsolete, though it was used, for some inexplicable reason, in the GetEntryCount routine
• [List - Finals Sequence Reverse Order] appears to be obsolete - again, I can find no reference to it.
• What's the point of [List - Last Entry Made by Contact]???

• The key used to be the first 3 characters of ResultsOrder. We have to append the 5th character as well (senior status identifier).
• If you try to merge more than 3 age groups together, you are warned that this is not recommended.

Character 6 (Senior) A = Div A B = Div B C = Div C (seen once) D = Div D (Never seen) K = U23 E = Club M = Academic / College R = CRA (this is set by a manual database edit only, so may be applied after any other modifiers) V = Invitation P = Primary (can't conflict with Adaptive) X = Adaptive LTA Y = Adaptive TA Z = Adaptive AS Character 6 (Juniors) S = 2nd Boat T = 3rd Boat  U = 4th Boat (Never seen, but just in case) P = Primary Character 6-9 (Masters) Composition of Masters Handicap

I have changed my mind about the sort order (character 5 is now the senior status), as I want Masters A Novice to be listed after Masters A. Originally planned as KMT0BCD, Masters B/C/D sculls will now be KMTB0BCD. To break this down, the first 3 characters denote sculls, mens, Masters. B denotes the youngest category in the handicap event. 0 means it is Elite, and BCD that B, C and D are included in the handicap.

This will entail changes to the various masters programs.

I have no idea how to deal with U23. Figured it out. The order is Elite Sculls, Elite Lightweight Sculls, Elite Lightweight U23 Sculls

Oh hell. We now have FISA Junior 19

• StatusList.ResultsOrder expanded to 8 characters.
• Masters now use character 4 as their Senior status - currently either 0 (ELITE) or N (Novice).
• Placeholder added to the sequence for Coxed Double sculls (a likely Explore Rowing event).
• LMS' normal event (W.Mas.IM3.1X) is now possible, and the ResultsOrder for this can be generated.

• Need a way to easily modify the crews in an particular regatta event. If the resulting structure does not conform to a standard spider, mark it as such.
• Support for Race 49A
• Take up status Change from NEW entry on BROE (Oxford requirement)
• Manual Entry (BROE.Import)
• The BIG one - removal of CrewIDs & Outcomes from the Regatta table
• Removal of FinalsSequenceDay1 and replacement by a proper table.
• Senior status identifier added to ALL masters events (resultsorder field), not just the novices. This will mean the field has to be widened.
• Commentary
• Regatta Editor
• BROE.Configuration is still dreadful, and needs a total rewrite
• Better handling of BROE's Rejected flag - it should be treated separately, instead of in conjunction with Withdrawn
• Disassociation of plates from the main event
• Any class that inherits from Node should create Cells itself, rather than using separate properties
• Overhaul of the database reports
• SpiderHelper table. This records extra info for each status, such as the max length of crew name, and the decompressed spider.
• New program - Regatta.Spiders This will generate RTF files for each status that has changed (ie has had results set) since the last time a printout was done. It will use the SpiderHelper table.
• Remove the last few grids from RaceOptions

• [List - Runners & Riders] had a field for PlateExists. This does not appear to be used anywhere, so has been removed. It also had a Final field, which is pointless, since it used a single IIf statment on a field already present.
• TODO - we have [Select - Race] AND [Select - Specified Race]. Why?
• The following have been marked as obsolete:
  • [Timing - More than 10 mins late]
  • [Statistics - Timing]
  • [Statistics - Verdicts]
  • [Display - Regatta Information] as it duplicates [Display - Regatta Names]
  • [List - Repechage Events]
• GroupID has been completely removed.
• RegattaDraw.Groups has also been removed.
• I may have made a mistake by removing EventNumbers.GroupID before inserting its replacement

• Crews.CrewID is the primary key, yet was nullable. Same for BoatClasses.BoatClassID. Checksums.EntryID ChequeDetails.PaymentID ClubAreas.ClubAreaID Club.ClubID etc etc etc
• Boolean fields in Crews & Entries had no default value. There may be other instances in other tables.
• The tool has been significantly improved - it now copes with UNION queries, and can therefore identify superfluous ORDER BY clauses in them.
• I'm going to need MANY passes through this, fixing as much as I can each time.

• The crews have the same boat type - for example, both are Coxed Fours.
• Open Crews cannot be moved to a Women's event, etc
• Crews can only be moved UP a status, not down. A change from IM2.1X to IM3.1X is obviously not allowed!

• Log Changes to Event Stage
• Sort out the RegattaNames table - we could do with having the calculated Crew Name in there.
• if we set eventstage to closed, we should still WITHDRAW crews

• Race Options - OK
• BROE Import - OK
• BROE Results - OK
• BROE Configuration - dreadful, needing total rewrite
• Head Start
• Head Finish
• Head Timing
• Head Control
• Regatta Start
• Regatta Finish
• Regatta Timing
• Regatta Control
• Regatta Terminal
• Regatta Commentary
• Regatta Editor - conversion incomplete
• Trophies - OK
• Sponsorship - OK
• Masters Merge - OK
• Masters Handicaps - OK
• Race Manager - OK, but client properties not implemented
• Proxy - OK

• They added Status Change slots to the Sunday, then found they couldn't do the Draw - it complained about different divisions. This has been fixed for both normal AND divisional competitions.
• The UI for groups was still in the regatta draw program. This has been removed.
• The BROE Configuration program failed to deal with splitting J15B.1X into 2 groups. I reckon that this wretched program is due a full rewrite - tinkering has not resolved its fundamental problems.

• Added the ability to have finals on a different pitch. Also made the octuple gap of a configurable length.
• Improved the handling of saved draw files, including a checksum to determine whether or not the file is valid.

http://www.rowstats.com/regatta.php?id=115&f=1 is also giving issues. I seem to remember, though, that W.IM1.1X was extensively modified post draw... IM2.8+ is more of a problem, and will need to be fixed. Though on inestigation, it looks as if multiple scratchings screwed this up as well.

• Currency Format is "C2"
• Case insensitive Dictionaries ARE possible - the syntax for the constructor is perverse...
• None of this is difficult - its just a question of getting used to the syntax.

• A total rewrite has been required for this incredibly badly written program.
• Grids should be used for display ONLY, not as the fundamental data structure. Disassociating the logic from the grid simplifies a lot of routines.
• All references to COM objects have been removed.
• Unstructured error handling removed.

• Only now am I beginning to realise how horrific the original code is!
• Richard Moseley's idea of having finals on a different pitch is actually rather easy to implement (am coding in .NET). Octuple gaps are also easy, without having to resort to adding non-existent gaps.
• The TreeView, and its colours, has gone
• Groups & Plate events not yet supported
• The Schemas have been removed. Useful though they were, they were utterly incomprehensible to anyone apart from me.
• This has now occupied more than 75% of the last 72 hours. Go figure.
• Massive improvements in reporting!
• Got to get clash resolution working

What a difference it makes to actually DESIGN the object model. The Draw is composed of Heats, which contain Outcomes, and Crews. Each Crew is composed of an Entry & a Club

Not so any more - we now have an EventData class inside the Regatta.Libraries namespace.

• Two constructors have been written so far; ultimately, we should be able to initialise the class with just a RaceID (aspx maybe?)

The plan now is to convert all of the utility programs (such as masters handicapping)

• Entry Manager is now written entirely in managed code, and can run WITHOUT installing anything (we've tested on the new KAR laptop).
• Race Options is getting there. When I converted it, a lot of code was commented out - am now checking that EVERY parameter is settable.
• edfSeparateCompetitions renamed to edfDivisional
• There are many redundant keys in the EventData table. These have been identified and stripped out.
• The final problem is that EntryManager uses the EventData Hashtable directly, instead of the structure built from it.
• There are also a couple of keys that have never had any means of being set. Composite format (.NET functionality ONLY) has been added, though am still not sure where to put the Octuple Gaps...
• Sadly, the treeview control is perfect for displaying entry fees... Its actually very hard to do in a DataGridView

• The browser used by Entry Manager can now be specified.
• Every tab's contents have been converted to a control. This doesn't add any functionality, but improves code readability, and allows some redundant code to be identified and removed.

Fortunately, JQuery makes this MUCH simpler. $('.hilight tr:even').not('.rm_table_break').addClass('alt') Beautifully simple

• spiders.asp # to be replaced by ChrW(9532) - fixed
• regatta.php KAR lanes missing - fixed. This was because Eventindex in the MySQL database was set to 0, not 1 as expected.
• Display TimeTaken - rather surprisingly, this ought to be Day specific. With hindsight, this is obvious, as Kingston Amateur uses stakeboats, while Kingston Borough is a free start...
• kar.css crest needs to be static, like bed.css
• regatta.php contains <hr SIZE='2'>
• ctlRaceDetails would be improved by showing Lane names instead of Crew 1, Crew 2 etc.
• Verdicts: if all numeric (or /) then assume lengths.
• regattacompleted.asp does not show weekend at all
• victor.asp needs to show 'Sat' instead of 1 etc.
• menus - races due from T time for N minutes does nothing - remove or fix
• regattadraw.asp should show 3 lane results
• regatta.php - alter so that instead of showing lane order with (pos), show in position order. This to be an option, specified in the regatta table and hence day specific.
• RegattaControl. add buttons for races gone & togo to the top buttons. It would be nice if these were userconfigurable.
• RegattaControl. view full stats button does not work
• entry manger - ara form OK and received to be visible only if BROE not used exclusively. make this a new option (ie for Richard Moseley)
• entry manager: if draw published or later, any changes to composites should update the regattanames table
• finish - should accept nro and ro
• finish - if you don't enter a time, it should display NTT
• composite club naming. new option of majority to be added. on equality, go alphabetical.
• simple race doubling page. red is too close, yellow on the margin.
• lets go wityh the origianal idera of serialising the doubling.
• need AJAX based checkin system

• Got to deal with blank line in masters.csv If edited manually, this is an easy mistake to make.
• Need and extra web page to notify the user of entries within a single status in 2 different divisions. Ths can happen EITHER when making a manual entry, Or when bumping up existing crews on OARA. KAR 2011 managed to do both...
• MySQL export doesn't seem to use the truncated crew names held in the RegattaNames table. [Export - MySQL Regatta Results] will need to be modified, though the changes in fact make it significantly simpler.
• Sponsor names 'In memory of' don't appear to work.
• StandardTimes table needs a RegattaIndex. Could also do with separate columns for conditions - ie Normal, Strong Head, Strong tail...
• BROE needs a way
• Handicaps code din't quite work as advertised, as the RegattaNames table is not updated as crews win

• Its no longer an MDI application. There are several reasons for this - firstly, the IE form requests the user to close it - with 2 close icons, one above the other, people often close the main application by mistake. Also, merging of menus & form icons is very messy
• Duh. I spend ages converting CreateCompositeClubIDs to a full .NET implementation (ie no Scripting.Dicitionary) only to find that its never called... OARAIdentifyComposites is the routine that is used, but doesn't seem to be nearly as good

• MaxLevelOfHeat didn't work, as the schemas have changed since it was written. This has now been fixed.
• Tabbed Output file has been written and approved by JW. So that's finally done.
• 8 lane racing is now possible
• Ouch. ReplaceEntryNumbers fails. The reason? The regatta I'm currently working on has over 1000 entries (really), and the software assumes that all entry numberss are 3 digits long. This might be a right bastard to sort out.
• It wasn't too bad. I now have a working draw that can deal with up to 9999 entries. However, it is still limited to 999 races & I have no plans to change this!
• As well as showing the closest clash, its good to show the best achieved so far
• I deduct 5 minutes for cox doubling. This is fine, as I generally run a turnaround time of about 40 minutes. The regatta I am dealing with specifies longer (I can get it to 75 minutes, but no more) as the course is longer, and its a top quality (Henley Qualifying) Regatta. But they apparently make cox & boat sharing SIGNIFICANTLY shorter - back to the 35 minutes that I use.

• OARA Config needs trivial changes - merely adding a single lane.
• OARA Events also needs a trivial change - adding a single item to a combo box.
• [Display - Regatta All Crews] needs extending, as does Control - Generate RegattaNames subquery. To be perfectly honest though, these would be FAR better done in code rather than some truly horiffically ugly SQL...

Hindsight is great. Its far simpler to execute a query each time we want to move to a new record, albeit a fraction of a second slower. Store the recordset's contents in a TYPE variable, and we have a much simpler program. Its taken 3 hours, and looks good so far. OK, there's no way to add an entry manually.

• With the exception of Crew Name, all bound text boxes can be converted to labels.
• We have a smaller memory footprint
• As the application itself now updates the controls, we can easily display Day 1 as 'Sat' and Division 1 as 'AM' if appropriate.
• m_fCodeCall & m_fAboutToFind are now (thankfully) redundant
• Many redundant declarations have ben removed
• chkDeleted removed - it was only written for the chaos of Kingston Regatta, pre-OARA, where all entries were input on a single day, and the same entry could be added twice by mistake...
• It turns out that all of the ADODC controls on frmEntries can be removed. A couple were totally redundant!
• The UI for record navigation looks so much better
• Nasty bug to track down - as SetupRecordsetADODC is no longer called, we HAVE to call g_aConnection.CursorLocation = adUseClient in order for any grids to be able to load data. In pracice though, its probably better to leave this alone, as a client side cursor is expensive - just set it for each recordset that needs it.

• Enums have been moved to a Type Library
• SourceSafe is up to date.
• Proxy Receiver name is generated from an INI file, so in the event of a server crash, we don't need a reboot (Bedford Regatta did, which lost 5 minutes of connectivity).
• Several libraries were missing from SourceSafe - when the laptop was last rebuilt, I merely installed the software, which worked perfectly, but didn't allow me to check everything properly. Some of the source code had not been copied to the new path, so was not under source code control.
• RegattaResources removed from the installation program, as I could not find anything that uses it... On checking, its used by RegattaHelper to load station names, but rather than having a COM DLL, I will create a custom resource DLL as used by my employers - this will have to wait until I get access to the source code tomorrow.

• The Start & Finish programs have had minmor updates, allowing them to be expanded to full screen, with the controls resized & repositioned as required.
• Control should not be shut down with Alt-Q unless the connection was successful.

• Race Number for the regattadraw page was sorting as text, as the element contained an anchor. I can't figure out the JQuery code to support this, but it turns out that if we give an ID to the TR tag, then the same effect can be achieved, and the column sorts properly.
• The vast majority of the columns are centred; the class has therefore been applied to the row, and only crew names left aligned.
• Redundant leading space on 'Next Race' removed.
• IDs for statuses are now unique, which means that the page is W3C compliant once more.

• All of the variants on [List - Regatta Winners] have been removed, as JQuery sorting is preferable.
• [Regatta - List Results so far] references [Regatta - List Races] and so has been marked as obsolete. Investigation shows that its not used.
• [List - Regatta Entry Details by Day and Club] can also be removed, as it merely provided a sort to kar01.07

• The Masters page is now Day specific.
• The Entry Matrix has been extended to support divisional regattas. Again, it is Day specific.
• ClubStats has been largely rewritten, as it did not cope with 2 days.

• This allows the Show/Hide blades option to only be displayed on pages that actually CAN display blades.
• Grid & Highlighting are also only shown if relevant.
• Columns can be specified as being unsortable via CAP_SORT_COLS. This generates custom headers for the (absolutely brilliant) tablesorter JQuery library. Column values are:
  • 0 - no sorting possible
  • 1 - Column can be sorted
  • x - Column is sorted by ID. This allows me to sort Statuses by ResultsOrder, which is rather neat. This has not been applied to all pages yet, but is fairly easy to implement.
• If CAP_SORT_COLS is missing, or its length is less than the number of columns, then the undefined columns are sorted.

• This has all had a facelift, with much more reliance on CSS.
• Tables are now flat, which saves a bit of screen space.
• The tablesorter has finally been extended with a custom stylesheet and icons to show the sort order.
• The menu now floats instead of being fixed at the top of the page. This should be of major benefit to punters on race day.
• I'm extremely pleased with this.

So why am I modifying this program yet again? The anwser is that Masters handicaps are now fully configurable - its best to leave them in their original category on OARA, I think, and update the notes to show that a handicap is being run.

• [Count - Number of Divisions] marked as redundant, as it has been replaced with a variable in EventData.
• Nasty - [Timing - Mark DQL] & [Timing - Mark DNF] had a LONG hyphen. Not sure if this would have caused a problem, but if it had, then it would have been a right bugger to track down...

• The parameters to OARACreateCrewNamesForSmallBoats were actually obsolete, given that the 2 queries just marked as obsolete had been commented out. This simplifies the code...
• Now that we have a proper method of combining veteran statuses, AppendVeteranSuffix is obsolete and can be safely removed.
• Removal of this routine simplifies CreateNamesForSmallBoats, and allows a redundant join to be removed from [OARA2 - Small Boats]. The same applies to big boats.

• Veteran entries can be combined into a handicapped status.
• They can also be removed from the handicap.
• All changes are logged.
• The = symbol and the actual category are appended to the crew name if appropriate. Null crew names are handled.
• The idea is that the entries remain in their original status on OARA. The problem now is that the EntryManager will complain that crews have changed status. Whilst not critical, this is messy, and potentially highly confusing.
• Sadly, fixing this is quite complicated, requiring yet another CSV file to import, and another table (as you can't run update queries that have a CSV file as a source table - the ISAM does not support it, even though that table is not being updated - DUH!). The main change is to [OARA2 - List Changes (Status)] - this needs to ignore differences between the Entries & OARAStatuses tables if, and ONLY IF, the entries exists within OARAMasters.
• I'm extremely pleased with this code. Its taken about 10 hours to design, code and test.

I have changed the import specs for the competitor & crew export files.

Regatta - List Races had a Final field - this was just an expensive IIF statement on another field - 1stGoesTo...

• Usage of the Times table for Regatta Start Times is dreadful. A column should ALWAYS be used for its declared purpose - bastardising CrewID into representing RaceID is simply not good enough. It is one of the last remnants of the original system, which used DAO internally, and was written in 2 days flat. The time has come to fix this...
• I have added Debug.Assert statements whereever a Recordset.Find operation is attempted, as this indicates legacy code. The exception is the Head Race matching routine, which works VERY well.

The page also changes the 'Extracted' column to 'Cards Collected' for Bedford Regatta. It might be useful to define this functionality via RaceOptions so that other regattas can benefit.

• This has been annoying me for a while now - many of the fore & back colours were being serialised to the same keys, making the properties worse than useless. At long last I have got round to fixing this.
• The back colour rectangle was 1 pixel too narrow. This has also been fixed.
• As has the artefact drawn when a cell contained text, but its width was 0.

• TODO - need to automatically assign the division for a status change slot...
• clsDrawEngine.Entries is redundant and has been removed. This shows that clsEntry is also redundant. Of course, both may be part of some long forgotten improvement path that was never completed, though looking at the code nearby, it looks like these are remnants of the old doubling algorithms... A quick check through SourceSafe confirms this.

• GrandFinal removed from the only 2 queries that used it, as this functionality is LONG obsolete.
• I think that Regatta.Group has been replaced by Regatta.GroupID in all queries.

Division configuration (for both Heads AND Regattas) has been massively improved, using a variant of the Status Selector control that I removed in April 2009. I'm actually rather pleased with this control now...

• I've been meaning to sort out the club addresses for a while...
• [Generic - Labels for Posters] is now sorted by ClubName instead of ClubID.

• I have finally managed to update the database - StatusID ONLY. This is painful beyond belief.
• Getting the Active Profile from the registry is actually trivial - I was concerned that I might have to create DSNs, but this isn't actually the case.
• A couple of routines in the OARA module are incorrectly declared as Public.
• Option Strict On is a godsend - it forces me to correctly cast everything.
• The majority of Dictionary objects have been converted to HashTables, but there are a couple of places where typed Dictionary(Of TKey, TValue) objects make more sense.
• New Hashtable(StringComparer.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) is very useful. I wish that VB6 had constructors...
• OARACheckAllStatusesValid has some VERY odd logic for determining DayID - needs to be checked. Update: on 5th January it was found to be obsolete.
• Nasty. For Each does not go through a Hashtable in order

After 3 nights of pain, it has become obvious that conversion of this program is unlikely to succeed. The problem is the various data bound controls, which don't upgrade properly, and the MSHFlexGrid & DataCombo controls, which are single threaded and hence unusable in .NET

BUGGER.

The differences are in the EventID_Raced field. I can't just take the minimum of these EventIDs, as when setting up the race on OARA, you can add statuses at any time, and so the smaller numeric value is not guaranteed to represent the younger category. Fortunately, the key is in the OARAStatuses table already - the EventIdentity. I have therefore created a new query - [OARA2 - List Status Raced] This is very simple:

SELECT OARAStatuses.StatusID, Min(OARAStatuses.EventIdentity) AS MinOfEventIdentity FROM OARAStatusesGROUP BY OARAStatuses.StatusID;

• Bug found - not possible to handicap Masters Sculls, as a replacement operation was not being done. This has now been fixed.
• Handicapped statuses are created OK, but their HeadStartOrder is wrong (not set) - it should be set to that of the youngest crew. This is now done.

• Club Statistics page added. So far, this only shows the total number of entries made by each club; however, this will be expanded to show more detailed stats.
• Time Only page finally created. The [Head_Entries_ForTimeOnly] key is not really sufficient, as it doesn't allow us to specify the rules - we state 3 or more entries from at least 2 clubs

• Couple of minor bugfixes added for the Divisions grid event handlers.
• We can now define Maximum Crews per division, and specify a warning percentage for each.
• The code to generate division statistics is utter crap. Hundreds of lines of code that do what can be done with a very simple PIVOT operation. Yes, the code DID work, but it was virtually impossible to work out what was going on, let alone try to modify anything.
• Changing to a PIVOT also allows me to get rid of the Day1_BoatClasses key, which is not editable via RaceOptions - indeed, I had failed to spot that Star SBH included an octuple, because it was excluded by the value of this key (124).
• All the warning types are now implemented. I'm actually rather pleased with this evening's coding session...
• Sorting is utterly pointless for this table, but is enabled nevertheless ;)

All that remains now is to work out a better way of combining statuses... (NB: this was added on 5 Feb 2011)

• [List - Crews containing Specified Rower] has been marked as obsolete, as [List - Entries containing Specified Rower] can do the same job. This also simplifies the ASP.
• [List - Crews at specified Status] is probably obsolete, though I'm going to wait until after KSBH before I remove it.

• Since several of the OARA specific pages are generally useful, they have all been moved to the main folder.
• pagesetup.asp has been split, with all the menu generation code moved to a separate file for clarity.
• The rowspan bug in masters.asp has finally been found & fixed.
• JQuery tablesorter now handles UK dates correctly.
• entrystats.asp - the count of entries made each day now ignores withdrawn entries, so that its totals tally with all other sections of the page.

• LMS noticed that the form confirming the correct crew (frmCrewDetails) show the previous page before refreshing to the right crew. This has now been fixed.
• She also noticed problems with completed.asp, with changes scrolling to a random point. I can't see any way round this at the moment, though I suspect that it would be significantly better to use AJAX.
• IE will not scroll results. This is a MAJOR problem
• Query Terminals should be able to use different settings. But they don't. Major bug? Or dud versions? Not sure, and with a dying laptop battery, I won't find this tonight.

• The main routine takes the Standard Time (after any adjustments have been applied), plus 2 age categories. This change should make it generic enough to be merged with the Penalties & Handicaps Editor.
• To make this change easier, the relevant code has been encapsulated in a UserControl. This is nice as it loads the data in Design Mode as well...
• Combo boxes on the main form no longer need to be scrolled, as I have written SetDropDownHeight. This allows the 9 age categories to be displayed without a scroll bar, since combos normally show a maximum of 8 items.

• List - Regatta Draw by Specified Club
• Check - Payments assigned
• List - Status Alterations
• Payment - Cash Received
• Mailing - Notification of Changes
• List - Status Names (was used in clsServer, but is very simple and only called once, so might as well be done in SQL).

• SponsorshipAllocation.Group also renamed.
• Mailing - Notification of Draw (Regatta) - GroupID can never be NULL or 'Z'
• Mailing - Notification of Withdrawals (Regatta) is probably obsolete, as Regatta - Mailshot of Withdrawn Entries has never been used and so has been deleted.
• About 20 queries have needed modification to cope with the renamed columns. Obviously, the ASP & VB code will need extensive modifications...

• Now that Clubs.AllWomen has been removed, FindWomenOnly is obsolete, and has been removed.
• The ASP page to show identical crews now allows them to be marked as TimeOnly if necessary. The underlying database query has therefore been modified to cope with this.

• Labels - Back of Numbers (Regatta): iDayID not listed as parameter
• Clubs: delete obsolete fields RepeatMail, Lapsed, Registered, AllWomen, BladeKnown
• Entries & StatusList - StatusID field varies in size (50:16). this has been fixed at 16 characters.
• Regatta: Time->RaceTime
• Regatta: Group ->GroupID
• List - Full Racing Sequence: StatusList.Raceorder does not exist. It is therefore obsolete.
• OARA2 - Identify Contact by Emergency Email: could be made simpler without the wildcards. This syntax predates the EmailAdresses table. UPDATE - This change significantly speeds up the query...
• OARA2 - Identify Contact by Admin Email: Obsolete
• Payment - Entry Fees: Obsolete
• Mailing - Club Addresses: This has a hardcoded BED...

The RegattaDraw program has been modified to allow these operations to be done together.

• The Masters ASP page has been extensively modified, and now presents far more useful information. If it could create Handicapped events as well...
• The Crew ASP page now has a link to the status.

• New key added to EventData - ASP_NextRaceListedLast. This was a request from Ironbridge - much better done in an option than hardcoded to this regatta.
• Still purging obsolete constants.

• We've imported the entries for the first time AFTER closing on OARA. This means that OARA has generated composite ClubIDs, but the program has not added them to the Clubs table, since it normally does them after creating composite IDs internally. Unfortunately, the first sign of this was errors at the very end of a regatta draw, which means everything we did last night is invalid and will have to be redone. And since the missing crews are doubling up extensively, the clash resolution is significantly more complex. It does resolve - eventually...
• The creation of composite clubs has therefore been moved to a separate routine, which is called regardless of whether or not we have modified Entries.ClubID.
• Extra functionality added to allow a list of email addresses to be generated.
• I suspect that Richard's machine doesn't have IE installed - the EntryManager cannot view any webpages internally, though they all work perfectly well in Firefox, which is his default browser. I have been toying with the idea of moving OARA import to a web based system for a while now - this may well be the catalyst for that change. The biggest problem is likely to be use of the FileSystemObject to amalgamate data files - most of the logic is done in SQL. Another problem will be the error handling...
• Richard doesn't use the standard capitalisation when entering his CRA crews. The program now does this itself...
• Day Tickets will not be reinstated. So I have finally removed the conditional compilation code.

• CDATA tags added to menu creation javascript so that the menu is ignored by the XHTML validator.
• CDATA tags also added to the scrolling code, so that this validates as well. Not really necessary, but I like to do things properly if at all possible!
• TODO The unknown club address page does not have the right CSS. In addition, this is a very poor way of doing things - we should be able to use the ContactAddress export file...

• Harcoded querystring parameters (eg club=bed) replace by constants (eg QS_CLUB) wherever found.
• resultsbyclub & resultsbystatus are slow because they are poorly written. TODO. There are also so many basic errors in these pages that I'm amazed they render at all...
• resultsbystatus now validates. The main problem is the way that blade images are added - the function adds a TD tag, whereas it would be better for the calling page to handle this.
• divisions still contains B tags. These are necessary due to its convoluted logic, which would be better done with a PIVOT query. TODO.
• BladeImages are now done with a new routine, which makes conversion to XHTML MUCH cleaner.
• Server.URLEncode is a much better solution than sFilter.

Oddities can be found with:

SELECT verdict FROM `regatta`  WHERE isnull(verdict)=false  and verdict <> ''  and verdict <> 'row over'  and verdict <> '1 length'  and verdict <> '1/2 length'  and verdict <> '1/3 length'  and verdict <> '1/4 length'  and verdict <> '2/3 length'  and verdict <> '3/4 length' and verdict <> '7/8 length' and verdict <> '1 1/2 lengths'  and verdict <> '1 1/3 lengths'  and verdict <> '1 2/3 lengths'  and verdict <> '1 1/4 lengths'  and verdict <> '1 3/4 lengths'  and verdict <> '1 1/8 lengths'  and verdict <> '2 lengths' and verdict <> '2 1/2 lengths' and verdict <> '2 1/4 lengths' and verdict <> '2 3/4 lengths' and verdict <> '3 lengths' and verdict <> '3 1/2 lengths' and verdict <> '3 1/4 lengths' and verdict <> '3 2/3 lengths' and verdict <> '4 lengths' and verdict <> '4 1/2 lengths' and verdict <> '4 1/4 lengths' and verdict <> '4 3/4 lengths' and verdict <> '5 lengths' and verdict <> '6 lengths' and verdict <> '7 lengths' and verdict <> '8 lengths' and verdict <> '5 1/2 lengths' and verdict <> 'easily' and verdict <> '1 foot' and verdict <> '2 feet' and verdict <> '2 1/2 feet' and verdict <> '3 feet' and verdict <> '4 feet' and verdict <> '6 feet' and verdict <> '6 inches' and verdict <> 'a canvas'  and verdict <> 'Not Rowed Out'  and verdict <> 'No Race' and verdict <> 'Disqualified' and verdict <> 'Disqualification' ORDER BY `regatta`.`verdict` ASC

UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = 'Row Over' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = 'Default' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1  length' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 1/2 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1 1/2' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 1/4 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1 1/4' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 1/2 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1 1/2 length' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 1/3 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1 1/3 length' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 1/4 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1 1/4 length' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1/2 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/2 lengths' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1/3 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/3 lengths' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '2/3 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '2/3 lengths' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1/4 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/4 lengths' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '6 inches' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/2 feet' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '2 feet' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '2 feett' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '3 1/2 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '3 /12 lengths' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '3/4 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '3/4 lengths' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '3 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '3. lengths' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '3 1/2 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '3 1/2' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = 'Not Rowed Out' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = 'nRow Overo' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = 'Not Rowed Out' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = 'Not Rowed Outot' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = 'Not Rowed Out' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = 'NRO' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = 'Row Over' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = 'No Show' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = 'length' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = 'a canvas' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = 'canvas' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1/3 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/3' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '2 1/2 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '2 1/2' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 3/4 lengths' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1 3/4'; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1/2 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '2/2 length' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1/4 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '2/4 length' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '4 feet' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/2 canvas' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '4 feet' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/2 a canvas' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1' ; UPDATE `bedfordr_db1`.`regatta` SET `Verdict` = '1 1/4 length' WHERE `regatta`.`verdict` = '1/25 length' ;

• $ character inserted into the 3 lane repechage spiders wherever necessary.
• Plate definitions for 27-32 entries created. They'll probably never be used, but at least now exist.
• Spider Integrity program can now check for missing $P markers.

• The PHP export code is now aware of the dropped columns.
• LoadDivisionalSequence should NOT clear tvSequence.Nodes as this makes a divisional competition impossible to configure for all but the last division. However, in this scenario, we really ought to add an extra column and cancel drag operations if we're moving to a new division (which isn't possible)

• Legacy field dropped from local database (StatusList table).
• TODO - we could really do with renaming all of the tables to make the data access code easier to read.
• regattadata.Repechage & regattadata.GrandFinal fields dropped. Repechage has been superceded by ProgressionSystemID, while GrandFinal was a mad concept only used in one year because one of our sponsors bought special pots, and didn't have enough when we got so many novice sculls that we had to split the event into 2 groups...

• Repechage & GrandFinal variables removed from Spiders as they are obsolete.
• eventid 87 removed from regattadraw as corresponding data does not exist in the regatta table.
• It looks as if statusinfo.php is obsolete. Further checking reveals that $STATUSDESCRIPTION is, but the routines are still used. For the moment...
• W3C images added to the footer.

Date.prototype.getWeek = function()  	{	var onejan = new Date(this.getFullYear(),0,1);	return Math.ceil((((this - onejan) / 86400000) + onejan.getDay()+1)/7); 	}  	function myWeekCalc(date) 	{	return date.getWeek(); 	}

I propose a new program, which will look at the events defined by OARA + any others that have been entered. In this way it will cope with a fully manually entered regatta (not that I expect to see such as thing again).

• Redundant loop removed in spiders. I have a feeling that the same crap code exists in VB6 as well.
• SpiderIntegrity program modified to output PHP files in UTF8 encoding. This means that the {}#~|+ characters in the spider are already correct. Any replace function takes time, so getting rid of these is a bonus.

• Undefined variable $fRepechage in schemas.php This should have been replaced long ago with $iProgressionSystemID
• Undefined index: 2nd etc in regatta.php - 3 lane specific query, but the code references it anyway...
• Changes to the way scratched crews are handled (ie XHTML/CSS) mean that the strikeouts were being applied to the blade image, not the crew name. This has been fixed.

• Sanity check query: SELECT * FROM `clubs` WHERE `ClubID` = `ClubName`
• RegattaData table: StatusID field widened to 12 chars - we didn't notice in May as we don't run Masters events at all.

• The downside is that I've lost the ability to view withdrawn entries for the time being - not really a problem, as I cant see this as being useful to anyone - it was written as proof of concept...
• I've also lost the day gaps in TimeOfEntry, which only extended the page, and wasn't really that useful.

• All pages are now required to have Page_GenerateBody as well as Page_GetTitle.
• Page_Connect allows pages that run action queries to have a lightweight initialisation method.
• StartPage renamed as Page_Initialise to tie in with the new nomenclature.
• All include paths are now virtual.
• Page termination code has been standardised, and is called within the include file.
• Redundant (and erroneous) BODY & HTML termination tags have been removed from every page.
• XHTML is being implemented slowly...
• Several redundant routines have been removed from pagesetup.
• Many pages had a CreateHeader routine - this hasn't been used for several years.
• Several redundant constants have been removed.

• Page errors (such as missing closing tags) will be found and fixed.
• Stylesheets will be used to control ALL presentation - bold, strikeout & red can be defined with a simple class statement instead of 3 nested tags.
• Layout can be changed on a per regatta basis - KAR want some oddities; CSS allows this.
• Page sizes are significantly smaller, which should make the server more responsive.
• Cascading Style Sheets allow the same formatting to be applied to all children of an element - much simpler than having to apply separate CENTER tags to each element, for example.

• entriesbystatus now shows whether a crew has paid, and the division for a divisional regatta, if appropriate - this is to help when figuring out what status changes need to be made.
• oara_same_division now only shows a single line for each issue - much clearer to read.
• oara_same_division shows the day if we're running a 2 day competition in the same database.
• TODO entrystats does not differentiate between days.
• entriesbyclub now suppresses comments for withdrawn entries.
• entriesbyclub updated to show paid flag of withdrawn entries in red.

This bug was found and fixed whilst testing using Ironbridge's data, which they have very kindly given me access to. It was easy to track down this time as only 9 crews have paid so far.

The program creates a batch file, which must be manually executed. Previously, CACLS was called MANY times whenever RaceOptions was run, with many command prompt windows appearing briefly. The problem was that they COULD fail to execute, thus rendering RaceOptions itself unusable.

A further problem with this approach is that appcmd (used to configure IIS7) takes quite a long time to execute... The batchfile works perfectly, allowing a fully functional installation on a clean copy of Windows 7. I'll be testing on Vista as soon as the 14Gb VHD file can be copied to my laptop...

• All paths are now defined in the Script file - the only groups not to use these are [Server - Race Manager] [Server - Race Options] as they contain files that need to be installed to different places - ultimately I will separate these out.
• Redundant file groups have been deleted.
• The directory structure has been completely overhauled, as mentioned above.

Oh dear. Obviously the demo (not done by me) used Windows Explorer instead of Start Menu items. If this is the case, then its a fair point, as there are a lot of programs in there. So I've completely redesigned the directory structure - this ties in quite nicely with my current feeling that Windows 7 & Vista are VERY protective of inetpub...

388 errors in the installation package to be resolved...

• Several PHP files are redundant, and so will not be reinstated. For the time being, the component is not included in the build - nobody has used it to date anyway..
• ASP files are being added one by one
• Star found that they were missing from the list in Race Options - this is because Server Settings.ini was not being installed.

• Form positions are now saved to & loaded from HKEY_CURRENT_USER, which is always writable.
• SpiderEngine now uses OpenKey on HKLM instead of CreateKey. However, I plan to change RegattaSelection so that it reads from HKLM (which is installed) and writes to HKCU...

• After generating the RegattaNames, unnecessary names for fours and eights are removed. I have no UI yet for setting this, but want to be able to condense the names of doubles & pairs as well.
• The routine for separating entries from the same club works well if there are pairs of entries. Star Regatta this year have one event where there are 16 entries, 8 of them from a single club. It just doesn't work. So I have created a draw.txt file - effectively just an INI file that allows a custom draw to be directly specified.

• All processes run in a limited account, even if you're logged in as the machine administrator. This causes some problems with registry access, as keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE cannot be created. I therefore propose to continue installing profiles to this key, but to read/write the current profile to HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Obviously on installation this key may not exist - in this case, revert to the installed profile...
• CACLS has been replaced with ICACLS. RaceOptions therefore needs to be aware of the OS version, though I have for a while thought that it would be better to create a separate utility for setting file permissions.
• Entry Manager creates Virtual Directories - I'd completely forgotten this. Again, it needs to be run as Administrator in order to do this. This functionality (which I'd forgotten about, and is used in very few ASP pages) would also be better moved to a separate configuration utility. The reason for using virtual directories is that 'Enable Parent Paths' does not need to be enabled...

In GTD's words, sod them.