Looking for a WordPress Swim Team theme?

If you are looking for a swim team theme for your WordPress site, take a look at my Sandbox Swim Team theme.  This is the theme I use for the wp-Swim Team Demo site as well as the MacDolphins site.

Sandbox Swim Team is a fluid layout which has several color schemes to choose from, supports custom headers, has a facility to modify the header with CSS and is widget ready.  You can find Sandbox Swim Team with some other WordPress stuff I have done on my catch all site.

DocBook to PDF?

I spent some time this afternoon writing some content in DocBook format using a tool called XMLmind XML Editor. I am using the free Personal Edition. I like the editor, it was quick to learn and works as advertized. After writing a couple pages I decided to see how it looked as a PDF file.

It turns out that turning DocBook into PDF isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.  I have yet to find a good solution.  I may have to buy the full version of XMLeditor.

wp-SwimTeam documentation?

Like a lot of projects, documentation for wp-SwimTeam is severely lacking.  It has been on my to-do list for a long time and I have been thinking about it recently.  I was heading down the Wiki route recently and actually got one set up.  I’ve never been a big Wiki fan but I do see their attraction for certain types of projects.

I personally prefer “real” documentation and by “real” I mean something you can print and read away from the computer.  I’ve always like the model that used by Version Control with Subversion has used.  The source is in DocBook format which means it can easily be produced as web pages, a PDF file, or an actual book.

Right now I am leaning toward using the DocBook format.  At a minimum I am going to try it and see how it goes.  Stay tuned!

wp-SwimTeam documentation?

Like a lot of projects, documentation for wp-SwimTeam is severely lacking.  It has been on my to-do list for a long time and I have been thinking about it recently.  I was heading down the Wiki route recently and actually got one set up.  I’ve never been a big Wiki fan but I do see their attraction for certain types of projects.

I personally prefer “real” documentation and by “real” I mean something you can print and read away from the computer.  I’ve always like the model that used by Version Control with Subversion has used.  The source is in DocBook format which means it can easily be produced as web pages, a PDF file, or an actual book.

Right now I am leaning toward using the DocBook format.  At a minimum I am going to try it and see how it goes.  Stay tuned!

Early WordPress 3.0 testing

WordPress 3.0 is expected to be out sometime in May.  I figured I ought to do some basic testing to see if changes to WordPress would have any significant impact on wp-SwimTeam.

I have a Linux Virtual Machine which I have set up such that I can always run the bleeding edge of WordPress – right out of the Subversion repository.  When a new version of WordPress is ready to come out I update my Linux VM with the current state of WordPress and the current state of wp-SwimTeam and run some tests.

I started doing this a couple weeks ago and got busy and never finished it.  This morning, I got back to it.  It turns out, it didn’t run very well.  Both wp-SwimTeam and phpHtmlLib plugins were calling deprecated WordPress functions.  In releases prior to 3.0, there were no warnings about calling a deprecated function but 3.0 has a new warning feature.  The way it is implemented, the warnings actually caused a failure with phpHtmlLib which resulted in WordPress not successfully loading.

I have fixed the problems in both plugins and committed the changes.  However, I have not released new builds yet so until I do, I advise sticking with the 2.9.x release of WordPress.  I expect a new build later this week at the latest.

Working out volunteer management

I had done some work on volunteer management last year but put it aside to focus on other features.  I have picked it back up and found that one of the assumptions I had made last fall was completely wrong.

I concluded over the weekend that volunteers is three phases:

  1. Definition of volunteer roles which are referred to as “Jobs” within wp-SwimTeam.  The definition of a job includes the title, description, type of job, duration, where it is needed (home, away, both), and a few other details.
  2. Assignment of jobs to a season or meet.  Some jobs span a season, some are only for a meet.  The number of people needed to fill the jobs will differ from team to team and from pool to pool.  You might need 3 timers for a 6 lane pool but 4 for a 8 lane pool (assuming each team provides half the timers).
  3. Assignment of people to the jobs.  Once all of the jobs are defined and allocated for each meet and season, people need to sign up (or be assigned) to the jobs.  Initially I expect to only implement assignment and will add sign up later.

I’d be curious to know if anyone can think of a scenario that this won’t work for.  I’ve got phase 1 completed already and will start on phase 2 this week.

wp-SwimTeam v0.1.456 now available

Quick turn-around on a release as there was a bug which was really bothering me.  The Opt-In/Opt-Out report was pulling swimmer label from the active season regardless of which season a meet was created against.  This was fine for the current season but messed up reports from any prior season.

The report now pulls swimmer labels from the season that the meet is created against so looking back a a report from last season or two seasons ago will still show correctly.

New wp-SwimTeam support forum

This evening I installed the Simple:Press forum plugin. This forum should be used for questions, bug reports, and anything else related to wp-SwimTeam. I will try and add some information on installing and configuring wp-SwimTeam soon but I am also considering adding a Wiki for documentation. Click on the Forum tab along the top of the page to access the forum.

Current Known Issues

Here is a list of known issues with the current (v0.1.450) release:

  • Roster CSV export does not work. Fixed in v0.1.455.
  • Scratch/Register lists all meets instead of only meets for active season.
  • There a couple of debug strings still displayed. Fixed in v0.1.455.
  • Global Update does not include Status.
  • Scratch and Registration reports look at current season for swimmer labels instead of the season the meet was created for. Fixed in v0.1.456.