Making progress on Volunteers

Progress on volunteers has been slower than I thought it would be.  It turns out that jobs, which is how I refer to the various roles that volunteers take on within wp-SwimTeam, is harder than I thought it would be.

The underlying data is fairly easy to manage but how to present the jobs, associate them with a season or swim meet, and then assign people to fill them has been a challenge.  I think the reason I am struggling with this is I am not happy with the terminology I am using.  There are three aspects to the Jobs functionality:

  1. Definition of jobs:  Titles, descriptions, duration, etc. 
  2. Allocation of jobs:  Jobs are allocated to either a season or a swim meet or multiple meets.  The number of positions for each job will vary.  For example, the number of timers needed is dependent on the number of lanes the host pool  has.  You might need four timers one week and then three the next.
  3. Assignment of jobs:  Connecting a name to a particular job.  The Lane 2 timer at meet XYZ will be Betty Jones.  The Announcer at meet ABC will be Tom Burns.

I am ok with the “Definition” of jobs and the “Assignment” of jobs but I don’t like the term “Allocation” but I can’t think of anything better.  If you have a suggestion, drop me a comment!

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!