Posting Race Results On The Internet

Posting race results on the club web site is done by a menu selection.

Well, not quite, but almost.

Once the program has calculated race results for your regatta, you can make a menu selection to generate the html files for your regatta. Thus, by a menu selection and nothing more you can generate the complete html files to post your regatta on your web site.

Obviously you will have multiple regattas which you want to post concurrently. This is done by selecting all the regattas which will be posted from a list. All the regattas for which you have generated html files are on this list, and you select from these regattas only - you won't post regattas for which you have forgotten to generate the html files. Again, you merely select the regattas you want to post from a selection list.

The program then generates all the html files required to produce a fully indexed regatta results section for your web site. All the files required for this section of your web site are stored in a separate directory on your computer. This directory now contains all the necessary files, and no unnecessary files. Just upload all the files in this directory to the club web site.

Now comes the part which is not automatic, and that is the part which interacts with your website. You only have to do this set up once.

This paragraph is somewhat out of order, because this configuration should already have been done, but it seems to fit better here.

You must make the scoring program aware of the url (exact web address) where you intend return to when finished viewing your race results (maybe something like "http://www.myclubsite/racing.htm" where that is your general racing web page). This must be done before creating the indexed html files, because the return link is incorporated in the html files when that code is generated. The program becomes aware of this url by filling in the url in a fill in screen in the program. Once the program knows this url, it remembers it. It is a one time exercise.

What remains now, is to upload all the files in the html result directory to the website.

Create a directory on your web site in which you will only keep race result files. It is good practice to delete all old files in this directory before posting your new results (just to keep the clutter down, but it is not necessary - it is quicker to manually pick your files if you know what you are doing - I don't know what i am doing, so i clear out the old files and don't fret). You might want to get yourself a copy of Win FTP, as this can be set up to automatically wake up with the correct directories both on your computer, as well as on the web server. Delete the old files, and transfer the new files to your chosen results directory (maybe something like "http://www.myclubsite/race_results" in keeping with the above example - you may choose any directory name, it does not have to be race_results).

You have now posted your results on the web.

It literally takes 5 minutes to do this posting once you have your computer properly configured for this.

Oh yes, one more thing: you have to have a link in your web page to go to the result index file. In the above example, the link is:

What this means is that the file "results.htm" is (and all other necessary files for posting the results on the web are) in a directory called "race_results" which hangs off the directory from where the link is called (the link is in the file racing.htm). If you can set up your own web site, you know what to do. If you can't set up your own web site, then the person who did it for you knows what to do.

You never have to change this link in your web site. The link you create in your web site calls "results.htm". This file contains all the specific index information to make your results completely menu driven, and which lets you go back to your web site when you are done looking at your race results.

This file is generated every time you select a new set of regattas to post, and takes care of all the changes. This is why the link in your web site never has to be changed.

Once your system is set up all you do to post race results is:

Use the link below to see a set of three (real) regattas posted, as described above.