APA Schedule Converter

Introduction Installation Instructions Troubleshooting Feedback Contact Source Billiard Grook

Introduction

It helps to answer the question that APA members always have:

“Where does my team play this week?”

The program takes the typical APA schedule which is very tricky to read and converts it to a collection of much clearer HTML tables. If you wish, the program can also transfer these tables to your APA league web site. APA members can request weekly email (or text message) reminders of where their team is playing. Here is the top of a team schedule:

This software was not commissioned by the APA nor is it officially sanctioned by it. It does, nonetheless, work very well by processing the schedules produced by the standard APA software used by all league operators.

Installation

You will see a desktop icon that looks like a #6 billiard ball.

Instructions

1. Generate your league's schedules with your APA software as usual. Put each division in a separate PDF and place the schedules in a subfolder by themselves.
2. Launch the application from the desktop icon.
3. Enter your league name and the league website.
4. Use the 'Browse' button to navigate to the subfolder of the schedules.
   Click on the little plus sign to open a folder.
5. Click on the 'Convert' button. The status line (right above the 3 buttons) will tell you how many schedules it converted.
6. Choose the 'View' button to view the resulting HTML schedules.
7. You have three choices for publishing the schedules in the new format:

   Manual

   Transfer the schedules yourself manually – include all of the .html files that were generated in the subfolder where you put your PDF schedules.

   FTP

   • Enter the FTP site, user name and password for your league's website.
   • Enter a directory on that site to contain the schedules. This directory would be, for example, 'htdocs/schedules'. It will be created for you if it does not exist. This directory is relative to the location where ftp first logs in. BE CAREFUL that you do not overwrite your home page (in other words ... Do Not Scratch!).
   • Click on 'Publish'. The status line will show the progress.
   • Your converted schedules can be now seen at:
     http://www.yourAPAsite.com/schedules

   External

   Leagues that use the standard website provided by the APA will not have complete FTP access to their site. There is the ability to upload HTML files – but only one at a time – and this would be very time-consuming with one schedule file per team.

   Since it doesn't matter where on the web the files are located a mechanism is provided here to freely allocate space on www.apasched.com for the purpose of hosting the easy-to-read team schedules.

   You first register your league's website by clicking here.

   The registration process involves choosing a password for publishing your site's files. The password you chose is then entered into the converter software in the ‘Hosting Password’ field.

   When this one-time registration is complete you then just click ’Publish’ whenever you want. If your league's web site is www.yourAPAsite.com then the web address for your league's schedules will be:

   http://www.apasched.com/yourAPAsite

8. Share the web address for the converted schedules with the league members. Put a link to it at various places on your site. Tell the members about the email (or text message) reminders.
9. Inform the billiard hall owners about the calendar of tallies for their host site (see the second table at the top of the first page). This will help them plan for how many tables they'll need to provide each league match night.
10. Finally, for APA Schedule Converter Power Users, note that the 6 balls on the left hand side of the pool-table-styled dialog can be refreshed with control-R. Why not have some fun?

Troubleshooting

Converting

• The converter sofware is dependent on the format of the schedule files produced by the standard APA software. If that format should change the converter will need to change as well. It works quite well with the APA software as of June 2010.

• If a missing or unknown team number is encountered within the schedule, the converter will display an error message in the status area and stop. The error needs to be remedied (in the APA software/data) before the conversion can proceed.

• When the schedules are in PDF format a problem can sometimes arise. If a team or host site name is too long it can run into the next column and make for trouble. Like this:

  

  One remedy is to generate the division schedule in MS Excel (xls) format instead. The converter program can read this format as well.

  Another remedy is to add a line to the except.txt file in C:\APA_Sched. The line should have this format:

      team number | team name | host site name | address | city | state | phone
  

  Like this:

      42911|Sunday Sinners|Pour House (Roy and Teri's)|3925 E Faries Parkway|Decatur|IL|217-330-6292
  

  This line in the 'except' file will be used instead of the one in the PDF schedule.
• If you have some other issue with the conversion there is a final option. Temporarily append the letters 'xx' to the league name and do the conversion. This will generate a file in your schedule directory named debug.txt. Send this file to jon@logicalpoetry.com along with an explanation of the issue.

Publishing

• If you chose ‘External’ publishing and forgot the password you provided during the registration process please contact us at the email address below.
• If you make a small change to only one division you still need to convert and publish ALL divisions. If this seems to take a long time go get a cup of tea and when you return it will be finished.
• Sometimes a network issue will make it difficult to publish all the files in one go. If, for example, the publishing stops at file #45, there is a way to publish again starting in the middle. Temporarily put ‘45-’ at the end of the league name and click on ‘Publish’. The publishing will begin with file #45.

Member Feedback

Latimer:
Being a "noobie" last session, I found it time-consuming to translate my
team's schedule by matching up the numbers. This new schedule allows me to
print out the entire season for my team at one time and not be confused as
to where we're playing.

Donna:
I think it's great. I tell everyone I play pool with about it.
It is so easy and convenient.

Ram:
I find the reminders very useful. I like how simple the emails are,
with not too much info in the email, but with links for people who
want more info to plan ahead.

Contact

Source

Billiard Grook

From Grooks by Piet Hein