APA Schedule Converter
Introduction
This program runs on Windows. It is free.
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
Download the application here.
It is 4 megabytes in size.
It is a standard Microsoft installation file.
Double click to install it. Accept all of the defaults - Next, Next, Install, and Finish.
You will see a desktop icon that looks like a #6 billiard ball.
Instructions
- 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.
- Launch the application from the desktop icon.
- Enter your league name and the league website.
- Use the 'Browse' button to navigate to the subfolder of the schedules.
Click on the little plus sign
to open a folder.
- Click on the 'Convert' button.
The status line (right above the 3 buttons) will tell you
how many schedules it converted.
- Choose the 'View' button to view the resulting HTML schedules.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Here we list the few things that can go wrong along with
possible remedies.
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
Liz:
Since signing up for the email reminders, I have the peace of mind
knowing that the latest info is being sent to me. I no longer have to
worry about being at the wrong location.
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
Sahadev Software (Jon Bjornstad, Aruna Mahadevan)
jon@logicalpoetry.com
415-246-6499 (Pacific Time Zone).
Source
If you are Perl literate you may be interested in the
source for the program.
Billiard Grook