April 2005
The slow and steady progress of the RidgeStar Referee Management Site continues. Here's the latest and greatest elements available in Version 3.2.
Features
Version 3.2 is an incremental release of the RidgeStar Referee Management Site focused on making the mechanisms within the Site more universally standard and continuing the trend towards an increasingly flexible, but consistent User Interface:
- Search => Show
- The old "Search" Action has been renamed "Show". This provides a stronger tie to the maximum pulldown typically located immediately to the right and a more direct linkage to the actual effect it has on the page.
- Show-Hide
- A new Results List mechanism halfway between a Simple Criteria List style and a complex Disconnected Search Criteria (called the Show-Hide criteria) has been implemented, where appropriate. Manipulate the presence or absence of the column by clicking on the Show or Hide symbol
- Symbol Usage
- The specialized Actions (Printable, Download, Reset, etc.) are now represented in the Browser by standardized Symbols. They are now adjacent to the page's standard Action (usually, Show), but the reader is reminded to always consider them in context and their position on the page. The new approach takes less "real estate" in the Browser, but retains full functionality. The new symbols are for Reset , Printable , Download , PDF , and Save .
- Options
- The Options table has slowly been expanding and the old Administrator: Manage-Options function has been moved to its own Area. It's now known as Administrator: Options and the Subareas identify the specific Option being manipulated. It is still a single database table behind the scenes, but this has proven much easier to work with for the vast majority of SiteManagers.
- Option control of League, Level, Division, Season, and Gender values
- We have added what we call "Settings" to the Options mechanism. This now permits the SiteManager to control the contents of the key values for primary elements of the site (e.g. pulldown values, etc.)
- Save individual Criteria Defaults
- Several of the complex Search criteria functions now support the ability for each User to customize his/her own set of internal Default values, as represented by the small Save symbol . They are saved in the Options table and reloaded for the individual when subsequent use of the page requires it or they use the new Reset function
- Wallet PDF Formatting
- The Wallet is now available in dynamically created PDF format. For some clients, this dynamic PDF formatting will apply to other specific Site mechanisms (Invoice production, etc.)
- GoogleMaps
- Yep, our favorite Search engine (Google) has introduced a beta version of a mapping tool called Google Maps. We think it's jumped the quality of Internet mapping up a notch or two (check out the Satellite option) and, as a result, have incorporated it into the Referee Management Site as the standard mapping tool. Along with this, we've also changed the Map and Drive symbols to improve their clarity.
As always, the development and enhancement of the Site and the concepts embodied by it is an evolutionary process. Join the Evolution and see where we're going or ... even better ... help us get there.
Now, where'd I leave my whistle???
- The Development Staff