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7.2.1.0 (2010.01.03)

RunScore Team
  • This is the first version of RunScore produced with Microsoft Visual Studio VC++ tools built on top of OWLNEXT which is an independent development based on Borland OWL (Object Windows Library). Almost all development before this point was produced with Borland tools.
  • NOTE: This version of RunScore will not run on older Windows operating systems: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows NT. It will run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
  • What are the advantages?
  • The largest advantage from the user’s point of view is that we have squashed the bug that produced those “Busy clipboard” pop-ups. The bug was traced to some Borland code. I reported this to the OWLNEXT developers who have fixed it. * There are no functional advantages and no perceived speed differences. * There are no longer DLLs that get installed in the Windows directory. Therefore, if you want to move RunScore from one computer to another, all you have to do is copy the RunScore folder to a thumb drive and then copy it into the new computer. For those technically inclined, this type of application is called a “static” application instead of the RSS/RSC which was a “dynamic” application since it depended on external DLL files. Note, however, that there are still some DLLs installed with RunScore (Summit timer DLL and Active.com DLL) but since they are in the RunScore directory, they will be copied to the new computer. * When I retire from supporting RunScore, it will be far easier to turn the development package over to another person since it will be using modern tools. * The Microsoft Visual Studio Interactive Development Environment (IDE) is far superior to the Borland IDE. It should be since it has had an additional 13 years of improvements. This helps me in development and in finding bugs. It is also much more fussy, warning me of possible problems. * For those Vista users that were having problems with the special functions of printers in Vista, like Back to Front printing, the VC version incorporates the new Printer Dialog box that works perfectly under Vista. Probably does the same under Windows 7.
  • What are the disadvantages?
  • While the install package will be about the same size, updates will be larger since they are static applications. But in this day of high-speed access, I don’t see this as a problem.
  • Recent changes
  • At the suggestion of Steven Keith, add support for monospace fonts other than “Courier New.” In Preferences you can specify what default monospace font you want. It will be used in all listings. These fonts make for much better looking listings. In Help/Index/Preferences are examples showing the difference between an Arial monospaced font and the Courier New font. * Another new control in Preferences allows you to specify if you want the page number at the top or the bottom of each page of the printout. * Jeff Glaze pointed out that a person with a birthdate of 01/01/2000 did not have their age updated. Fixed. * Version control. As before, for RSClient to connect to RSServer, the first three numbers in the version must agree. For example RSClient Version 7.1.0.1 can connect to RSServer Version 7.1.0.3. Before, if the first three did not agree, it was not possible to connect. Now that is only true if only the first two numbers agree. If the first two agree but the third does not, you can connect but you are given a warning. Things will probably work but there may be some functions that do not agree. * A RunScore API (Application Programming Interface) has been developed. The purpose of the API is to allow programmers to access the RunScore database and results. This could be used to add entrants, to develop new results listings, or many other uses. It is only useful for programmers who can program in C++. * At request of Art Stockman, make change to allow changing of event in Initialize External Timer so that data can be directed to a different event without having to shut RunScore down.

7.0.13.0 (2009.12.06)

RunScore Team
  • Last Version of RunScore produced with Borland tools
  • Implement Time Format for Live Results at request of Steve Gajerski.
  • At request of Bill Teschek, add commands for entries.ini to type-ahead. A few were missing.

7.0.11.0 (2009.11.25)

RunScore Team
  • Latest stable release. I had thought Version 7.0.10.0 was okay but it had some problems. This one has been more thoroughly tested.
  • Craig Chiger found a problem with Look Up in RSServer Version 7.0.10.0.

7.0.12.0 (2009.11.25)

RunScore Team
  • Latest stable release.
  • Made a change so that if there is a entries.val file and no entries.val.xml, the entries.val is always converted to entries.val.xml.
  • Working with Pat Riley, a method has been developed for sending text messages. See Appendix/Text Message.
  • John Luaces and Fred Dewsberry reported a crash when connecting the RSClient to the RSServer. Found that this happens if a Look Up command is in the old entries.val file. The Look UP command should be removed from entries.val and put in entries.ini. A change has been made so that this no longer causes a problem.

7.0.10.0 (2009.11.20)

RunScore Team
  • Have changed the operation of Look Up in a *.lst file as requested by Steven Keith. If it calls for Look Upand a similar Look Up was not specified in entries.ini, RunScore creates a new Look Does, does the look up on the entire database, and then discards it. The reason for this is that the older method required you to start and stop RunScore do to the look up to add in a bunch of late registrations. You would not want to do this during a race.
  • Add a new command “Look up Replace” which works just like the Look Up command except it replaces all matching fields. The Look Up command does not replace, say, a city name if there is already data in the field. This feature is handy if you have a chip/tag race and have a large number of missing finishers. If you have a database for these extra runners, the Look Up Replace command can automatically put them in at the proper place in the database.
  • At request of Tony Newton and Steven Keith, have added a new command: Update All Entries. This is somewhat similar to the Alt-F4 to update but is much faster since it doesn’t involve all the checking of fields. The main purpose is to process the commands in your entries.ini after making a change.
  • With the advent of more and more Chip/Tag systems and the use of multiple split points on races, the old way of handling the Swap of bib numbers between two people became a problem. With one or two events, it was easy to use the old “@Swap n1 n2” that swapped the bib numbers in two finish positions in the event. But, with multiple split events or triathlons, this had to be repeated across all events to work. It also was overwritten when your refreshed or re-downloaded the finish times and bib numbers. To correct this, you can now swap the information assigned to bib numbers in the Database, just like the athletes did in real life, when they swapped bib numbers. When you open the Browse screen and type in: “@Swap bib#1 bib#2”, RunScore will swap the data assigned for those two bib numbers, so that all the events will now have the correct info listed for the bib numbers and finish positions. Now the bib numbers match the person who actually wore them.
  • Add support for RFID chip system via TCP/IP. RFID had been supported earlier but only by loading files produced by the RFID system.
  • Becky Mestas requested for a larger number of names be allowed in the drop-down-search box in Enter Names. She had a large database with more Smiths than could be displayed. Done.
  • Working with Steven Keith, define a new type of event called a “Spill” event. You can put this beyond the last event for which you have rounds/passes specified to catch extra passes. For example, say you want Round 1 to go into Run and Round 2 to go into Bike. If a person crosses the mats extra times, these times would go ino the spill event.
  • The Live Results now runs in full-screen mode.
  • A number of improvements have been made to the Announcer Screen. It now displays in full-screen mode so you no longer see the Windows menu bar. This is particularly nice when used on a large screen or with a projector.
  • Working with Andrés Alanon Vazquez, Marek Blazek, and John Snitko, have added ability for Announce screen to have headers across the top. This only makes sense for monospaced fonts like Courier New and when using the “No Squeeze” option with Announce.
  • In addition to the “automatic headers,” you can create your own using the Header/.end of header commands on the Announcer screen.
  • The type-ahead in the RunScore Editor is now optional because of a request by Tony Newton and Steven Keith. You can deselect it in Preferences. The command drop-down is retained.
  • Implemented type-ahead and command drop-down on RSClient. Previously it only worked on RSServer.

7.0.9.0 (2009.10.07)

RunScore Team
  • Mike Proctor said he often types in a new name and, by mistake, presses F3 (search) instead of F4 (update). RunScore then asks if the user wants to do a new search or not. Either reply erases what was just entered. Mike asked for a third option, Cancel, that will retain what was just typed. Done.
  • Fixed crash problem with Announce reported by Pat Leone and Jeff Castro.
  • Josh Gerber reported that Alt-F4 (update all entries) caused a crash. It turned out that all his bib numbers were blank. Fixed.
  • Pat Leone reported that the Announce command by itself, that is without an event or header specified, was sending output to the printer instead of to the screen. Fixed.
  • Jenna Ginsburg and Jeff Castro reported a problem with auto-run causing a crash. Jeff provided a race folder that allowed us to find and fix the problem.
  • Fixed a problem, reported by Wally Marantette, that caused a “Duplicate Finishers” listing to crash.
  • Andrés Alanon Vazquez discovered that Division Place in the Announce screen no longer worked. Fixed. Also made a change so that you can display the place and a division place referring to the same event.
  • Added command type-ahead and drop-down to the RunScore editor. This allows you to see the commands that start with the letters that you type. You can then pick the one you want using the cursor keys or the mouse. Or you can continue typing until what you have typed has only one corresponding command. At that point the rest of the command will be filled in.
  • Have added a test to make sure that RSClient and RSServer are at the same level. The first three numbers in the Version must be the same.
  • Debbie Burke pointed out a problem with the Unregistered Runner Number (URN). If you don’t have a URN defined in either Preferences or in your entries.ini file, then it should work as before. That is, the first entry in your database becomes the URN. A change has been made to make this work like it used to.
  • Have added three commands to entries.ini: Not found added, Show additional, and Show select event.
  • At request of Andrés Alanon Vazquez add gun-time support for J-chip. If a gun-time arrives, it is placed in the file Guntime.ini.
  • Working with Denika Voget found that there are problems if you set the number of chip fields to zero. Fixed so that this can’t happen anymore.
  • After many requests, the “Message” command has been added to the Announcer screen.
  • Steven Keith made a great suggestion with respect to the Announcer screen. He suggested it be tied to an event using a new command Announce Event. In this way, whenever a new finisher is recorded into that event, the finisher’s name and other information will automatically be displayed on the screen. This makes it much easier to set up and gives more flexibility. For example, you no longer need to have the screen fed by chips. For example, you could tie it into the select event which is fed from the keyboard of an external timer.
  • Steven Keith pointed out that the /*** … ***/ form of comment was not supported in entries.ini. Fixed.
  • Add new command Average which is used in conjunction with the Sum command. When used it computes the average of the fields instead of the sum of the fields. Works for integers, floating point numbers, and times. Suggested by Steven Keith.
  • Again at request of Steven Keith, add Starts with (or SW) command. You can use this in a conjunction with “Select” to select out all entries that start with the specified characters.
  • At suggestion of George Groome, make the external editor field in Preferences scrollable so you can enter a longer path name.
  • Also, made some corrections to the help files with respect to the fact that you can use an external editor to receive RunScore output.
  • Fixed a problem pointed out by Andrés Alanon Vazquez that the effect of a language change did not show up until you processed “To editor” (F7).
  • Jenna Ginsburg asked for a Footer to be able to handle the centering of a line as is done in Headers. Done.
  • Jenna pointed out that times past 24 hours were not working on RSClient for Winning Time active chips. Fixed.
  • Added support for new feature in ChronoTrack’s SimpleClient that allows for data stream to be restarted if the TCP connection breaks. With this feature, the data doesn’t have to start from the beginning.
  • Add location-to-event mapping for J-chip at request of Marek Blazek.
  • Fixed an alignment problem with lap event output.
  • Made another fix to the browser output at request of Jenna Gingburg.
  • At request of Steven Keith, provide a way to cancel out of a @ listing that has multiple duplicate finisher problems.

7.0.8.0 (2009.07.20)

RunScore Team
  • At request of Tony Norton, we have made the “Listings beep” optional. He found it annoying, especially when running an auto-run listing. Others, such as Steven Keith, like the beep. It gives some assurance that RunScore is responding. The default is to have the beep off. It can be turned on from Preferences.
  • At request of Kevin Jackson, add a check for non-unique bib numbers when you “Update All” (Alt-F4). This can also be done be creating a “Remove Duplicates” listing which checks for duplicate bib numbers. Be sure to check only those bib numbers that are not blank.
  • Kevin Jackson also requested an “undelete” for the Entries screen. This has been implemented by the normal Windows “undelete” command Ctrl-Z. It just restores the most recently deleted record. (Note: if you want to undelete a change in a results file, use F9 to reload the bibs and times.)
  • Working with Jenna Ginsberg and Denika Voget, add support for Winning Time Active chip system via TCP/IP.
  • At request of Richard Rosant and Stephen Keith allow MINUS or PLUS commands to subtract or add a fixed time to an event before merging it using the “Merge Events” command.
  • At request of Jon Krupa, add “Move Up” and “Move Down” to the editing of your list of events (under Misc.). Makes it much easier than the Cut and Paste method although the Cut and Paste are left there for large moves.
  • When the “Progress” pop-up was removed some time ago, the progress messages were sent to the status line. However, due to priorities, they were not showing up until the processing was done. Therefore, these messages have been moved to the “comment” line on the Listings screen. Also, will also hear a beep when you process a listing file to give you audible feedback that a file is being processed processing.
  • In addition, if you update all your records on the Enter/Edit screen with Alt-F4, the progress is shown on the “records” line.
  • Josh Merlis suggested use of /* to begin several lines of comments and */ to exit comment mode. This is the same as is used in many programming languages. Done.
  • At request of Steven Keith, added a feature to the import of bibs into results. If a bib is not found, you can specify whether you want to handle all unknown bibs the same way: (1) assign Unregistered Runner Number, (2) add to the database or (3) ignore. Or, you can continue to handle them one at a time as in the past.
  • Jon Krupa asked for RunScore to continue importing times and bib numbers even if a line has only a a time or a bib number instead of both. Done.

7.0.7.0 (2009.05.29)

RunScore Team
  • If data in an entries.ini file is longer than the intended field, it could cause a problem. Fixed.
  • Made some progress in fixing the “busy clipboard problem.” In doing this we had to make some changes to the RunScore editor. Now the blue, vertical line does not appear when you first open a file but as you work on it, the blue line will appear. Steven Keith was key to this improvement. He was able to find cases that failed fairly often.
  • At request of Marek Blazek from the Czech Republic, changed import of database to allow other than comma as the delimiter. When RunScore discovers that a file does not have a comma in the header, it requests the user to enter what delimiter the file uses. If the delimiter is the tab character, you enter the word “tab”. If you import from a listing file, you can set the “Import delimiter” according to the type of file.
  • Have stopped shipping the special version of Notepad.exe. It was causing some problems. Instead you can now use the normal Windows Notepad or use another editor. To use another editor, set its location in Preferences. If you don’t specify another editor, the Windows Notepad will be used by default.
  • Often a data entry person types over the Unregistered Runner entry, often called the “bandit” entry. This can cause lots of problems. There are now protections. If you DO want to change the entry, you will be warned (twice) about what you are about to do. This feature was requested by Steven Keith.
  • At request of Bill Teschek add command “Laps to Rounds.” This moves multiple finishes by a runner in a LAPS event into subsequent events based on which lap has been completed. This is done automatically in a chip race but this command is to fix problems such as a runner not crossing a mat on a given lap. The time can be inserted and the Laps to Rounds command run to reassign the various laps,
  • Marek Blazek from the Czech Republic requested that the Event to Database PLACE command work for lap races. The place is computed by determining the order by laps finished and for those with the same number of laps, based on time. Done.
  • Fixed a problem with auto-alignment pointed out by Mike Moore. When inserting bandits, the last bib was turned into a bandit instead of moving down one slot.
  • At request of Andrés Alanon Vazquez made a change to Announce so that if Net Time is specified, the number of laps displayed is one less to account for the initial passing. Also, the time is computed by subtracting each runner’s initial passing from the most recent one.
  • Made a change to HTML output so that the results are as they were with RSW if the CSS file runscore.css is not found. In addition, you can now have a “local” *.css file in a race directory called entries.css.
  • Brad Pickle pointed out that you could no longer close an external timer without leaving RunScore. Fixed.

7.0.6.0 (2009.04.05)

RunScore Team
  • At suggestion of Tony Newton, made the use of CSSs (Cascading Style Sheets) for web output more flexible. Before there was just one CSS which was called runscore.css. Now you have a different one in a race folder called entries.css. RunScore looks for the *.css in the race folder first and, if not found, uses the global one in the RunScore directory.
  • The following changes were suggested by Steven Keith. He also did extensive testing that the changes worked and that the changes were backward compatible with earlier versions and with RSW.
  • The entries.val validation file, has been replaced with a new XML file called entries.val.xml. The transition is painless. When you next make a change in Design Screen or change properties in the Enter/Edit Names screen for a field, the new file will be generated automatically for you .
  • Have you wanted to change a field parameter, such as changing from no case to proper case or add another value for “Allowed” in middle of typing but did not want to go to Design Screen and have to restart the race? You can now change most parameters on the fly. Just right-click on the field as you always did. When you click on Okay, the new entries.val.xml file will be created.
  • Changed the way the Look Up command is defined. Instead of putting it in the entries.val file, it is now placed in entries.ini. This is a more logical place. To aid in the transition, for now, you can have it either place.
  • For people who create this new XML in a folder and use the “Look Up” command in the INI, you will get an error message about “Look Up” in the INI when you run this race on an earlier RSServer/RSClient version or RSW. Just acknowledge the error message and the VAL file will load the Look Up for you the old way.
  • Remove the “Edit Validation file as text” from the Misc menu.
  • Jon Krupa mentioned that if you have no listing (*.lst) files, you get a pop-up that could be annoying. A change was made to put an appropriate message on the comment line.
  • Andrés Alanon Vazquez, requested a way to show Division Finish order on the Announce screen. This was done by supporting the Division Place command.
  • At request of John Snikto, added a “Laps left” to the Announce screen for use in laps races. This allows runners to see how many laps remain.
  • Working with Andrés Alanon Vazquez, made a number of improvements to the Announce screen. He wants to use it on a large screen just past the mats of a lap race so the runners can see their bib number, place, number of laps run, and the total distance covered.
  • Working with John Snitko, developed a way for chip/tag systems which do not have a round/pass/lap capability to handle rounds. It works by creating a lap event followed by events with rounds specified. The data goes into the lap event and also into the appropriate round event. This only works on RSServer, not on RSClient.
  • Made some improvements to chip/tag processing of round events.
  • Andrés Alanon Vazquez, who lives in Spain, requested that the Announcer screen be enhanced to handle lap races. It now can show place, time, number of laps completed, and distance covered.
  • Another improvement was made to Announcer so that the screen can be used just beyond the finish line in addition to being ahead of the finish line. When used beyond the finish line with a chip/tag system, a runner can see her results as soon as she crosses the finish line if a large monitor or data projector is used.
  • At request of Marc Roy and Tony Newton, add ability to keep FTP open so files can be uploaded periodically. The file will typically be rewritten through an auto-run process. New commands are “FTP loop” and “FTP Close“. The loop specifies how often, in seconds, the upload should happen.
  • Create a file called guntime.ini for ChampionChip which is created when a ST00007 chip ID is received. This had already been implemented for ChronoTrack.
  • Add “View Guntime.ini” to Misc menu so you can pop-up the guntime file quickly.
  • RunScore now supports English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The “French” item on Preferences has been removed and the user’s language preference as set in the Windows Control Panel is used to select the language. The only place the language matters is in some of the listings such as “Number of records” at the bottom of a listing and words such as “Place”, “Rank.”

7.0.5.0 (2009.01.08)

RunScore Team
  • Discovered that comma-delimited-files included in entries.ini were not working. Only space-delimited and tab-delimited were working. Don’t know when this broke since the comma-feature was added in April 2007. Fixed.
  • Fixed a problem found by Art Stockman.He found that when using Event to Database and the PACE command, the resulting pace had a nonsense number instead of a zero if using the MINUS command and there was no scratch time to subtract off.
  • Added more documentation on ChronoTrack with help from Steven Keith.
  • Add more documentation on Ipico with help from Josh Drew.
  • Add support for ChipTiming from Brazil (http://www.chiptiming.com.br)
  • At request of Greg McFerren, add information in dialog box when starting up TCP/IP connection with Ipico.
  • Liz Steinweg suggested a change in the Enter/Edit screen from “Not found. Search Again?” pop-up to “Not found. New Search?” This is so that, after an unsuccessful search, you have the option to keep the cursor in the field so you can compose a new search or, if you answer “No”, you can go back to the bib number field. The old wording sounded like RunScore would search again for you.