ACE Scoring Customization

UNDER CONSTRUCTION - this is currently just a work-in-progress stash of a random collection of working notes on the hooks that are available to enable users to customize and extend the ACE Scoring tools - need to clean up and complete [DJL 24-Nov-2002]

Customizing Race and Event Reports

TO DO: Describe the really cool stuff you can now do in ACES 4.0 by providing customized variations of the XSLT report generation specifications and the CSS style sheets for the HTML web reports so that individual organizations can customize report layout and style to suit their own "look".

Intermediate topic: Customizing the report appearance for HTML web reports. The HTML appearance properties of race and event/season scoring reports are determined by stylesheet specifications - the .css files in the Reports directory. To customize report appearance, you need to understand CSS stylesheets - related to HTML markup technology and of similar difficulty (i.e., not that hard to understand). Simply edit the style specifications to modify fonts, colors, margins, backgrounds, etc.

Advanced topic: Customizing the report structure. The report structure and contents are determined by XSLT specifications, an XML-based technology that's more complex than HTML markup but less difficult than working in a programming language.. To customize reports, create a subdirectory named ConfigurationSettings in your working set directory, copy the the folder ProgramFiles/Tools/System/transforms containing the standard report generation specifications to your working set configuration folder, and edit the specifications of your working set transforms.

Start Group Code Specifications

TO DO: add description of how to add additional specifications to the ConfigurationSettings/StartGroupCodeSpecs directory to handle age class start order codes encoded in the Team field of a Split Second race data file to provide a backstop check on racer age class and identify ability-group classes such as the Far West "open seed" classes or the Intermountain men's "super seed" class.

CSV Race Results Data Column Order Specifications

TO DO: add description of how to add additional specifications to the ConfigurationSettings/RaceResultsImportColumnSpecs directory to specify data column order and contents for importing CSV format race results data if the built-in set of specifications don't cover the case you've got.

Race Data Import Bib Mapping

TO DO: add description of working set configuration option to define ConfigurationSettings/BibNumberImportMapping.cfg

Race Class Synonyms and Racer Name Heuristics

TO DO: describe the race class synonym specification files in the ConfigurationSettings directory and how you can add entries in here to handle masters age class coding variations when loading race results data

TO DO: Describe how to use the LastNameVariations.cfg and FirstNameVariations.cfg specification files in the ConfigurationSettings directory to handle standard variations of spelling and form of racer names so that you don't always have to edit them when synching individual race results against the series racer list. (E.g., accept "Jim", "Jimmy", and "James" as equivalent)

Customizing Division Racer List Management Policies

TO DO: describe working set configuration settings options for specifying permanent bib assignment ranges and series tracking bib numbers for a division racer list management policy.

[RacerList]
managementPolicy: { farWestDivision | intermountainDivision | division | series }
managementPolicy-permanentBibsRange: firstNumber..lastNumber [, fn2..ln2]...
managementPolicy-seriesTempBibsRange: { firstNumber..lastNumber | firstNumber + } [,...]

Command Line Options

TO DO: Document the command line options

-rootSettings
Specify the session roots configuration file to use. The standard roots configuration file is ACEScoring.ini. The roots configuration file must be stored in the ProgramFiles installation directory.
-sessionSettings
Specify the session configuration file to use. The standard session configuration file is ToolSessionSettings.ini. The session configuration file must be stored in the tool installation directory (ProgramFiles/Tools).
-configSettings
Specify the tool configuration settings file to use. The standard tool configuration file is ToolConfigurationSettings.ini. The tool configuration file must be stored in the tools system directory (ProgramFiles/Tools/System).
-splashScreen
Optional override of the splash screen specified in the session configuration settings. Value is the pathname of the splash screen file to use.