MSTW CSV exporter for upgrading to MSTW Schedules and scoreboards

[Richard]

Hello,

Is there any other way to get CSV data out of old GMSTW game Locations and MSTW Schedules?

We are trying to install and use the MSTW CSV exporter. But I have a feeling it just won’t work any more, on our latest version of WP (5.2.2).
When installing – after activating it, we got a warning: “The plugin generated 240 characters of unexpected output during activation. If you notice “headers already sent” messages, problems with syndication feeds or other issues, try deactivating or removing this plugin.”

And going to it in the left admin menu, on its page we got:

Fatal error: Uncaught ArgumentCountError: Too few arguments to function do_settings_fields(), 1 passed in /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-content/plugins/mstw-csv-exporter/templates/mstw-csv-settings.php on line 29 and exactly 2 expected in /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-admin/includes/template.php:1628 Stack trace: #0 /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-content/plugins/mstw-csv-exporter/templates/mstw-csv-settings.php(29): do_settings_fields(‘mstw_csvx-group’) #1 /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-content/plugins/mstw-csv-exporter/includes/mstw-csv-exporter-setup.php(330): require_once(‘/usr/home/web/u…’) #2 /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(286): MSTW_CSVX_Settings->plugin_settings_page(”) #3 /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(310): WP_Hook->apply_filters(”, Array) #4 /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-includes/plugin.php(465): WP_Hook->do_action(Array) #5 /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-admin/admin.php(253): do_action(‘t in /usr/home/web/users/a0021752/html/w/wp-admin/includes/template.php on line 1628
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• This topic was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Richard.

[Mark]

Hi Richard,
Thank you very much for posting here. We’ve got a bit of a mess here, so this thread may definitely be of help to other users.

FIRST, the Game Locations plugin has not been supported for a long time; it doesn’t even appear in the WordPress.org plugin library. That’s because game locations (or venues) are baked into the MSTW Schedules and Scoreboards and MSTW League Manager plugins. So you are a bit behind here.

SECOND, MSTW CSV Exporter hasn’t been touched in a long time. Why? Because no one ever asks about it (until now). So it’s (I’m) also a bit behind here. (More on this below.)

THIRD, MSTW Schedules & Scoreboards has taken a back seat to MSTW League Manager. LM provides a lot more functionality than S&S, but S&S is probably a bit easier to learn/use for a single team site. While it’s still supported, all the new features on both the front and back ends are going into LM. So I’d suggest you at least consider moving to LM instead of S&S. That may be a better choice in the long run.

Back to your question.
In theory MSTW CSV Exporter should still work and that error should not occur. However, I don’t have Game Locations installed on any of my test boxes (because it’s no longer supported). So it will take me awhile to even set up an environment to check this out. (Which I will add to the list for when I have some free time. Quite frankly, one “fix” will be to remove game locations from the list of export options.)

The other reason I haven’t worried about MSTW CSV Exporter is because I believe the functionality is doable with built-in WP functions and/or some other plugins. I haven’t tested this particular scenario for the reason listed above, but I believe you can export the game locations to very cool XML files and then import those CPTs onto another site. Here’s one of thousands of links to more info on that process (which is straightforward)

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-exportimport-custom-post-types-in-wordpress/

Unfortunately, I just had a look and the CPT meta-data names are a bit different, so the field names would have to be mapped. This is where CSV files make life easy, and I’m not sure if you can map the data fields with the method I outlined above. SO …

We can turn to CSV format data export, for which there are a lot of plugin options. Here’s one that looks promising, as an example:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-csv-xls-exporter/

If either of these methods look promising, and I’d try CSV first, I can help you with the field mappings. There are only about 5 of them. If you would prefer that I go back, re-install the Game Locations plugin, and fix and test the CSV Exporter, please contact me via e-mail and we can discuss that outside this forum.

Hope this helps. Sorry I don’t have better answer and an easier fix.

Regards,
-Mark

[Richard]

Thanks Mark,

No need for you to install the old tech. Thanks though for offering! I know I’m behind the game.

I’ll look into League Manager.

All I need is games schedules, and venues though. we don’t use scoreboard, don’t even use opponents (I just use the opponents name field instead, when importing games)

I was able to create a locations CSV for myself, (now Venues), just using a text editor, and a WP page I had that was outside of the system with links to the directions pages we had set up for getting to each of the venues locally (instead of map links to google). I only needed venue name and the page link columns and content (240 or so pages) not the addresses info.

The teams I can set up manually one by one as there are only about 41 different sports teams to set up.

When I import games for a team however, the time of the game is importing fine. And all times show in the games admin window correctly, but when I edit a game (to select my Directions page venue), the time selector defaults back to 00:00 before I do anything, and if I’m not careful to change it to the correct time like 15:45, it gets saved as 00:00. Any idea why?

Thanks,

Richard

screen grab example: times are good:
http://mfsdev.townshirts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/times-good-1.jpg

screen grab example: times are bad in editor:
http://mfsdev.townshirts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/times-bad-2.jpg

[Richard]

Hi again Mark,

I installed and checked out LM and it is not going to work for our needs. We have 41 different School sports teams, and they are not in any leagues (they don’t play against each other). They all play against different schools, and we don’t need to create leagues. Ideally all we need is a schedule for each team that has date, time, opponent name, and home or away. Like we’ve set up on the site here using older shedules and locations plugin:

Athletics Teams

example one sports team page:

Boys’ Upper School Soccer JV

I can make the Schedules and Scoreboards one work for our needs, but just have that time bug.

Thanks again – Richard

[Mark]

Thanks for the screenshots. That always helps.
Re: LM vs S&S
I agree S&S sounds right for you. The problem is (and it’s not your problem) I have LM open right now and could easily check this out. S&S gets very little of my time. Just looking at the interface in the screenshots you sent, makes me want to go back and re-write the whole thing. U-G-L-Y.

Re: The Time Bug
I will take a look when I get a chance. I believe this has been asked before, and I may have created a patch. I forget the details but something with importing from CSV rings a bell. You might want to search here and on the S&S plugin’s support forum on wordpress.org and see what you can find. I’d activate WP DEBUG and take a look to see if anything comes up in the debug.log file. If you haven’t used the debug capabilities, just google ‘wordpress debugging’ and lots of links come up. The wordpress documentation should be the first link. It’s really easy. If you see anything that looks interesting in there, after you open either of the admin screens you sent, please forward it via e-mail.

-Mark

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