Schedules & Scoreboards 1.4

Schedules & Scoreboards version 1.4 will be released very soon. Before deciding to upgrade, you may want to review the following information on the new features and how to upgrade from 1.3.

NEW FEATURES

– Show Sport on Schedule Tables and Sliders
This feature is for school sites that want to display all in-season sports on a single schedule table or slider. It adds the sport name and a “vs” or “@” to the schedule table or slider as shown in the screenshots below.

Schedule Table Showing Sportt

Schedule Slider Showing Sport

This feature is only available via the show_sport shortcode argument. There is no display setting on the Settings admin screen.

Something very similar can be accomplished using the show_schedule_name shortcode argument. However, this capability restricts schedule names, and does not include “vs” for home games and “@” for away games.

– CSV Import – Select Team to Import
Games can be imported as before without any change to the existing CSV file formats. However, if you are importing only one team’s schedule, and you do not want to add the game_sched_id column to your CSV file, there is a new control to specify the schedule to import. All games with an empty game_sched_id field (or if that column is not in the CSV file at all) will be imported to the selected schedule.

CSV Import - Teams & Games

– CSV Import – Import Team Logos
The controls for team logos has been changed. You may choose to move the logo image files, as specified in the team_logo and team_alt_logo columns, from an existing server or site to the Media Library of a new site. Or you may choose not to move the image files, normally because they already exist in the site’s Media Library. This functions exactly like the player photos in the Team Rosters CSV import. (There have been no changes to the CSV file formats.)

UPGRADE CAVEATS

Upgrades are fairly straightforward, MUCH more so than 1.3, but there are a couple of things to be careful about when upgrading.

– CSS Changes. Release 1.3 allowed you to put your site’s CSS customizations in the mstw-ss-custom-styles.css stylesheet in your theme’s main directory. If you have done so, then your customizations will NOT be overwritten upon upgrade. However the HTML ID’s and classes have changed, and the default CSS stylesheet has been simplified. Therefore any CSS customizations for the Schedule Table and Countdown Timer WIDGETS may be required. These changes simplify the style rules and decrease the size of the default stylesheet, thereby improving the plugin and your site.

– “Cheatin’ uh?” Message. This is a ‘standard’ message comes from the WordPress Roles & Capabilities system. The MSTW Plugins create two custom Roles, and a number of new capabilities. (Read more on how to use these Roles here.) Upon plugin activation, the proper capabilities are assigned to the custom roles, AND to the WP Administrator and Editor Roles. However, for reasons that I do not yet understand, the custom capabilities are sometimes not properly assigned to the WP Administrator and Editor Roles. The easiest way to fix this problem is to deactivate and reactivate the plugin.

– Updated Common Library. The mstw-utility-functions.php library is used by all the MSTW plugins. This design offers a number of advantages. However, the latest version of the library is not necessarily loaded when the plugin is activated, and this can cause errors. To ensure that the latest version of the library is loaded, deactivate all the MSTW plugins, activate the new MSTW Schedules & Scoreboards plugin, then re-activate the other plugins.

League Standings 1.3 Released

Version 1.3 of the MSTW League Standings plugin was just released to address two bugs:

1. Under certain circumstances, standings could be incorrect due to a sorting error. For example, when sorting by rank, 1, 2, 04, 4, 16, 21 could sort incorrectly (alphabetically instead of numerically) as 04, 1, 16, 2, 21, 4.

2. A perfect win percentage would display as 1. It now displays as 1.000.

Team Rosters v4.0.1 Released

Version 4.0.1 addresses the following issues:

  1. The CSV Import function was incorrectly importing Bats/Throws.
      
  2. The display of ‘B’ for bats was incorrect after import. (This was not related to the import problem above.)

    Note: There has been a request to change switch hitters from Bats – ‘B’ (both) to ‘S’ (switch). I do not plan to tail chase this terminology as sites such as MLB.com change it. The ‘B’ for bats both is translation ready. You can simply create a en_US translation with one entry ‘B’ -> ‘S’, and you’ve got it.

  3. In some scenarios, the front end shortcodes generated WordPress WARNINGS. There are several ways to fix this on your site, but it is now corrected in v4.0.1.

Team Rosters 4.0 – New FAQs

Based on feedback from some of you, here are a couple of new FAQs:

I installed version 4.0 (without reading the fine manual) and all my data is gone! @*?*$^&#!! Please tell me I did not lose 3 years of data!
No, you did not lose your data, you just can’t see it via version 4.0 of the plugin. Deactivate version 4.0 (I don’t believe you have to uninstall it.) and reinstall version 3.1.2, which is available on wordpress.org. You will have to download the zip file and install it as a zip file. Then follow the upgrade instructions in the users manual.

Why do I get the message “Cheatin’ huh?” when I try to access some admin screens after installing version 4.0?
This problem is related to the WP Roles & Capabilities system and the MSTW roles & capabilities that control access to the Team Rosters admin screens. The appropriate MSTW capabilities are assigned to the Administrator role when the plugin is activated (and only then). So assuming you are logged in as an administrator, de-activating and re-activating the plugin usually does the trick.

Why do I get the following message on some front-end displays, e.g., Player Galleries?

Warning: array_key_exists() expects parameter 2 to be array, string given in /home/mdorum/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/team-rosters/includes/mstw-tr-utility-functions.php on line 755

I believe this only occurs when viewing the front end displays BEFORE accessing the back end Team Roster admin screens AND MSTW Schedules & Scoreboards is active. I believe simply visiting the Team Roster admin pages (any page) fixes this problem. (Please let me know if it doesn’t.)

I have patched this issue. If you pull the includes/mstw-tr-utility-functions.php file from the development tree, this problem is corrected there.

Finally, these messages were WARNINGS, not ERRORS (which “white screen” the site). While I work hard to eliminate such messages, they should not harm your site, because they should be disabled completely or directed to the debug.log file on a live site. Information on managing these messages is readily available on the web, including on shoalsummitsolutions.com.

MSTW CSV Exporter 1.2 Released

MSTW CSV Exporter 1.2 is now available. It is CRITICAL to upgrading Team Rosters from version 3.1.2 to version 4.0. New features include:

  • Version 1.2 provides the ability to export the MSTW Team Rosters (v3.2.1) data structures – Players and Teams – for import to MSTW Team Rosters v4.0. It allows player photos to be moved from site to site automagically in the import/export process (or not if you are upgrading Team Rosters on one site). See [the Team Rosters CSV Import man page](https://shoalsummitsolutions.com/tr-loading-csv-files/) for more information.
  • Exports MSTW Team Rosters v4.0 data for backup and data migration across websites.

NOTE: THE TEAM ROSTERS DATA STRUCTURES FOR PLAYERS AND TEAMS HAVE CHANGED IN VERSION 4.0. So if you plan to upgrade from version 3.1.2, PLEASE READ THE USERS MANUAL BEFORE UPGRADING. There are steps you will have to take in order to preserve your existing data.

Please see the MSTW CSV Exporter users manual at ShoalSummitSolutions.com for more information.

Team Rosters Update

Team Rosters version 4.0 is on schedule for a late spring release. This update has a few front end enhancements, but the focus is on ‘admin issues’, specifically integration other MSTW plugins and increased customization options.

I am making the following tutorials available to the MSTW mailing list as pre-release peek at version 4.0. They are a bit long, so you may want to read the text, save the email, and come back to the videos when you are upgrading to Team Rosters version 4.0. They will also be available to Gold Support Members on the shoalsummitsolutions.com Support -> Tutorials page.

Customizing Team Colors

There are three ways to customize the colors in the Team Rosters v4.0 plugin: the colors tab on the Settings admin page, writing custom CSS rules where the stylesheet can now be in the theme/child theme directory, and a new setting to automatically set the table colors from the MSTW Schedules & Scoreboards teams database.

Customizing Team Logos

There are three ways to customize the team logos (and default images when no player photo is found) in Team Rosters v4.0: use the logos in the MSTW Schedules & Scoreboards database, set the default logos in the plugin’s /images/default-images/ directory, or set the default logos in the theme or child theme’s /mstw-team-rosters-images/ directory (which you create).

Customizing the Single Player & Player Gallery Templates

The default Single Player and Player Gallery templates are located in the plugin’s /theme-templates/ directory. Usually, only some CSS modifications are required to make these templates “fit” in a theme. Occasionally, these templates require code modifications to meet a sites requirements. In version 4.0, the plugin’s default templates never need to be modified. Rather, one should create custom templates in the theme’s (or child theme’s) main directory. By doing so, the customizations are not overwritten when a plugin update is loaded. If a child theme is used, they are not overwritten by a theme update either.

MSTW Schedules & Scoreboards 1.3 Patch

There was a bug in Schedules & Scoreboards v1.3 that generates a fatal error when you access your dashboard. (You will NOT see if you have the MSTW CSV Exporter plugin installed.) It has been patched in version 1.3 WITHOUT a version change, and in the development trunk. If you have already installed version 1.3, simply delete it and re-install it. If you want to load the patch without deleting and re-installing the entire plugin, simply update the plugin’s mstw-ss-admin.php file in the /includes directory with the same file from the development trunk or the new version 1.3. Sorry for the inconvenience.

MSTW Schedules & Scoreboard v1.3

Single Game SliderVersion 1.3 of the Schedules & Scoreboards plugin was released today. It is largely a maintenance build, but it also provides a cool new feature for users/admins who write custom CSS rules for their site, and better control of home game styling.

  • The CSS stylesheet loading logic changed, so customizations can be loaded from a file separate from the plugin’s /css/mstw-ss-styles.css stylesheet. So your site’s custom styles can be stored separately from the plugin’s stylesheet, simplifying the plugin upgrade process. Learn how to utilize this new feature here.
  • Added CSS elements for home games to all widgets & shortcodes, which provide improved ability to customize the display of home games.
  • Schedule sliders displaying only one game now “slide” correctly. Fixed bug in the related JavaScript.
  • Added four team color settings on the Edit Team admin screen, which will be used in the next release of Team Rosters. (More to follow on this one.)
  • The Settings link on the Plugins screen now links to the correct location.
  • Removed some annoying PHP notices from the CDT widget. Please let me know if you come across PHP notices or warnings in the plugin.
  • HEY, wait a minute! I thought you were working on a really cool new Team Rosters release? Yup, I sure am. I reached the point where I needed to add the team color data fields, so I fixed the other issues ‘on the list’ while I was in there. Team Rosters is moving along with lots of cool new features, not to mention maybe one bug fix :). I’m still shooting for an early summer release. Look for a progress update in the next week or two.

    New Version of MSTW Team Rosters

    Cal Bears Gallery [shortcode]I got back into the MSTW Team Rosters plugin to answer a support question yesterday, and got a bit nauseous. It’s past time for a MAJOR overhaul to fix some problems, add some features that have been requested, and improve integration with the overall MSTW Framework.

    A couple of days ago a user asked on the WordPress forums about increased responsiveness of this plugin to better support mobile applications. That would certainly be nice, and I’ve thought about that issue with the entire MSTW plugin family. Here’s my thought. Tables are provided in the HTML spec for, well, data tables. They are intended to display many columns, and many rows, like say, a roster. Sure one could create a table entire with CSS that would do a reasonable job of adjusting to small screens. But it seems to me that would lose the informational content of a table. It doesn’t seem to make sense for a roster to become two or three columns with data fields hop-scotching their way down the screen. So I’m thinking about the following for small screens. First, restrict roster tables to two or three columns; maybe a photo, name, and number. They would still be tables, but they would fit on small screens. Then make the single player profiles much more responsive. They are not tables and should display their reasonably well on small screens. As for player galleries, those *could* be more responsive, but is it worth the effort is the single player profiles work well on small screens? Who wants a gallery that’s a single column of players? Hummm ….

    One thing that will happen is the plugin’s custom post types and custom taxonomies will get new names, which will prevent collisions with sports themes and other sports plugins. This means that when you upgrade to the next release, you will have to export your existing data to CSV files and import it back into the new plugin. The MSTW CSV Exporter plugin and the Team Rosters import function will both be updated to support this migration.

    SO, now’s the time to send me your suggestions for improvements and requests for new features that would make the plugin work better for you. You can contact me via the contact form on this site or e-mail me directly. [[email protected]] No promises, but the chances are low that I’ll add exactly what you need if you don’t tell me what that is. 🙂

    3 New Video Tutorials

    Three new video tutorials for the MSTW Schedules & Scoreboards plugin are now available to Gold Support members. Styling the Scoreboard Ticker, Styling the Schedule Slider, and Styling the Schedule Table walk you through creating custom CSS for individual scoreboards and schedules shortcode displays starting from the code snippets which are available for this purpose. Here’s a quick preview: