Hello League Administrators,

For a long time we have had a race entry system that can be enabled to allow people to sign up for league seasons or individual rounds. Although it has many features and could be useful, it has not been used very often, partly because of certain flaws and missing features.

Organisers who require participants to sign up would be more likely to use a forum thread or something on another website. The trouble with a forum thread is the need to copy and paste details for each participant. Until now, this was not helped by the on-site system, but now we have a CSV export to easily extract the entries into a spreadsheet. One of the benefits of a forum thread is that it seemed easier to contact the users about any errors in their entries. The on-site system didn't help with that either but now there is a simple button to send a personal message to any or all participants who have signed up to your league.

There were other issues too, for example the in-game sign-up link would take people directly to the sign-up page, without presenting them with any information to read. Now the link takes them to the round information page which has been improved and information and links are readily available. Navigation around the leagues section has been improved so visitors should be able to find all the info they need and links to forum threads and other websites if needed.

The entry form can be customised to include as many fields as you need (e.g. race number, real name, country, team, etc... whatever you want). These can be for individuals, or team entries are also supported, e.g. for endurance races, so for example you could allow 40 teams of up to 4 people each.

The entry data of anyone who has signed up are visible with a single click from the season or round pages (depending on whether you selected entry per season or per round) and the link can be posted anywhere.

List of sign-up features:

Additional administrators can be specified by the owner of the league
Set up a customised race entry format, for individual or team entries
Entries can be set to be for the whole season or for individual rounds
Round or season entries can be seen by anyone who visits the round or season page
Any number of required fields may be set, per team or per racer (e.g. name, country, number, etc)
For team-based entries, a minimum and maximum number of racers per team can be set
An opening and closing time for entries can be specified
There is an option for entries to require approval by an admin
Entries can be deleted by an admin (or the person who signed up)
The person who signed up can edit their entry at any time or remove or add team members
Admins can download a CSV file containing the info of all entrants, to paste into a spreadsheet
Admins can now send a message to any or all participants from the signup administration page

The attached images show an example of a single-entry (not team) per season (not per round) setup.

Further development:

I am working on other things now, but if there are simple features that are still missing for your purposes, or any more issues I should consider, I would like to hear about it. Maybe you need another type of data export, maybe there should be another link or option, or you have an idea to improve presentation.

Thank you for your support!

Screenshots in first post updated to show page updates including avatars, flags and info links.

For now, you can visit the signups page of my test league: https://www.lfs.net/leagues/22/season/1219/signup/view

One thing that springs to mind is that a number of leagues require high resolution skin submission since LFS doesn't support >1024px yet and/or to verify skins conform to regs before the race.
Being able to upload a skin file or link to an LFSW skin somehow so league admins can easily vet them and download a skin pack zip would be useful.

Otherwise, looks good at first glance 👍

Quote from Degats :

One thing that springs to mind is that a number of leagues require high resolution skin submission since LFS doesn't support >1024px yet and/or to verify skins conform to regs before the race.
Being able to upload a skin file or link to an LFSW skin somehow so league admins can easily vet them and download a skin pack zip would be useful.

Otherwise, looks good at first glance 👍

I think it should be link to that LFSW skin in that case, as Scawen recently added option to download information about signed up users in CSV-format, but that format doesn't support images being embed in there.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I think it may be possible to detect if the administrator has entered a field named 'Skin' which could then could be used as a special case to provide a download link for the skin and hopefully some info about which res is available.

I've added "Skin" field to my test season and maybe tomorrow I can try to make use of it.

Do you think this does the job for skins?
https://www.lfs.net/leagues/22/season/1219/signup/view

I can easily copy that over to round signups and the signup administration page. I'll also handle team skin (if a 'Skin' field is found in Team details instead of player details, which would be a good idea if all team members are sharing a car).


EDIT: Just fixed it, now it does a download with the correct filename, instead of just presenting an image with the wrong name. If there's a better way to do the http download, do let me know. This is done with a php file specific to this task and it can set whatever http headers are required.

EDIT2: Changed to view the skin in the browser but now with the correct filename in case if you decide to save it.

its ok

Looks good As Degats said, league admins would appreciate having a "Download all skins" feature.

Suggestion: when admin is adding those required fields for on-site signup, should there be a question where you ask are users/teams allowed/required to upload a skin? And if they choose yes, it will automatically add a field labeled "Skin" there for users to add their skin.

Because if I understood this correctly, that text field must have a label literally named "Skin" in order for that skin feature to work. I just don't want some admin name that field "Colour" which results them wondering why it's not working

Or if it's not possible, then maybe a helpful text indicating you should name that field as "Skin" if you want that skin feature to work.

Quote from Flame CZE :

Looks good As Degats said, league admins would appreciate having a "Download all skins" feature.

I'll have a look around for examples where Victor has done something similar and see if I can collect and zip up the skins and send them as a single download.

Quote from tankslacno :

Suggestion: ...

I've now added an essay to try to explain the fields below and what they are and what is meant by the Team details.

I've attached an image of the text here. Please let me know if anything is unclear, incomplete or wrong.

Quote from Scawen :

I've now added an essay to try to explain the fields below and what they are and what is meant by the Team details.

I've attached an image of the text here. Please let me know if anything is unclear, incomplete or wrong.

I just tested this with my season and tried that skin feature with your season. Looks good, though there could be one clarification: skin has to be uploaded beforehand and its name in the text field must begin with "[car abbrevation/mod ID]_" with no file extension included

Or maybe that could be displayed when user tries to sign up provided that Skin-field is present

Skin packs are now available. I think maybe it should only be for administrators but I have enabled it on the public page for now so you can see and test it. https://www.lfs.net/leagues/22/season/1219/signup/view

Quote from Scawen :

Skin packs are now available. I think maybe it should only be for administrators but I have enabled it on the public page for now so you can see and test it. https://www.lfs.net/leagues/22/season/1219/signup/view

Skinpacks for all might be fine too, so anyone wanting hi-res could download them. I've found doing the skinpacks for public useful when I've gone back to yonks ago for screenshots for promotional things.

I'm working on other things now but please do tell me whenever you think of any more features that could help, or anything good about forum-based signups that still isn't covered by the updated system.

I've allowed public access to the "Get CSV" function as well so people can see how that works without needing to set up a test league.

Quote from Scawen :

I'm working on other things now but please do tell me whenever you think of any more features that could help, or anything good about forum-based signups that still isn't covered by the updated system.

I've allowed public access to the "Get CSV" function as well so people can see how that works without needing to set up a test league.

Tested it with old seasons. It works well. One extra info I'd love to see in the CSV is the nationality from the profile. It is shown in the sign-up screen next to the license name already.

I've had a play with the new updates to leagues and there are a few features I'd like to see.

1. CSV agree Nationality would be nice there.
2. CSV also headers for columns would be a nice to have.
3. Ability for admins to edit a entry manually.
4. & 5. Notification to admins of any changes a drivers makes to their entry after it has been approved. Plus the ability to approve a change would be awesome!
6. Ability to temporarily close signups a certain time before a round and x time after a round completion. This may need to be a time stamp after event maybe?
7. Ability for car number to be tracked and not used more than once
8. Ability to reject a signup with a reason, giving the driver a chance to correct the details rather than going through the whole signup again.

CSV and skin pack updates are great!

I think they (not all of them) would be the only features holding us back from using it currently. Thanks!

Thanks Scawen

1) You can set country as a field for people to enter (of course, you can add any named field). But if you don't want people to type in their country, I guess I could add a separate CSV export option that includes country as listed on the forum.

2) How would that be done? is there a special format for that or is it like the first line of the CSV is just column headers?

3) Makes sense, though you could use the PM system to tell the person.

4) Do you mean simply an email to admins if someone edits their entry?

5) Starting to get too complicated now, the need to store in database the version before and after the change? Or do you mean more simply the entry loses its "APPROVED" status if they edit it?

6) I was thinking a manual close and open might be a better option.

7) You can use the PM system (although a number check on a a specifically named field could be possible).

8) You can use the PM system.


I find it a bit extreme that some of these are preventing you from using the system. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, don't really seem like reasons not to use the system as forum signups don't do that either.

To my mind that only leaves 4 and 6 as remaining advantages of the forum system that you have listed.

I could probably add some of these and would do so before the E-challenge if you would use it. But I did a big push recently as you know and it seems like you've left it a bit late to respond. Also it seems like something else might be preventing you from wanting to use it, because you haven't really listed much that should prevent you using it (if I added 4 and 6, for instance). EDIT: And maybe (5) if you just mean that editing an entry means it loses its "approved" status. I'd also look at some of the other ones.

Thanks for the response.

1. Ideally if it could be included by default. That way we have a standard country name etc so when we put it into our side we can easily translate it to flag images etc for tracker and so on.

2. No special format, just the first row of the CSV with the name of the field would be perfect. This just helps us import them into our spreadsheets and systems etc especially when different series have different columns/orders.

3. Agree. One I think we can see how it goes and report back following a season of using it

4. I think that would be in its simplest form yeah. Happy to see how it goes.

5. Maybe if a driver changes their entry (which is already approved), it can go to something like 'Approved - Changed' and then the admin can almost double approve. Agree getting complex though. Happy to see how we go as is for a first season and report back on that one too.

6. Yeah that works, that is how we do it now so saves complexity

7. Its not so much the notification of it but it saves admins having to chase people to change their number because they chose one which was already chosen. Nice to have, monitor manually for now as previous.

8. Okay

I said not all of them are holding us back. Probably worded incorrectly, apologise. These are suggestions that I noticed going through it and from experience what we receive via forum as you have asked for features which may help.

Notifications of changes to entries is one thing which may be more of an important thing for us but only time will tell. As I say happy to give it a go for a season and feed back.

Other features as mentioned are more nice to haves. I unfortunately have been extremely busy with real life things lately and last night was my only opportunity to look through it following a prompt from Pete and Maikl. I received a message asking if we can use the entry system this morning after I send my message here.

Noticed your edits. 5 yeah, that could be a good option to try with notification to admins of a change. Would be less complex.

To be clear, I could look at some today and get them sorted, if it would actually go into use for the E-challenge.

I've heard a couple of times that people say the forum thread itself can make the event seem alive. It seems like you could get the same effect with a sort of news thread and do a daily post each time more people have signed up, linking to the signup page. Or maybe there are better ideas.

It does seem like just falling back to the forum-based signup at this point would be quite sad, rejecting the new system without even giving it a try, when I am quite willing to add a few features, on the same day you request them.

Sorry, I wrote previous post without knowing you had posted!

I'll have a look this morning. I think they mostly look like quite small things and could be quickly done.

I'm happy to commit for us to use it for E Challenge and then feed back.

That was a concern that it would loose the momentum as being less in your face about new posts on a forum thread. However it is something we can give a try and your suggestions of keep the thread going manually. It is just something to keep a eye on for and plan marketing around that fact.

Stuck in the old ways is hard to get out of agree, so willing to give it a go.

Well thank you very much and I hope I haven't been too annoying pressurising you to do it. I will look at some this morning and will keep supporting it as you go. For anyone concerned, this will not stop me working on the tyre physics this afternoon.

I understand it's an experiment and I thank you for making that experiment real.

EDIT: I'll do the country export of CSV as one of the first things and look at user-editing removing approved status, and sending an email to all admins when a change is made. Maybe, to avoid email spam, an email like that is only made, when an "approved" entry is edited and becomes no longer approved?

Thanks Scawen. Appreciate your work on this. Yeah agree with the point about avoiding email spam, only notification for approved entries. Thanks

Right, first thing I had to do this morning was some essential maintenance (gutter clearing). The rain and hail brought more moss down.

I've had a bit of a fight with some php code but now the season signups are updated so admins of a league that is set to require approval of entries get a new email if:

1) There is a new entry
2) An entry that has been approved, is now edited

In case (2) the entry is no longer marked as 'approved'.

I've made it clearer to see on the admin pages if an entry requires approval.

I'll continue to look at more things now.


I know Viperakecske and some others will be frustrated that I'm not working on Tyre physics this afternoon but I'd really appreciate if they can keep out while I do a few more things this afternoon to make the league entry system good enough to be used for a high quality league. The idea will be to get on with the tyres in the morning. So please leave me in peace.