The online racing simulator
Updated on-site event entry system
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!
Attached images
entry_setup.png
entry_public.png
entry_list.png
entry_admin.png
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(Scawen) DELETED by Scawen : no longer needed
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. Smile
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 Smile 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 Smile 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.
Attached images
edit_season.png
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 Uhmm
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(MandulAA) DELETED by Scawen : bug reported and fixed
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(Scawen) DELETED by Scawen : bug reported and fixed
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

Updated on-site event entry system
(16 posts, started )
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