Version 1.4.1
November 2003
Whether you downloaded the software from our Web site or received it in the mail, you should have a file called RaceBase.prc on your desktop or laptop computer (on the hard disk or on a floppy diskette). If you have a file named RaceBase.ZIP, that is not the proper file; that's a compressed or "zipped" file that you must uncompress with standard "unzipping" software (which we do not provide).
If you do not have the file RaceBase.prc, you cannot proceed. If you do have UnDupe.prc, here's how to install it on your handheld unit:
Using MacPac Version 2: Select the HotSync Manager from the "Instant Palm" menu on the upper right of your menu bar. In the HotSync menu, select Install. Click on the Add To List button. Locate and select the file RaceBase.prc, and click Add File. The next time you HotSync your Palm, the program will be downloaded.
Using MacPac Version 1: Run the program InstallApp. Click on the Select button, set the List Files of Type to All Files, locate and select the file RaceBase.prc, and click Open. Now click on the Install button. The next time you HotSync your Palm, the program will be downloaded.
Using the Install software that came with RaceBase: As part of the download or on this diskette or CD you should see a program named Install in the same folder as the RaceBase software. Double-click on Install, and it will copy all of the files to a new RaceBase Software folder in your Palm folder on your computer, and at the same time will perform all the steps to install the software in your Palm, except for the final step of performing an actual HotSync. When you do your next HotSync, the software will be installed in your Palm.
If the procedure above does not work for some reason, try the "manual" procedures described in the next few paragraphs; if those don't seem to apply to your setup, please consult the manual that came with your handheld device (Palm, Handspring Visor, Symbol SPT1500, etc.), which contains instructions on installing applications into the handheld.
Using current Palm desktop software: Start your Palm desktop software. Click on the Install button. Check to make sure the User name displayed at the top of the Palm Install Tool window which appears is the user name of the Palm handheld device on which you want to install the software; if not, select the correct user name. Now click on Add. Using the file browser which appears, locate and select the RaceBase.prc file, and click Open. Now click on the Done button, and then on OK. The next time you HotSync your Palm, the program will be downloaded.
Using old Pilot desktop software: Run the program INSTAPP.EXE (it may be displayed simply as INSTAPP, depending on how you have Windows configured), which is located in the C:/PALM folder. Click on the Browse button, locate and select the RaceBase.prc file, and click Open. Now click on the Install button. The next time you HotSync your Palm, the program will be downloaded.
From the Applications window on your Palm, look for the icon labelled RaceBase which looks like this:
When you start the application, you'll see this screen:
If you have registered the software and obtained a serial number from Stevens Creek Software, tap on the word *Unlicensed* and you'll see this screen:
Use Graffiti (or the on-screen keyboard) to enter your serial number; when you're done, tap on the OK button. If you enter an incorrect number, the software will let you know. If necessary, tap on the Cancel button to dismiss the Enter Serial Number screen. You can use RaceBase without a serial number (i.e., without registering the software) in a "trial mode," but in that mode you'll only be able to score a maximum of 20 runners.
If you have purchased the site license version of RaceBase, the Name field in the Enter Serial Number window shown above will be underlined and will accept data entry. You should first enter the name of the licensing organization in the Name field, and then enter the supplied serial number in the Serial Number field. Of course you'll need to do this on all Palms on which you are installing your copy of RaceBase.
If you run into a problem, this probably means that when you provided your Palm
username to Stevens Creek Software, you did so incorrectly. The name is shown in
the Enter Serial Number window as shown above. Make sure to write it down
exactly (including case, i.e., whether the letters are upper-case letters like THIS
or lower-case letters like this) and email
it to Stevens Creek Software technical support and wait for a new serial number
to be provided to you.
RaceBase is the scoring component of a number of software programs which together comprise PocketTimer Pro. There are three essential components for race scoring: a list of categories (age groups, teams, etc.) to be scored, a list of racers which includes not only name and other personal information but also the key race information - bib#, sex, age, and category, and finally a list of times and bib#'s representing the results of the race.
The list of categories is contained within RaceBase itself, although, as we'll see in the next chapter, the actual list is created in the standard Palm MemoPad application.
For the list of racers, RaceBase uses the standard Palm Address Book application. Fortunately, in addition to the "usual" information (name, address, phone number, email, etc.), Palm provided four "custom" fields in the Address Book which can be used for any purpose. RaceBase uses those custom fields to hold the specialized racer information - bib#, category, sex and age (which to save space are combined into a single field, e.g., "M44"), and individual time handicap (if any).
The times for RaceBase to analyze are recorded by our other application, PocketTimer. In most cases you'll be able to record most (often 95%) of the time/bib# pairs correctly as the racers finish, but of course you'll want 100% accuracy in the times before you do the scoring. To get this, you need to review the list of captured time/bib# pairs vs. the tags torn off from the bib#'s at the finish (usually collected on long strings), and edit the recorded information (correcting erroneously recorded numbers, inserting missed numbers, or even deleting numbers which don't correspond to any tag). Once this is done, you can proceed with the scoring.
Some racers are less "dense" than others; ultrarunning events, for example, may only see one finisher every few minutes. For races like this, steps 8-10 above will probably not be relevant, and you'll find that it is entirely possible while still timing the race to switch from PocketTimer to RaceBase, perform steps 11 and even 12 above (analyzing and printing out results), and then return to PocketTimer (step 7) in order to record the next finisher. Step 11 (analysis and scoring) will be virtually instantaneous in cases like this, so you only need to be familiar with the speed of your printer in order to judge how much time you'll need between racers in order to print out results.
If you want the fastest possible results (placings for awards), without worrying about the accuracy of recorded times, you can situate an additional Palm unit not at the finish line itself, but at the end of the finish chute where the tags are collected. A person at this point can record 100% of the bib tags while the race is proceeding, with times that are approximately (but obviously not exactly) correct. At some point in the race, this unit can stop (either temporarily or permanently) performing this task, and be used (starting at step 9 above) to quickly score and print out results for the race, while the race is still proceeding and being timed "officially" by the unit at the finish line. This is also a great way to uncover problems with the results before the official awards ceremony, because you can often spot racers who are way out of line with others in their category who will turn out to be people listed in the database as female who are really male, incorrect ages, etc.
Note that you can do a practice run quite easily. Let's say the assigned Bib #'s for pre-registered runners range from 1 to 125. Go through all the steps, start PocketTimer, let it run for a bit, and then randomly select numbers from 1-125 and tap the Record button. Now proceed with the race scoring, printout, etc., to make sure you understand how it all fits together.
There are several options in configuring RaceBase. Tap on the Menu button on your Palm, tap on the Options menu, and then tap on Settings:
The Settings window will appear:
The options you have are explained here:
Distance: This is the distance of the race, which will affect only the printout of the pace in the final results. If the pace is a meaningless number for your race (because it's a triathlon or other multistage race, or for some other reason), set the distance to zero, and the pace printout will be eliminated. The units for distance can be set to miles, kilometers, yards, meters, or feet.
Pace Units: Pace units can be set to minutes per mile, minutes per kilometer, miles per hour, kilometers per hour, minutes per 100 yards, or minutes per 100 meters. Again, this doesn't affect the actual results, only the printout or display of the pace.
Scoring: There are two completely different types of scoring supported by RaceBase - Road, which sets normal road race scoring, and XC, which configures the software for standard cross-country scoring. In road race scoring, entrants are scored according to all the different age groups (or other categories like Clydesdale, etc.), and in addition by overall placing for all entrants (both sexes) and overall by sex as well. In cross-country scoring, the "category" of a racer is no longer their age group, but rather their team name, and there are only two sets of scores - individual (overall results for all racers), and team, in which the places of the top five runners for each team are added together to give the score for the team, and only the top seven runners for each time count for purposes of placing. You'll want to set this setting before the race starts, although if you make a mistake, you can change it and re-score the race with no affect.
Name of Event: The name of the event is simply a "label" which appears on the top of the results when they are output (either sent to a desktop computer or printed). The name of the event can be a maximum of 31 characters long.
Event Date: The date is likewise simply a "label" which appears on the output. It is a standard Palm "date selector", which means you just tap on it and select the correct date from the pop-up calendar.
Separator for Data Export: When the data are transferred to the Palm Memo Pad (from where you can HotSync it to a desktop computer), or sent out the serial port directly to another computer (see Chapter 7), the different columns of information (name, time, place, etc.) can be separated either by tabs or commas, whichever is most useful for the software (e.g., Excel) into which you will be importing the results on the other computer.
Cross-country races involve two concepts - the number of racers who "score" for any time, which is usually 5, and the number of racers who "place" for the purposes of displacing runners from other teams, which is usually 7. When you tap the XC setting in the Settings window (whether it was already selected or whether it wasn't), a new window will pop up:
This window allows you to adjust the number of "scorers" and "placers" to different numbers, as is sometimes appropriate for very small races. Teams with fewer than the "#scoring runners" will not be scored in the team results.
For a road race, a Category is the individual grouping into which racers will be divided for purposes of awards. An example might be "M30-34", which would represent male runners of ages 30 through 34. Although many categories will include a sex, as in this example, some will not, e.g. "Team" or "Corporate Relay", etc. In cross-country races, "categories" are much simpler - they are simply the name of the team, e.g., "Homestead."
In order to make it easier to enter lists of categories on the desktop, and also to facilitate having multiple sets of categories for different races that can be quickly loaded, you do not enter categories directly into RaceBase. Instead, you use the standard Palm Memo Pad application to create the list of categories in a separate memo. Go the the Memo Pad application (you can do this either on the desktop, and HotSync the results to the handheld unit, or do it directly on the handheld unit, as you prefer) and press New to start a new memo. The memo you create will simply be a list of the category names, like this:
M15-19 F15-19 M20-24 F20-24 M25-29 ...
Once you have entered all the categories into a memo, check them over twice, because if what you enter here does not match the information entered for each racer in your registration database (described in the next chapter), the race scoring will not work. That is, you can't have "M20-24" in one place and "M20-25" in another, or even "M 20-24" in another (that is, with a space between the M and the 20). So make sure you read over the list of categories more than once and be abolutely sure it's correct. Once you have, you need to copy the list to the clipboard. Using the Edit menu in the Memo Pad application, first select Select All, then select Copy to copy the contents of your memo to the clipboard. Now tap on Applications and return to the RaceBase application. Once there, tap on the Menu button, tap on the Import menu, and then tap on Categories:
You'll see this screen:
The top half of the screen will show you a list of your categories and their associated handicaps (which will be discussed later). If, as usual, there are more than five categories, scroll arrows at the lower right will let you scroll through them.
If this is the first time you're setting up categories, the top part of the screen will be empty. Tap on Add from Clipboard at the bottom, and the categories on the clipboard will be added to the list. If there are old categories from a previous race, you can tap on Clear first to get rid of them.
When you're done, tap on Done.
Often there is more than one race being run at the same location. If the races are large enough, you'll undoubtedly want to have separate Palms to time and score each race separately. If the races are smaller, though, it's perfectly reasonable to use one Palm to handle them both simultaneously. RaceBase is designed with the capability to score more than one race simultaneously, such as a 10K and a 5K race run with a single start and finish line. If you want to do this, to begin with you'll need separate names for the categories of the different races, such as "F25-29, 5K" and "F25-29, 10K". This would be enough to produce the correct results for each category, but if you were to display the overall results, of course the people running the 5K would occupy all the top spots! Obviously, this isn't what you want. A similar situation can occur with relay teams in triathlons, if you don't want the relay teams to show up on the overall placings and displace individual triathletes. Likewise, when you have a wheelchair category in a 10K race, you'll want to treat that category as a "separate race" so that the wheelchair racers don't show up as the overall winners.
To use RaceBase to score more than one race simultaneously, each category
not only has a name (like "M40-49") but also has an associated number,
1 through 7, which indicates the race with which that category is associated. Thus
in our example of the simultaneous 5K and 10K with wheelchair racers, we might actually
have four "races" associated with different categories. "F25-29, 5K"
and similar entries might be in race "1", "FWheelchair, 5K" might
be in race "2", "F25-29, 10K" might be in race "3"
and "FWheelchair, 10K" would be race "4".
When you set up the categories, you'll add a second column of numbers, following
the name of the category, separated by a tab, like this:
M15-19, 5K 1 F15-19, 5K 1 M15-19, 10K 2 F15-19, 10K 2 M20-24, 5K 1 F20-24, 5K 1 M20-24, 10K 2
When you copy and paste this list of categories and races into RaceBase (see the picture of the Category screen above), note the bottom half of the screen. This part of the screen basically affects the scoring of the race, which will be discussed later. For the purpose of setting up categories, however, you'll want to know that if the All Racers box is checked, all the categories will be displayed on the top half of the screen. If the Race # box is checked, then depending on which number is set (1 through 7), only the categories associated with that race will be displayed. If you are scoring more than one race at a time, you should definitely view the categories for each race in this way, to verify that you have things set up correctly.
In addition to having an associated "race," a category may also have an associated start time. With our timing software (PocketTimer), there is only one "race clock." However, in some races some racers (such as wheelchair racers) might start a few minutes before the official time. In other races (typically triathlons), different age groups start at regular intervals behind the first group ("wave starts"). RaceBase can handle these situations, by associating a handicap time with each category. The handicap time is subtracted from the recorded time, so it will be positive for the case of groups who start after the race clock, or negative for the case of groups starting ahead of the race clock.
To handle this situation, we add a third column of numbers to our list of categories when we set them up, this one containing a time, again separated by a tab from the previous column. Here's an example of a race where the females start 5 minutes later than the males:
M15-19 1 0:00 F15-19 1 5:00 M20-24 1 0:00 F20-24 1 5:00 M25-29 1 0:00 ...
Note that although you could always list a category as being part of race #1 with a handicap of 0:00, if there is only one race and only one start time, the last two columns are optional, and can be omitted for simplicity.
In some longer races such as marathons and ultras, some slower runners are given permission to start before the main field. Unlike the wheelchair racers, however, who are all part of a category which is all starting with the same start time, the "early starters" in a marathon or ultra are members of categories whose "official" start time is later. To score these racers properly, they need to be given individual handicaps, so that their headstart can be added to their recorded time at the end of the race. This is accomplished using the individual handicap field of the racer database. As with category handicaps (discussed in the previous section), individual handicap times will ultimately be subtracted from the recorded time, so an early starter will have a negative handicap, e.g., "-30:00" for someone who starts a half-hour early.
Three things that might be helpful to know are the Graffiti strokes for dash, tab and colon. To do a dash with graffiti, tap the stylus (to get into "special character" mode) and then make a simple right-stroke. To make the tab, again you tap the stylus to get into special character mode, and then make an upside-down L, that is, an up-stroke followed by a rightward stroke. The colon is actually optional in setting up the handicaps, but as a human being you might find it disconcerting to read "500" and think "5 minutes 0 seconds", so we suggesting putting the colon in. The Graffiti character for colon again requires that you tap the stylus to get into special character mode, and then make a quick down-stroke followed by an up-stroke. All three of these characters - dash, tab, and colon - can be made on either side of the graffiti area (that is, in the letter area on the left or in the numeric area on the right).
We'll start by repeating information from Chapter 2: For the list of racers, RaceBase uses the standard Palm Address Book application. Fortunately, in addition to the "usual" information (name, address, phone number, email, etc.), Palm provided four "custom" fields in the Address Book which can be used for any purpose. The current version of RaceBase uses those custom fields to hold the specialized racer information - bib#, category, sex and age (which to save space are combined into a single field, e.g., "M44"), and individual handicaps (if any).
Although it isn't necessary, it may facilitate your efforts at data entry if you rename the custom fields. This will make it that much clearer to the person doing the data entry what information goes where, and lessen the liklihood of mistakes. Both on the Palm desktop software and in the handheld unit, you'll find a menu item in the Address Book application called Rename Custom Fields. Rename "Custom 1" as "Bib #". For regular road race usage, rename "Custom 2" as "Age Group" or "Category" if you prefer; for cross-country usage, rename "Custom 2" as "Team". Rename "Custom 3" as "SexAge" (for cross-country usage, you can ignore this if you prefer), and rename "Custom 4" as "H.C." (or something similar).
Most of your registration will be done using the Palm desktop application (or other database; see below). When you open the application, and select the Address Book module, you add someone to the database by pressing the New button:
For pre-registration, you can fill in as much of this information as you like. The only absolutely essential fields, the ones which are used by RaceBase for scoring, are the Bib#, the Age Group, and the Sex/Age (the latter for road races only). Obviously, you'll really want the last name and first name as well. For the printout and display of results, RaceBase will also use the City and State information. One of the companion applications, Race Announcer, will also use the Country (if it's filled in; only do so if it's "another" country), and the Note field, where you can store special announcer's notes about the racer ("Last year's winner", "President of the company sponsoring the race", etc.). RaceBase itself, however, pays no attention to the Note field (or to the Country).
It will obviously be simpler if you are able to assign and enter Bib#'s at the same time as the registrant is entered into the database. If you can't, you'll need to go through the database later and edit (update) the entries one at a time, adding the Bib #'s, which will be a slower process.
Note that when you're done with data entry for this person, you can press either the OK button (lower right in this, Macintosh, example) or the New button (left of center). If you have a series of names to enter, use the New button; this will save you extra steps and time for each one.
For race day entry, you'll almost certainly want to limit yourself just to name (first and last, maybe even last if you're really pressed for time), bib#, age group, and sex/age.You can fill in the remainder of the information later.
For smaller races, or if you have limited race day entries, you can of course enter this information directly on the handheld unit (the Palm). Your experience will vary depending on the skill of the person performing data entry, but our experience is that a person reasonably well acquainted with Graffiti can enter 2 racers per minute into the Palm. The time available to do so will be from the time race day registration begins, up to the time that the first racer finishes the race (which obviously depends on the length of the race). If that time isn't enough to add the entries to the Palm, then the entries will need to be entered into a laptop or desktop computer onsite and downloaded into the Palm. Note that you can make entries in BOTH locations, because of the HotSync capability of the Palm, which means that with one laptop and one handheld unit you'll have an estimated 5 racer per minute data entry capability on race morning.
You can maximize throughput for race day data entry by knowing these three facts: First, category comparison is case-insensitive (lower-case and upper-case letters are treated identically). So you don't need to worry if you get that wrong. Second, and more importantly, when RaceBase matches the category entered for a particular racer against the list of categories, it will consider that a match has occured if the racer's category starts with the same letters and numbers as that of one of your categories. What does this mean? It means that if you have a category "M40-49", when you enter information for an individual racer on race day, you only need to enter "M4" (or "m4"). What if you have two categories, "M40-44" and "M45-49"? In this case, "M4" would match the first one that it finds in the list of categories (presumably "M40-44" if they are in order). For racers in the "M45-49" category, you'll have to enter (at a minimum) "M45", but you can still enter "M4" for those in the "M40-44" category. Of course, if you find any of this confusing, you can always enter the entire category name, but obviously that is more time-consuming, and on race day, time counts.
The third shortcut is that, under some cases, you can omit the "SexAge"
field entirely, leaving only the Bib# and Age Group/Category as essential fields.
The "SexAge" field is used for two purposes - to sort (and score) racers
by sex, and to print out their age on the output for informative purposes only. If
you don't enter the SexAge field, RaceBase will look at the AgeGroup/Category
field for that information. If, as is true in almost all cases, the Age Group/Category
field starts with M or F (for Male and Female, as in "M40-49" or "F30-35"),
that letter is used to establish the sex of the racer. If the Age Group/Category
field contains a number (as in the same examples), RaceBase will use that
number (the first of the two) to create an "approximate age" for the racer.
This means, for example, that if you don't enter a "SexAge" for a racer,
and the Category is "M40-49" (which itself could have been abbreviated
"M4" as described in the previous paragraph), then the racer will be listed
as a 40-year-old male on the printout.
Note that if the Age Group/Category does NOT conform to these restrictions (for example,
the category is "Wetsuit" or "Clydesdale" or "Relay"
or something else), then the sex and age of the racer will be indeterminate, so for
racers in those categories only you'll definitely want to enter the "SexAge"
information. But for the vast majority of racers it won't be necessary, so if time
is of the essence, you can eliminate it.
One feature of the Palm that many users aren't familiar with is the built-in "shortcuts." This feature lets you define certain character strings which are "expanded" automatically. For example, if you enter the "shortcut" key followed by the letters "scs", it might immediately become "Stevens Creek Software." The best use for this feature for race registration would probably be for entering cities (or perhaps categories, especially for cross-country races where "categories" are really "team names"). For example, let's say that in your race, 50% of the race day registrants will come from three cities - San Jose, Los Gatos, and Cupertino. Rather than repeatedly entering those names, you could create a shortcut "j" for San Jose, "g" for Los Gatos, and "c" for Cupertino. Now to enter the city, you first enter the "shortcut" character (which is basically a script lower-case "l"), and then either "j", "g", or "c". Obviously this is a LOT shorter (and quicker) to do. For more details on creating and using Palm shortcuts, please consult your Palm manual.
Ultimately, the names of your race registrants do have to end up in the Palm Address Book on your handheld unit that is used for timing and scoring. But it isn't actually necessary to enter them originally that way, either into the handheld unit or even into the desktop version of the Palm Address Book. The Palm Address Book can import tab-delimited or comma-separated values which have been saved (exported) by virtually any other database or PIM (Personal Information Manager) you may be using to do race registration. If you do this, you can save time by limiting the amount of information transferred. Even if your "real" registration database has street addresses, phone numbers, etc., when you export data from that database into a tab-delimited or comma-separated text file, limit the export to the key information - first name, last name, city (and state if different from the "norm"), bib#, age group, and sex/age. The export step will go more quickly, importing the data into the Palm Address Book on the desktop will go more quickly, and downloading the data to the handheld unit (HotSync'ing) will go more quickly as well.
If you do go this route, it goes without saying that you must test out the export/import/download cycle before race day to make sure you know what you're doing!
Many people run series of races, and the same people show up week after week. RaceBase includes a feature to help you take advantage of this. You don't want to delete the people from your database every week and then re-enter them, but the chances are that they won't have the same Bib# each week, and more importantly, you don't want someone with last week's Bib# still in your database to be erroneously scored in the next race.
RaceBase provides you with the tool to deal with this in its Import menu:
When you select Set Bib#'s to 0, RaceBase will go through your Address Book, find all entries whose Custom 1 field (possibly renamed "Bib#"; it doesn't matter) is a number greater than zero, and sets that entry to zero. For technical reasons involving the speed of the operation as well as limiting the size of the RaceBase software, RaceBase will not actually eliminate the number entirely, but will instead substitute a "0" for each digit in the number. Thus someone who was number "123" will now show up as number "000". Now for the next race, you can simply go through and enter the new Bib#.
One thing you cannot do with RaceBase as it is currently configured it to register people for more than one race at once. If you had to do this, you could make multiple copies of the entry in your Address Book, and assign different categories (that's Palm categories, not RaceBase categories) to each one, like "RaceReg1" and "RaceReg2". Then you'll be able to easily access race #1 by just displaying the entries in category "RaceReg1", and set those Bib #'s.
The "key" for RaceBase is that the bib# field must contain a number. As a result, you can actually use your Palm Address Book to contain information about not only the racers but also your friends, relatives, and business contacts. You can even use the "Custom 1" field to contain information about those people, if you need to, just as long as that information isn't a number. When RaceBase looks through the Address Book to find the information about your racers, it will simply ignore any entry whose Bib# (Custom field #1) is not a number.
When the race is over, you'll probably want to remove the race registration people from your database. RaceBase provides you with the tool to do this in its Import menu:
When you select Purge Racers, RaceBase will go through your Address Book, find all entries whose Custom 1 field (possibly renamed "Bib#"; it doesn't matter) is a number greater than zero, and deletes them from the database (they'll be deleted from the desktop the next time you HotSync, as with any other changes you make to your Palm Address Book).
You can actually accomplish the same thing on your desktop in a different way if you were careful when you entered the racers in your Address Book. Before you enter any racers in the database, create a new "Category" in your Address Book called "RaceReg" (or something similar) and make sure you select that category before you start entering batches of racers (when you enter racers in batches, the category that is selected before you start adding them will be automatically applied to new entries). Now when you're done with those people, you can display the RaceReg category in your desktop Address Book, select all of them with the mouse, and then use the Cut button to delete them all at one time.
Before we "put it all together" and discuss the step by step operation of scoring a race, we'll discuss the various elements which make up the main screen or window of RaceBase.
If you press the Menu button on the lower left of your Palm screen, you'll see three menus: Options, Import, and Export. The Export menu will be discussed in Chapter 8, but here are the other two, and brief explanations of each option:
Score Race: Analyze all the data and score the results. In principal, the race is scored automatically whenever all the data (catagories, name, and times) are in place, or when any changes (e.g., changing from road race scoring to cross-country scoring) are made which affect the scoring, so that in principal this menu item will never be needed. It's there just in case - if there's a time at which you think maybe the scoring hasn't happened but it should have, select this menu item.
Settings: Adjust the settings, as discussed in Chapter 3.
Database Info: If you want to see how many elements are in each of the sets of data, select this menu item and you'll see a display like this:
This kind of information can be very helpful in alerting you to potential problems.
Clear All Data: This menu item operates in two steps. First, after giving you a chance to confirm your intentions, it will clear the names and times from the internal RaceBase databases (not from the databases where the "real" data resides, the Address Book and PocketTimer respectively). Then, separately, again after giving you a chance to confirm or cancel, it will clear the categories you have set up. The first step (clearing names and times) might be something you would do after doing a practice scoring of a "pretend" race, or perhaps after scoring the race part way through. The second step (clearing categories) would only be necessary if you were really "starting over" with a whole new race with new categories. Note that you can also clear the categories in the Category window, as discussed in Chapter 4.
About RaceBase: Display information about RaceBase - the version number and release date of the version you are using - and about Stevens Creek Software - web, email, and phone contact information.
Import Categories: Go to the Category window to allow viewing/reviewing/setup of categories. At some points in the process, the button at the bottom of the screen (as it does above) will read Setup Cats; if that's the case, the button will do exactly the same thing as this menu item. In addition to setting up the categories themselves, this menu item will also allow you to change the conditions by which the race is scored, a subject we'll return to below.
Import Names: Search through the Address Book, find all the entries with a Bib# which is greater than zero, and import them into the internal database of RaceBase. At some points in the process, the button at the bottom of the screen will read Get Names; if that's the case, the button will do exactly the same thing as this menu item. You'll need to re-import names any time you make a relevant change to the Address Book, either because you have added new names to the Address Book, or if you have corrected any information there (perhaps you had to change the sex or age of some racer whose information was entered erroneously).
Import Times: Read the PocketTimer database of stored times and bib #'s, matching them up (using the bib#) against the database of racers. When finished, the race is automatically scored (sorted by categories).At some points in the process, the button at the bottom of the screen will read Get Times; if that's the case, the button will do exactly the same thing as this menu item. You'll want to re-import times whenever there have been changes to the PocketTimer database, either because you have recorded new times, or if you have edited the bib#'s stored there using the tear tags as a reference.
Modify Address Book: This is just a label, not an actual menu item that does anything. The two menu items which appear below it, Purge Racers and Set Bib#'s to 0, were discussed in the previous chapter.
The picture above shows the main screen you'll be seeing in RaceBase. The features you see are explained here:
Info Button: When you tap on the information icon in the upper right, RaceBase will attempt to determine what stage of the process you have reached, and will give you advice on what to do next.
Column Labels: There are two sets of column labels - the ones shown here, and a different set for cross-country team scoring which displays Name, Score, and Pl(ace). When individual (not team) results are displayed on screen, the four column labels shown above act as buttons which you can use to sort the displayed results by different means. By default, the results are sorted by time (or place, which is basically identical to sorting by time). When you tap on Bib#, the results are sorted by Bib#, which makes a very nice way to see who has finished and who hasn't. Tap on Name and the results are sorted in alphabetical order by last name, which can be a nice way to print out results (discussed later). And tap on Time or Pl. and the results are sorted by time or place. An additional feature of the sorting is that if you tap twice in a row on the same label, the sort order is reversed. So if, for example, you tap on Bib#, the results are sorted by Bib#, with the lowest on top and the highest on bottom. Tap again on Bib# and the highest Bib#'s will be on top, the lowest on bottom. Tap again and the lowest will be on top again.
To PocketTimer: If you have a small event with finishers sparsely spaced, as happens for example in many ultrarunning events, you can actually do scoring and printout of results in between recording finishers. The Timer button is provided to take you immediately back to PocketTimer, rather than having to tap the Applications button on your Palm, find the PocketTimer application, and tap that; as such it enables you to more quickly respond when you see a new racer approaching the finish line. If the PocketTimer application is not installed on this Palm, this button will not appear.
Guide Button: The Guide Button is a button whose label (and corresponding action) will change, depending on what you have done. When there are no categories setup yet, the label will read Setup Cats, as it does in the example above, and tapping it will have the same effect as selecting the Import Categories menu. When there are categories, but no names have yet been read from the Address Book, the button will read Get Names, and tapping it will have the same effect as selecting the Import Names menu. And finally, where there are categories and names, the button will read Get Times, and tapping it will have the same effect as selecting the Import Times menu. After the times have been imported, the button will read Print, to allow you to print the results. Sometimes the Guide Button may not be appropriate to what you want to do; if that's the case, just use the menus to accomplish your desired task.
Finder: The finder consists of a button labelled Find and a field in which you enter your search criterion. If you enter a number, and tap the Find button, RaceBase will search through your recorded information and try to find the racer with that Bib#. If that bib# is found, the display on screen will be scrolled to show you that racer. If you enter one or more letters and tap the Find button, RaceBase will search for a racer whose last name begins with those letters, and will scroll to that point in your list.
A step-by-step overview of the entire operation of registration, category setup, time recording, and scoring was found in Chapter 2. Here we'll just review the scoring aspects of the software, and elaborate on your various options. We assume that categories have been setup, that the Address Book contains all the racer information, and that the PocketTimer software has recorded all the times (or some fraction of them) and the bib#'s have been reviewed vs. the captured tags to ensure their accuracy.
At this point (you may have already done this too, prior to scoring) you'll either tap the Get Names button on the bottom of the screen or select Import Names from the menu and the names and other racer information will be read in from the Address Book.
Before you read the times, you may want to review the criteria by which the race will be scored. Tap on Categories in the Import menu, and pay attention to the bottom half of the screen:
In most cases, you'll have All Racers checked, which means that when the times are imported and the race scored, the software will pay attention to all the racers in the database as it matches up the times and performs the scoring. In some cases, you may have assigned particular race numbers. For example, perhaps you run a series of races, and last week you used numbers 200-345, and this week you assigned numbers 400-590. Just to make sure there isn't anyone left in your database from last week, if you set to Score Race Using Bib #'s from 400-590, only those racers will be used, so any old Bib#'s left in your database will simply be ignored. The final option, discussed in the Categories chapter, occurs if you are scoring multiple races simultaneously. In this case, check the last box, and select the race you want to score first. Later, you can return to this screen, tap another race #, and when you tap Done to return to the main screen that new race will be automatically scored.
Once you have got the names ready and the type of scoring you want to do set, tap on the Get Times button if it appears on screen, or select Import Times from the menu. You'll see this screen:
In most cases, the pair of boxes checked in the example above will be the most appropriate - import All Times, and Clear existing times first. If you have already scored part of the race (the first half of the finishers, for example, then the other pair might be appropriate - Append to existing times, and only import times whose times lie between certain limits. For example, if the first 40 minutes of finishers have been imported and scored already, you can check the second box and import only times From 40:00 to 1:20:00. The software will still re-score the entire race, but limiting the times which are imported does make the step of importing the times themselves go faster.
There are two other options on the Import Times screen you may wish to use. If, when importing times from PocketTimer, RaceBase finds more than one time listed for a particular bib#, you can instruct the software to use either the shortest time or the longest time. This can be of use in a two-lap race, or in cases where there is a two-person relay where both racers cross the finish line. Finally, another situation which may occur is that there are times recorded in PocketTimer which have either no bib#, or a bib# which doesn't correspond to anyone in the racer database. If you check the Ignore times of unknown racers box, those times will be ignored; otherwise, they will be scored as unknown racers, appearing in the overall placings but not in the category placings (since an unknown racer will not have a known category).
When all the times have been read, RaceBase will automatically score the race, that is, adjust the times for both category (e.g., wave start, if any) and individual (if any) handicaps, sort the racers by overall finish, age group placing, team scoring (for cross-country races), etc. The results will be displayed on screen, like this:
You'll see all the results as shown here; if there are more results than fit on the screen, scroll arrows in the lower right corner of the screen will let you scroll up and down the results. On the top line is the category selector. In this example, it reads Overall, which means that all finishers will be displayed. In road race scoring, you can use this pop-up menu to select from each of your different categories ("M40-49", etc.), as well as four additional choices - Overall, Overall Male, Overall Female, and Uncategorized. The first three are self-explanatory; the last choice lets you display all the entrants whose category did not correspond with any of your categories. Almost always, this will indicate a problem with your information - either the category for an individual racer in the Address Book was omitted or misspelled, or else a category in your category list within RaceBase was omitted or misspelled. Since the results won't be correct until there are no racers who are "uncategorized," you'll want to make sure you correct your data and then re-import it into RaceBase. Note that you can (and should) do this at the stage when you have just done the Import Names step; you need not wait until the final step (Import Times and scoring the race).
By toggling from one category to another, you can actually announce results directly off the screen of your Palm, without any need for hardcopy output. If you want to be able to announce more details about each racer, an additional racer detail screen is available. Just tape the name of any racer in the list above, and this screen will appear:
This screen shows you the complete details which are useful for announcing results - name, city, age, time, pace, and place overall, place by sex, and place by category (in addition, you'll see the name of the sex and the name of the category). And finally, you see a Note button; tap that and you'll see any of special note which was attached to that racer in the registration database ("Last year's winner", etc.). At the bottom you see Previous, Next, and Done buttons. Previous and Next let you scroll through the database, examing (or announcing) each racer in turn; Done returns you to the main screen.
If you are scoring a high-school or college cross-country meet (and have indicated that choice in the Settings window), the selector menu on the top line of the main window will only have three choices - Individual, Scorers, and Team. Individual acts very much like what has been described above, displaying results for the individual runners. Scorers shows only those runners who have actually been scored. This excludes any runners who finished lower than the number of "placers" for their team (e.g., they finished 8th on their team when only seven runners count as placers), and also excludes all runners from teams which did not have the required number of "scorers" (e.g., their team had only four finishers when five were required). Team shows you only the team names, scores, and placings; teams which did not finish with the required number of runners will be shown with a "-" in place of their score.
We've already seen in the previous chapter that results produced by RaceBase can actually be read directly off the screen of the Palm, which for some applications may be sufficient. But there are a number of other options, as indicated in the Export menu:
The results can be transferred (as a table of numbers) to the standard Palm Memo Pad application, from where they can be HotSync'd back to your laptop or desktop application. If you have Stevens Creek Software's PalmPrint application, then you have two additional choices - Transmit (via a serial connector) the results directly to another computer, or Print (via serial or infrared) the results directly to a printer.
The output format will be determined by a number of things in the Settings window - the headings for the output, and the separator character used between columns. You might want to review that chapter to remind yourself about those features.
When you select any of the Export options in the menu, you'll see this screen appear:
The options are fairly self-explantory. Current category will print (or transmit or save to the Memo Pad) just the results of the category currently displayed on your screen; All categories will print (or transmit or save) all the categories in turn, automatically. All places will output all the racers in the category, or the From choice will let you specify which ones to output. One subtle feature - if you print All categories and All places, the software will only print the "real" categories and will skip the "overall", "overall male", and "overall female" listings. Those listings can only be printed by selecting that category and then printing the Current category. If you only print partial results (e.g., top 5 in each category), then overall, overall male, and overall female will be printed along with the other categories.
Some strategies: To print a results sheet for a road race, select All categories, and Places From 1 to 3 (or 1 to 4 or 1 to 5, as you prefer). To print results during a race, when time is of the essence, it's usually advisable to print just one page at a time, which might be 40-50 racers (depending on how full you want the page to be). If you do print selected racers (e.g., 1 to 40) for a given category, the numbers are automatically incremented, so that the next time you print the screen will read, e.g. 41 to 80. This makes it easy to print one page at a time.
When the results are being transferred to the Memo Pad, you needn't worry about the size of the results. Even though the size of a memo in the Memo Pad is limited (to 4000 characters), RaceBase will automatically create multiple memos if it needs to, numbering each one consecutively.
If you have a copy of our PalmPrint software which enables you to print directly from the Palm, the use of that software is covered in the PalmPrint manual. As far as RaceBase goes, you will have already configured PalmPrint previously, so you won't ever really "see" PalmPrint from within RaceBase. Just select the Print (or Transmit) items from the menu and the material is sent off to PalmPrint to be printed.
Printing involves various considerations - size of the printer, the requirement for power or battery-powered, speed, and so on. There are four battery-powered printers we're familiar with - the Canon BJC-80 (battery is optional), the Canon BJC-50 (battery standard), the HP DeskJet 340, and the Citizen PN60i. All four have infrared (IrDA) capability, which means that if you have a Palm III, you'll be able to print wireless and without power directly in the field, which is certainly an advantage if not a necessity. Typical output for these printers is of the order of 100 pages on a battery charge, which should easily satisfy the need of most race results printing, even if you want to print multiple copies.
Don't forget to bring spare ink cartridges on race day! There's nothing worse than having all the results ready and running out of ink!! If you have a battery operated printer, of course you'll also want to make sure it's fully charged, and/or have a spare battery on hand. And finally, having a sufficient supply of paper is also a good idea. These things may seem obvious, but they are worth mentioning!
Multiple Palms can be used for timing. This might be different lanes of a race, one for the first half of the finishers and another for the last half, or other situations. Or, you might be recording results with PocketTimer on one Palm, but want to do the scoring on another Palm running RaceBase. In order to accomplish these things, you must be able to transfer times from one copy of PocketTimer residing on one Palm, to another copy residing on another Palm. To do this requires a copy of a piece of software called DirectSync, available online from PalmGear HQ (DirectSync is not sold by Stevens Creek Software). DirectSync comes with a cable that directly connects two Palms, and lets you transfer data from any program (including PocketTimer) from one Palm to the other. Obviously, if you do this, you should experiment before race day to make sure you understand how this works. Another program which can be used is called BeamBox, also available at PalmGear. BeamBox is a shareware program which lets you beam any Palm database (such as the PocketTimer database) from one Palm to another; it is the program we use when we time races. Note that with BeamBox, the beamed database REPLACES the one in the Palm it is beamed to. However, once RaceBase has imported times, those times remain in RaceBase. So typical operation might look like this, where Palms #1 and #2 are used for timing (PocketTimer) and Palm #3 is used for scoring (RaceBase):
Of course if you have a short race where all finishers finish within a fairly small period of time, the kind of operation described above is totally unnecessary.
RaceBase (as well as PocketTimer) only has room for one set of data. When one race is done, you'll need to clear the databases before the next race. Now remember that RaceBase itself really uses data it takes from three sources - names (and other information) from the Address Book, categories from the Memo Pad, and times (and bib#'s) from PocketTimer. So RaceBase per se doesn't really need to be backed up; you can always re-import the data and re-score the race if you need to for some reason. You can make a backup copy of the data in the Address Book very simply from your Palm desktop software. From your desktop Address Book, select Export All Items from the File menu and the names and other information will be saved in a text file. You can then delete all the names from the Address Book. Later, if you want to review that race, you can select Import from the File menu and bring those names back into the Address Book (and from there to the handheld unit via HotSync).
The only complicated backup is the times from PocketTimer. Just making a copy of the times for archival purposes is quite simple - from PocketTimer, you transfer the data to the Memo Pad application (that's one of the options within PocketTimer just as it is within RaceBase), HotSync to your desktop, and you have a backup copy of the times and bib#'s as recorded. If you have the PocketTimer conduit installed on your desktop (see the PocketTimer manual), then you don't even need to transfer the times to the MemoPad, they will be backed up directly from PocketTimer to a text file on the desktop.
In either case, however, you cannot re-import these back into PocketTimer, so you won't be able to ever use them again (e.g., for purposes of re-scoring an old race). If you want to do that, you need to first UNinstall the PocketTimer conduit, then go to your Palm Desktop software, go to the HotSync configuration screen, and configure "System" to "Palm Overwrites Desktop". "System" affects any databases on the Palm which do not have a regular "conduit", that is, special software for synchronizing desktop and handheld data. When you configure things like this, after the next HotSync the PocketTimer database will be transferred to your desktop. Look in your PALM folder, and in that look in the folder whose name matches the user name of your Palm (e.g., Fred). Inside that folder is a folder named Backup, and inside that folder you'll find a file named PocketTimerDB.PDB. That is the file that contains your times. Move that file to another folder (or make a copy and move it), where it won't be modified or used by the Palm HotSync software. Now if at sometime in the future you need to re-score a particular race, you can use the standard Palm INSTALL software to install that file PocketTimerDB.PDB), in the same way that you install software on your Palm. After it is installed, when you go to PocketTimer you'll see that those recorded times have re-appeared. Although this explanation has been a bit long, in practice this is quite a simple operation, and backing up your data routinely in this fashion is strongly recommended; you never know when it might come in handy. If you want you can rename each file as appropriate (race1.pdb, race2.pdb, etc.), if you ever need to restore one of those sets of data to your Palm, just rename it back (to PocketTimerDB.PDB) and install it on your Palm.
Copyright 1998-2003 by Stevens Creek Software
All Rights Reserved