Practiscore on Nook Simple Touch for Dummies

[wgnoyes]

Using Chris Wren's procedure, this is what we end up with.

[ctay]

I think your concern over that screen is a little unnecessary. Our scorers never see that screen because I have hard coded the home button to open practiscore. Even if I hadn't it would still open to practiscore assuming that was the last application open. No one has been confused at all and everyone that has used the Nooks has had a good experience.

I suppose if you were *looking* for something to complain about this could work but it isn't a real issue for anyone that uses these at our club.

[wgnoyes]

No, I'm not just looking for something to complain about, and I'm disappointed you think so. I want to be able to present a scoring appliance to my shooters that is as foolproof as possible. Accordingly, when I sync the match to the nooks for distribution after registration is closed, I leave practiscore up and running and set on their respective stages and squads. My timeout/sleep value is set at the maximum value of 1hr, so that shouldn't be a consideration either. That is, I don't give them an opportunity to need to look for the program icon on a screen, so the size of the icon isn't an issue. But it's still possible to get back to the file manager by long-pressing 'n'. I see there are a whole lot of options under the covers: start mode, work mode, lots of advanced settings. Is there a way to tune that to where you don't see the file manager but instead see the "9 squares" screen. And a followup question: if so, how do you get to the file manager then, as this system's FM is actually quite good. But I want the users to have as few chances as possible to accidentally delete something or change a system option that ends up bringing down the device.

Edited March 29, 2013 by wgnoyes

[kaiserb]

When I sync the match to the nooks for distribution after registration is closed, I leave practiscore up and running and set on their respective stages and squads. My timeout/sleep value is 1hr, so that shouldn't be a consideration either. That is, I don't give them an opportunity to need to look for the program icon on a screen.

We replaced the Browser quick link next to the menu button with Practiscore, that way it never moves off of the screen you are on.

[wgnoyes]

What and where is that and how?

Ah, loogadis! (Something Rob Boudrie would say)

The file manager is actually an app called ReLaunch. If you tap the "9 squares" icon at the 6 o'clock position on the file manager screen, you'll get a screen containing all of the apps in this rooting build (we knew that). If you tap and hold down on the practiscore icon, you get a popup that gives you a choice of "add to favorites", "Uninstall", and "Cancel". Tap on "add to favorites". Now hit the "back" button (looks like an arrow going through an open door) at the top right corner. NOW instead of hitting "9 squares", hit the star icon immediately to its right and you'll see ONLY those apps you've added to your favorites list. (Dropbox and Practiscore for me.)

So there's something set somewhere that automatically starts ReLaunch when you boot the device. Is there an option you can set within relaunch that displays the favorite apps list by default when it comes up?

Edited March 30, 2013 by wgnoyes

[Graham Smith]

Doing fairly well now, thanks to everyone. Working on match day procedures right now and I'm seeing something odd when it comes to Syncing. The manual shows an image where you can see all the devices available. I'm looking at a screen that wants me to supply a device code.

How do I get it to show me the list like there is in the manual?

If that is not possible and the only way to sync is to manually enter the device code, does that code remain consistent for that device? IOW, if the device code for the Stage 1 device is 0AC9 today, will it still be that a year from now?

Edited April 6, 2013 by Graham Smith

[Mark R]

Graham, I think the screen with devices available is on the iOS versions and not on Android versions, b ut would be a niceity to have on Android. I think the programmers were having trouble getting the search code to work correctly on android.

The code and screen that is on the App Exporter software is similar, but it doesn't always work correctly, I have to enter sync code to get scores into a PC for EZWinScore to use.

[Mark R]

If that is not possible and the only way to sync is to manually enter the device code, does that code remain consistent for that device? IOW, if the device code for the Stage 1 device is 0AC9 today, will it still be that a year from now?

My understanding is the sync code is generated based on the IP address and some other value on the device. So if your device connects to your router and gets a different IP, then your sync code will change on the device(s). I tried setting my router DHCP to assign static IP address based on Nook MAC address, but could never get it to work correctly. Maybe another router is due.

[Graham Smith]

I thought it might be based on IP or something. Not really that big a deal, just another part of the setup routine. I'm going to power everything down and set it back up tomorrow and see what changes.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Graham Smith

[jester121]

You've hit on the main reason most people suggest bringing an Ipad/pod/phone into the mix. It does make zapping the scores nice and fast.

[Graham Smith]

Well, our first match went well with the Nooks. Everyone found them easy to use - even the people who didn't read the instructions I printed out.

The only thing I neglected to figure out in advance is what to do if someone showed up after the Nooks were loaded. I won't say what I did because it was rather awkward but I'd like to plan ahead for next time.

If I create some additional zzz-walk-on shooters, how do you change them after you are done to be the actual shooter. I assume that I just import the scores into EzWinScore and then edit the registration record. Does that create any problems?

[Mark R]

Graham, when I have a late shooter show up who isn't pre-registered in the Nook, I just tell them to go to the squad they will shoot on. Once there, the Nook operator can add them into the registration and put them on the squad. Then when you sync all back to a master after the match is over, that shooter will show up in the list.

When you move the data from Nook to EZWinscore, the Nook process will align the shooter numbers. So no real big issue, just add the shooter on a squad nook and sync to master later.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Mark R

[jester121]

That's probably a tickmark in the column against leaving the Nooks at the stage instead of having them travel with the squad, huh? The shooter would have to be added on the nook at every stage. If only one guy shows up late? Not a big deal. if 3 guys show up, you could have conflicting shooter numbers real easily.

[Graham Smith]

We are using one Nook per stage so adding them to the Nook doesn't seem practical.

We register people in EzWinScore and transfer to the Nook and there is a function in EZWS that permits the addition of some dummy shooters. I think that once the scores are imported, that know that I can change the dummy registration in EZWS (because I tried it) but I'm not positive that this works without any issues.

[ctay]

When we have people show up late we generally put them on paper but I would love to figure out a better way. The issue always comes back to shooter numbers with ezwin - but if Practiscore can come up with a better squadding system I can see us ditching ezwin all together until the very end when we need to upload classifier scores. Then shooter numbers wouldn't be an issue.

[Graham Smith]

Well, adding the dummy shooters in EZWS takes care of the shooter number issue. It was a common practice for the Palms, but I don't know how they updated the names once the scores were uploaded.

[Mark R]

Well, adding the dummy shooters in EZWS takes care of the shooter number issue. It was a common practice for the Palms, but I don't know how they updated the names once the scores were uploaded.

But what if you had 10 shooters show up...how would you keep track of them across multiple Nooks??? I use Nooks that travel with squads and also use paper backups. Not a real big issue with me.

[wgnoyes]

For the bigger outdoor matches, we don't accept walkups after the nooks have been distributed. But if you do... the ezws-added dummy shooters is one way of dealing with it. Just put them all in a high-numbered squad (SQ97) and tell the guy you're #n and to be sure to use #n in all the stages, and we'll get his name changed later. That's if you leave the nooks with the stages, which is what we do. (Lose a nook; lose that entire squad's match otherwise.)

[Graham Smith]

But what if you had 10 shooters show up...how would you keep track of them across multiple Nooks??? I use Nooks that travel with squads and also use paper backups. Not a real big issue with me.

First off, I've not tried this so I really don't know. I'm just going by what I recall from discussions of the Palm. IIRC, the dummy shooter records were numbered something like zzz-walkon-1, zzz-walkon-2, etc. Late shows would get assigned a walkon number and that's what they would keep for the match. I just don't know what happened after the scores were imported back into EZWS.

[Mark R]

In the palm world, you would get the stages and scores back into EZWinscore, go to registration and change the name from ZZZ-walkon-1 to the real name, save it and the shooters name would appear in the scores. So I guess that would work for ya while keeping track of the "walk-on name" to "person" relationship.

[wgnoyes]

For practiscore, when syncing back to the master ios device, after the match is "all in", I'd change the actual name there.

[Graham Smith]

For practiscore, when syncing back to the master ios device, after the match is "all in", I'd change the actual name there.

That's what I assumed. I didn't think that there would be any issues but I just wasn't sure. EZWS is such a strange beast.

[wgnoyes]

Consider, though, that when I'm bringing it back over from practiscore to ezws, I'm doing so into a new EMPTY ezws match file. If you're not going to do that and instead just bring the scores back over, you'll have to change the names in ezws as well.

[Mark R]

I thought it might be based on IP or something. Not really that big a deal, just another part of the setup routine. I'm going to power everything down and set it back up tomorrow and see what changes.

FYI...I update the firmware (v1.1.1 to v1.1.3) in my pocket router (Dlink DAP-1350 that Ken recommended) and the new firmware allowed me to setup static IP addresses by entering DHCP reservations on the network setup page. Now when my Nooks boot up, they get the same IP address and the same sync code in Practiscore.

[Graham Smith]

Let's talk about synchronization. I have seen people write that syncing is a "pull" operation. That is, you use the master to pull the results from the scoring device.

Can I assume from this that there is no way to push the results from the scoring device to the master?

Most of the syncing I am familiar with is a two way operation. When you sync two devices, they each end up with duplicate data. Can I assume that there is no way to do this other than as a two step operation?

Edited April 25, 2013 by Graham Smith