Points total and contests

post the contest thread like normal, but instead of members posting on the board, we send them to an external app via a popup box. this would have 4 fields for score, rush, pass, & member name. in this case it would capture the data in structured fields, instead of a random order requiring re-keying. Im not big on excel macros and such, but I could see something simple being designed via VB, and then interact it with the code you already have for identifying the winners. the only problem i could see would be member authentication, but we could probly work out some type of post-contest validation - and after all, they cant redeem pts unless they are members anyway. but there could be an isssue with ppl making submissions under fake names to fuhk with other members. so maybe we require they post their email addy also, and hide it from others.
Click to expand...
It's still have to be an online app, though because otherwise how would the data get to the store?

 
post the contest thread like normal, but instead of members posting on the board, we send them to an external app via a popup box. this would have 4 fields for score, rush, pass, & member name. in this case it would capture the data in structured fields, instead of a random order requiring re-keying. Im not big on excel macros and such, but I could see something simple being designed via VB, and then interact it with the code you already have for identifying the winners. the only problem i could see would be member authentication, but we could probly work out some type of post-contest validation - and after all, they cant redeem pts unless they are members anyway. but there could be an isssue with ppl making submissions under fake names to fuhk with other members. so maybe we require they post their email addy also, and hide it from others.
Click to expand...
It's still have to be an online app, though because otherwise how would the data get to the store?
Click to expand...
So we couldnt post the app on the server and link it to an Access DB?

 
The gathering of the data wouldn’t be too difficult. All you would have to do is add a table to the current database and set up a form html doc to populate it, the users would enter their username and predictions, the table could be set up to not allow editing or duplicate predictions. I don’t have a ton of experience with mySQL databases but I am experienced with Oracle so I’m guessing it’s not too different. Do my fellow computer dorks agree with above statements?

The part I saw as difficult is all the automatic stuff you guys wanted to do, like make it figure out the winner automatically, that would take coding that I am not in the least bit interested in doing..

 
Last edited by a moderator:
The gathering of the data wouldn’t be too difficult. All you would have to do is add a table to the current database and set up a form html doc to populate it, the users would enter their username and predictions, the table could be set up to not allow editing or duplicate predictions. I don’t have a ton of experience with mySQL databases but I am experienced with Oracle so I’m guessing it’s not too different. Do my fellow computer dorks agree with above statements?
The part I saw as difficult is all the automatic stuff you guys wanted to do, like make it figure out the winner automatically, that would take coding that I am not in the least bit interested in doing..
Click to expand...
I agree. I am guessing the SQL involved in doing this would be very simplistic.

I'd be down for some coding. Never hurt to learn a new language. I could give it a shot at least. I'll work on setting up a dev environment on my machine at home. MySQL and PHP?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
So we couldnt post the app on the server and link it to an Access DB?
Click to expand...
I don't think so.
Click to expand...
Nope, it won't. Remember, you're running under a 'NIX server - they don't natively support MS apps, so the database can't be Access, or else you would have to run WINE on the server and install Access to it.

If you hosted Access on a separate, Windows-bases system, the only issue would be whether PHP can "talk" to Access through an ODBC connection of some sort, and I frankly don't know that it can or can't. I suspect that it might be possible, but I really don't know.

 
The gathering of the data wouldn’t be too difficult. All you would have to do is add a table to the current database and set up a form html doc to populate it, the users would enter their username and predictions, the table could be set up to not allow editing or duplicate predictions. I don’t have a ton of experience with mySQL databases but I am experienced with Oracle so I’m guessing it’s not too different. Do my fellow computer dorks agree with above statements?
The part I saw as difficult is all the automatic stuff you guys wanted to do, like make it figure out the winner automatically, that would take coding that I am not in the least bit interested in doing..
Click to expand...
I agree. I am guessing the SQL involved in doing this would be very simplistic.

I'd be down for some coding. Never hurt to learn a new language. I could give it a shot at least. I'll work on setting up a dev environment on my machine at home. MySQL and PHP?
Click to expand...
I agree.

I'm with Joe on the automation. I don't think it can be totally automated - there would have to be some Admin/Mod intervention to at least trigger the "run" to calculate the winners, add their points to their totals, and then display it somehow back to the board. I do think all of that can be done, but we're really beginning to cross over to a pretty complex process and a fair amount of coding - all of it in a language that none us have at this time.

 
I just notices something, in the points totals thread, there is a section called "Contest Totals (not including PPP totals listed below)". I haven't been updating that when I add peoples caption contest points, I just now noticed it was there. Has anyone else been updating it? So it included all contests except PPP?

I guess this goes on my list of things to do. We need a better way of tracking point totals....

 
slacker said:
I just notices something, in the points totals thread, there is a section called "Contest Totals (not including PPP totals listed below)". I haven't been updating that when I add peoples caption contest points, I just now noticed it was there. Has anyone else been updating it? So it included all contests except PPP?

I guess this goes on my list of things to do. We need a better way of tracking point totals....
Click to expand...
I've been putting people's score/rush/pass totals in there.

 
Back
Top