This user-guide is intended to provide a brief overview of how to use the program. It is not exhaustive--but the program is reasonably self-explanatory. If you have any specific questions that are not covered in these instructions, feel free to email me at the address above.
I have broken this guide down into 5 sections: General Overview, Perparing for the Tournament, Making Changes, Entering Results, and Printing Reports.
General Overview
The first thing to understand is what this program is for. It's role is very specific: it is designed to aid in the tabulation of individual events speech tournaments. It does not tabulate debate, nor does it pair rounds. The program assumes that you will take care of these tasks manually. While I intend to tackle these problems in a future version, they are not implenented now.
The goal I had when writing the program was to make the tournament run more quickly and smoothly--specifically, to eliminate that dreadful time before breaks can be announced and when sweepstakes awards are being calculated. I have optimized the program with this in mind.
The progam presumes you are running a standard-style speech tournament. It makes the following assumptions: each person/entry has been assigned a unique number, that can be from 1 to 60000. Each number corresponds to an entry in one event only (I will explain how to deal with double-entries below). Students are rank-ordered in rounds, given ranks between 1 and 8, with 1 as the best rank. Quality points may also be assigned; they are optional.
The program is structured around a tournament file. This is a single file that contains all information pertaining to your tournament--who is entered, what their scores have been, who belongs to what school and is in what event, etc... When you select "Save," you save this entire file. BACKUP THIS FILE during the tournament, and SAVE frequently. I have never experienced any problems with the program during the tournament, but there could always be a first time.
Preparing for the Tournament
When you first load the tournament, you must create a new tournament file. Do this by selecting "New Tournament" from the menu. You must then enter all of the schools in your tournament. Do this by selecting "Enter New School" from the data menu. Note that by pressing "Enter Another" the current entry is recorded and a new, blank form is presented. You must enter at least 1 school before you can enter contestants, but you may enter new schools at any time.
One you have entered a school, you must enter contestants. Do this by selecting "Enter New Contestant" from the data menu. Select the contestant's school and event from the pop-up lists. Enter the contestant's name and number. The name and number MUST BE UNIQUE.
If a student is double-entered (or triple-entered, or whatever), you must enter a separate name for each entry. For example, if John Doe was entered in Original Oratory and Extemp, I would enter the names John Doe--OO and John Doe--EX.
Continue entering results until you have entered everything for the tournament. Make sure to save frequently.
Making Changes
To drop a contestant from the tournament, select "Delete Contestant." Select the school name first, then select the contestant name. (The pop-up list for contestants will correspond to all contestants entered for that school.)
To change a contestant's name, school or event, select "Modify Contestant". Select the contestant in the same way, and enter the new information.
Entering Results
As results come in, select "Enter New Results" from the Data menu. Type in the contestant's number--the name, event, and school will appear below for confirmation. Enter the appropriate rank and points (if appropriate). Make sure the round number is correct.
If you need to change a result, you can use the same "Modify Contestant" dialog used above. Select the contestant, and then select the round you wish to modify from the pop-up list. Enter the new rank/points, and select ok.
For rounds with more than 1 judge, I recommend designating 1 judge as 1 round and the other judge as the other. For example, suppose you had 3 pre-liminary rounds, and a final round with 3 judges. I would have 1 judge entered as round 4, one as round 5, and one as round 6.
Printing Reports
There are three kinds of reports: reports by event, reports by school, and tournament overview.
The Event and School reports can each be sorted by rank, name, number, and school/event (whichever one the report is not for). Rank-sorted reports automatically break ties based on reciprocals & quality points--unbreakable ties are indicated by a box around the scores of the people who's ties are unbreakable. If you need a different tie-breaking method, email me.
The tournament overview report reports on the sweepstakes of a tournament. It sums up results by a method described in the READ-ME file.
Any of these reports may be printed by selecting Print from the file menu. Note that these reports are static: if you enter data after the report has been generated, you must re-generate it; it does not automatically update.
Conclusion
These intrsuctions were meant as an outline. To prepare yourself for a tournament, I recommend spending some time entering data for a mock-tournament, and trying out all of the options. You may email me if you have any questions or problems. While I have never had problems with the program, I take no responsibility if it fails--make sure to save often and print out results often.
