I hope that you find SportsLog useful and bug free.
If so, please send $7.35 to:
Mr. Meo
P.O. Box 178392
San Diego, Ca.
92177
If, on the other hand, you'd rather not give up your hard-earned or borrowed cash, then please at least register yourself as a user. This can be done by sending me a postcard which depicts the area in which you live. If the postcard, or the place where you live, is exceptional in some way, then I would prefer to receive a postcard instead of the shareware fee. Really.
If you live in a foreign country - then please send money (in the foreign currency, and in whatever amount you wish) and a postcard if you can - it would be interesting to see what money from your country looks like!
How many shareware programs give you so many easy payment options???
Be sure to include an e-mail address if you want to hear about updates as I post them.
Of course...
If you are really disgusted with the program, then go ahead and send me an e-mail or a postcard and tell me where I failed in my efforts. I can only learn from my mistakes, and unless I can make you happy, I don't have a prayer in wrestling the shareware fee from your wallet or purse. :-)
About SportsLog
SportsLog was (and probably will be) developed entirely using Symantec C++ 6.0. While I most happily use the Metrowerks Code Warrior environment at work, I do find that the 6.0 version of Symantec C++ is suitable for my projects at home, and in fact I guess I would probably be using a Symantec compiler at work right now had it not been for the fact that Metrowerks, at that time we got started on our project, happened to be the only compiler capable of generating native PowerPC code - which was a requirement for our project.
SportsLog came about for two simple reasons:
- I like to run, and I needed something to keep track of my progress. I thought about writing Newton software to do the job, but the development tools are too expensive currently. Too bad - my Newton fits way better in my gear bag than my Mac IIsi does.
- I knew that soon I would play an important role in the development of a fairly major piece of Macintosh software (to be sold by my company, and by Apple no less), and so I figured that I needed to learn a bit about programming the Mac before I got started :-). SportsLog was for the most part the vehicle for my initial experiments with Macintosh software development.
The Future Of SportsLog
I plan on continuing my work on this software for the foreseeable future, but not from the perspective of a running fanatic who is in search of the ultimate running logbook. Instead, I plan to continue my work on SportsLog, using it mainly as a place for trying out different aspects of the Macintosh development experience. For example, I plan on adding balloon help (in fact, I already have experience with balloons, but haven't gotten around to adding them to SportsLog yet), making the code scriptable to some degree, experimenting with Apple Guide, being able to send output to a printer, and so forth. SportsLog is simple enough to allow me to avoid getting bogged down in a given area, while at the same time it is a real live application, which causes me to want to go all the way with whatever I am trying to implement at the moment.
However, I do want to make the program useful to runners, and to do that, I will need your help. Is there some feature I have forgotten? A different kind of graph you would like to see? Is the data I ask for complete? Or irrelevant? Have you seen a feature in some other program which you think belongs in SportsLog? I promise I will look at your suggestions seriously, and more likely than not I will go ahead and implement what you have in mind as long as 1) I have the time and 2) the suggestion seems reasonable.
Registered users will be sent update notices by e-mail as I upload new versions. Make sure to mention your e-mail address when you register.
Features of SportsLog
SportsLog is simple, and has these basic features:
- Ultra-small memory footprint.
- Supports Core Apple Events (except print - I don't yet support printing so it would be pointless). Thus, you can drag a bunch of SportsLog documents onto the SportsLog icon, and then select overlay graphs in order to compare them.
- Requires System 7.x
- Runs best on color Macs, less well on grayscale Macs, and does everything but graphs well on Macs with screens which have small pixel sizes (e.g. 1-bit and 2-bit). I plan on making improvements in the graphs at some point.
- As was mentioned above, you can plot overlay graphs comparing several events at the same time (although the graphs need more work, such as adding grid lines, labels, and much needed support for gray scale monitors. Hopefully this will occur by release 1.0).
- Support for adding free-form comments about a sporting event. Text is truncated to 255 characters, though, so be careful. I should make this a non-modal TextEdit-based window instead of a dialog item, as it currently is implemented.
- Up to 27 lap or split times can be recorded for each event. Why the odd number 27? Because I can only *dream* of doing a full marathon, and they have 26 1-mile splits, plus an additional portion of a mile, totaling 27 split times. So far, the most splits I have entered is 7 (for a 10 kilometer race), and so 27 is plenty enough for me.
- Split distances can be fractional. For example 1.8 miles. Default split distance is 1 mile. Probably I should allow for other measures such a meters, kilometers, etc..
- Reports the split averages, m.p.h., etc. after data is entered in the main dialog.
- Cummulative statistics can be displayed for all currently opened events from a menu item in the Options menu, including personal best and personal worst times, average split times, total mileage, and other stuff like that.
Submitting Bug Reports
Please include your system configuration, e.g.:
- Macintosh model (e.g. Mac IIsi - the machine which I happened to write SportsLog on).
- OS version (you can find out by selecting the About this Macintosh... menu item from the Apple menu).
- Any system extensions that you may have running and feel might affect the problem.
- Did you crash into macsbug? If so, send me what you can.
Also, a list of the explicit steps which can be used to reliably cause the problem you observe would be appreciated. Generally speaking, if I cannot duplicate the problem, I probably can't or won't be able to fix it. Keep the list of steps simple, and focus on just those steps which can be used to reproduce the problem. For example:
- Start SportsLog by double clicking on a SportsLog event document.
- Select Display Graph... from the Options menu, while holding down the option key.
- The main event dialog disappears at this point for no reason at all.
If the information you supply is not enough for me to duplicate the problem, I will likely send you an e-mail with further questions.
Posting On Bulletin Boards, AOL, Or Whatever.
Feel free to do so, provided that you submit it in the same form that you downloaded it in, and that it contains these release notes. I would really like to keep track of where SportsLog is available, so please drop me an e-mail (refer to About SportsLog... for the addresses) to let me know when and to where you performed the upload. If I don't have access to that board or service mentioned, then I will probably ask you to repost any future releases to that location, as I make them available. So let me know if you are willing to do something like this. It is not a requirement.
Fixes/Changes since 1.0b1 (1.0b2 - posted to Compuserve 7/9/1995)
+ Data in main dialog was only being saved to a file if the dialog was first closed.
+ Changed background color in the overlay graph window with a lighter gray.
+ Added a CDEF so radio buttons would have a white background. Thanks to Erik.
Fixes/Changes since 1.0b2 (1.0b3 - posted to Compuserve 7/15/95)
+ Added these release notes.
+ Edit menu items have been activated to support cut, copy, and paste.
+ Making a change in the comments field of the conditions dialog would not cause SportsLog to ask you if you wanted to save changes if you tried exiting SportsLog before saving the change.
+ If creating a graph, and the window is already created and active, raise it. Also do the same for any dialogs such as the lap and conditions editors, as their buttons are clicked.
Fixes/Changes since 1.0b3 (1.0b4 - posted to Compuserve 8/1/95)
+ Showing overlay graphs with no data would cause a memory violation.
+ Attempting to display a graph with an overlay graph as the front window would cause a memory violation. This bug was introduced into 1.0b3. Oops!
+ The overlay graphs were upgraded and improved so that a plot of multiple events could be more easily seen. Still not perfect though, and still bad if you don't have a color mac.
+ Added support for event types beyond just running and biking. User interface changed to provide a popup menu which can be used to specify the type of the event.
+ Only show one cumulative statistics window at a time.
+ Added a second sample file. Open both of these files and then select from the Options menu Show Cummulative Stats... and Display Overlay Graph to get an idea how these two features work.
Fixes/Changes since 1.0b4 (1.0 - posted to Compuserve 9/11/95)
+ Problem in closedown routine would cause unchanged events to sometimes be saved to the disk unnecessarily.
+ Current date and time will be set automatically for any new events.
Fixes/Changes since 1.0 (1.1 - posted to Compuserve 10/15/95)
+ Scale of graphs was set based upon all events - changed so that scale is based upon the event being displayed only.
+ Added balloon help for menu. Too lazy to do dialogs - but will get them in the next
release. Check out the balloons for the event type popup menu.
+ Cummulative stats erronously included data from unedited untitled event. If the
event has been edited *and* saved to a file, it will be included in this dialog.
+ New about box based using SpriteWorld animation from Tony Myles (CompuServe:
72070,3000 - AOL: Suiryu).
+ Changed Window menu to Events menu.
+ More sane enabling and disabling of Options menu items.
+ A bit more sane enabling and disabling of Save and Save As menu items in the
file menu.
Fixes/Changes since 1.1 (1.1.1 - posted to Compuserve 10/16/95)
+ Increased memory partition to 1Mb. SpriteWorld needs more memory and I
found a Powerbook DUO that seized when trying to do the about box in 1.1
with an error 25. Unable to duplicate on other machines however...
