wx5s
commented
10 years ago Not sure how fancy we need to be with log editing features. CQP has done this several ways in the past - none completely perfect. More thought needed on this.
Some simple editing for a log line is needed. For a "big" problem, like maybe there is an extraneous column with 59/599, we need an easy way to get copy of log locally, use program developer level of text editor to fiddle with it and then send it back as new source controlled log version. I use Textpad, but of course there are many others. I can use "block select" mode (not line by line), then do operations on the selected block (like delete column or run regex or simple search and replace on selected block). Implementing features of a programming editor sounds too hard, but fixing one or two QSO or header fields is feasible with a fairly simple web I/F. To fix "big" problems, using my local editor with GUI is far easier than say using vi ... seldom do I have to write a regex as the GUI block select mode does the heavy lifting, ie changing all QSO's from sent QTH of XX to SCLA just takes me a minute or 2. The editor does this sub-second, but figuring out what to do takes some human brain processing time.
I agree that some idea of a default date/times for a contest is a good idea. For CQP, the rule is "first full weekend" in October. Many contests have something similar and calculating something like that is not too hard if there is some "config language" setting to describe the rule. It would be possible to automatically scan Bruce's contest calendar, but that's probably more hassle than its worth. Some way to spec "Xth full weekend" or perhaps even "3rd weekend" even if 1st weekend is not completely contained within the month would be sufficient. When the default rule is not "right" or not available, it is reasonable for the contest sponsor to just manually enter the right date/time(s).
Fixing date/time errors is more involved than the uninitiated might think. I am aware of the most common algorithms for fiddling with this once the log is accepted and log check processing starts. The ways that this goes wrong intra-log and inter-log are legion. This is more complex than most imagine.
For log acceptance, be aware that some Q's, will often be "outside of the contest" due to a mis-set PC clock. With the WA6O server all of these situations were detected and reported to the submitter, but few bothered to actually fix them. That sort of reporting is a good thing and we should do that, but we need to have a plan to fix this mess when the submitters don't and if we want to be completely "right", we keep track of what the submitter did when they fixed the reported error just in case it matters.
One common scenario: the last QSO. The logger logs the time that the QSO finished, not the time that it started. If the contest ends at 2400 and a Q is logged at 0001, I manually rubber clock that back to 2359 of the previous day. Sometimes the PC clock is "off" and more adjustments are needed. If the submitter decides to delete the Q, then that unfairly penalizes the other station with a NIL. This usually makes no difference, but sometimes it does.
If we are developing a general tool for the contesting community, then our log acceptance SW should work with Cabrillo files (not SQL DB). We should emit Cabrillo 3 files and do the conversion from Cabrillo 2 when necessary. This is more difficult to do in a general way using a config file description than you might think, but I figure would be a welcome thing for contesting.
BTW, importing say a million+ Q's into a DB just takes some seconds on a normal PC. On my decade+ old PC, recreating the entire FCC DB locally (and its various tables) is about one minute - no biggie. Using our target DB's of SQLite and MySQL is not a big deal if we need that for site processing.
n6rno
Matt-WX5S
tepperly
Admin needs to be able to view/edit actual logs and invoke special tools for manipulation of logs.
Admin needs to be able to set contest start/end. There should be the concept of default data for a given contest. At a minimum most contests have a specific time window that they start at and a specific time when log submission is closed. The actual dates change each year but many contests follow a rule. Consider how to bake in the rules in the contest configuration.