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Whats New 3
This article is a work-in-progress
2024 was another incredibly successful season for WildRank. WildRank 2 made great improvements to our scouting workflow. As usual, last season we discovered even more ways to improve the app and our scouting process. Some of those features were implemented in point releases last season, but others were too big of an effort for competition season. WildRank 3's goal was to implement as many of these ideas as possible while improving the code base on the back end. So let's get into what's new:
This is becoming a recurring part of these changelogs (and won't be going away anytime soon). The input subsystem was re-written again, this time to avoid generating HTML string in favor of using the JS DOM. I had a busy year so this wasn't as in depth as I would have liked, but the main task of rewriting inputs.js was completed. But as I alluded to, there is a lot more work left for WildRank 4.
One of the most important features of WildRank is its status as a PWA or Progressive Web App. This allows users to install the app as if it was a native application and use it offline. One of the sticking points with this functionality is switching to a new version was a cumbersome process. This has recently been solved and WildRank will now detect incoming updates and immediately purge the old version of the app, without purging any user data. It will then prompt to user to reload the page to take the new changes into effect.
As a PWA WildRank can still be used as a normal web app from the browser, but some browsers like Safari don't treat the app differently if it is used from the browser. To guide users toward installing the app WildRank will now display a warning when the app is used from a normal browser tab. This warning can be dismissed for the session by clicking on it. Note that this warning is not displayed on Firefox since PWA installation support was removed.
Finally, PWA awareness was improved. The installed app version is now displayed in the header on the home page and the cache manager is now aware of what files are expected from the application. So, in addition to the list of installed files in the cache manager files that are expected by the app, but missing will be displayed as well in red.
While most the interface changes were on the backend, a few pages got facelifts as part of the upgrade. The whiteboard interface was completely re-written and modularized. This allowed us to add a whiteboard to the coach page for pre-match planning and one to the match overview page to view zebra data (if available).
Staying on the drive team front, the double elimination bracket page was finally completed. The page now shows one column per round of the tournament. Matches in each round are displayed using a new Card Stack UI element. As long as the first 4 elim matches have teams, this bracket can be used entirely offline. Matches with teams, but no winner show buttons to select the winner of the match automatically. Doing so also updates the following matches' teams. Matches who's teams aren't yet determined show what match the team will come from and what teams are in that match. Finally, completed matches display where the winner and loser move on to. This page was also added to the coach page for each access.
The home page or index also received many improvements. The previous 4 columns have been compressed into 3 to reduce the need for scrolling. The event ID and event data status indicator have been compressed into one new Entry-Status box and moved to the user column. All role buttons but Scouter have been shrunk to increase the emphasis on the Scouter role. The Preload Data and Import Config buttons have been compressed into a single MultiButton as have the Event Teams and Matches counters. The scouting config version has been moved into the Scouting Config StatusTile and clicking on either config StatusTile will open the Config Debugger page. Finally, the Pit and Match Result Counters have been compressed into a single MultiCounter.
To improve our data visualization several new fields and smart stats were added. The driver station number can now be accessed from the match metadata. A new Weighted Rank (wrank) smart stat allows an alliance ranking to be weighted based on alliance member ranking data. This is used in our Citrus Rank metric. A new Map smart stat will map the options from a Select/Dropdown to numeric values. Both the Map and Math smart stats can now be used with Pit results.
A few new quality of life settings have been added. A new font-size setting can be used to increase the font size of core components, improving readability on large screen like projectors. An auto hide right panel setting automatically rights the right selection panel to also improve large screen readability. Finally, a new button was added below the users section to upload a CSV file of users. This file is in the format ID,Name,Admin,Position. The last two columns are optional and admin is true if any value is provided.
- Added a sub-page to coach to add custom matches
- Renamed Note Taker role to Pit / Note Scouter
- Added an option to re-number results if wrong match/note is scouted
- Updated MultiSelect to use comma-separated booleans as defaults
- Added remaining inputs to cycles
- Removed randomly generating single results
- Updated Cyclers to open to first new cycle when editing
- General Cycler improvements
- Added defaults checking in cycles
- Improved import safeties
- Added images to selects and multiselects
- Improved config validation and error descriptions
- Allowed empty spaces to be added to selects and multiselects
- Created a double elimination bracket page
- Added page titles to remaining pages
- Improved configuration reset button
- Redesigned the slider input to be easier to use on touch screens
- Applied config changes on import
- Added JSON config import
- 2024 Scouting Config
- 2024 Whiteboard Config