About RegattaLog Course Maker

It's convenient for race organizers to have immediate visual feedback as they select their courses. RegattaLog Course Maker (RCM) is designed to provide that. The course editor lets you build and edit courses and see what each one will look like as you go. Mark lists and courses can now be downloaded directly -- as GPX (for chartplotters like Expedition), CSV, a real Excel workbook, or a formatted table ready to paste into a Word sailing instructions document. The interactive chart, the foundation of this project, is also available for distribution to participants: a public read-only course page, a race-day kiosk/embeddable display, and an RC course-posting form.

How To Use

First, of course, you must be logged in with an account. An organizer's administrator can grant you edit permissions on the org's regattas. Once that is satisfied, your Dashboard lists every organization and regatta you have access to, with buttons to view, configure, edit courses on, analyze, or share each one.

You can:

• Review courses by mousing over them in the courses list or selecting them from the drop-down menu on the interactive chart. You may need to zoom out ("-") or pan the chart to see your full course.
• Edit courses by changing selected marks or rounding sides using the drop-down boxes. You can insert a mark into the course by using the ➕ icon. You can change a course's number in the box on the left. Note: Only marks visible on the interactive chart are available to add. Move the chart if you want others. Delete a course with the 🗑 icon
• Add and edit marks. Click the chart to add a mark. A form will open that allows you to edit the mark's name, description, and icon. Drag the mark around on the chart to change its position. Click "submit" to save. You can edit marks assigned to your organization or this regatta by clicking on the ✎ icon. To copy a mark and edit the copy, click the ♻ icon. This may be convenient if you want to use a government or racing association mark but give it a different name.
• Export courses and marks from a regatta's Share page, or from the course editor directly: GPX, CSV, Excel, or a Word-ready table.
• Share a regatta with competitors, spectators, or your RC from its Share page: a public read-only course link, a kiosk/embeddable chart display, and an RC course-posting link, each with a QR code you can post or hand out.
• Edit your Profile: Visit the Profile page to change your username and indicate which organizers you affiliate with.

People with organization admin rights can grant or remove editing rights to individuals as needed from that organization's Configure Organization page (reachable from the Dashboard once an organization is selected). TBD is the ability to grant these rights on a regatta-by-regatta basis through that same page -- the underlying permission system already supports it, but there's no admin UI for it yet.

Technology

RCM is based on a mySQL database that holds mark and course definitions as well as user and organizer information. These are compiled by several PHP scripts to allow updating of this information. The course information is exchanged via Javascript and jQuery with the interactive chart to display mark locations and course structures. The chart is based on the wonderful Leaflet mapping program which provides a responsive display and includes "event" hooks that allow the data in the configuration pages to be updated by changes in the chart.

License

No claim is made to the mark lists and course descriptions generated through this application. To the extent, if any, that there is copyrightable content in them, the copyright belongs to the author.