Backgames.org Change History...

November 2014

Backgames.org has moved to a new server hosted by the US Backgammon Federation (USBGF). This is the next step in transitioning development, maintenance, and support of the database system to the USBGF development team.

Several system enhancements and minor bug fixes were addressed during this move, including:

Unicode text support: The database, system software, and website pages now support Unicode (utf-8) text encoding. This update allows club directors anywhere in the world to save player names, tournament names, etc., using their local language and writing system.

Club Registration, Contact, and Feedback forms: fixed a bug that sometimes caused email messages from submitted forms to not get forwarded properly.

March 2014

Backgames.org is transitioning the development, maintenance, and support of the database system to the US Backgammon Federation (USBGF). Backgames.org resources and support will continue to be available to worldwide club directors as before, plus enhanced player stats for USBFG members.

March 2011

Backgames.org was moved to a new server on March 20, 2011 after a series of unfortunate events with the old server which resulted a loss of service. Several program and data security enhancements were added at time of the move. The system and database was rebuilt from a backup made on Tuesday, Mar 01, 2011 at 03:49 PM EST. If you added or updated club data from that time until the server was abruptly shut down on Wednesday, Mar 02, you will have to redo the data entry. Sorry if this causes any inconvenience for you. I'm hoping the improved backup system on the new server will eliminate any similar problem in the future.

December 2006

Club Standings: Added player Ratings History charts. The chart shows rating min/max during each week for a given year (or all years) and has a stats summary that includes best win streak for the period. To access a player's ratings history, click the player name on the Club Standings page.

Club Standings: You can now hide any player from the Club Standings page. To do this, go to the Edit Player Info page (click the player name on your Club Player list). The Club Attendance setting has a "hide from clubs standings" option (in addition to Local, Regional, & Wide). Select this option and click the update button.

November 2006

Backgames.org was moved to a new server on November 1, 2006. Several program enhancements were added at time of the move. Other new features were added (along with some minor bug fixes) in the month following the move. Here's the complete list:

Player List Manager

Club Player List: added Search, pagination, and column sort. With some club lists approaching 300 players, this became a critical item. The player list can be searched by player's first or last name and filtered by players' active status or last event date (handy for deciding who to remove from active status).

Club Player List: added Club Rating, Club Experience, and Last Club Event columns. Player list can now be sorted by any column header - click the column once to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Tournament Manager

Date entry: added a handy pop-up calendar date picker for entering tournament and event dates. Click the calendar icon next to the date entry box. A pop-up calendar will appear - navigate to the desired year & month - click the date to fill in the box.

Add From Template form: added a checkbox to save the selected template as the default menu selection (your most frequently used template). It only applies if you have more than one template saved.

Tournament List: added buttons to delete obsolete templates.

Tournament Editor page: added a link to preview the entire tournament as drawsheets if match results have been recorded.

Event Editor page: added a link to preview the event as drawsheets if match results have been recorded.

Bracket Player List page: the entire procedure for adding players to the bracket list has been simplified. The checkbox list for selecting players is now on the same page, right below the Bracket Player list. The form to add a single player (new or existing) is at the bottom of the page.

Edit Match Results page: match results for rounds that have been saved now show the winner (bold) and loser (italic) names. Also added Preview Bracket link to preview saved results as a drawsheet. Both help to verify that you have entered match results correctly.

Event Standings page: all event players are included in the list (even with no match wins) so master points can be arbitrarily assigned to any player who played at least one match. This is retroactive to all events that have been recorded in the database.

Club Standings

Tournament Results: added a new page to view any club tournament results in drawsheet format. The Tournament Results link opens a list of all club tournaments. Click on the tournament name to view the entire tournament results.

Player Standings: the list can now be sorted by any column header.

Player Standings: fixed a bug that caused some club player ratings to be calculated incorrectly, especially if matches from older event were recorded after newer events. Not certain when this bug was introduced, but it's fixed now!

Groups

Added groups entity to the database. A group is a collection of associated clubs (by state, region, or some other association) that can share a common aggregate set of player statistics. I'll be setting up the groups per directors' requests. All that's required is a group name and a list of the clubs to include. All clubs in the group must be registered on backgames.org and record their tournament results in the database. An example of how this works is the Michigan Backgammon Association.