Welcome to JRaceman. This tutorial will guide you through using various parts of the program. To get back to this Tutorial from within JRaceman, select the Tutorial command from the Help menu.
If you wish, you can view this tutorial in your favorite browser, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. This will also avoid the problem of having to navigate back to this tutorial when JRaceman automatically shows you the help for each tab the first time you select that tab. To use your own browser, select the Show Location command from the Help menu, then enter the location (displayed in the Status line at the bottom of the window) into your browser.
If you are not already running JRaceman, you should start it now. For instructions on how to start JRaceman, see the Running JRaceman section of the JRaceman README.
When you run JRaceman for the first time, it asks you if you want to create a new database. On Window systems, you will be asked to enter a directory for the database. On non-Windows systems, such as Linux, the database is located in a directory called jracedb in your home directory. When the database is created, it is empty.
You can import a Sport definition file. To import a file, pick the Import JRaceman Data File command from the Database menu. In the File Open dialog, navigate to the directory in which you installed JRaceman, then into the data subdirectory. Pick usack-sports.txt and press Open. This will load the Sport definitions for USACK canoe/kayak racing.
Alternatively, you can import usack-nat2001-db.txt, a complete database with partial results from the USACK 2001 Nationals at Lake Natoma. This file includes the Sport definition, so if you load this file you don't need to load the Sport definition file separately.
Once you have loaded the Sport definition file, you can examine the data using the various tabs within the Sport Setup tab. The next section describes how to use the tabs. Note that JRaceman will show you the Help page for each tab the first time you visit that tab. To get back to this Tutorial, you can use the Back command from the Help menu, or you can use the Tutorial command from the Help menu.
JRaceman relies heavily on Tabs. Once you understand how the tabs are organized, it's pretty easy to get around.
In the top half of the window are the top-level input tabs: Database, Sport Setup, Simplan Setup, Team Setup, Site Setup, Meet Setup, By Event, Reports, Debug. In the bottom half are the output tabs: Messages, Query Results, Report, and Help. These groups of tabs are separated by a divider bar.
There are three things you can do with the divider bar (or any other divider bar in JRaceman):
Each output tab displays one kind of output. By clicking on each tab, you can see that information. The Help tab displays the help pages, the Query Results tab displays the results of Queries, etc. When new information is presented in any of the output tabs, that tab is automatically raised so that you can see the new data. The data in the other tabs is still there; just click on the tab to get back to that data.
Each top-level input tab, such as Sport Setup or Team Setup, represents one class of data or activity; each contains its own set of tabs for specific data or activities. For example, the Sport Setup tab contains the second-level tabs Competitions, Levels, Genders, Progressions, Stages, and Exceptions. Within most of these second-level tabs are two third-level tabs: Query and Edit. For example, the Competitions tab within the Sport Setup tab contains a Query tab and an Edit tab.
Select the Sport Setup tab now and you will see the second-level tabs within the Sport Setup tab (Competitions, Levels, etc.). The Competitions tab will be selected, and within that you will see the Query and Edit tabs. Remember to use the Back or Tutorial commands in the Help menu to get back to this tutorial.
The Query tab is used to examine the current contents of the database. Fill in the desired search values, select the desired search operators for each field, and press the Search button. Blank query fields are ignored; all records matching all of the non-blank query fields (using the specified operators) are displayed in the Query Results output tab. If all of the fields in the Query form are left blank, all records are displayed.
Some second-level tabs include a Sheet tab. This tab allows to to easily edit a group of records in a tabular layout like a spreadsheet.
Some second-level tabs include an Export tab. The Export tab is used to create a JRaceman export file in order to transfer that data to another JRaceman database.
Try pressing the Search button now, leaving all of the query fields blank; this will display the Query Results tab with all of the Competitions records. You can get back to this help by pressing the Help tab; you can switch back to the query results again by pressing the Query Results tab.
The name of query tab and the number of matching rows are added to the label of the Query Results tab. For example, when you do a Search in the Sport Setup/Competitions/Query tab, the word "Competitions" is added to the name of the Query Results tab.
Once a list of records is displayed in the Query Results output tab, you can edit one of those records by double-clicking on that row. This will switch the input tab to the Edit tab for that type of data. You can change the fields and then press Enter to save your changes. The ID of the record being edited is displayed in the title of the Edit tab.
To add a new record, press the New (or New/Clear) button in the Edit tab. The title of the Edit tab changes to include the word [New]. Fill out the desired data and press the save button. After the record is saved, the newly assigned ID of the record is displayed in the title of the Edit tab.
Once you have learned how to use the Query and Edit tabs, you will be able to use almost all of the tabs in the Sport Setup, Team Setup, Site Setup, and Meet Setup tabs.
You can also use the Tabs menu to go directly to most tabs. The Tabs menu is hierarchically organized with a different structure than the tabs themselves. It might be easier for you to find the tab you want in the tabs menu rather than trying to navigate to it through the first-level and second-level tabs.
For more information on what all of this data is supposed to be, see the JRaceman User Guide, or read the Help for each tab which automatically shows when you first visit the tab. You can also see the help page for a tab at any time by selecting that tab and then selecting the Help On This Tab command from the Help menu.
The Schedule tab in the Meet Setup tab, the Person Entries tab in the Entries tab in the Meet Setup tab, the By Event tab and the tabs in the Reports, Database and Debug tabs are different. Except for the Lanes and Races subtabs of the Debug tab (which have Query and Edit tabs and work just like the majority of the tabs in the other main tabs), these tabs are each unique.
Please read the Help for each of these tabs to see what they do and how to use them. The Help page is displayed the first time you visit each tab, and can also be seen by selecting the Help On This Tab command from the Help menu.
After you had become a little familiar with JRaceman, you might want to try out its client/server mode.
To start a JRaceman database server, use the -runserver
command line argument:
jraceman -runserver
The server listens on port 9157.
In another window, start a JRaceman client by using the -dbhost
option, which takes the hostname of the server machine as an argument.
If you are running the client on the same machine as the server, you can
use localhost as the hostname:
jraceman -dbhost localhost
You can run multiple JRaceman clients at the same time, just start up
as many as you want using the -dbhost option as described above.
To shut down the server, use the -sql command line option
with the SHUTDOWN command, along with the -dbhost option to
specify the machine on which the server is running:
jraceman -dbhost localhost -sql SHUTDOWN
More information can be found in these documents: