WORKING THE STAT PAGES
These pages are purposefully designed to look almost exactly like what we've all grown used to seeing through the years, but my research and development into database management and web design have at last allowed me to add a couple of useful (I think) features we've NEVER had before.
In the upper left corner of the stat page, you will see the weapon name, and below it a date, which corresponds to our most recent shoot. Currently, on the Musket Stat page, it looks like:
Musket Stats
11/11/2007
This information is a hyperlink, actually you can think of it as a "RESET" button, because clicking on it will ALWAYS restore the stat page to the most current information. Why is it there? Well...
As you look across the names and dates of the shoots, you'll probably notice that each shoot's date is also a hyperlink. If you click on one of these dates, the stat page will re-calculate everyone's current and last hit times as of that date. So for example, on the Musket stat page, if you click on the "9/9" for the Statesville shoot in 2007, you can see everyone's Musket stats just as they were going into the 116th National.
If you are looking at a stat page that starts with any shoot but our most recent one, the date link on the first shoot displayed will take you ahead in time by one shoot. In other words, using the Musket page again as an example, if you have selected "5/20" from 2007 (115th National) as the start shoot for this page, when the results load, the date link for "5/20", (the first shoot displayed), will take you ahead to the next shoot, Statesville on 9/09/2007.
When each stat page first loads, it will default to our current stats, the same view you get if you click the upper left corner weapon/date link as described above. Since this is what we're going to use for team selection at our next shoot, all the members who haven't shot with us in awhile and anyone who is not a current active member is eliminated from the list. However, as soon as you begin going back in time by clicking on any earlier date, you'll see names of people (some have never even been members!) who HAD shot with us anytime prior to the date you selected.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: Current hit time is always the three most recent shoots starting with the selected start date. Last hit time is the three most recent shoots before the latest one. All the stat averages (current hit time and last hit time) past and present throughout the page are computed using data within the two years prior to the selected date. For example, in the case of our current stats as of this writing, any shoot data prior to November 11, 2005 will be displayed, but it is considered non-existent for these averages. Obviously, as you select different start dates, this two year window moves with you. This is where the "999"'s come from that you'll see cropping up among the current and last hit times as you move back and forth through time.
Notice that each members name is also a hyperlink. If you click on one of these, you'll get an overall summary for that shooter showing the number of shoots they've been to, their average hit time derived from shoot aggregates and also from the individual events, and their average cycle time, all for both the last two years and throughout history (overall). In addition, the best and worst shoot and best and worst individual event from the entire database is shown. PLEASE NOTE: This summary screen is always referenced to "today", regardless of whether or not you clicked on an earlier shoot on the main page.
Some clarification on the Hit Time Average (Shoots) vs (Events): The average from shoots is an average of the hit times you came away from the matches with, calculated the way we always have. In other words, in a 300 second match, a person getting 10 hits would have a 30 second hit time. This is your shoot hit time, and the Hit Time Average (Shoots) on the summary screen is merely all of these averaged together, both over the last two years and the entire span of the database.
Each and every event you fire has its own hit time as well. If the team shoots at the pigeon board for 200 seconds and you get 5 hits, you've got a 40 second hit time for that event. If you blank an event, you're given half the event time over again, so blanking the above 200 second pigeon board will leave you with a 300 second hit time for that event. (The reason for this is, you can't divide the event time by zero.) Soooo, the Average Hit Time (Events) are these individual event hit times averaged together for the last two years and the entire database.
If you scroll the page down and to the right, you can easily begin to lose track of whose name and which shoot you're looking at. I'm still looking into "locking" the column and row headers to keep that from happening. But in the meantime, if you run the mouse cursor over any of the cells and look down at the browser's status bar, you'll see information to help you figure out where you are. If the mouse is over a hit time, you'll see something like "Shane Parris at 106th National 10/06/02". If you're over a blank cell, which means this person didn't make it to that shoot, you'll get only their name in the status bar. This way you can at least figure out who's row you're on!
Did you need a printout of the latest stats? Easy as pie... Right Click on the weapon link of interest in the top frame and select "Open in New Window" from the pop-up menu that appears. In the new window under "File->Page setup" you'll want to select "Landscape" for the orientation, and it's always a good idea to preview before you print. Also on the Page Setup screen, you may have to adjust the page margins (I recommend 0.5" for all four) and make sure you're not going to print a header or a footer. This should give you a nice clean printout of the latest stats for that weapon.
Welcome to the world of interactive stats. All in all, it's pretty straightforward...
...So far.
