What it can do Arranges fixtures in sporting leagues ('round robin'?) Allows for clubs with multiple teams in one league but with limited venues When arranging follows the following rules: 1. No club has more than one team playing at home on one day 2. no club has more than one team playing away on one day 3. clubs with multiple teams: 'adjacent' teams prevented on playing on same day i.e. club has 3 teams first, second and third first and third allowed to play on same day first & second and second & third combinations would not (it is assumed that the second team would provide substitutes for the first, and the third for the second) The application isn't perfect. You will be lucky if you get a 100% fixture success rate. If are lucky to achieve 100% then the program will stop any further attempts at arranging fixtures. What it can't Maximum number of clubs is 100 Maximum number of teams per club is 9 Maximum number of teams per league is 240 Maximum season length is 12 months erm.., I can't think of anything more right now, but if I do I'll add it on to this file (My apologies to those of you who want to use this app. but don't have MS Excel97) email : software@soumail.org Tom Sou Requirements (actually what I tested it on) Main development system Intel Celeron 300 overclocked to 450mhz 192 Mb RAM Windows 98SE MS Excel97 with service release 2a Test systems 1) Intel Celeron 300 overclocked to 450mhz 32Mb RAM Windows 98SE MS Excel 97 (no service releases) 2) Higrade (Asus) 7200 series notebook Intel Celeron 300 64MB RAM Windows 98SE MS Excel 97 with service release 2a 3) Dell Dimension PC Intel Pentium II 233mhz 64Mb RAM Windows 95 osr 2 MS Excel 97 with service release 2a History 20000819 some efficiency changes and window dressing 20000816 bug fix. Spotted a bug that prevented unfixed matches from updating in printouts. Max number of teams reduced to 235 from 240 20000811 minor detail fix 20000810 improved club summary printout for clubs with only one team 20000809 changes to setting of club dates so that changing league details does not wipe out changes to each club/team 20000808 minor debug/tidying to printouts 20000720 minor debug 20000718 fixed bug in fixtures calculation, which could cause a hang up, especially after adding a new club or team. Added option in fixture calculation and allowed limited customising of team sheet printout. Added print all clubs 20000716 minor code efficiency updates 20000715 fixed bug in fixtures calculation, which prevented matches being arranged if just one team in a club had a date barred. Tidied up some printouts 20000714 summary printout completed. Changed club/team selection in club info window to right hand box only 20000710 fixed limit on league start and end dates 20000709 resource usage problem fixed 20000708 still working on summary printout. Attempts to defeat resource usage by improving code efficiency 20000706 fixed bugs introduced in version 20000704. Minor code efficiency updates. Began work on a summary printout for each club. 20000704 removed team numbering from clubs with only one team. Enabled club and team picking from summary list in Club Info. window 20000622 minor debug to typos 20000620 changed time finished to time remaining in calculate form. Fixed bug in league details form 20000617 fixed some bug introduced in v20000616. Added check for max number of teams 20000616 changes to improve program efficiency (very slight) 20000615 update to readme files only. Details of PC's used for testing and development 20000614 removed some remaining development code that would give problems with 28 or more clubs 20000612 removed (increased?) maximum teams per division. Now stands at around 450/division. This limit would never be reached as there is an overall limit of approx. 240 teams per league 20000608 tidied up some printouts 20000606 approx. finish time is now updated after each attempt 20000601 fixed delete club bug, which prevented the team division from being updated correctly 20000531 more minor bug fixes and window dressing (will this never end?) 20000530 fixed cell borders in division view. Some general window dressing 20000529 more minor adjustments. Fixed add club hang-up 20000529 fixed bug, which meant that the division sheet printout wasn't cleared between division changes. Changed the version numbering to reflect the date 20000528 Finished. graced with version number 2.000. posted on my website 20000524 posted working prototype (no printouts) on my website 20000518 SMBL confirmed that I would do the fixtures for them 20000400 started writing the new version 19990000 offered to do the fixtures for the SMBL for the 2000/2001 season. They accepted almost unanimously (opposite to last year) 19980000 had the original idea. Did the first program in MSDOS QBASIC(!). This was scrapped after I got the fixing routine working. Used MS Excel97 to develop a working version. Big 1.5MB and slow. The South Manchester Badminton League rejected my offer to do their fixtures. The Liverpool and District Badminton League used it. The REAL reasons why it's done in MSExcel 1. I am still learning programming in VB of any sort. I do have VB6 and I may one day convert this to a standalone app. 2. Using Excel makes it easier for me (see reason 1) to format printouts 3. 'Cos it's freeware I don't have to worry (I hope) about licensing issues by using a full developer package (such as VB6)