Creating Results Pages

These instructions address, as an example, how, during the winter of 2024, to set up the Race Results Pages and Folders for the upcoming 2024 season. This process can be started anytime, but it’s generally a good idea to get going on it in January-March. The final steps can/should be completed in April.

1. Set-up folder structure for static files: You will need ftp privileges to perform this step. Check that the folder structure for the static pages, used in the previous year (e.g. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2023/) will be suitable for the coming year. If it is not, update it as required. Note that the folder structure for the current year (e.g. 2023) should have been created in winter of 2022. Once it is confirmed that the folder structure for the coming year (e.g. 2024) is appropriate, and is populated with files (38 files in 8 folders, in 2023) that point to the “Results not yet available” WordPress Page, then copy that entire folder structure for the coming year (i.e. 2024). Thus, next winter, you will have a folder (e.g. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/) which is fully populated with 38 files in 8 folders (each file points to the Results not yet available WordPress Page), and you don’t have to start from scratch.

2. Create the new WordPress parent page for the upcoming year’s results: (i.e. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/). You will need WordPress privileges and training to perform the remaining steps. This page should be a child of https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/, and will be the parent of all of the WordPress pages for the upcoming season. The content of this file can be copied from the previous year (e.g. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2023/). You will eventually have to update all of the links in this page to point to the correct pages for this year, but you can leave that for later, as those “children” pages won’t be created until step 5.

3. Edit the WordPress parent page for the last year’s results: Open the previous year’s parent page (e.g. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2023/). Delete the note that states “Until the 2023 results are archived in early 2024, this page is only a placeholder, i.e. it is the WordPress “parent” of the 2024 WordPress results pages”. Change the “Page updated” date, and make any other changes, if required.

4. Edit the main results page (i.e. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/): Add a new link called “2023” in the list of previous years under the list of results pages, pointing to last year’s results (i.e. in the winter of 2024, add a link to https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2023/. At this point, leave the links for the individual series also pointing to last year’s results.

5. Create the individual results pages for each different course. These should all be children of the upcoming year’s primary results page. I.e. the new pages to create are:

• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/women/
• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/icebreaker/
• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/phrf1-2/
• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/phrf3/
• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/dinghies/
• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/jam/
• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/onedesign
• https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/longdist/

The simplest way to create these pages is to copy the content from the page for the previous year, and update as required. The other option with less work is to clone a page in WordPress and rename it. Also note that there is no page for the Frostbite series, as in recent years, the results for the Frostbite series have been contained within one Sailwave file, and hence there is only one html results file. Thus, the link on the main results page points directly to that results file.

6. Test that all links are working: The links from the above pages should all be valid, but should point to those ~38 identical files that state “Results for this series are not yet available”. These files will be overwritten during the course of the upcoming season.

7. Edit the new WordPress parent page for the upcoming year’s results: Now that you have, in step 5, created the individual results pages for the upcoming year, you can now edit the page that you created in step 2 (e.g. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/y2024/) so that it will point to the results for the correct year.

8. Finally, again, edit the main results page: Once everything above is confirmed to be working, you can now change the links on the main results page (i.e. https://nsc.wmtest.ca/an/racing/results/) for the individual series to point to the upcoming year’s results. This step should probably be deferred to sometime in April.

9. Test and re-test to make sure that everything is working properly. And maybe ask someone else to also test it for you.

Page updated: 2023-08-16.