ReleaseNotes.md

New numbering scheme. First level = significant features that can affect how a competition is run. Second level = smaller features such as user interface improvements or technical changes. Third level = bug fixes.

• 34.3.0: New end of competition report: records set during the meet are exported in the same format as the record definition files, to facilitate post-competition updates. Newly set records are kept in the database and preserved on application restart; a new "Clear New Records" is available to remove them when doing pre-competition tests.
• 34.3.0: Safe export/import of all registration data, including eligibility categories. Until competition start, it is now possible to use Excel to safely reassign athletes to groups, change athlete categories (including the additional categories where the athlete is eligible), to define new groups, to change referee assignments, etc. This recreates clean athletes and groups, after weigh-ins have started changes must be made using the program screen.
• Until the beginning of the meet, it is possible to perform bulk changes, create new groups, reassign athletes, change the schedule, etc. , export the current registration data, make the changes, and reload. This allows all such changes to be made using Excel until the actual start of competition.
• 34.2.1: Fix for refereeing devices: When using USB or Bluetooth devices attached to the athlete-facing display, decisions were not shown on that display, but were shown on all others ((problem introduced in 34.2.0)
• 34.2.1: Important update: Fixed an extremely rare issue that could nevertheless stop the competition from proceeding. Ranks are updated after every lift, before updating the lifting order, so a fatal error in updating the ranks would prevent the lifting order update.
• 34.2.0: Improvement: The lifting order display is now a full scoreboard (shows the 6 attempts)
• 34.2.0: Decisions entered by the announcer are now shown immediately by default, unless there is a single referee using the screen and the "emit a down signal" setting is enabled. This is useful when flags or standalone systems are used, or when there is a refereeing device disconnected.
• 34.2.0: On the protocol sheets, when athletes are eligible for multiple age groups they will now be shown in each eligible grouping, with the corresponding ranking and Robi. To get the old behavior back (each athlete shown only once in their "natural" age group) you can use the "6Attempts" template.
• 34.2.0: Group Results page no longer shows all athletes by default, as this is inconvenient for large competitions with hundreds of competitors. The "All Groups" option can be used at the end of the meet to create a full results sheet for the federation.
• 34.2.0: MQTT timekeeping device support: An MQTT timekeeper device can send one of the 4 following commands (platform is the code for the targeted platform): /clock/platform/start /clock/platform/stop /clock/platform/60 /clock/platform/120 Note that only 60 and 120 are the only legal numerical values to reset the clock to the corresponding number of seconds.
• 34.2.0: Fixed the competition simulator to correctly handle the end-of-group events.
• 34.1.0: User interface improvement: Added athlete card button to handle athlete withdrawing from snatch but continuing with clean & jerk.
• 34.0.1: When creating the Excel reports for a group, the group definition is now read again from the database to ensure its correctness.
• 34.0.0: New Sinclair coefficients for the 2024 Olympiad. An option on the Competition rules page allows using the previous (2020 Olympiad) values if your local rules require them. Masters SMF and SMHF use the 2020 Olympiad values until further notice.
• 34.0.0: Setting a password no longer shows the confusing encrypted password, but rather a string of 10 black circles, so that neither the password nor its length is revealed. Clearing the string clears the password.
• 34.0.0: Additional environment variable OWLCMS_PUBLICDEMO for restarting periodically the public demonstration site.

Highlights from recent stable releases

• Cloud Support Changes

  • Added instructions for using fly.io as a cloud provider (cheaper alternative to Heroku that is no longer free)
  • Adjusted instructions for using Heroku now that there is no longer a free tier.

• Ability to hide unneeded templates and rename templates to local language

  • A new "local templates only" checkbox is added on the Languages and Settings page. If selected, the built-in Excel templates will not be listed in the dropdown lists. Only what is in the local/templates folder (or has been uploaded as a zip) with be shown. You can therefore remove files you don't use from local/templates and rename the templates to your local language if you wish (non-Latin languages are supported).

• Records

  • Records are shown if record definition Excel spreadsheets are present in the local/records directory. See the following folder for examples: Sample Record Files (includes examples for Masters)
  • Records definitions are read when the program starts. Records set during the competition are updated on the scoreboard, but the Excel files need to be updated manually once the federations makes the record official.
  • Records are shown according to the sorting order of the file names. Use a numerical prefix to control the order (for example 10Canada.xlsx, 20Commonwealth.xlsx, 30PanAm.xlsx).
  • If there are too many athletes in a group the records can be hidden using the display-specific settings, or by adding records=false to the URL
  • Notifications of record attempts and new records are shown on the scoreboard and attempt board. See this reference if you need to disable the notifications.

• Additional fields on the scoreboards

  • Added the custom1 and custom2 fields to the scoreboards (after the year of birth). They are hidden by default; change the width to non-zero and visibility to visible in results.css in order to show one or the other or both.

• Shared visual styling between owlcms and publicresults.

  • publicresults scoreboard now uses the same colors.css and results.css stylesheets as owlcms. owlcms sends the exact files it is using for itself to publicresults. The priority used by owlcms to find the style sheets is as follows:
    1. css loaded in a zip using the Language and Settings page, found in the local/styles folder of the zip.
    2. css in the local/styles folder where owlcms is installed
    3. css found in the binary files of the owlcms distribution.
  • The Records and Leader sections can now be shown/hidden from the pop-up dialog on the scoreboard screens for both owlcms and publicresults

• Masters rulebook

  • Updated the default AgeGroups.xlsx definition file for the W80, W85, M85 and M85 age categories.
  • Updated the age-adjusted Sinclair calculation for women to use the SMHF coefficients.

• New: Announcer can act as solo athlete-facing referee. A setting on the announcer screen (⚙) enables emitting down signal on decision so it is heard and shown on displays.

• New: Round-robin "fixed order" option for team competitions. If this option is selected in the Competition Non-Standard Rules, athletes lift according to their lot number on each round. The lot number can be preset at registration or drawn at random depending on competition rules.

• Sinclair meets: New competition option to use Sinclair for ranking - one ranking per gender.

• Documentation now includes a tutorial on how to change the scoreboard colors: Scoreboard Colors

• On weigh-in or registration forms, if a change in category results, a confirmation is required (#499)

• Customization of colors and styling of scoreboards and attempt board.

• Improved management of ceremonies : see Breaks and Ceremonies procedures, and Result Documents for the medals spreadsheet.

Installation Instructions

• For Windows, download owlcms_setup.exe from the Assets section below and follow Windows Stand-alone Installation

  If you get a window with Windows protected your PC, or if Microsoft Edge gives you warnings, please see this page : Make Windows Defender Allow Installation

• For Linux and Mac OS, download the owlcms.zip file from the Assets section below and follow Linux or Mac Stand-alone Installation

• For cloud installs, no download is necessary. Follow the **Heroku **or Fly.io installation instructions.

• For Docker, you may use the owlcms/owlcms and owlcms/publicresults images on hub.docker.com. latest is the tag for the latest stable image, prerelease is used for the latest prerelease.
  In the environment variables for owlcms, provide a standard DATABASE_URL to a running postgres instance or container. postgres://{user}:{password}@{hostname}:{port}/{database-name} (all parameters are required). The database is initially empty. owlcms will create/alter the required tables so the account used requires the privileges to do so. See Postgres database creation for additional info.

• For Kubernetes deployments, see k3s_setup.yaml file for cloud hosting using k3s. For other setups, download the kustomize files from k8s.zip file adapt them for your specific cluster and host names.