dev diary #4 - Wrapping up the UIs and a neat surprise

[TuscanSota]

Hey everyone,

 

Coach Toucan here. I'm sorry it's been a while but I'm writing this now to update you on progress within the Simfba.

As you all might have known, I took a bit of a break - I got to get out of town for a while, which was a nice change of pace. Now that I am back, I'm getting back into developing the UIs and wanted to show you all a bit of progress made.

 

What Progress?

In the last Dev Diary, I asked y'all to post as much as you can. Don't worry, you're now seeing the fruits of these very minor labors:

https://calebrose.io/simfba-interface/

 

Yes, this is a working demo for the Simfba interface.

 

I would like to point a few things out though, this is in a VERY Alpha stage. Here are a few known bugs that I need to point out:

• Refreshing on the URL that isn't '/simfba-interface/' will throw a 404 error. This is currently being looked into, so please don't panic.
  
• The site has not been optimized for mobile devices. That hamburger icon doesn't work yet. It will, just not at this moment. I would highly recommend viewing the site on a desktop if you can. If you want to give the tablet a go, by all means.
  
• The depth chart, scheduling, and recruiting pages will send you to a version of the launch page. That is because these pages aren't ready yet.
  

Feel free to navigate through the site. If there are some oddities that you might find, send them here or let me know - I'm more than happy to look into the issues so that we can provide a better service.

 

For those who haven't gone through the Interface link just yet, here are a few screenshots on what you'll find different from development over the past week:

 

 

There is now a dropdown allowing the user to browse the roster for their team. I've added a few teams based on those who commented and posted in the last Dev diary. Here is an example of the interface rendering new teams:

 

 

Hyun-Jin Robinson doesn't have a high school because he didn't play School.

 

If you click on any of the names, you will now see icons for relevant attributes as well!

 

What's remaining for the UI Interface?

The item remaining for the 1.0 version that we're planning for is the Depth Chart UI. This is the UI that you will use to manage your team and assign the starting positions for your players. The current plan is to allow the user to view their own Depth Chart, with a later implementation on viewing other team's Depth Charts. Development on this UI should be complete by the end of the week, latest being Sunday.

 

Okay... then what?

Once the User Interfaces are complete we'll be moving to the next stage for Developing the interface and the simulation. We have an idea of what the roadmap will look like, but rest assured we will continue to make these each week. Visual signs of progression may be minimal until we reach a certain point, but I promise to show some snippets of code when appropriate.

 

Speaking of code, I would like to state one last thing before I finish up: We're going to complete as much as we can by the Holidays, at least December. We're doing as much as we can, and we promise to have something to show. If you're interested in help speeding up that process, please reach out. We're not looking for anyone with prior programming experience, but those who have a genuine interest. The next stage of development is different from visually building a webpage, we will be designing and building the backbone of the application. This is the type of work that will allow you and everyone else in this community to use the interface in realtime and manage everything in a snap. Everyone's team won't be Washington State. @subsequent will be able to manage his Michigan Wolverines and @brightfalls will manage his Oregon Ducks. The goal is to let you manage your team on the interface so that you don't have to manage your team on the forums.

 

If any of this sounds interesting to you and you want to leave a personal touch on this project, let me know. I'll bring you up to speed on what we're doing and provide you with the tools necessary so that we can hit the ground running once UI development for 1.0 is complete. We're not throwing you out onto the deep end, we're teaching you how to swim. On the shallow end of the pool, obviously.

 

 

And that about wraps it up. I need to head out for the moment, but I will begin UI development for the depth chart very soon. I hope y'all are doing well, and that you enjoy what we're showing you so far.

 

~TuscanSota

[DarthJarJar]

[Kirby]

[subsequent]

Just want to thank @TuscanSota for all the great work he's done the last few weeks. He's been an invaluable part of the effort getting us to this stage. Please, if you have coding experience or really do want to learn, let us know so we can put your skills to good use!

[Kremit]

Ok but like I said before, I DONT want to coach Washington State.

[DarthJarJar]

We should all coach only Washington State. Then we could have a Wazzu vs Wazzu championship game

[subsequent]

just like god intended.