Friday, April 16, 2010

For the past year, we've offered the option to upload event documents to your event. This feature can be used for event logos, waiver/release forms, burgees, and NORs. In the past, this was a four step process --


  1. Upload the document as a PDF, JPEG, or GIF file

  2. View the newly uploaded document

  3. Copy the URL for the document and

  4. Paste it into the Event Information console

This multi step process confused a lot of users, so we have recently taken steps to streamline the process. Now when you upload a document, you can choose from the standard document types for uploaded documents, and the system will automatically copy the URL into the appropriate field for the document selected.




One of the frequent questions we receive is, "Why can't I upload MS Word documents directly to the site.? The answer is simple: There are a number of know virus' that can be carried in MS Word macros, and to avoid the security risk to you and your entrants, we decided to block .doc or .docx uploads.

Of course any word document can be converted to a pdf for free online at adobe.com or with a free program called Primo pdf (http://www.primopdf.com/) or saved as an web page using the "Save As" option.

Adding Graphics to your Forms

As many of you know, there are two graphical areas on the standard registration, entrant list, and results pages generated by Regatta Network. The club burgee space is generally in the top left hand corner and is set in the club information area of the console. And the event logo, which is set on the Event Information page. as shown below:







The alternative would be to show the sponsor's logo in one slot and the event logo in the other with the club burgee incorporated into your entry form comments, like the entry form from Long Beach Race Week...






But if you have dual sponsors, or a major sponsor, you may want to go with a full width event logo, and disable the club burgee. The ideal size for a single banner event logo is about 650 pixels. The Gulf Coast Sailing Clubs's Porsche Cup is a good example of a single banner logo:






While we're on the subject of image sizes, I've found that Burgee and event logos seem to work best if they are about 150 pixels tall. If you need to size an image or photo, there are a number of free utilities that can resize images from your desktop. Windows used to offer a "Power Toy" for XP that would resize one or more photos within windows explorer.