Week 6

This week I had to finish the coding of the Database, which was pretty much only a matter of creating the foreign key references, I also had to take mock-ups of some excel files that Grant had drawn up to show the layout of the user interface. I put these into photoshop and created layers on top for text and graphical elements to show what the site could look like in HTML. I also am getting an introduction into user-side database storage that is going to be introduced in the new HTML code, version 5.0.

Week 5

Was ill this week.

Week 4

This week was a revisit into programming/database design. And while I had studied database management systems previously in California, it was using a slightly different language – so I had to continually fix errors when I automatically would write in the incorrect code. The coding language I had used before was for Microsoft software, and now I have to write for MySQL. I have create ‘create table’ scripts for each table – which, when executed on the server, will create the tables structure and relationships into a database that I choose. There are many relationships between different tabls in this database and is a relational database (This means hat the structure is seperate to the data).

I used this website for help on the coding language: http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com

Week 3 Blog

This week I have revisited database design. I had to envision all of the possible fields that would be needed for every sport on the website, and also the relation between the fields. Also things like specifications for each field (e.g. whether it is a number or letter, whether it is unique, if it is a key, and if so, is it a primary or secondary key), if there is an auto-increment etc.) I also am in the process of normalizing the database, which includes assigning foreign & primary keys, and working out table relation types (one to one, one to many etc) and creating intermediate tables.

Week 2 Blog

This week i had to learn a few new things, first was Cricket. I’m not known as a very sporty person, and I don’t think I have ever played a game of cricket in my life, let alone know how to score one. I found a couple of great websites that explained the basics of the game to me; Rules of Cricket, ABC’s of Cricket and Cricinfo’s Glossary of Cricket Terms. I also researched the new HTML 5.0 specifications on the W3C website, since this is the platform I will be coding in. Armed with the new knowledge of my platform and subject, I created a 500 word document on proposed methods of data entry into the project’s web app. I had to put myself into the shoes of a prospective user of the site, and start from the start on how I would setup and enter data into a game match. I had alot of fun working out what fields would have to be sorted, but ran into a bit of trouble when thinking of how input from 2 sources will be verified – especially if the results are flat out disputed between the 2 parties, and not just an error on one teams behalf. I also had to think of scenarios that could interrupt a planned game, changing players mid game, and how things like being in a remote location with no internet would affect the users. With my limited knowledge of cricket, this turned out to be rather challenging, and when taken back to the team, I’m sure many new scenarios will be introduced and solutions figured out. I worked on a location based data entry system to help users input information about location based events during the game, by using a stylised interactive overhead view of a cricket pitch, with contextual menus, and view filters. I am excited to see how well this functions on touch screen devices, like the iPod and iPhone. I also did some sketches to work out how the pages and widgets will be represented visually, turns out I’m not a drawing person, either!

Week 2 Document