According to an e-mail message I received, the ATDOR software has been added to softpedia.com software library.

Unlike most automatically generated e-mail, this message indicated that the team behind softpedia did some work to test ATDOR and to check that the software is spyware and adware free, as following text says:

"Atdor" has been tested in the Softpedia labs using several
industry-leading security solutions and found to be completely clean of
adware/spyware components. We are impressed with the quality of your
product and encourage you to keep these high standards in the future.

To assure our visitors that Atdor is clean, we have granted it with the
"100% FREE" Softpedia award. To let your users know about this
certification, you may display this award on your website, on software
boxes or inside your product.

More information about your product's certification and the award is
available on this page:
http://www.softpedia.com/progClean/Atdor-Clean-155798.html

Feel free to link to us using the URLs above. If you choose to link to the
clean award page for your product, you may use the award graphic or a text
link: "100% FREE award granted by Softpedia".

I think this is a nice service and gives ATDOR a good independent "quality"  stamp!

One of the most important parts of software is the manual. Not only the commercial software, but also for open source software the manual is an essential part of the package to explain the use of the product.

Some may argue that a manual should not be necessary: the product should explain itself. Partly I think this is very true, as many people do not need the manual, or think they won't need it.

However, we are always working with different people and some people really want and need a manual: they print it out and read it thoroughly before even start the program.

Further more, my experience with users of ATDOR is that some functionality is not really known and can only be explained with some easy-to-read sections. Functionality can be scattered along the program and may require additional changes to your set-up, think about electronic time synchronization. Also, a manual is searchable and therefore very useful if you're looking for something and you do not know where to start.

Concluding: A manual is needed. I've had a manual included with ATDOR first, and later on decided to have this manual included via the ATDOR website. Since two years (see previous Blog posts), I used an open WiKi system in the hope many people could change and improve the manual.Unfortunately, this system is not really hacker-proof and some SPAMMERS used it to modify the content.

I will take some appropriate measures to bring the manual back on the website as soon as possible. I will also see if I can update it. Until then, please be patient and you might try the program without one. I'll be answering my e-mail (See contact page) for you in case you run into problems.

 Roalt

Since the restyling of the ATDOR website, we have noticed that spammers took the opportunity to misuse some of the components of the website. The target was both the ATDOR forum pages and the Wiki pages. We've taken some steps to prevent this spamming (unwanted messages not related to ATDOR) in the future: the forum has been updated with latest software and a so-called 'CAPTCHA', that prevents automatic programs from entering forum messages. The downside is that as a authentic user of the forum, you have to type over some random number from a mangled picture. The other downside is that we had to empty the forum, but fortunately not many messages were placed in there for now.

We also did some work to reduce  the spamming in the Wiki pages, but they are not (yet) as drastic. So we have to see it will prevent future changes, otherwise we have to enforce that active users must register.

One of the first tests with ATDOR 2.0 was done at Atverni, a local track&field club in the Netherlands. Although most functions worked okay, a problem not noticed before caused that results could not be filled in. This problem was related to the introduction of multiple rounds. Other problems were related with using it for an indoor meeting or because combined event  were used. All issues were actually quite straightforward to solve and therefore a new ATDOR 2.0.1 will be introduced shortly.

This ATDOR 2.0.1 also solves some incompatibility problems with Tcl/Tk 8.5, the latest release of the programming platform used. So, you might see some improved layout and use of better fonts in this release. I will release it before the end of this month (March 2009).

 Latest update:  There is also a problem with relay teams that loose their members after the result has been made. This will also by fixed in 2.0.1.