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New version of ptgolf

January 05, 2026 17:34

Update: 1/16/2026

In case you haven't noticed, I have not updated ptgolf.us in almost a year!

It's a long story but Comcast/Xfinity had a couple day outage back in April. When it came back I lost my ability to update changes to ptgolf - they took away my static IP address when they changed equipment. It took a while to move my repository/code to a public server. I think I could update it now if I had to, but as far as I know, nothing is broke - but the current code is a mess.

I had been working on a different version before all this happened. Nothing much has changed. What has changed is:

  • All pages have a more consistent look. Same buttons, same colors, consistint layout.
  • Flow is more consistent using the three states of a Game
    • Scheduled - Game may have players but teams have not been formed.
    • Pending - Teams have been formed but game has not been scored.
    • Scored - Game is scored and in history. If a mistake was made in scoring, there are ways to fix it.
  • I've done my best to get most pages to work on a cell phone. This is done by moving columns on a page to make it fit on a phone. Landscape mode is still the best on some pages.

There is a capibility to move between stages, e.g adding a late player that showed up on the tee, etc. It's been there but sometimes hard to find - now there are more buttons!

There is some code out there that I say to myself? 'Where in the hell did that come from?". I've cleaned up most of that but there can be more. It works okay, but could be better.

During this last year Rails (ruby on rails), the software I use has been updated. Each update can sometimes be painful. The current version of ptgolf.us is over 3 years old. I took a gamble and moved most of my code into a new version. That seemed to work fine, rather than change a bunch of rails changes that really didn't affect my code. I also change to a different database 'Sqlite3' that is a lot easier to configure.

~~I am still having difficulty updating/deploying using the new deployment tool. As soon as I figure that out, I'll deploy the new version.~~

I finally got deployment to a new servers to work with a tool called kamal that installs a docker image on a servers. Docker images are almost self contained servers inside of the main servers.

I've installed a new web server to preview the changes. I can download the most recent Groups, Players, Games and Rounds from ptgolf.us and uploaded that date on the preview server.

When I get some feedback on the new version, I only have change the ptgolf.us domain to the new server.

There are some other internal changes that come into play. Authorization - what you can do has been updated. There are three main permissions/user roles, and a few more

  • Super / Root user. Can do everytihing, including access a Group's site to fix stuff.
  • Trustee Can do everything the super user does except create or delete group
  • Manager can do most things needed to manage group players. This includes fixing passwords on members
  • Admin Can manage games/scores etc but can't access any other users permissions
  • Member Can look around but can't change much.

I've deployed to a new web server. You can visit that server, login if you have a username/password (yes I know it's usually shared in a group). You can change/update/delete anything you want. I can be rebuild from new versions .

There preview server'a URL is:

golfers.stevealex.us/{home}

You can replace /home with [sinners/saints/gaggle] to bypass the visitor page

Have Fun!

Steve Alex

salex@mac.com

334-294-6026 Cell