Read Me

============================== VELERO README ===================================

I. CURRENT RELEASE
------------------
v0.9, 2011-05-25

II. AUTHOR
----------
Andrew G. Meyer
<agmlego@gmail.com>
(source available on request)

III. INTRODUCTION
-----------------
Welcome, and thank you for downloading Velero, a program to calculate delta-time
handicaps for sailboat racing. This program stores a fleet of boats, allowing
you to run timed races with all or some of them, and calculate handicap as often
as needed.

IV. INSTALLATION
----------------
Extract the archive's contents to somewhere convenient in your filesystem.

V. USAGE
--------
To start Velero, navigate to the install directory and run CLI.exe.
You will be welcomed and given a menu of options to choose from:

0: EXIT Velero
1: ADD Boats to Fleet
2: RUN a Race
3: HANDicap Fleet Boats
4: VIEW Fleet
5: EDIT Boats in Fleet
6: Add TIMEs to Boats

Enter either the corresponding number or the capitalized part of the command and
hit enter.

1. EXIT
This exits the program completely, saving the fleet to file.

2. ADD
Allows you to add a boat to the fleet. You will be prompted for the boat
information:
Boat Class (REQUIRED): indicates the class of the boat (Hobie, Wayfarer, etc.).
Boat Name (OPTIONAL): the name of the boat, or hit enter if none.
Primary Operator (REQUIRED): the name of the person who will most often be
	recognizable in the boat.
Sail Number (OPTIONAL): the number on the sails, or hit enter if none.

The fleet is saved after this operation automatically.

3. RUN
Allows you to run a race. You will be prompted to pick the boats in the race.
Select them one at a time using the numbers next to their entries, and enter 0
to set the race boats. When the race officially begins, hit enter at the prompt
to start the race. As boats finish, enter them in one at a time byt the number
next to their entries, and enter 0 if the race ends before all boats are in.
Otherwise, the race will automatically end when the last boat is finished, and
the results, corrected using the last handicap, will be printed to screen. The
fleet is saved after this operation automatically.

4. HANDicap
Allows you to calculate the handicaps on all boats in the fleet. It will print
out the new handicaps when it is finished calculating them. The fleet is saved
after this operation automatically.

5. VIEW
This prints the list of boats in the fleet to screen, showing class, primary
operator, boat name (if any), and sail number (if any).

6. EDIT
This allows you to update the information stored about the boats in the fleet.
You will be prompted to select a boat to edit. Select which boat to edit by the
number next to its entry, or 0 to stop editing boats. When you edit a boat, you
will be prompted for the same information as in ADD, but the current values are
shown in square brackets at the end of the prompt. If you do not want to change
one or more of the values, simply hit enter to retain the current value.

7. Add TIMEs
This allows you to add times to the fleet offline. It assumes that you are
entering a single race's entries, and will recalculate handicaps after you exit.
The fleet is saved automatically after this operation.

VI. FILE LIST
-------------
File			| Purpose
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLI.exe			| Main executable, runs program
LICENSE			| Program license
MSVCR71.dll		| Microsoft Visual C Runtime library, helps run embedded Python
python24.dll	| Python 2.4 library
README			| This document

VII. BUGS
---------
There are no known bugs yet. Report them by entering them into the Bug Tracker
on our Sourceforge project (https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=269716)

VIII. NOT ACCOUNTED
-------------------
This program does a limited amount of error-checking right now, so be warned:
1. If you are told to enter a number, the program may crash if non-numeric data
	is entered.
2. If you are asked to enter a piece of REQUIRED information, the program may
	crash if you do not enter it.
3. If you do not follow directions, the program may crash.

The handicaps are based on the delta-time model, where the handicap is a running
average of the differences between the boat's time and the fleet average time.
This means that they will tend towards a fair distribution as races are gathered
and that you should expect the results to be a little skewed at first.

Also, this program will not make your boat faster.

IX. COMMENTS
------------
Have fun, be awesome, and let me know if you like, dislike, want the code for,
find a bug in, have an idea or code to add to, want to donate money to support,
or have questions about this program.