What are posters?
Just a while ago, to keep up with a tournament and bring a bit of solemnity to the process, fans needed to make all score records on paper and then stick that rub-sore record sheet on a larger piece of paper with a photo of that tournament star. PrePoster takes that burden off fans’ shoulders, letting them enjoy the game sight and get the final score sheet stuck on a striking poster automatically.
Technically, posters are files that can be downloaded from a website and stored locally. The poster file contains tables and brackets for a specific tournament, along with the teams participating in the tournament. The file can be edited in PrePoster (users can enter match scores), saved on disk and synchronized over the Net.
Download the poster created by the administrator on the threshold of the tournament and use PrePoster to keep the record of the event: Enter the teams in the corresponding spots on the poster according to the schedule of the games and along the course of the tournament, as the scores become available, enter the scores in the corresponding fields. The program will automatically rearrange the teams by their rank as new information becomes available. At any time, whether in the midst of the tournament or when it’s over, you can save your posters on your local computer or share them with other fans through your website, blog or homepage.
Downloading poster blank from the Internet
Instead of “wasting” time on making up your own poster, you might rather want to spend that time on watching the game and have PrePoster quickly create a striking tournament poster for you. Simply grab the poster blank pre-designed by the administrator and made available on the server and enter the scores in it.
PrePoster will help you save time even on browsing the server contents by serving the data in the “ready-to-use” format. Simply select “Get from Server…” on the Poster menu and instantly obtain the list of available tournaments and posters. The table that appears in response will briefly list available posters, including poster names, time they were last updated, poster file sizes, and links to poster file downloads and detailed descriptions.
Click on the Download link by the poster you’d like to obtain and then save the file to disk, just the way you’d save a file in your web browser. To learn more about the selected tournament, click More Info…
Synchronizing posters with server
Just as you can keep an eye on a tournament and enter the scores in the posters by hand as they become available, you can obtain those scores automatically from the server, if you get behind a game (e.g., couldn’t watch it and don’t have the results handy). Simply select Synchronize… on the Poster menu and get an up-to-date copy of your poster with all scores already placed in the right spots of your poster. Even if you haven’t missed any games, this is a great workaround to have all the data filled in the poster much quicker.
Keeping records
PrePoster offers four ways of entering match results depending on the selected type of tournament.
For the majority of sports, PrePoster shows the standard score entry dialog. If the draw is not an option, you can either enter a different score (e.g., if you have entered the draw by mistake) or choose to edit the score by entering the points won during extra time / overtime or penalty shootout. The program will automatically arrange the new score on the poster and accompany it with necessary comments about overtime or penalty-shootout.
For the single-match play-off tournament system, you will see the same dialog box where you can enter a game score. If the original score was tie, and the winner was determined by the overtime game, you can enter the final score and tick-off the Overtime option. If the winner was determined by a penalty shootout, tick-off the Penalty Shootout option and enter the penalty shootout score. The program will automatically arrange the new score on the poster and accompany it with necessary comments about overtime or penalty-shootout.
For the two-match home and away play-off system, just about the same score entry dialog box will appear, where you can enter a game score. For the first game, the only difference from the above is that here you also set which team was hosting the game. If the teams scored tie, tick-off the Overtime option and enter the final score of the first game. For the second game, you certainly don’t have to specify which team was the host (as it’s the opposite from the above), but instead, if the teams, again, scored tie, you can tick-off the Penalty Shootout option and enter the penalty shootout score. The program will automatically arrange the new score on the poster and accompany it with necessary comments about overtime or penalty-shootout.
For 2-3-4-win play-off tournaments, you also enter a game score in the familiar by now score entry box. Again, if the teams score tie, then, assuming that you haven’t entered the draw by mistake, you can too select whether the winning score was set during the regular time, overtime period or penalty shootout.
Sharing poster over the Net
To share your poster with others, you can quickly throw it at your pals via e-mail or make it available for all through your website, blog or homepage. Just make the poster look the way you want it to appear on your pals’ computers and then Save as Web Page… through the Poster menu. In the Save As… window that appears, choose where you want to save your poster, take a note of that folder and, once file are saved, upload them to your blog, homepage or website.
Customizing the software
Still want to tune up the program to fit your temper? Select the Options item on the Tools menu and adjust the settings as you feel necessary, including poster download and synchronization addresses and other options.
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