PPS: the *.mdb (MS Access format) had been reverse engineered long time ago and there is open source libraries for reading and writing it, so the chances are you don't even need to change the WinMSS
Yes, it was a while back I asked (2-3 years ago?) The idea was to take the signed up shooters from ipsc-matches and populate the winmss match record, with names, divisions, power factors, etc.
If we can do that, then you, on the receiving end, wouldn't need to worry (too much) about the different spellings of names, since a particular shooter would always be referred to by the name (s)he provided when signing up.
Now, as I understand, winmss has its own database of shooters, and then you assign shooters to a match (same way as what I do). If the database format is known, one thing which we could do is to have a download from ipsc-matches which creates the whole DB, just for that match - the users db and the match setup - everything already pre-populated. I'm assuming that winmss has the capability of opening/using different DB files, so the stats person could just open/load the one from the signup system, for that match, without affecting whatever existing shooter data he might have elsewhere.
Now, yes, there would be duplication, since, in essence, you'd be getting a new winmms db file for each match, but the alternative is to try and match what's already in the winmms file for that md/stats with the names in the signup system... I see you're doing that for your stats thing, but I don't want to bother doing that on my end...
re #####ing - well, remember this; you can say nice things 10 times, and ##### only twice, but it's the "ohh, he's #####ing AGAIN" sentiment will stick in memory, but people will forget the nice things. And I frequently see you complaining about things which aren't done quickly enough, well enough, etc - it's annoying, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that, even if I tend to say it more.
So, it's great that you're helping with things like stats, but please be slightly more careful when expressing negative feelings about what others have done, are doing, or are not doing. You have no idea what kind of headwinds we had to fight through only few years ago when trying to introduce the most basic online features to ipsc. To have someone complain and ask why we aren't using the most current, latest features and technologies, it's, well, amusing at best and , well, you can imagine what that is as worst
