HappyTC: Info

Just released a couple of new features of interest to those who export their HappyTC schedule to Google Calendar (or other applications supporting the “iCalendar” format):

• To specify an event (game) description different than the default (which is the team name and opponent), enter a “note” for the game that starts with ‘!‘ (exclamation mark); for example, “!Tournament XYZ“. That will force the iCalendar export to use the note as the start of the event’s description and summary (so it will show up that way in Google Calendar).
• To indicate that an event spans multiple days, click the game’s “more…” link. Anywhere in the “more game notes” area type in the end date of the event as follows: “[end_date=2009-06-21]” (using date format YYYY-MM-DD). This will force Google Calendar to treat it as a multi-day event. (Normally teams attending multi-day tournaments create just one “game” in HappyTC and a note (e.g. “goes to Sunday”), or else create a “game” for each day of the event… but this makes it show up nice in an external calendar.)

Props to AnSc for the ideas.

A few minor updates today that most users won’t even notice… for the technically inclined who may be interested:

• Added a request header to the iCalendar sync job (good idea from DaON @OCUA) so that web masters can know it’s HappyTC requesting calendar info, and not the forces of evil
• Other minor tidy up in the iCalendar engine (handle missing uids for ITSportsNet feeds; stop worrying about duplicate games if they’re in the past; etc.)

Just released some very minor changes as part of preventing recurrences of Monday June 1st’s problem.

All emails sent from HappyTC should now contain instructions on how to opt-out (“unsubscribe”) from ever receiving further HappyTC emails.

The vast majority of HappyTC emails have always included an “opt-out” link that automatically places the receiver’s email in our “do not email” table. In cases where such a link is not included, instructions indicate to email “unsubscribe (at) happytc (dot) com“. Sending to “spam (at) happytc (dot) com” has the same effect.

HappyTC does NOT send unsolicited email, nor have we received any complaints from recipients as to our email practices. Nevertheless, it is important to include opt-out information to avoid running afoul of spam filters.

Minor tweaks & enhancements released today:

• Both iCalendar import and export now accessible via the “iCalendar” menu item
• Added one-click “export to Google Calendar” (saving you having to copy/paste a link)
• Renamed “Fans & more” menu item to “Share & more” (more exaplantory we hope!)
• Rebranded the “sync” feature (dropping the “h” since “sync” is how all the cool kids spell it)

You can now export your team schedule in the standard “iCalendar” format.

That means you can import your team’s schedule into your Google Calendar (or other app supporting the iCalendar format).

Simply click the “Fans & more” link in the top-right corner, and then click “Export schedule“.

Click "Fans & more", then "Export schedule"

Tip o’ the hat to MaPr for the idea.

Also: the guest-view (for fans) is now available for all “views”. (Previously it was only available for players clicking their email links to get in.)

You can now let your fans in on your team schedule, without letting them change anything!

This way you can post a public-access link to your team schedule.

Just click your normal schedule link (in an email), and then click the “fans” link in the top right corner:

Other things included in this release:

1. Added a way captains can regenerate all players’ schedule links (in case players have posted their links all over the place, allowing miscreants to muck with the schedule). It’s under “Team Settings” on the new “advanced” tab.
2. The automatic daily iCalendar schedule synchronizer no longer sends an email to the captain if the league’s schedule is empty, and no changes were made to the HappyTC schedule.
3. Various under-the-hood maintenance and enhancements.

We’ve made a minor addition to the HappyTC Privacy Policy to accommodate Google’s new practices that take effect April 8, 2009.

Essentially, Google (which produces the ads shown on HappyTC — which, when clicked, generate revenue — just like on zillions of other sites around the web) uses cookies in order to show more “relevant” ads, based on other sites you have visited.

You can opt out of Google’s cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy and clicking the big blue “opt out” button.

Minor update: captains and empowered co-captains can now delete bulletins — just click the “delete” link in each post. Thanks to EK for the original prodding to implement this.

Also, for those using a “league branded” HappyTC: the option to switch to a vanilla HappyTC should now work in all cases (click the “HappyTC” link in the page footer).

Facebook has acknowledged a problem with receiving feed updates from applications (such as HappyTC).

Facebook is apparently working on fixing it. (These feed updates are “nice to have” and not critical in any way to HappyTC… would be nice for FB to fix them, though.)

We’ve conformed to Facebook’s changes, so feeds should work again — you’ll get game reminders in your Facebook news feeds. (Facebook certainly doesn’t make things easy for outside applications… )

You can also once again show your HappyTC teams on your Facebook profile (you have the option of either putting them on your “Wall and Info Tab” (aka profile) or your “Boxes Tab”. Open the HappyTC app on Facebook, and click “Add to Profile“:

Add your teams to your Facebook profile!

Another minor update (oft-requested): bulletins — those little notes you can post on your team schedule at the right hand side — now expire after three months. (That is the default; it can be configured differently for each team.)

And: take our quick survey! (Should we add Twitter feeds to HappyTC??)