Mississauga North Stars

Read the special report for new users.

This website can be viewed as a set of small sites. It has a set of team pages for each team, and a set of resource pages which may be shared by many teams. The pages for a team may be considered a small team site; the resources pages may be considered a small resources site.

Team Sites

Each team has a small team site with pages about the team and its schedule. For example:

This depicts the menu and summarizes the pages which the buttons in the menu go to; the menu depicted is not active.

News	team’s home page, with news bulletins and coming events.
Team	team info, with lists of coaches and players.
Sponsors	sponsor info and a list of sponsors.
Photos	a small photo gallery.
Contacts	how to contact the staff or webmaster.
Help	tips on using the site, and a site map.
Confidential	password protected info, mainly contact info.
Calendar	a calendar of events.
Games	a list of games, with details, plus the season record.
Tournaments	a list of tournaments, links to detailed tournament pages.
What’s Up	summary of news and schedule-related info.
Resources	goes to Team Sites Resource page.

Some points to note:

• A team site may lack the Photos page if there are no photos for public viewing.
• A team site may have extra pages: for example, if there is a team budget or photos which must be private, the password protected Confidential page may link to pages with the private content.
• The coach may opt to have two calendars, one public, and one private, with the latter being password protected.
• You should bookmark the News (Home) page of your team’s site, and visit it often.
• A team site isn’t updated after its season ends, so its links to other sites may break as time goes on.

Resource Site

All teams share the resource pages, giving information for all teams. For example:

This depicts the menu and summarizes the pages which the buttons in the menu go to; the menu depicted is active.

There are additional pages which don’t appear in the menu since they are only reached indirectly, via other pages. For example, the menu has a Reports button which goes to a page with a list of special reports: the special reports are also resource pages, but they don’t appear in the menu; they are reached only via the Reports page.

There are three major ways to navigate throughout this site: using the vertical menu on the left side of each page; using text links; and using graphic links.

The Menus

The menu at the left of each page is used to go to other pages within the site. Gray menu buttons go to pages within the current team site. Green menu buttons go to pages in the resources site.

See the previous FAQ, “How is this site organized?”, for depictions of the menus and explanations of what the menu buttons do.

Note : text within buttons is normally white, but text within the button corresponding to the current page is gold, a subtle reminder of what page you are at.

Text Links

Text links work as you might expect: they are blue or purple, depending on whether you have visited their destinations recently; pointing to a text link makes an underscore appear under the text; and pointing to a text link often changes the text colour to green (hinting “Go”).

Graphic Links

There are a few special graphic links:

• Clicking the North Stars logo at the top right of any page will go to the resource page Team Sites, which has links to the known team sites, plus a link to the Mississauga North Stars Hockey Club site. This is a quick way to get to the various North Stars sites.
• Pointing to the top left corner of any page — where a graphic says “Mississauga North Stars Hockey Club : Team Sites” — changes the graphic to “Mississauga North Stars Hockey Club => Club Site”, which becomes a link to the club site. Note : JavaScript must be enabled for this link to work.
• Clicking the name of the team just above the menu in any team page will go to the home page of the team site, i.e. to the team’s News page.
• Clicking the word “Resources” — just above the menu in any Resource page — will go to the home page of the resource pages, i.e. to the Team Sites page.
• Clicking the icon of an upward arrow at the bottom right corner of any page will go to the top of that page.
• Clicking the webmaster’s logo at the bottom left corner of any page will go to the webmaster’s site.

• Home pages have buttons near the bottom which go to common destinations:

  
  

There is no single site map for the entire site, but each section of the site has its own small site map, on its Help page.

For this section of the site, see the sitemap in the sidebar, above.

For individual team sites, find the team site on the Team Sites page, go to that team’s site, and click that site’s Help button to go to that site’s Help page.

This depends on the team.

For Mississauga North Star teams, go to the Resource site’s home page, Team Sites, which lists the known team sites. Alternatively, go to the North Stars’ site’s list of North Stars team sites.

For other hockey teams, search this site’s Links page, and see if the team is listed there.

This site was made by Chuck Upsdell. If you are interested in having a site for your team, see his page titled Sports Sites.

This depends on whom you are trying to contact.

To contact a particular team’s coach, assistant coach, or other staff member — for team sites made by Chuck Upsdell — go to the Resources home page to find the team’s site, and then to that site’s “Contacts” page.

To contact a parent or player — for team sites made by Chuck Upsdell — go to the Resources home page to find the team’s site, and then to that site’s password protected “Confidential Information” page: you will need to know the username and password for this page in order to access it, since such contact information isn’t available to the general public.

To contact this site’s webmaster, send an eMail message to Chuck Upsdell.

An icon of a key () marks a menu item which goes to a password protected page. Such a page typically has confidential information: for example, email addresses of a team’s coaches and parents; to access the page, a user must enter a “username” and “password”, which a typically given by a team’s coach to coaches, parents, and players.

Note : an icon of a silver key () is also used on the Team Sites page to mark team sites which are so heavily password protected that the general public will find little or no useful information on such sites.

Caution : a browser usually remembers a username and password until you close the browser, so if someone later tries to go to the password protected page and the browser hasn’t been closed in the meanwhile, they could go to the password protected page without being asked for the username or password. For this reason, you should close the browser before leaving your PC unless you are sure that no one might use the PC later who shouldn’t see that page.

This site works with some cellphones and other mobile devices. For details see “SPECIAL REPORT : Mobile Devices”.

This site works well with all common modern browsers, except for Internet Explorer 5 and low-end mobile browsers. There are a few minor issues with Internet Explorer 6 and 7.

Internet Explorer 5 isn’t supported.

Support of mobile devices is discussed in “SPECIAL REPORT : Mobile Devices”.

At certain pages you may see a notice at the bottom of the page telling you about a browser update. For example:

Such a notice may appear at the resources Team Sites page or at a team site’s News page.

One type of notice tells you that your browser is unsafe, hence you should update. In this case you should update, and you would be foolish not to, because your current version has known security defects which have been fixed in the newer version. You should update at your earliest convenience.

Another type of notice tells you that your browser could be updated to a version which is simply more capable. In this case the update isn’t critical, so you should update only if you wish, when you wish. There may be reasons not to update: for example, the newer version might not be compatible with something on your PC.

These notices are generated as a courtesy: in the first case to help make your PC safer, and in the second case to help make you see all websites working at their very best.

Your browser lets you configure how large text should normally appear in web pages. This text is in the size you configured. Many sites, however, use a size smaller than configured: and, if their text were too tiny, you may have reconfigured your browser to use larger text; but if you did this, text in the proper size will appear too large.

Text size problems wouldn’t exist if all sites would size text alike, but they don’t: many sites, like this one, use the size you configured; many use a size about one step smaller; and many use another size which is unrelated to how you configured your browser.

We suggest that you configure a size in which both these lines are easy to read:

This is the size you configured.
This (often used in menus, sidebars, etc.) is one step smaller.

If this makes text too small on other sites, you could use your browser’s zoom function, if it has one, to compensate. One hopes that, in the future, zooming will become less needed as more sites correctly honour how you have configured your browser.

When viewing pages on this site, some people may see fairly large black, starry margins on the left and right of each page. This happens most often for people who have very wide monitors, or who have configured very small fonts.

This happens because this site sizes each page so that the page width doesn’t exceed a certain limit. This is done to make pages easier to read: it has been found that people can most easily read lines of text which are neither too wide nor too narrow; by setting a maximum width, the site can ensure that lines of text won’t be so wide that they become hard to read.

The maximum width depends on how you have configured your browser’s default text size: if you have configured a large text size, the width is greater; if you have configured a small size, the width is less. The result is that each line will have about the same number of words whether the font size is large or small. But a side-effect is that the black, starry margins on the left and right of each page grow as the font size shrinks.

Note: if a team page contains the full team calendar, the page may be wider and the large starry margins may be narrower; this makes it easier to fit text in the calendars.

Note: if the browser window is very narrow, or if the font size is very great, the large starry margins won’t appear; pages will take up the full width of the browser window.

Note: the limit to the width of each page isn’t honoured by old versions of Internet Explorer, since these browsers don’t support the feature which allows the width to be limited. For these browsers, pages always take up the full width of the browser window.

This site offers some documents which require programs that some people don’t have. Examples of such documents are Adobe Acrobat (.PDF), Microsoft Excel (.XLS), and Microsoft Word (.DOC) documents. If you don’t have the program normally required, you can get free programs which will let you view and print those documents. This site has a page telling you how to get free Document Viewers which will enable you to read those documents.

Note : documents offered by sites on the Internet are usually in Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) format, which you can read using the Adobe Reader (often called the Acrobat Reader); if you don’t have this program, you should get it. Caution : Adobe will probably try to trick you into installing more than just the Adobe Reader, so at each step in the installation procedure, be careful to decline installation of other things.

Events in the team calendars are colour-coded to make it easier to identify events, just by glancing at the calendar.

The colour scheme is:

•  Practices 
•  Regular and Exhibition Games  (with a white star added for home games)
•  Tournament Days 
•  Events  (e.g. meetings, tryouts, happenings)
•  Celebrations  (e.g. birthdays)
•  Statutory Holidays 
•  Other Days  (e.g. various holy days)

Note : when several types of events take place on the same day, e.g. both a game and a practice, the primary colours are those of the event which is most significant.

A team’s calendar can be viewed in two different ways, either in Calendar Mode, or in List Mode. The default is Calendar Mode, except when the calendar is viewed using a mobile device such as a cellphone, in which case the default is List Mode instead.

Calendar Mode

In Calendar Mode the calendar appears as a grid with rows of weeks and columns of weekdays. For example:

List Mode

A calendar can also appear in List Mode, as a list of events, with one row per event. For example:

Note : list mode is typically disabled once the year is over.

It is harder to describe the two modes than to use them: go to a team’s calendar page and try them out!

Normally a team site’s calendar lists all events. If, however, the team site has both a Public Calendar and a Private Calendar, the Public Calendar won’t show exhibition games or practices unless the user has visited the password-protected area of the site — i.e. the Confidential page or the Private Calendar — within the last year: the intent is to prevent the general public from learning about non-public team activities.

Note : if the team site has both a Public Calendar and a Private Calendar, practices and exhibition games will also not appear in the list of upcoming events on the News page unless the user has visited the password-protected area of the site.

To print the entire calendar, simply use your browser’s function to print the page. For most browsers the command to do this is “File Print”. Note that, if you do this, the top part of the page with the buttons and sidebar won’t print because this part of the page isn’t needed for a printed calendar.

To print part of the calendar — e.g. for a month or a few months — you must do two things:

• Step 1 : select the portion of the calendar you want to print: with Microsoft Windows this is normally done by pointing the mouse to the start of what you want to print, holding the left mouse button down, moving the mouse (while the button is still down) to the end of what you want to print, then releasing the mouse button. Usually when you select part of a page, the browser will show what is selected by highlighting the selection in some way.

  For example, to select one month, point the cursor to the start of the name of the month, hold down the button and move the cursor to a point following the last week of the month, then release the mouse button.

• Step 2 : use your browser’s function to print the page, but when the Print dialog box appears, look for an option labelled “Selection” (or something like that) and set the option before clicking the dialog box’s “Okay” button to start printing. Note that the option won’t appear if you haven’t selected the portion of the calendar you want to print.

  Here is a depiction of of a Print dialog box with the “Selection” option set:

  

Note : the dialog box should have an option to print in either portrait or landscape mode. In the dialog box depicted above, the mode can be set using the “Properties” button. If the printed calendar isn’t wide enough when using portrait mode, try landscape mode.

Note : the site tells browsers to try to print the entire calendar for a month on a single page; unfortunately, browser support of this feature is very poor, so you will probably find some month’s calendars broken, partly on one page, and partly on the next. This has been a problem for a long time, and the browser makers appear not to be very interested in fixing this problem.

If you print web pages on this site, some things won’t be printed, by design. The page banner, borders, background, menus, and decorative items aren’t printed, because they aren’t needed on printed pages. Also, background colours aren’t printed unless there is a very good reason, and text is plain black on white, because this reduces your printer costs, especially if you have an ink-jet printer.

Sometimes background colours and images won’t be printed, even when they should be. This is because browsers have an option to disable printing of background colours and images: this can reduce your printer costs, but may also result in printed pages that lack important content or which look bad; for example, if the page has white text on a dark background, and the browser doesn’t print the dark background, the text won’t show up. If this happens you can configure your browser to print background colours and images, which will fix this problem. To do so:

• Chrome: there appears to be no way to configure this.
• Firefox: click File, Page Setup, Format & Options, then check the checkbox labelled “Print Background (colors and images)”.
• Internet Explorer: click Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, then check the checkbox labelled “Print background colors and images”.
• Mozilla: click File, Page Setup, Format & Options, then check the checkbox labelled “Print Background (colors and images)”.
• Opera: click File, Print options, then check the checkbox labelled Print page background.
• Safari: there appears to be no way to configure this.
• SeaMonkey: click File, Page Setup, Format & Options, then check the checkbox labelled “Print Background (colors and images)”.

JavaScript must be enabled to generate schedules, game results, and calendars on the team sites. This is because this information is extracted from a small database using a program written in the JavaScript programming language. If JavaScript isn’t enabled, a warning message explaining this will appear on the page.

This site has a page telling you how to enable JavaScript.

JavaScript must be enabled to generate, and to interact with, photo albums on the team sites. This is because the albums are generated from a small database using a program written in the JavaScript programming language. If JavaScript isn’t enabled, a warning message explaining this will appear on the page.

This site has a page telling you how to enable JavaScript.

This site has a page telling you how to enable JavaScript.

This site has a page telling you how to enable Cookies.

Each team site has a page named “What’s Up” which has a collection of information related to the team’s schedule. One section of this page, named “Conflicts and Incongruities in Scheduled Events”, offers an automatically generated report which lists questionable scheduling issues: for example, it lists games whose starting times seem to be too early, or games which seem to overlap with other events. This information is provided mainly for the webmaster and the coaches, to enable them to more easily identify scheduling problems.

Scheduling issues are classified as  notes ,  alerts ,  warnings , and  errors .

NOTES - visible only to the webmaster:

• An exhibition game has no result because the coach wants the result withheld. (This message appears only if the coach has a policy of not reporting results of exhibition games.)
• A game is scheduled today: be ready to post the result.
• A tournament is coming soon: get the schedule, or check for schedule changes.
• An event has a limited-time comment: the comment should be deleted when it expires.
• An expired event has a link: the link should be deleted if it is no longer needed.
• A news item is more than 30 days old: it should be deleted when appropriate.
• A news item has expired: it should be deleted.
• A news item has an initial lowercase character: it should be corrected if this is a typo.

ALERTS - should be noted, but seldom require action:

• A regular practice is scheduled on a tournament day and will be automatically skipped: this is normal, but if the practice should take place anyway, tell the webmaster.
• A regular practice is scheduled on a non-game tournament day: if the practice shouldn’t take place, tell the webmaster.
• A tournament day is coming soon with no game scheduled: if the schedule isn’t available, try to get it; if the schedule is available, verify that there is no game scheduled, or no game scheduled yet.

WARNINGS - often require action:

• A game is cancelled: it should be either rescheduled or removed from the schedule.
• A game has no result: the webmaster should be told the result.
• A game is scheduled with no start time: see if a start time is available.
• A game or practice is scheduled with no location: see if a location is available.
• An event takes place very soon after another event, which can especially be a problem when the events are in different locations: if there is a problem, reschedule one of the events.
• An event takes place very soon after another event, apparently at different locations: if there is a problem, reschedule one of the events.
• A regular or exhibition game is scheduled on a tournament day: check the schedule to see if this is right.
• A game or practice is scheduled very early in the morning: check the schedule to make sure the time is right.
• A game or practice is scheduled during normal work hours, or shortly thereafter: check the schedule to make sure the time is right.

ERRORS - almost always require action:

• An event appears to start after it ends: tell the webmaster the correct times.
• Two events overlap: this is usually due to an error in the schedule: tell the webmaster if there is an error.
• A tournament game is scheduled on a non-tournament day: check the game and tournament dates, and fix the error.

Note : in deciding whether an issue should be reported, this site makes decisions which are somewhat arbitrary. For example, a warning normally appears if a game starts before 8:00am, and some might prefer this time to be different. Some factors used in making the decisions can be configured, but regardless there may be instances when the issues reported aren’t what you might expect: the list of issues isn’t a cure-all for scheduling problems.

These mark games which obviously conflict with the schedule.

An R or X in a game schedule marks a regular or exhibition game which is scheduled on a tournament day.

A T in a game schedule indicates a tournament game which isn’t scheduled on a tournament day.

For exhaustive scheduling checks, see “How can I check for possible problems in a team’s schedule?”.

These are pages created for a team coach or manager to post information on the site themselves, without involving the webmaster. For example, if it is urgent to post a notice that games are cancelled due to inclement weather, a coach or manager can post the notice, and the notice goes onto the site immediately.

For the 2009/2010 Atom team, for example, the administrative pages are at:

http://www.upsdell.com/NorthStars/2009/Atom/admin/index.htm

The administrative pages are password protected, using a different username and password than used for the team’s Confidential page.

There is no button or link to go to the administrative pages, except for links from the team’s Help page: this is because the few people authorized to use these pages will be told by the webmaster where to go, and they will bookmark the pages on their PC(s).

Right now there are just two administrative functions, one to set a news alert, and one to cancel it: more functions could be added in the future. An overview of news alerts is available on the page “SPECIAL REPORT : News Alerts”. More Details appear on the administrative pages themselves.

This happens when you have failed to enter the correct username and / or password when prompted to do so at a password-protected page or file.

Password protected pages on this site include the administrative pages, discussed above, as well as team sites’ Confidential pages and private calendars.