mmpl website project: the brief
For a number of years now I’ve been playing in the Tramway Hotel’s MMPL 3rd division pool team. For almost as long I’ve been meaning to get around to volunteering to update their website - www.mmpl.org.au. Well, I’ve finally done that and now, with a couple of other members, have been officially charged with improving the site.
While I haven’t sat down and spoken to the other developers about this, I’d like to rebuild the site from scratch (rather than build upon the existing code), and I’d like to do it in Ruby on Rails. My motivation for this is mostly to expand my repertoire as a developer. If the other developers aren’t keen on the idea, I’ll develop a version of the site in Rails anyway - even if it never gets used.
Firstly though, I need to specify what it is that I’ll be building. It’s not terribly complicated - the MMPL Website should provide:
- General information about the organization
- Information resources for players
- News updates
- Events calendar
- Online team registration
- Online score sheet submission
- Results and ladder
The first couple of items can be done with static pages and/or PDF downloads, much as the current site already does. News updates can be done using a blog-like system, again, much as the current site does.
The current site also has a calendar, but it seems pretty clunky and doesn’t get used much. When it does, it is only for events like presentation nights - a good calendar would include the actual matches. I’m thinking it would be nice to somehow use google’s calendar.
The current site does not have online registration and score sheet submission. Results and the ladder are compiled manually and emailed to team captains. All of this should be managed through the site.
It would be really nice if it could also provide:
- News feed
- Calendar feed
- Accounting of registration fees
That’s all for now. Next time I’ll map out the data model for the site.





