A day watching the Venla and Jukola relays has given me a chance to finalise and release a new version. The main changes are:

• New speed analysis functionality added to the performance analysis tabs.
• Purple dots added to GPS route displays to show nominal control locations based on elapsed time on the route.
• Improved presentation of Information panel (accessed via the Help icon). Georeferenced maps now incude a link to Open Street Map so that you can see exactly where a map is.
• Updated manager login functionality although this should be invisible to users.
• Updated start-up screen.
• Various other minor enhancements.

After nearly two years of behind the scenes development and testing the new version has now been properly rolled out to all sites and moved to become the master branch in Github. Most people will already be familiar with this although there are a few more minor functional enhancements included as well.

The initial development of Routegadget 2 in 2013 was meant to be a prototype as a proof of concept. Ten years later I have finally got there and managed to throw away the prototype code. This version has been work in progress for about two years and has made appearances on various sites (HH, British Champs and the JK amongst others) over the past year, but it has now been rolled out to all routegadget.co.uk sites.

This release does not have a great deal of new functionality, but does include:

• Cleaner design and layout, especially for smaller screens.
• Enhanced statistics display with better presentation of tables and charts.
• User-selectable colours for displayed routes.
• Various minor error corrections and enhancements.

Version 1.9.0 has now been released and installed on all routegadget.co.uk sites. This release includes:

• Chart display of some of the stats information available when double clicking on a runner name on the results tab.
• Extra error handling which now allows some very old (RG1, pre 2011) events to be displayed correctly.
• Extra warnings about map size when setting up an event.
• Various other minor updates.

After a few false starts I have finally managed to update the routegadget.co.uk website. It now includes a lot more user information and details about functionality that people may not be aware of.

For the technically minded it is built using Docusaurus which has turned out to be a very good choice so far.

Version 1.8.0 has now been released and installed on all routegadget.co.uk sites. This release includes:

• Enhancements to the "Measure" function following use at HH Zoom meetings. Route nodes can be dragged to adjust them, overlays are only visible when dialog window is open, and "Delete all" button added.
• New manager function added to allow deletion of unused maps.#
• Enhancement to course sliders so that they handle relay and score courses better.

Version 1.7.0 has now been released and installed on all routegadget.co.uk sites. This release includes two new functions to help with race analysis:

• A new "Measure" icon has been added to the toolbar. If you click on this you can then measure different route options by drawing directly on the map. Distances are shown in metres for georeferenced maps and pixels for other maps.
• The "Courses" tab now has a slider for each course. This allows you to view only part of a course and route display and makes things much easier when analysing convoluted courses with a lot of crossovers.

Plus a number of other minor updates.

Simon Errington presented a BOF webinar "Getting to know Routegadget" for users and managers and highlighted some of the new features.

A full video recording of the session is available.

Routegadget UK was moved to a new server on 19th October 2019. Around half of current sites are now working correctly. This should include all clubs that have an event in the next two weeks, as well as the other heavily used sites. Unfortunately it may be another week before I can get the remaining sites working. This is because there is a limit on how fast I can generate the necessary security certificates. As part of this change I need to set up FTP access for anyone who had it. I'll try to do that early next week and let clubs know the new details. Sorry for the interruption in service.

Routegadget UK was set up by Paul Frost in 2005. In Paul's words:

11 years ago I discovered RouteGadget, developed by Jarkko Ryyppö from Finland, and installed it on the EckO and Southdowns websites. People started asking me how they could do the same for their club, but many lacked the technical skills or the access to their server. So 10 years ago I launched RouteGadget UK as an option for those clubs who needed help setting it up.

The site has grown so that there are now nearly 100 clubs using it. Routegadget itself has evolved, mainly because of security issues with the java language used for the original implementation. In 2013 Paul managed to convince Simon Errington that a new version was needed, and this emerged as Routegadget 2 which uses modern browser techniques and is largely implemented in javascript.

Paul eventually stepped aside at the end of 2016, and the site is now run by Simon. If you are a British orienteering club that doesn't already use Routegadget but would like to then contact Simon to discuss what is involved.