WheelBarrow Software's Blog

Introducing the Play Designer Series 2012

2010-12-31T00:28:00.002-05:00

Play Designer 2012 - Now Ready (with Kindle Support)

Our 10th Version of the Play Designer is ready for all of you coaches out there. We continue to listen to the coaches out there - We now have over 13 thousand users in over 40 countries using the software. Over the past year we have working hard to provide the below new features while continuing to focus on ensuring the software is easy to use, helpful and fun!

Here are the major features for v10.0

DTP - Digital Text Publication - Your Playbooks on the Kindle

Output Format for the Kindle to allow you to sell your playbooks on line at dtp.amazon.com. Output your playbook to the DTP format (HTML), edit and upload to the site to sell your own playbooks. Make them available on all Kindle supported devices.

Copy and Paste Functionality

Standard Copy and Paste functionality is now in Play Designer 2012. You can copy a route and paste over an existing players routes or paste as a new player on the field/court.

Enhanced Hot Route Creation: Need a hot route drawn? Simply right click now and add a hot route and edit the hot route properties similar to all edits made in the player properties. You can also edit the regular and hot routes together.

Enhanced Moving Functionality: Now, you have the choice of moving your player and keeping the route fixed, or moving your player with the route.

Entire Play Move Functionality: Using the selection tool, simply mark the play for moving and you can use your keyboard to adjust the entire play up, down, left or right. Easy to readjust a play on the fly.

Background Override on PDF Playbook: In the past, you would have to use the background that you saved a play with - Now, you can force the entire playbook to have the same background - There is an override function on the PDF Playbook Tool.

PlayList in the PDF Playbook Add-On - PDF Save Playbook: Ah! Yes. Now, once you create a playbook, you can save a reference to that playbook. If you keep the plays in the same files, (similar to an iTunes playlist), you can bring back that playbook again and re-create it with ease.

Enhanced Menus and Speed: We have slightly redesigned our menus to be a little more intelligent - Already drawn a route, you will see a re-draw option instead of all the options. Also, the menus and overall speed of the system has been improved.

Creates Output that Works on Tablet Devices!: Check out our mobile play link on the left side of the page to understand better how to use the output on your tablet or mobile device.

We are very excited about the new release and hope you are too. If you have any questions, if you are interested in purchasing 2012, simply go to http://www.wheelbarrowsoftware.com.

WheelBarrow Software Releases a Help and Info Site!

2010-06-19T12:54:00.001-04:00

We have be listening to our customers over the past 9 years and they have been asking for a better way to QUICKLY learn the software - We have consdiered manuals and long video classes - - However we decided to turn our help site into a Wiki based on the open-source Docuwiki at http://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki. We have split our lessons into classes and created text based walkthroughs and video based walkthroughs. We would like your feedback on how helpful this site is and if you think there is anything else we should add.

You can find the site at: http://www.football-software.net/wbswiki/doku.php

Enjoy!

Play Designer 2011 - Now Ready (with Video)!

2009-09-27T01:56:00.017-04:00

Our 9th Version of the Play Designer is ready for all of you coaches out there. The 2011 Release of the Play Designer Series is our most exciting release to date. There are many new features (reviewed below), but what will set this version apart from the others is the ability to create quick time movie files that you can e-mail and share online. This has been the most requested feature for some time - We wanted to ensure that we didn't make our software to expensive by adding that features - After years of work and after talking to hundreds of coaches, it is finally here.

Here are the major features for v9.0.

Video - All plays can be saved to a video file that is created in the background - The movie files are rather small and can be e-mailed or posted to a video sharing site, like YouTube.

Learning Mode - with any play, you can highlight (with a spotlight) a set of players to focus on - it will dim the rest of the players out - This is great for teaching a play, but many coaches were creating three plays to teach one - With this method, simply create your play and focus in on what you want to teach.
New Flip Ability - you can now flip a play vertically - show your team always on top or bottom of the court/field

New Add-Ons and Bundle Add-On Option - We have released a video add-on, which will create bulk video files - We have changed the way we capture plays, so you can minimize the screen and we have added two new bundled add-ons with a large discount 1) Playbook add-on - with the PDF, video, web and iPod add-ons and 2) Tools add-on - with the practice planner, and roster add-on

Sequence Navigator - The ability to put a title and description to each sequence - and a small tool to navigate through the seqeunces easily.

PDF Enhancements - We have added a new PDF Tool to create Play Cards (with just a play) and we have added more navigational features in the PDF, so you can jump play to play using Adobe.

Custom Label - You now can use the
label as the graphic (and completely remove any grahpic and use just the
label

We are very excited about the new release and hope you are too. If you have any questions, if you are interested in purchasing 2011, you can call us at 201.455.7529 or e-mail your questions to support@wheelbarrowsoftware.com. If you are a '10 customer, please go to http://download.wheelbarrowsoftware.com to download the products.

New Basketball Software for Shot Charting!

2009-02-21T22:26:00.005-05:00

We are very excited to announce the release of our latest title,
Basketball Shot Charting - v1.0. Our newest release makes it very easy to track your team and your opponent's stats, while also providing a graphical shot chart. Track scoring, shot charts, in game, and person by person stats - by only clicking the mouse!

We have really thought about the job of keep stats and maintaining a shot chart throughout a game. This is a very difficult job. We have reduced the work down to simple mouse clicks. Left double-click to mark a shot made and right double-click to mark a shot as missed - You can assign the shots to different folks and track the score, the shot chart and stats all in one package. We hope that our basketball coaches and customers enjoy the latest release.

Introducing Play Designer 2010! It is worth the wait!

2008-11-04T23:28:00.006-05:00

So, yes we have been hard at work with the 2010 release of the Play Designer Series. We have heard from many of our long-time customers and our new customers about features that you would like to see. We also speak to potential customers using other methods for their playbooks and are considering our solution for play and playbook design. The Play Designer was released into pre-release yesterday 11/29/2008. We are proud to offer our first subscription for folks who want to save money, but always get the latest release. With the subscription, you get the designer and the add-on for one low yearly price.

Here are the major features for v8.0.

The ability to create curved lines as well as straight lines. Our goal was to make this extremely easy while maintaining the same way a line is drawn in seconds in our software. We believe we have achieved this.

The ability to edit your lines without a redraw. Simply click a button, and you will be able to edit/drag each point of the route (straight or curved) to establish a new line quickly and easily

We are changing our preferences menu so that in one window vs. a menu you can change some of the many features available to you for your settings

The PDF Playbook will have a 24 play format which won't be great for printing, but will be great to e-mail a one page playbook around and if you need a quick one-page reference on the sidelines, you will have this available to you.

The PDF Playbook will also have less white space; each play will be a little bit larger so that you can see on screen and certainly when printed.

For our basketball, soccer, lacrosse and hockey users, you will explicitly be able to "shoot" the ball and have that animate properly within the play.
You now can set the line to be drawn from the top or bottom of the player or have the software continue to calculate the line for you.

We are very excited about the new release and hope you are too. If you have any questions, if you are interested in purchasing 2010, you can call us at 201.486.7549 or e-mail your questions to support@wheelbarrowsoftware.com. If you are a '09 customer, please go to http://download.wheelbarrowsoftware.com to download the products.

Looking to Posts Articles & Thoughts from Our Customers!

2008-11-04T22:59:00.005-05:00

After 7 years of providing software to football, basketball, lacrosse, soccer and hockey coaches, we want to hear from you! We have spoken to hundreds of coaches from around the country and the world, and heard about how you are using our software. We would like to open this blog up to you. Simply e-mail us with an article you want to write on coaching, or an article on a play or set of plays that you have created for your team that you would like to write about. Perhaps you created a play that worked great (or didn't), you had a play that worked great in practice but not in the game....whatever you would like to discuss, we would like to allow you to reach all of our readers & customers.

E-mail us your article and/or publishing ideas to support@wheelbarrowsoftware.com. We will not edit any of the articles, but we will just like to make sure that meet the expectations of the request.

If you want to attach play files, playbooks, pictures, please feel free as it is likely that there are coaches around the country that are having similar experiences.

Play Designer 2009 Released Today (3/21/2008)

2008-03-21T18:22:00.003-04:00

Yes, the Play Designer Series 2009 has been released today! We are very excited about the latest release. If you are an '08 customer, you can download the latest version from http://download.wheelbarrowsoftware.com.

If you are interested in upgrading go to http://www.wheelbarrowsoftware.com
to purchase the latest version.

The Play Designer Series 2009, is available in Football, Basketball, Lacrosse, Hockey and Soccer. There are many new features added to the designer.

The ability to select an active area for certain changes - you can align the players you set to the active player, and draw routes for more than one player at a time with the active zone.
You will be able to insert specific player instructions for each player and easily add them into the play description field in the play properties
Depth Charting will be a standard feature on the play design series - the ability to simply add names, or names and numbers and have a depth chart saved with a play or just the formation.
A new add-on is coming to the play designer add-on series which will allow you to maintain a roster and utilize this in the depth charting feature
An enhanced PDF Add-On will provide more options in the '09 series. There are more sequence printing options and an 8-play per page option.
The active player is now highlighted when you are creating your play.

It is always a great time to start thinking about designing your electronic playbook. If you have any questions, please e-mail us at
support@wheelbarrowsoftware.com
and we are happy to answer your questions.

Check out the Football Coaches Reference Site

2008-03-03T22:41:00.003-05:00

We at WheelBarrow Software are always looking for sites that may help our customers out. We found this site below - if you are interested.

The Football Coaches Reference Site (www.coachteed.com), was founded in 2003 to help other coaches share ideas with other coaches. The site is dedicated to providing quality information to football coaches of all ages and levels.
Coachteed.com provides the following:

* Calendar of football clinics around the USA
* Basics to football beginners (Players and Coaches)
* Drills, conditioning and weight room itineraries
* Coach's Forum to share ideas and ask questions of other coaches
* Directory of Free playbooks to download
* More than 2000 NFL, college, high school and youth playbooks from the US and around the world

Is Play Designer 2009 on it's way?

2008-03-03T21:45:00.000-05:00

Yes, the Play Designer Series 2009 is being worked on just as you read this newsletter. We are very excited for all of the 08 customers as they will receive 2009 for free. This is an excellent opportunity to have the right to have the '09 release by simply purchasing the 2008 designer.

More importantly, many of you are probably curious what features will be added to the designer. Although this is still in our development shop we wanted to let you know about some of the exciting new features for the Play Designer Series 2009, which will still be available in Football, Basketball, Lacrosse, Hockey and Soccer.

The ability to select an active area for certain changes - you can align the players you set to the active player, and draw routes for more than one player at a time with the active zone.
You will be able to insert specific player instructions for each player and easily add them into the play description field in the play properties
Depth Charting will be a standard feature on the play design series - the ability to simply add names, or names and numbers and have a depth chart saved with a play or just the formation.
A new add-on is coming to the play designer add-on series which will allow you to maintain a roster and utilize this in the depth charting feature
An enhanced PDF Add-On will provide more options in the '09 series.

Those are some of the exciting new features we are working on. We expect to have the pre-release available to 08 customers in early April, so be on the lookout!

It is always a great time to start thinking about designing your electronic playbook.

Football Tendency Tracker 2008 - Released Today

2008-01-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

WheelBarrow Software Inc. is pleased to announce the release of Football Tendency Tracker v1.0 - 2008 Edition. For several years, our customers have asked if we can provide any way to track stats, but not in the typical player by player fashion. Our users have mentioned that some of those types of products are difficult to use and very time consuming. We believe we have met the challenge with Football Tendency Tracker 2008. You or your coaching staff can enter in very simple and straightforward details about your team or your opponent. This software provides you with the ability to track basic, but extremely important details. You can determine run vs. pass percentage, which formation a team tends to run from vs. pass, and overall effectiveness of a formation or strength.

The software comes with over 30 reports and 60 charts which enable you to be very productive in making quick decisions about how to game plan for or against an opponent.

This is our first release and we intend to continue to grow this product through the years similar to our Play Designer series. Check it out today at www.wheelbarrowsoftware.com. We are offering a 35% discount on the Tracker '08 for new customers of our Play Designer series.

Coaches Clipboard v1 2008 Released Today

2007-10-20T23:41:00.000-04:00

WheelBarrow Software Inc. is pleased to announce the release of Coaches Clipboard v1.0 - 2008 Edition. For several years, our customers have asked for an affordable tool that can assist them in making all types of team and/or practice schedules. The Clipboard (as we like to call it) features an easy to use "Office 2007 interface" and "Outlook style" scheduling. Coaches can create schedules for their games, repeating appointments for their practice, and even schedules for league meetings, etc...The possibilities are endless.

Why is this tool better than other tools for creating schedules? First off, the tool understand you may want to create separate schedules as a coach - Secondly, it is extremely easy to use and features an exceptional interface. Lastly. printing is a breeze!

We are offering a 25% discount on Coaches Clipboard 2008 for new customers of our Play Designer series.

What's Next for WheelBarrow Software Inc.

2007-10-03T23:05:00.001-04:00

WheelBarrow Software Inc. is very excited about the future for ourselves and our customers. Each year as Football Season ends and Basketball season and Hockey are upon us we begin to make plans for our next year.

This year (2007), we rebuilt our marquee product Play Designer to better suit our previous customers and our new customers - we added more sports to the product offering as well. We have been listening to the feedback and we made changes and additions to our play designer product line.

This winter/spring, we will be attending some clinics in the Northeast and we look forward to meeting new coaches and talking with coaches who use our product. We will have the Play Designer 2008 series with us this year and are excited to demonstrate the benefits. Stop back for updates on where we will be.

Next year, WheelBarrow Software Inc. will be adding two new titles to our line of coaching products. Over the next 30-60 days, please stop by for more information one the first product release "Coaches Clipboard v1.0". These products come as a result of listening to our users, and really incorporating their feedback and needs for other coaching related products. It will be our first attempt at software not centered around x's and o's and we hope you like it. We are currently in development with both of these new products.

WheelBarrow Software wants to thank all of our customers again for all of the support and feedback you have provided and we look forward to making you happy with our latest titles, and product enhancements.

ESPN and the Sacred Playbook

2007-08-31T00:33:00.000-04:00

All of us at WheelBarrow Software Inc. of course are very passioniate about the output of our Play Designer product.... the playbook! Our customers, mainly Division III, highschool and youth coaches all spend alot of time designing and thinking about their playbook. ESPN, in preperation for the NFL season opener, has a great article about the levels some players will go to, to protect their playbook.

Click to Read Article on ESPN

WheelBarrow Software in Sporting News Magazine

2007-08-19T20:17:00.000-04:00

Football Play Designer was recently talked about in SportingNews Magazine. In an article entitled "Cool Tools for the Football Fan", Football Play Designer was featured as "the software". This was the July 30th, 2007 release - we here at WheelBarrow Software are very excited. The article features Football Play Designer v6.0 2008. This release marks our sixth version of the product (obviously) and features a new sequence engine for our users to put the "frames" of the play together for better instruction. Football Play Designer is used by over fifteen thousand coaches in 39 countries (8/2007).

Introduction to Our Blog

2007-08-19T20:13:00.000-04:00

Welcome to WheelBarrow Software's latest thing...Our blog. Here is where we hope to connect with our customers, discuss things about our software, share sports news, plays of notes from our customers and anything else that just may be relevant to coaching!

If you have a play you would like to share on our blog, simply send the play with an e-mail to blog@wheelbarrowsoftware.com.

We will be posting to this site occasionally with the latest news and notes about the Play Designer series. As you can also see to the right, there are up to date feeds & news from the NFL.