Seasons
New season asks for a name, a start and an end date, and how many boxes. Then a match format, which points table to use, and how the table is sorted (see Points). Both dates are required. The end date is the day players stop being able to enter scores.
A season runs up to 190 days, which is about six months, and can start up to three months from today. Three months is the length we recommend: a box league works to a deadline, and that is what players turn out for. Past about three months the last stretch is three people chasing each other and the table stops meaning much. Run a longer year as two or three seasons, which is what Roll over is for. The longer end of the cap is there for the clubs that genuinely run it: squash boxes turn over monthly, and some padel leagues run a round of four months.
It starts as a draft, which means nobody but you can see or touch it. Put the players in the boxes, yourself or by handing boxes to admins. The season’s own page carries a Take it live button that says what is left to do. It will not let you go live with no box that has two players in it, because there is no match to play. Taking a season live archives any other live season, which is usually what you want, and you can put it back to a draft afterwards if you went early.
An archived season stays viewable forever, and Reopen brings it back if you archived too early.
Naming a box
A box is Box 1, Box 2, Box 3 unless you give it a name. Type over the heading of any column in the season planner and that is what the box is called from then on: Open, Ladies’, Mixed, Racketball. Clear it and it goes back to being Box 3.
The number does not go away. It is what promotion is built on, and it is what the tabs along the top show. Eight small squares in a row is the fastest way to move between boxes. The name is what the table, the warnings, the shared images and the roll-over screen call it. Names carry into next season the same way the box's discipline does.
Playing everyone twice
Each box can play everyone once or twice. On twice, every pairing meets two times. The cell on your row is one of them and the cell on their row is the return. The Still to play list counts both.
You can switch a box to twice part-way through a season, which is what to do when a box finishes early with a month left. Going back to once only works while no meeting would be lost, so if both matches in a pairing have been played you have to clear one first.