ScoreFlow Operator Manual

01Setting up before a game

Five minutes, start to finish. Do this once at the beginning of the night.

1. Connect the Mac to the court display and make sure macOS is set to extended desktop, not mirroring. Mirroring puts the operator's pane on the wall, which is not what anyone wants.
2. Open ScoreFlow. The Control pane appears on the Mac's own screen.
3. Put the board on the wall: press Open scoreboard in the toolbar, or ⌘ ⇧ S. The same button — it now reads Close scoreboard — and the same shortcut put it away again.
4. If the board opened on the wrong screen, drag it across, then press F with the board focused to go full screen.
5. Set the team names and colors by clicking them on each team card.
6. Check the clock length and the game rules in Settings (⚙, top right) if this league differs from the last one.

02The two windows

ScoreFlow is two windows that always agree with each other. You drive one; the gym watches the other.

03Free version and Pro

ScoreFlow runs a full game for free, forever. Pro adds the things that turn a scoreboard into a record of the game.

Every download starts as Pro for 21 days so you can try the whole thing on a real game night. After that it settles onto the free version — nothing is removed from the app and nothing stops working mid-game. The scoreboard never stops.

Anything Pro-only is marked PRO in this manual, and in the app itself it stays visible but greyed out with the same badge — so you can always see what is there rather than wondering what you are missing.

04Running a game

Everything here is on the Control pane. Nothing in this section needs Pro except the break timer.

Clock

START runs it, the same button stops it, and Space does both with the Control window focused. ADJUST nudges the clock by a minute or a second in either direction without stopping it — for the times the horn went late or the operator was slow. RESET puts it back to the period length set in Settings.

The big green bar across the bottom is the same START button, made large enough to hit without looking. It is there because the one control you reach for under pressure should not need aiming.

Break timer PRO

A separate countdown for between quarters and before tip-off, sitting right under the game clock. It is independent of the game clock on purpose, so it never collides with auto-advance. Type a label (it shows BREAK if you leave it blank), pick 1:00, 2:00 or 5:00 to start it, and −:30 / +:30 to adjust on the fly.

It takes over the wall's centre stage in amber — unmistakably not the game clock — hides the shot clock while it runs, and horns once at zero. After that it holds at 0:00 for about three seconds, then the wall returns to the period and game clock on its own. Starting the game clock clears it immediately; CLEAR does the same by hand.

Shot clock

Switch it on with the toggle. 24 and 14 reset it; S and ⇧ S do the same from the keyboard. It only ever runs while the game clock runs — it cannot tick on during a dead ball, because it is tied to the game clock rather than running on its own.

Scoring

+1, +2 and +3 on each team card. −1 takes a point back and Undo reverses the last action outright — scoring, a foul, a timeout, a period change.

PRO With a roster loaded, tap a jersey number under SCORER first and the points go to that player as well as the team. Tap TEAM instead when you do not know who scored, or do not need to. The selection clears itself after each basket so the next one cannot land on the wrong player.

Fouls

FOUL adds a team foul and, with a scorer selected, a personal foul to that player. The BONUS badge lights when the team foul count reaches the threshold in Settings. The small − and + beside TEAM FOULS correct the count by hand.

Timeouts

TIMEOUT spends one and starts a countdown on the wall. The countdown lives in its own slot, so an announcement — a foul called during the timeout, say — covers it briefly and then reveals it again with the right time still on it. The − and + adjust the remaining count.

Period and overtime

− and + step the period. Halves and Quarters switch the format. + OT enters overtime, which resets timeouts and fouls the way a fresh period should — but deliberately leaves the clock alone, because overtime length is rarely the same as a regulation period and is your call.

Overtime is only ever entered by pressing that button. The app will not drop into OT on its own at the end of the fourth.

Auto-advance

Switched on in Settings. When the clock hits 0:00 the horn fires, the wall holds on 0:00 for a few seconds so the gym can see the zero, and then the period turns over. Any action you take during that hold — starting the clock, stepping the period, calling a timeout — cancels it. The operator always beats the automation.

Scoring and fouls deliberately do not cancel it: a buzzer-beater and a foul at the horn belong to the period that just ended.

Resetting between games

Reset scoreboard zeroes the score, fouls, timeouts and clock for the next game. It asks twice — press it, then press it again within four seconds — because it is the one button on the pane that cannot be undone by pressing something else.

05Announcements

The strip along the bottom of the wall. Free on every version, custom messages included.

With Auto-show on, scoring and fouls announce themselves — 2 POINTS — EAGLES, and the player's name when a scorer was selected. You do not have to do anything.

The four kind buttons — Score, Foul, Timeout, Custom — only change what you are composing. They never post on their own. Type your message and press Send → or Enter.

Holding a message on the wall

Pick Custom and the Send button becomes Hold →: your message goes up and stays up instead of fading after a few seconds. It is for the things that are not about the game — NEXT GAME 7:30, GYM CLOSES AT 9, a lost set of keys. Clear it with the Clear button, or by sending anything else.

06Hiding the score

For a game that has got away from both teams. Free on every version.

Some games run away. In a recreational league for small children, a score on the wall can stop being information and start being discouraging. Hide score, in the bar under the team cards, replaces both scores on the wall with a label of your choosing.

Only the wall changes. You keep scoring exactly as before, the announcement still names the player who scored, player points and fouls keep accumulating, and the exported spreadsheet is the true score with nothing in it to say the display was ever hidden. Turn it off and the real score is right there.

The label is yours: set it in Settings → Hide score. It shows -- unless you change it, and words like SCRIMMAGE or FRIENDLY work well because they explain the decision rather than looking like a fault. Change it while the score is hidden and the wall updates as soon as you press Save.

On the Control pane an amber WALL: chip appears beside the toggle, showing what the gym is seeing — your own pane always shows the real score, so without it there would be nothing to tell you the two disagree.

07Importing a roster PRO

A spreadsheet of numbers and names becomes a team in about ten seconds.

Pick the team first

The roster panel on the right has two tabs with the team names on them. Whichever one is highlighted is the team you are about to import into. This catches people out — check it before you import, because the file goes onto the highlighted team no matter what the file says.

Press Import Roster and choose a file. CSV, plain text, Excel (.xlsx, .xls) and Numbers files all work — ScoreFlow converts spreadsheets itself, so there is no need to export to CSV first.

Merge Rosters, or Replace Current Roster

If the team is empty, the file loads immediately with no questions. If the team already has players, ScoreFlow stops and asks:

The file name becomes the team name

Import Eagles.csv onto a side and that side is called Eagles on the wall from then on. A file named Youth League - Eagles.csv gives you the team Eagles filed under the league Youth League. The separator is a space, a hyphen and a space.

Files with a Team column

A file that lists both teams — an export from a previous game, for instance — has a Team column. ScoreFlow matches rows against the team name from the file name; if nothing matches, it takes only the rows with no team on them. Capitalisation is ignored throughout. This is deliberate: it stops a two-team file being dumped onto one side under the wrong name.

08Saved teams PRO

A library of the teams you see regularly, so the second week is faster than the first.

There is nothing to switch on

Import a roster from a file and ScoreFlow files it away for you under the name it took from the file name. Next week, pick it from the Saved teams dropdown instead of finding the file again.

Loading a team back

Choose it from the dropdown. It sets the team name and the roster in one go. If the side already has players you get the same Merge or Replace question as an import.

When the name is already taken

ScoreFlow asks whether to overwrite the saved team or save this one under a different name. Cancelling still applies the import to tonight's game — it just does not write to the library.

Removing a team

Remove… opens a picker. Choose the team and it is gone from the library. This only touches the library — whatever is on the scoreboard right now is left exactly as it is, players, points and fouls included.

Limits

Forty teams. At the cap, importing a new one asks you to pick which saved team to drop first.

09Roster file formats

ScoreFlow is deliberately relaxed about this. If a human can read it as a list of numbers and names, it will probably load.

Just numbers and names, no header row

With a header row

Separate first and last name columns

A file ScoreFlow exported

An export has Team,Number,Name,PTS,PF. Loading one back works: the points and fouls columns are ignored on import, so you get the roster without last week's numbers.

Accepted column headings

Limits and rules

• Jersey numbers 0–999, and each number appears once per team — a second row with the same number updates the first rather than adding a duplicate.
• A row with no name is skipped.
• Rosters are capped at a sensible number of players; a file larger than that is truncated rather than refused.

10Editing a roster PRO

A misspelled name or a wrong number is fixed where you see it. You never need to edit a spreadsheet and import it again.

Editing a player

Click the number, the name, the PTS or the PF in the roster table and type. It commits when you press Enter or click away; Esc abandons the edit. Changing a jersey number to one already in use is refused rather than allowed to create a duplicate.

Adding a player mid-game

Type the number and name in the row at the bottom of the panel and press Add. Latecomers are normal and this takes about four seconds.

Removing players

The × at the end of a row removes that player. Delete Roster clears the whole list for the highlighted team — the score, fouls and timeouts are left alone, because that clears the roster and not the game.

Saving your edits back to the library

Editing the table changes tonight's game only. To make the library agree — so the fix is still there next week — press Save Team.

It writes the numbers and names for the highlighted team. Points and fouls are never saved: the library is a roster, not a game, so saving in the middle of the third quarter does not bake tonight's stat line into the team you load next month. If the save would remove players from a team already in the library, ScoreFlow asks first and tells you both counts — adding a player or fixing a spelling just saves.

Selecting a scorer

The jersey numbers above the scoring buttons are the scorer picker. Tap one, then score. Tap TEAM to credit the team without a player. The selection clears after each basket.

11Exporting stats PRO

One file, both teams, three seconds.

Export Stats writes a CSV that opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. The suggested file name includes both teams and the date.

What is in the file

Team,Number,Name,PTS,PF, a row per player, both teams, plus a total row for each team. If the team score is higher than the players' points add up to — because some baskets were recorded to TEAM rather than a player — the difference appears as its own row, so the totals always reconcile.

Export before you erase

The two actions that destroy player numbers are Reset scoreboard and choosing Replace Current Roster on an import. Export first if anyone will ask.

Re-using an export as a roster

An exported file can be imported again as a roster. One wrinkle: the suggested name contains both team names, so rename it to just the team you want before importing, or ScoreFlow will not be able to tell which side the rows belong to.

12Keyboard shortcuts

These work when the Control window is focused. The scoreboard window ignores everything except F.

13Settings reference

The gear at the top right. Everything applies together when you press Save, except the horn sound and the logo, which change the moment you pick them.

14Updates

ScoreFlow keeps itself current, and it will never interrupt a game to do it.

ScoreFlow checks nesflow6.com for a new version when it starts and every few hours after that. If there is one it downloads quietly in the background — never while the game clock is running, so it cannot compete with anything else the building is doing on the same connection — and installs it the next time you quit the app. There is nothing to press.

When an update is waiting, a line appears at the top of the Control pane saying so. A Restart now button sits beside it when the clock is stopped; it is optional, and it closes the scoreboard window, so most operators simply quit at the end of the night and get the new version next time.

Updates are free on every version, including the free one. A fix should reach everyone.

15Troubleshooting