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Changes to the Weekly Competition website

Mike Hughey

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As many of you may know, over 5 years ago, Oscar Roth Andersen built a website for our Weekly Competition that we have held here every week since early 2007. The website was a great contribution, and was a very nice addition to the competition. But it has been over 5 years since he did it, and it seemed like the website needed a facelift.

In case you don't know, the website is at:
https://www.speedsolving.com/competitions

I have been making some changes over the past few weeks, and a number of them have already been available on the website. In particular I made some improvements to the timer.

With today's competition, I am releasing a new feature - automatic score updating. Now, the default view for the competition will be the "Weekly View", which shows how you are doing relative to the other competitors as you compete. You will be able to watch your score grow as you compete in more events, and also as others compete and come in at a lower place than you are. Each event has a "Compete!" button that will allow you to use the online timer if you like. Or you can enter it manually there if you'd rather compete on a real timer and enter your results from there.

The previous entry form method is still available; you can select it in the menu at the top of the screen, by selecting "Manual Entry". If you have trouble submitting using the new timers, please try using this method instead.

The new Weekly View shows your individual solve results, the overall result, your standing (with the total number to have competed so far in parentheses), and the number of overall points you have so far earned. Note that after you compete in an event, this point result can change without any modification from you - others may compete and place lower than you, so your point total may rise. Also, it is possible someone could have a DNF so far because they haven't completed all their solves, and then they might complete them at a later time. So it is actually possible to lose points without doing anything! Anyway, I find it fun to see how the points change over the week, and I hope you all will too.

I hope that we can transition to having most people enter their results on the competition website now; unfortunately, anyone who enters their results here in the forum instead of there will not show up in the online point totals. So it would be best to have as many people as possible compete with the website. Of course, even if you compete there, discussion is welcome in the weekly competition thread, so feel free to post if you have something from your weekly competition that you'd like to talk about! I have had some discussions with Mats about the possibility of getting the results from here semi-automatically transferred there, but it does sound like it might be quite a challenge to get to that point. Perhaps someday we can get there.

If anyone would like to compete on the website but is having trouble logging in, please let me know in a PM and I can reset your password.

Despite the website changes, the official results are still the ones that are posted here in the Forum by Mats every week. There will be some discrepancies as I mention above because of those who do not enter results in the website. So Mats' posts are the official results, not those in the website.

Please note that this is a work in progress. There are still some bugs in it, and I will continue to make improvements as much as I can. Here are some of the things that will be coming soon:

1. An overall score list. Right now you can see your point total, and your ranking in each individual event, but there's no way to see your overall score ranking and a list of those above you. I intend to have this added very soon, perhaps tonight.

2. Much needs to be done for Mobile support. It is currently somewhat possible to use the website on a phone, but it doesn't work very well. I intend to add much better mobile support over the next few weeks; that's one of my highest priorities.

3. The icons that are there are the official WCA icons. I intend to add proper icons for the non-official events - the ones that are there now are really just placeholders until I get those done.

4. There is room for plenty of additional statistics options; I hope to add some.

5. There are requests for inspection mode and blind mode for the timers. I hope to add those, and also alarms for multiBLD and fewest moves when you run out of time. Please note no such alarms exist yet.

There are many other little things on my list, but those are the main things.

Right now the site has an annoying habit of timing out way too quickly. While I might try to implement a fix of some sort for this, realistically it is an example of the fact that the current website's technology is simply too old for what is needed now. So I am hoping to make some additional general fixes to the website over the next month or so as a temporary facelift, and then start a rewrite of the website with more modern technologies. Perhaps several months after that we can have a nice shiny new website that works even better!

Anyway, please feel free to PM me or post here with any bugs you might find that need fixing, or any additional improvements you'd like to see. I can't promise I'll make all the suggested improvements, but it would be nice to discuss them, anyway.
WeeklyView.jpg
Happy competing!
 

bubbagrub

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The changes are really great! Seeing your score go up as you complete events makes for a very engaging experience.

Thanks for the hard work on this, Mike and Mats.
 

Mike Hughey

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I have just added an overall score list for the current week. I still need to add the ability to see overall scoring for past weeks, and this is still a bit rough around the edges, but it should give you enough that you can figure out what you need to do this weekend to catch up with others, if that's helpful. :)
 
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Just a suggestion... add in redi cube. I wouldn't personally do it, but a lot of other people would and I think it would be a very popular event.
I really don't mind if it is made an event but I don't think it's really a good idea.
-Not many people have a redi cube let along the people that will actually compete.
-I feel like it's going to be like the Kilominx, where its hype dies down. Looking at the weekly competition now (it was added for basically the same reasons), very few people do it.
-too many events? Nah this isn't really a point but my argument still stands.
 

T1_M0

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You should try to get some kind of boxes/lines between the results. The comments get mixed with each other (impossible to read the fmc solutions without getting confused which one is whose).
 

GarethBert11

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Im waiting for the point 5 on your list. Cause Im used to press the spacebar immediately after scrambling, and also pressing the spacebar when finish memorization on BLD.
 

h2f

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I think there's needed option "clear". Last week I got last solve +2. I pressed +2 in a timer but next I've pressed another +2 and coudnt clear it. It ended +8. :) I've edited the time manually.
 

Mike Hughey

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I think there's needed option "clear". Last week I got last solve +2. I pressed +2 in a timer but next I've pressed another +2 and coudnt clear it. It ended +8. :) I've edited the time manually.
Sorry if this is confusing. I wanted to allow for any possibility, and it is possible to have as much as +16 according to the rules. If you keep clicking it, after +16 it goes back to +0.

I can think about adding a clear, but I worry that it will take up too much space on the screen, especially on mobile once I have the new version for mobile working.

(I'm making progress on the mobile support; it should be ready to try in another week or two.)
 

h2f

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Sorry if this is confusing. I wanted to allow for any possibility, and it is possible to have as much as +16 according to the rules. If you keep clicking it, after +16 it goes back to +0.

I can think about adding a clear, but I worry that it will take up too much space on the screen, especially on mobile once I have the new version for mobile working.

(I'm making progress on the mobile support; it should be ready to try in another week or two.)

Ah thanks. I've gone to +12. :)
 

Mike Hughey

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Sorry to take so long on further improvements here; life has been busy.

But I have just implemented my first attempt at a somewhat more mobile-friendly version of the competition website. Please let me know, either through PMs or here, about anything you find that needs to be fixed. Making a site mobile-friendly can be a challenge, especially when you're just doing it part-time as a hobby. :) So my apologies if I messed something up.

A big warning: multiBLD is still pretty messed up with mobile; I highly recommend you stick with a regular computer browser if you want to use the multiBLD timer. I will try to fix the multiBLD mobile version as soon as I can, and I will post here when it's fixed.

I also changed the timer so that it requires waiting for 0.3 seconds before lighting up green, to be more similar to a stackmat. So beware of that or you may start your solve without realizing the timer isn't running yet - it might take a little getting used to. I might provide an option to turn that off later on.
 

Mike Hughey

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I already had a request to be able to turn off the new delayed start feature, so I've started a settings menu. There you can turn that behavior on and off. I also added the ability to hide scrambles on the manual entry page, for anyone who might actually print out the scrambles - it can make it a little quicker and easier to enter your results.

Please do let me know if you see anything that you think should be improved - if I agree with your idea, I'll be happy to try to implement it.
 

T1_M0

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2 suggestions about the manual entry page:

It would be nice to be able to close the event "boxes": you could have them so that only the names of the events are visible, then open up one event at a time to view the scrambles and time input boxes. Now it can be irritating to try and find the event you're looking for, and would be nice to avoid scrolling by closing them up.

Also, some sort of markings to the events you've done here too? Coloured and bolded headings?

I still use the manual entry exclusively, since I'm willing to record the data to my timer.
 
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