rubeTimer - Beta testers wanted

[tim]

And tim, can you please test the spacebar thing in safari again? I've tried something.

Uhm, look at the attachment . Btw. here's the safari browser.

Thanks for the link! Didn't know they had a PC version. Did the site look like this before i changed the spacebar thing?

No, it looked like in Firefox.

 

[b03tz]

And tim, can you please test the spacebar thing in safari again? I've tried something.

Uhm, look at the attachment . Btw. here's the safari browser.

Thanks for the link! Didn't know they had a PC version. Did the site look like this before i changed the spacebar thing?

No, it looked like in Firefox.

Well the "look" is fixed, though the javascript thing i gonna take some time. (alot, it's not just the keycode and i just can't seem to debug javascript in safari)

 

[b03tz]

Added a countdown sound (from 3 to 0)

 

[JBCM627]

Thanks alot for your reply! My scrambler is written in PHP (i'm using Ajax to generate scrambles ) May i ask you what you did to limit the moves chosen ? (So that you don't get U D U D or U D U'

Use axis. Have a look at joey's ruby code: http://speedsolving.com/showpost.php?p=42320&postcount=22

And the event-code, i really don't get it...since i'm using mootools this should be cross browser.

Maybe it's a bug then.

Right about the axis thing, but I suppose its a bit different as its written for MxNxL cubes. It picks an axis, generates moves on it, then switches to another. It is similar to the official WCA scrambler in this aspect, although the one I made does in addition to allowing MxNxL scrambles remove a small bias in picking random turns as well.

As for the keycodes, in javascript at least, you would need to code something like this:

<input type='button' onKeyDown='javascript:presskey(event.keyCode)' value='press me'>

then in the javasctipt, something like:

function presskey(code){
  if(code == 32 || code == 13 || code == other_numbers){
    starttimer();
  }
}

where you can have PHP put any keys you wish in the presskey function. List of keycodes (note, you can even have alt or other buttons next to the timer trigger the button as well in case they miss spacebar...)

 

[qqwref]

Can't we just have someone add new features to cubemania? For example if you want averages that aren't of 5 Tim or someone could make a practice mode where you can do averages of any size but where averages of 5 aren't recorded at all (perhaps just the singles could count). Or if you want the graph to be changed it shouldn't be too hard for someone to put that in. I'm rather fond of cubemania by now and I don't want to see it fall into disuse just because the programmers don't want to add features that aren't that difficult to program in. (Before you say you don't have time, I'd be willing to help out.)

I don't mind people making new timers but it honestly seems patently ridiculous to me that people keep programming entirely new timers just to add one or two features that other ones might not have, and that the programmers who have worked on the older timers don't add the new features when they hear about them. Can't we just take one well-established timer that we all have been using and have some good times on and keep adding features to it when we think of them? It would make a lot more sense that way, and we could keep all of the community in one place rather than just migrating every time someone programs a new timer. If we just picked one timer that we all already liked, and had a lot of people from the community help in programming it (open source! woo!), I don't doubt that it would eventually become extremely customizable and have all the features that any cubers could possibly want.

 

[JBCM627]

I'd be willing to work on cubemania or help out with any other timer as well. I have ideas for quite a few additional features, many of which I have already implemented on my own timer; it wouldn't be too hard to transfer these over I wouldn't think

 

[b03tz]

Indeed, but that's of topic here. I'm not trying to "top-off" another timer, i'm trying to create something unique. And i need the community for that.

That's why i'm asking help The things you are requesting, should be in it's own topic imho.

Thanks for the replies though!

 

[JBCM627]

Agree with this also, b03tz. Any more questions or requests, or if you would like any help, let me know.

 

[b03tz]

Added some more detail to the stats viewing. You can now plot graphs showing your average, best and worst times. Looks pretty neet

Check it out!

 

[Karthik]

I got this scramble: B' R2 L2 F' U D U L' B2 D2 R D2 R' F2 U' B2 D2 L' F2 R2 B' D B2 R2 U2
This too: F U' B R' D2 L2 R' L2 F' D B2 R B' D F2 L' D' L R U' F' U' R' F2 L'

 

[b03tz]

I got this scramble: B' R2 L2 F' U D U L' B2 D2 R D2 R' F2 U' B2 D2 L' F2 R2 B' D B2 R2 U2
This too: F U' B R' D2 L2 R' L2 F' D B2 R B' D F2 L' D' L R U' F' U' R' F2 L'

Thanks for the examples. I'm going to fix this issue soon

 

[JBCM627]

The graph looks really nice, but could it be bigger? Also, will you eventually have a way to let people delete times they don't want that they have submitted?

 

[b03tz]

The graph looks really nice, but could it be bigger? Also, will you eventually have a way to let people delete times they don't want that they have submitted?

To both answers: yes.

I've already fixed the size issue but it's on a different hosting server. I've registered my real domain today all the fixes will be available when the site comes online there (any minute now).

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[b03tz]

Hi people,

Here it is:

http://www.rubetimer.com

* Larger stat pics
* You can now delete all your times (my times in the menu) - still wip!

 

[Stefan]

The timer doesn't work for me, space bar gets ignored. I use Opera, maybe this error log can help.

Edit: Gah, Pat, why scale down (that much)?

 

[JBCM627]

Hmm works fine in IE and firefox for me, maybe its jsut opera. It does handle keystrokes slightly differently than IE and FFfor some reason... I haven't played around with opera enough to be able to make any suggestions, though.

For some reason, though, this is working my computer extra hard while the timer is running... cubetimer.com does this also. I dont know if its simply the routines used for displaying the times or what, but every time I start the timer my fan clicks on. Perhaps this is just a result of using development software such as mootools, but it would probably be a good idea to check on the efficiency of the code. After a quick glance, there is a ton of code behind the timer... way more than I'd expect for something as simple as stopwatch code. Although not a problem, perhaps a future goal should be working on efficiency

 

[b03tz]

Hmm works fine in IE and firefox for me, maybe its jsut opera. It does handle keystrokes slightly differently than IE and FFfor some reason... I haven't played around with opera enough to be able to make any suggestions, though.

For some reason, though, this is working my computer extra hard while the timer is running... cubetimer.com does this also. I dont know if its simply the routines used for displaying the times or what, but every time I start the timer my fan clicks on. Perhaps this is just a result of using development software such as mootools, but it would probably be a good idea to check on the efficiency of the code. After a quick glance, there is a ton of code behind the timer... way more than I'd expect for something as simple as stopwatch code. Although not a problem, perhaps a future goal should be working on efficiency

Hey, i know what you mean. It's about the timer indeed, it's not unoptimised code. The functions you see cannot get any smaller than they are. It's about the following:

To update the timer, a event is set that updates the timer periodically. Normally an event occurs every second, or 10 seconds. This event though, occurs every 1 millisecond. And because javascript is client side, this is inevitable.

I could make an option to update the timer in a lesser frequency (perhaps every 10 ms) but that would make it less precise.

 

[b03tz]

The timer doesn't work for me, space bar gets ignored. I use Opera, maybe this error log can help.

Edit: Gah, Pat, why scale down (that much)?

Thanks alot for the reply. I'm going to install opera tomorrow and try to fix this issue. Also thanks for the screens, helps me alot!

 

[JBCM627]

I could make an option to update the timer in a lesser frequency (perhaps every 10 ms) but that would make it less precise.

Yes, I suppose this is one resolution. I only wonder if it is trying to run too much code each iteration because when I run other timer scripts (including my own, which I can put to .01s), it never has been a problem. Perhaps 10ms would be a good idea, as it is .01s, which is the accuracy your clock is set to. A nuance, I suppose, but not entirely trivial

 

[qqwref]

I don't know if it's possible in the language you're using, but what if you had the timer only update every second or so, but still display time to centisecond accuracy (or millisecond if you wish) when you stop it? I've seen this put to good effect in (for example) hi-games, which displays the number of whole seconds you've been going for, but gets the accurate time at the end.