1.5.0 Update Blues
Well, it seems that Sunday's update of Warhorn to version 1.5.0 has caused a lot of howling. We've gotten a lot of feedback about a couple of changes in particular, and one bug as well.
Here is a version of the dialogue that I've had with a lot of people over the last day.
There's no way to see who's signed up for a game! How will I know who's playing what scenario when?
For privacy reasons, we don't show attendee information unless you're logged in. This keeps search engines from indexing schedules containing attendee info, making it easy for your mortal enemy to see when you aren't going to be home.
Remember, you aren't forced to pay for an event just because you've registered for it, so if you're evaluating an event to see if you want to attend, go ahead and register. Maybe leave a note in the registration form to that effect so the organizer knows not to hound you for payment too quickly.
I'm logged in, and I'm looking at the schedule, but there's still no attendee info! What do I have to do now?
Assuming you're looking at the schedule for a particular day (you can do that by clicking the "Gaming Schedule" button on any page), you should be looking at a list of games for each slot of the day. Click the name of the scenario for a particular game. This takes you to a page where all of the details for that game are shown, including the attendee info for the game's judges and players.
WTF?
Sorry dude. That ginormous "all-in-one" schedule view was certainly handy, but it was also extremely wasteful of server resources and generally unperformant. I just had to get rid of it. I know how easy it made a lot of different tasks. Those tasks are harder now because you have to click in and out of individual game pages. Again, I'm sorry, but that's how it's going to have to be for a while.
That's crap! Put it back now!
No. I am happy to discuss alternate features that will help with specific tasks like syncing your schedule with that of your SO or finding all of the games that have people signed up for a certain APL range. Please join the discuss@warhorn.net mailing list by emailing discuss-subscribe@warhorn.net and join the conversation about improving Warhorn.
Barring drastic changes on the back end of the site, though, I simply cannot put the "all in one" schedule back up.
Forget you! I'm boycotting Warhorn!
And I'm sorry to see you go, if that's your choice. I'd rather you stick around and help us make things better, though. Go do something else for a while, then come back and join the discuss list after you've cooled off. Thanks.
OK, I'm over it. But now I see that the players for a game are shown in alphabetical order instead of the order in which they signed up. Is that a bug?
Yep, it's just an error in the way the player list is displayed. The data in the database is correct, and as soon as I get this blog entry posted, I'm going to get the bug fixed. Oh and, thanks for being calm and rational instead of freaking out. That's a much more helpful attitude.
No problem. I'm a reasonable person, though sometimes I forget it. By the way, what's the deal with the style on this blog? Why doesn't it look like the rest of Warhorn.net?
Cos I have no CSS skillz. If somebody would like to volunteer to modify the Movable Type templates to use the main Warhorn CSS (not that it's a thing of beauty itself, mind you), leave a comment or email info@warhorn.net.
What else do you need help with?
Interface design! I'm so over the fancy coloredy tables everywhere. I really want to redesign Warhorn so that we can fit a lot more information on each page, in a compact and easy to read fashion. If anybody's an expert with HTML and CSS, I could use your help. Not a dabbler, but an expert. Let me know.
Oh BTW, it would be pretty cool if we could just make one Warhorn account and not have to re-enter our details for every event.
Yeah yeah I know. Believe me, I wish i could whip that out for you. Warhorn was originally designed for a single event, but it got popular very quickly and I chose to apply some spit and duct tape to reuse the code for each new event site, each with its own database, rather than rearchitecting it to use one big database. If only I had a time turner... But yeah. I'm trying to think of ways to get to that point. I'll probably discuss this in more detail in another blog post for the geeks in the audience.
Comments
I have been very happy with Warhorn for the past year, and understand the need to add new features.
However many of the people I have spoken with in my area (Detroit), are not satisfied with the new layout. Our chief concern/complaint is that they can not see who is signed up for a day. I suspect this is due to many people who like to play in slots with their friends.
Perhaps we could have a view that is very similar to the old view?
I do like the showing our names only to registered attendees.
Never the less I do like what you are doing and the direction you are taking the site.
--Christian--
Posted by: Christian Patterson | January 23, 2006 05:17 PM
The main advantage of Warhorn over other sites was the ability to view the entire schedule and see who was signed up for what. Now that that's been taken away, there's not nearly the benefit to using Warhorn over other systems that are available.
Posted by: Marcia Schoonover | January 23, 2006 05:49 PM
As a player I don't much care if I can see the entire schedule at once or not. As long as I can see it for the games I'm signing up for.
However, as a coordinator of events, it is very important to be able to print out a list of people that have signed up for that days events (I'm speaking of a recurring events page). While I can get this information with the "ticket export", it is extremely jumbled and requires a lot of extra time on my part to sort through.
Posted by: Scott Perdue | January 23, 2006 07:55 PM
Scott, that's a great point. I had overlooked that I was removing that capability.
I'm considering ways I can give people what they clearly seem to want. Contrary to what some people seem to think, I'm not trying to shaft anyone.
No matter what I do eventually come up with for regular attendees, I will definitely return the capability for organizers to pull up a printable web page with all players for a day's games.
Posted by: bcm | January 23, 2006 08:05 PM