BGR Schedule Calculator

[Bob]

I was just wondering how many people who've used the schedule calculator on my website have used the compare facility where you can add up to four more schedules and whether you found it useful (or indeed usable!)

[spen]

Funnily enough I checked it out on Sunday. Seems to work fine. Could do with some instructions, or if they are there more obvious.

[Bob]

Funnily enough I checked it out on Sunday. Seems to work fine. Could do with some instructions, or if they are there more obvious.

There are help popups with instructions/hints that should appear when you hover a mouse over particular items in the form: The direction drop-down for example. Obviously these don't work on touch devices which is something I need to look at. With limited screen estate providing all the information and help required in a consistent and obvious way is harder than you might think.

[spen]

Sorry bob was not knocking your website. I was on a touch phone so that's why it does not work.

[blencathrafrommykitchen]

bob
I used it some years ago when planning for my bg and found it to be a very useful tool in deciding exactly when to set off - it led us to a 1am start rather than the midnight that we'd been thinking of originally and that proved to be just right for us. I found it easy to use.

[djglover]

I used it to compare my recent recces to an overall time. I find the tool itself incredibly useful, but the comparison not so, in the end I ran a few different scenarios and pasted them into excel so I had a record of likely arrival times for the support crew etc

[Bob]

Part of the reason I asked the question is that I don't know how many people use that facility, or even if they know it's there! TBH there are quite a few features on the site that might be considered "hidden" if you don't notice them - you can edit and save the route description for example, that's local to the machine you do the editing on.

I was considering what features to add/take away for the next revision. I've got a few ideas floating around in my head but it's also useful to get other opinions.

[StuartL]

I initially used the comparison tool to establish a sensible start time for a late August round, which it worked well for. Once I'd decided on a 9 pm start, I mostly copy and pasted into excel to do the fine tuning to suit me. If there was an .xls / .csv export of the schedule files available (there might be and I've just missed it!) that would be useful. Alternatively, a way of altering the schedule times to suit contenders recce splits on the comparison tool would be useful.

[Bob]

Adding an "export" function wouldn't be too hard to do, actually due to security restrictions on what JavaScript is allowed to do it would put the data in to a text field that you then copied the data out of. CSV would be easiest rather than continually try and keep up with Excel's ever changing data format.

The estimator is a rough and ready means of extrapolating a recce time in to a guess at how long the round would take you. There's a fairly consistent slowing down on a "per leg" basis regardless of how fast the round is but even taking that in to consideration there's a huge amount of uncertainty. In training/recceing I could consistently do the Wasdale to Honister leg in just over 3 hours, on the day it took me over five.

What you are describing sounds like a similar sort of reverse calculation, but what are you intending to do: Adjust your estimated time for the round based on a recce time? Adjust starting time? Would it be useful to have a means of storing and then displaying recce times in a column in the comparison table? Would these be raw times or adjusted to a particular schedule?

[StuartL]

I'll try and explain in a little more depth, as I clearly didn't explain as well as I thought I had!

From my recces and supports, I had a decent idea of where I would gain time on a 23 hour schedule and where I would lose plenty (notably bowfell - wasdale). I then combined my knowledge of my abilities to a couple of schedules from your site (the 22:30 / 22:45 and 23:00 schedules with a rocky ground adjustment) to put together a realistic schedule for me. I think what I'm asking for would be the ability to compare a couple of schedules side by side (as you already can) but with an extra column where you can put in your own values to produce a more personalised schedule. I'd be happy to send you the excel file I used if it might be clearer what I did!