I'd mentioned in the BGR data thread that there were a couple of big changes in the pipeline. So, as promised ...

The features while separate are designed to work together, hence one single release.

Data synchronisation
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This feature gets round a policy introduced by Apple for their Safari browser in response to advertisers abusing certain data storage features in the browser. If you don't "interact with" a site for seven days then Safari deletes all locally held user data associated with that site. Since the other new features add a lot more potential data this was always going to be needed.

For someone who has registered an attempt and is logged in to the site their data is now automatically synchronised between whatever devices/browsers they may use to access the site. This synchronisation applies to data about their round as well as the data supporting the features mentioned below.

The code attempts to ensure that each device has the latest version of data. Changes made by the user are automatically saved to the server. Logging in on another browser/device will either set up or update the locally held data.


User options
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There is now a user options page http://bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=useroptions where certain aspects of the site can be customised. The two options for distance and height currently aren't linked up to anything as there's not much talk of either on the site, future proofing really.

The "starters" option controls how many hours either side of a user's proposed start time to show basic details of other attempts. I.e. 24hrs before to 24hrs after, etc.

The last section lets users set up different sets of columns to use when searching the membership list. This is done by drag and drop (a bit flakey on mobile at the moment) and is just a case of selecting and ordering things how you want, give the list a name - "ladies 30-39 ac" would be for those women between 30 & 39 who went anti-clockwise for example. There's separate groups for desktop and mobile since mobile screens tend to be narrower.


Membership list search
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When someone succeeds on the round and submits a ratification form I send them a questionnaire basically asking what worked with the registration/ratification process and what didn't. There's a few usual suspects in the responses. I also ask what they would like to see added.

This year about half a dozen people asked to be able to see the entire membership list in one rather than the limited search facility. This didn't make sense - with over 2900 members that would be over 80 screens worth! A follow up question and the response was

it would be good to have a few more sorting and filtering options.

For example, I might be interested in seeing all rounds for women, going clockwise, aged 50+. Once I have the list, I'd then most likely want to sort it in speed order.

Another example, I might be look at rounds for all men, all ages, in 2021, and be able to sort into speed order.
Which made much more sense. Not only that but it was something I was planning on doing anyway so double plus more sense!

So the search at http://bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=members has the following features:

  • you may search on pretty much any field or combination of fields.
  • the tests use English rather than mathematical or set terms: "before" rather than "<".
  • each field has a set of relevant tests, i.e. for the "age" field you have "younger than", "equal to", "at least", "older than", "between", "is NOW at least".
  • you may sort the results however you wish.
  • you may choose which of your named sets of columns to use when displaying the results.
  • you may name a search to save for later use. There is also a "last search" facility.
  • searches saved by registered users are available on any machine they are logged in to.


The tests are combined rather than alternate, i.e.

"Age is less than 25"
"Gender is male"

Is treated as "Men under 25" not "anyone under 25 OR anyone who is male". Thus each record in the table must pass all the tests not just one of them.

The search facility for pacers/supporters has similarly been updated but for this you can't change the table columns.

I'm sure I've missed a few edge cases in how things interact but I've not seen any recent problems in a month or so of testing so it's pretty stable. Drag and drop not working on mobile is the biggest problem outstanding.

Phew!