Website BETA launched!

[Neil]

Hi all,

A new version of the site has been under development for quite some, but it is almost ready.

So, if you'd like to have a sneak peek and a play, head to http://boinc.mundayweb.com/beta and let me know what you think.

Please feel free to be as frank as you like and of course I'd like to know about any bugs you find.

Note: The new site relies heavily on JavaScript, and as such it runs a bit a slow in Internet Explorer. I'd highly recommend either Google Chrome or Firefox as it runs much much faster under these browsers.

Main features of the new site:

- Fully object orientated (makes my life a lot easier)
- Dynamic text layout in stats graphics means no more overlapping text for big credit totals
- Better layout and design
- Page content reviewed, updated etc.
- Stats graphic previews are much better
- Improved GUI for setting preferences and graphics customisation
- More processing offloaded to clients rather than the web server which should mean a smoother experience

Finally, as it is a BETA there could be bugs that cause issues with your account. I have tried to test as much of the functionality as I can. Should anything go wrong with your account please let me know and I'll do my best to restore it.

Cheers,

Neil.

[clarkf1]

I logged in.

Nothing is showing in My Account.

[Neil]

Ah bugger!

Now fixed.

Cheers,

Neil.

[ChertseyAl]

Looking very slick - Some nice features that other stats sites don't have too

Anyway ...

On the project stats page (http://boinc.mundayweb.com/beta/html/stats.php) what defines 'active'? Some projects show as 'no' when they are in fact alive. Other show as 'yes' when they've been dormant for months.

Could the total credit be shown as an integer? I'm not sure resolution down to 0.01 of a cobblestone is terribly useful Just makes things look a bit messy, especially when the trailing zero is dropped.

Perhaps when viewing an individual project's stats there could be more than 25 entries (maybe user selectable?). 25 fits my screen exactly, but I'd probably prefer 100 and scroll rather than step through 3 more pages.

On the all-in-one page (http://boinc.mundayweb.com/beta/html/myAccount.php) I'd rather see all of my projects at once rather than in a scrollable box.

Could the All-In-One 'project' be put at the top, rather than in an alphabetical list?

When adding a project, if you click the project drop-down list, it is sorted strictly by ascii collating order, meaning that the 4 projects that start with a lower case letter are right at the bottom rather than correctly placed alphabetically.

Anyway, that's enough for now. Much simpler to use I think than the live version, some nice features that I've already used.

I'll be more brutal and rude when I get more time

Cheers,

Al.

[Neil]

Hi Al,

Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated.

A project is defined as "active" if the time its stats were last updated (as defined by the project) was during the last 3 days. This part of the site has not changed from the original one. Do you have an example of a project that is active but not listed as such?

I agree about the number of records per page on the stats project pages and also I see what you mean about the project listings on the My Account page.

Expect an update to the beta site later this week... providing "Neil 2.0" doesn't turn up early!

Cheers,

Neil.

[clarkf1]

Will it be possible to define which projects are shown in the AIO graphic like you currently can?

Looked at the code in one of your javascript files. GULP

Rather you than me

[Neil]

Hi all,

I've incorporated the suggestions from Al and also added a Facebook "Like" button.

clarkf1 - I'll take a look at your feature request next time I'm coding, it's a bit more effort to implement

Cheers,

Neil.

[Neil]

Finally had a chance to work on the site again.

This evening I have improved the dynamic image width calculations etc. for the All-In-One graphics for users and teams.

I've also added support for changing the rank format - this was disabled previously.

clarkf1 - I've not forgotten about your request.

Cheers,

Neil.

[Neil]

Hi all,

Finally had a chance to make some changes to the BETA version. It now supports the ability to select which projects are shown in your All-In-One user graphic.

I think the site is almost ready to go live... just need to code up the password reset page and admin pages to make my life easier.

What do you guys think?

I've been testing the site in Firefox, Chrome and IE. In IE 9 under Windows 7 64 bit, the site is sadly painfully slow for me which seems to be due to IE 9's poor JavaScript parser. IE 6 on my ageing 32-bit Windows XP laptop runs it fine!

Have you had any problems using IE with the site? I personally prefer Chrome, but a larger number of visitors to the site use IE.

Thanks again for your feedback,

Neil.

[ChertseyAl]

A few observations:

On the 'my account' page, the title of the project column is 'Graphic'. Also not keen on the projects being in a scrolling box when I have plenty of screen real estate to see so much more.

The 'back' button in Firefox 3.6 doesn't always go back, stays on same page sometimes. Not sure what the sequence of pages was that caused this.

Works in IE6, albeit as slowly as I'd expect. And then IE6 died. It tried though, bless it

The copyright date is 2004. That's so last year. Or was in 2005

Works very well in Opera 12.12, but the "For a faster browser experience when using this site please try using either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox" shouldn't be displayed (hehe) and the alignment of the text is wrong (not centred, jammed to the left).

The paypal 'donate' button has fuzzy corners. Yeah, nit-picking

I should just use the beta site from now on I guess. I'm sure I can find all sorts of minor quibbles if I try harder

Cheers,

Al.

[Neil]

Hi Al,

Thanks for the feedback.

I've found the cause of my IE9 poor performance - Avast (my virus scanner). If I disable it, IE9 works fine. Argh. At leas this means I could get rid of the browser warning.

I'll take a look at the other points too.

Cheers,

Neil.

[Neil]

Done.

I can't do much about the PayPal button as they supply the graphic on the fly

[ChertseyAl]

Hi Neil,

Looking good

Just one quibble that I forgot to mention before:

When adding a project (I have all of them added that I have credit in already BTW), I get an empty box for the CPID ones. Fair enough.

But in the 'not listed' section, the project dropdown shows all of the projects, including the ones I've already added. On the curent live site it just shows me those that I'm not already attached to, which makes it easy to see if there's any new projects that I don't know about (unlikely in my case as you know!).

If I then select a project that I have no credit on and search with my name, the dialog refreshes, but there's no sort of error message like there is on the live site. Not a big deal, but it might prevent "I click the button and nothing happens" bug reports

I like the new site. Deffo an improvement over the current one which was damned good already. Quick, easy to use, it's all there Glowing testimonals charged at the usual rate, payment to my Bermuda account please

Oh, one thing I just remembered, I always use adblockers, so I might not be seeing the true horror of the hodload of broken bricks that the site looks like with ads Sorry about that - Probably costs you billions in lost clickthroughs, but there you go

Cheers,

Al.

[Neil]

Hi Al,

Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at the add projects form. You are right about it offering all projects - I'll fix this (at some point!).

Cheers,

Neil.

[Neil]

Hi Al,

I believe I've now fixed the project select combo box and also I've added some warning pop-ups when no search results are found when using the add project form.

I've also coded the password reset feature tonight and also added my Google ads, but this time as a vertical ad on the right rather than crowding up the top of the page like the original site.

Cheers,

Neil.