Clashfinder 2010

[halvin]

not that i'm unappreciative or anything but i think i'll stick to my highlighters anyway ta.

[rexclark]

Nice work mate, great being able to at least plan a wee bit just now.

[Grimmy]

Minor issue with the clashfinder, if I select a band that's playing twice then both their sets are selected.

[halvin]

Minor issue with the clashfinder, if I select a band that's playing twice then both their sets are selected.

[r0cky]

Thanks for the update (RevB) and updated headline times. I thought only Group A stages (Pyramid, Other, West Holts) finished 30mins earlier and the other stages remain on the same timings as before?

[Grimmy]

From the last page:

I've been mulling over the 'problem' and it may be possible to have a Select One/Select All switch. The first thing to mention is that it's not a omission on my part -- I wrote extra JavaScript to ensure that the highlights of an act remain synchronised. When you load a page with highlights, all of the occurrences of the named acts will be highlighted. If you allow JavaScript to set individual highlights, the highlights would change when you refresh the page (or post the link or bookmark the page or whatever). This would be an unexpected change and very bad.

I'm afraid that I think that the idea of giving the performances unique names (The XX 1, The XX 2, etc) is a horrible one. It would solve that specific issue but it'd be confusing to the user and would break lots of things, like the 'Jump to the next occurrence of this act' buttons.

One possibility is to allow JavaScript to set individual highlights and to identify them in the url by specifying that it's the nth occurrence of the act that's highlighted, with n in square brackets. For example, if I highlighted the first and third performance by Femi Kuti (who's currently only playing twice, bear with me) then the url would include hl1=femiku[1,3]. One problem with that is that if a performance by an act gets added early on in the festival, the highlights will shift because what was the first performance now becomes the second. Other problems are that it would be a fair amount of work and other things may get broken in the process.

[Niblet]

From the last page:

I've been mulling over the 'problem' and it may be possible to have a Select One/Select All switch. The first thing to mention is that it's not a omission on my part -- I wrote extra JavaScript to ensure that the highlights of an act remain synchronised. When you load a page with highlights, all of the occurrences of the named acts will be highlighted. If you allow JavaScript to set individual highlights, the highlights would change when you refresh the page (or post the link or bookmark the page or whatever). This would be an unexpected change and very bad.

I'm afraid that I think that the idea of giving the performances unique names (The XX 1, The XX 2, etc) is a horrible one. It would solve that specific issue but it'd be confusing to the user and would break lots of things, like the 'Jump to the next occurrence of this act' buttons.

One possibility is to allow JavaScript to set individual highlights and to identify them in the url by specifying that it's the nth occurrence of the act that's highlighted, with n in square brackets. For example, if I highlighted the first and third performance by Femi Kuti (who's currently only playing twice, bear with me) then the url would include hl1=femiku[1,3]. One problem with that is that if a performance by an act gets added early on in the festival, the highlights will shift because what was the first performance now becomes the second. Other problems are that it would be a fair amount of work and other things may get broken in the process.

Edited April 18, 2010 by Niblet

[worthyraver]

Sounds like a ball ache, I'd have a beer instead if I were you

[Staberinde]

Kin 'ell Halvin, that's fantastic.

You can even mark and high light the bands you want to see and I love the bit where you can click to see where else a particular band is playing again.

All that hight tec, all that work with jrava etc, then 5c077ie comes out with this...

/me gets out highlighter pen and thanks Halvin.

[halvin]

Can't you give each entry / sqaure a unique ID as well? That way you can have your colour selection on every occurrence of a band, like you have now, and if you select the 5th colour from the options, it will only highlight whatever you select and not all occurrences, using the square reference and not the band. (If you get what I mean) The 5th colour option could just put a bolder bordaer around the band name for instance. That way you could see when The XX are playing and then nail down the one you are intending to go for.

[StrettonHills]

Couple changes already

Gaslights slot now completley shifted out.

The XX at JP have been bumped ahead of Foals, swapping places. Making the Park slot more tempting now as the dash from XX at JP to Muse almost undoable due to crowd movements.

[Mardy]

How would you generate the unique ID? You couldn't generate a random string because every time I update the clashfinder, the strings will be regenerated. You can't start at 1 at the first act and count up because anything added or removed from the clashfinder will throw off all the following acts.

The only way I could see it working is by concatenating day.stageName.act.occurrence (eg. sa.johnpe.thexx.1 to refer to the first time that the XX play at John Peel on Saturday) but that'll give you a handle that's way too long and users will start running into the URL length limit of their browsers (they may do that anyway with the current 6 character handles). I guess it would be possible to create a lookup with a shortened, meaningless key, so I'd use a handle like [s9w], which I'd be able to look up and get sa.johnpe.thexx.1 or vice-versa. The problem there is that it wouldn't be human-readable without checking the lookup. I quite like the way that at the moment anyone can see hl1=faithl and understand that Faithless have been highlighted.

[godders1966]

How would you generate the unique ID? You couldn't generate a random string because every time I update the clashfinder, the strings will be regenerated. You can't start at 1 at the first act and count up because anything added or removed from the clashfinder will throw off all the following acts.

The only way I could see it working is by concatenating day.stageName.act.occurrence (eg. sa.johnpe.thexx.1 to refer to the first time that the XX play at John Peel on Saturday) but that'll give you a handle that's way too long and users will start running into the URL length limit of their browsers (they may do that anyway with the current 6 character handles). I guess it would be possible to create a lookup with a shortened, meaningless key, so I'd use a handle like [s9w], which I'd be able to look up and get sa.johnpe.thexx.1 or vice-versa. The problem there is that it wouldn't be human-readable without checking the lookup. I quite like the way that at the moment anyone can see hl1=faithl and understand that Faithless have been highlighted.

[halvin]

I wouldn't worry about it at all. I think it's fantastic as it is. We should all be extremely thankful for your great work and leave it at that.

Using a highlighter pen shouldn't really be that difficult for most people!

[Mardy]

I'll probably still have a go at making the change. I've got a trip to Russia just before the festival and I'll have five hours in Domodedovo Airport with toss all to do.

[halvin]

Halvin, I live in Moscow, give me a shout if you're at a loose end and fancy a pint.

[Mardy]

Unfortunately, I'm only passing through Moscow on my way to Chelyabinsk. I appreciate the offer, though!

[halvin]

Thanks for the update (RevB) and updated headline times. I thought only Group A stages (Pyramid, Other, West Holts) finished 30mins earlier and the other stages remain on the same timings as before?

[StrettonHills]

Thanks. I'll have a look when I get a chance.

[LondonTom]

I'll probably still have a go at making the change. I've got a trip to Russia just before the festival and I'll have five hours in Domodedovo Airport with toss all to do.

[Langdale Wolf]

Hold fire, IE9 on win7, now refreshing as TBA for GLA and XX remain 3rd in JP

original post was IE6 on XP

not sure which is correct now

[Rufus Gwertigan]

ooo just spotted this thread, although it is totally useless to me. I don't find out the shifts I am working at the festival until I get there and I quite enjoy the fact that I can't make any plans. I don't know it's like a mystery tour

[StrettonHills]

Line-up

XX over Foals @ 1724 19/04/2010

i think, someone please comfirm! PLEASE!

Edited April 19, 2010 by spinks

[LondonTom]

Line-up

XX over Foals @ 1724 19/04/2010

i think, someone please comfirm! PLEASE!

[padders]

Oh yeah, I remember now you mention it. That's good news because that means that places like Acoustic ought to get some pretty reliable times when I get around to updating.

Thanks. I'll have a look when I get a chance.

I've added a Recommendations box to the clashfinder -- it'll suggest other acts based on your highlights. The algorithm's pretty basic and it tends to put the more popular acts at the top but it's miles better than the Bayesian one I trialled before this one, which would put everything at 100% or 0% with nothing in between (unsurprisingly, as that's what they're supposed to do).