Dragon Boat West

While we wait for the Vernon results to come out so that I can complete the next update for the ladder rankings, I've decided to release the newest feature of DBW's rankings a little early. I call it the "ladder browser" (if someone can come up with a better name, I'm open to suggestions), and you can get to it by going to the rankings (http://www.dragonboatwest.net/index.php?page=14) page and then clicking the Open Ladder Browser link on the right.

The ladder browser has a copy of the results data I enter into our rankings database. Along with each heat's results, it shows how a heat changes the whole ladder rankings. So now instead of puzzling over how 'Team Somebodies' got above your team in the ladder but just having to trust that the ladder ranking system works, you can see for yourself how it happened! Its also a collaborative way to check the rankings data for errors, as everyone can see what data I entered (how convenient for me ;)).

I realize the look of it isn't super attractive right now and its cumbersome to browse up and down a rankings list that has 200+ teams. But, this is just an initial release and I do plan on improving it in the future. Check it out and let me know what you think!

wow! thats detailed if not thorough!  its just too many tables and dropdowns for me to even comprehend!

awesome work!

Props BlueStreak!


It actually looks pretty good. Its intuitive and quite user friendly. I like how the 2 main category (events and heats) is using dropdowns, it makes things less cluttered. Having the asterisks is good too for the teams in questions (although is it a bug that sometimes it doesnt show the whole rankings? ie: in one instance, it didnt show the teams 1-16, starting the ladder from team 17 onwards.)

As for names, Ladder Browser seems good enough.
Couple of suggestions:
1) Ladder Movement Browser
2) Ladder Action Browser
3) Ladder Development Browser
4) Ladder Progression Browser

Keep up the good work BlueStreak!  msn(u)

I love it. I get it, it's easy to follow. One suggestion, can the list of teams be a separate window (not sure the terminology) so that if you're looking at your team and they're #30 as you scroll through the race results you still are looking at rankings say 20 to 40. That way you can see when your team moves up or down.

Great work, that's fun to see.

Thx BlueStreak.

Which race & heat did you see that happen for? I haven't noticed that kind of bug.


Yeah, probably the biggest usability hurdle right now is having to scroll down to look for a team (that's not in the top 20) for every heat you look at. I have something in mind thats similair to what have you've described ... I just hope I'll be able to figure out how to do it!

Another feature I'm thinking of doing is being able to filter the ladder so that it only shows the teams that you want to see. It would also solve the problem of having to scroll down and up the list everytime you navigate to a new heat.

FCRCC Regatta Heat 7

Will you be adding Nanaimo?

Yup, that's the bug I noticed.


If you do decide to implement that feature, It would be helpful if you also include in the filter, 1 or 2 teams above and below each teams in the heat. Just to get a sense of exactly where they are...It could be helpful, it could be useless haha. Just a thought.

How about select the team you're interested in (probably your team) and then it would show you where you are plus the 10 teams above and 10 teams below, or 15 teams above and 5 below. People are usually more interested in who's above them.

Also, the women's teams would probably like to see a filter for just them.
 

I've updated the ladder browser with various features to (hopefully) make it easier to use:

- Ladder filter options. Click on the button at the top of the ladder ranking table to open the options. There are two filter options :
-- Show teams in current heat : This filters the ladder, displaying the teams from the current heat as they are on the ladder.
-- Focus on specific team : Check off this option and select a team to focus on. The ladder while show and highlight the team you selected. It also shows the 10 teams above and and 3 teams below the team you selected.
- The two filters above can be used together.
- You can use the left and right arrow buttons on your keyboard to go to the previous and next races. (Using the keyboard is faster and more ergonomicly friendly than clicking on buttons)

Now this dude is thinking of us old farts over the age of, lets say 40, and thinking about carpal tunnel etc. You ROCK dude!  :D

Nice update, keep it up!

Unfortunately, you don't have to be over 40 to have, umm... ergonomic needs.  :?  Just had to spend way too time in front of a computer during my high school days. ;)

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunatley, us REALLY old farts didn't have computers in our High Schools. They hadn't been invented yet. Hell, we wrote on slates with chalk, and had to import an abucus from China to learn to count.

Alright so ive noticed both our senior team and our junior team is on there. Khmer krom dragons is our adult team, while khmer krom dragon jr's are are junior team but why is the junior team considered a mixed team when there is only kids 18 and under.

Also you should get rankings from tacoma and kent events dont see those races up.

I don't even pretend to understand this... but I will say that my team OWLS - Dragonflies, is a women's team.

Just wondering when the rest of the 2010 races are going to be used to update the Rankings. The latest one looks to be Alcan in June.

Did anyone still need help with data entry for this database?