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RA Update (Jan 23) (Read 2025 times)

eric :)


    A belated happy New Year to all!

     

    Technically this is a major update, but since most of the changes are the underlying code, you shouldn't notice any difference.  These changes consisted of infrastructure upgrades to prepare for upcoming features.  Here are some changes that maybe of interest to you.

     

    Improved forum performance

    I wrote the original forum code over a weekend.  I had no idea that threads can grow to contain thousands of posts (the largest is a few posts from 5,000).  I rewrote the way the posts are loaded so that it's less taxing on the database.  This means topics should load faster than before.  I don't have any numbers to back up the claim, but there's a noticeable difference in resource usage.  Forums and groups traffic make up almost half of RA's traffic so this enhancement should make RA more responsive.

     

    Linked quote time stamp

    Oftentimes, I find myself wanting to see the original post quoted by someone.  I had to compare the time stamp of the quote to find the original post.  The topic loading enhancement allowed me to bring in additional information about the quote.  The quote time stamp is now a link back to the original post.

     

    Enhanced streak widget

    Quite a number of users have the streak widget on their summary page.  For those that don't know what it is, the streak widget keeps track of the total number of consecutive days you ran (or biked or any other activity).  The original widget had a couple of deficiencies.  The biggest problem is that it was updated every time you open the summary page.  There are a few users (don't have an exact number yet) with over 1,000 days of consecutive running.  For these users, the summary page may take a long time to load.  I changed the widget to update only when the workouts are changed.  Since the update process can still take some time, it is now done in the background to allow the page to return immediately instead of waiting for the calculations to complete.

     

    Since there is less time constraint for the streak calculation, the streak widget can spend more time gathering statistics.  The new streak widget now displays the number of days in your current streak, as well as the distance covered.  It also displays the longest streak if your current streak is not the longest.  The streak widget also recognizes workouts that span across multiple days.  A 100 mile run over 30 hours will count as two days so you won't have to run another mile on the second day to keep your streak going.

     

    Streak plugin

    The A Mile A Day group now has its own streak page that displays its members' streaks.  I tried to set everyone up for the streak page but was unable to do it for 13 people.  If you have a streak and do not see your data on the streak page, you can fix it by adding a new run entry to trigger a streak calculation.

     

    These are the visible changes in this release.  They're not much, but they're using the infrastructure enhancements in this release, which would allow me to do more interesting stuff in the future.

     

    I need to schedule some down time in the coming weeks to upgrade the database to the latest version.  Once the new database is in place, then I can work on generating statistics such as race rankings.  I also need to look into speeding up the data export because it is timing out for users with lots of data.

     

    eric Smile

      Awesome.  And thank you Smile

       

      Users with over 1000 days of consecutive running, and how to deal with a 100 mile, 30 hour run as part of a streak.  I'm guessing you probably wouldn't have guessed you'd be dealing with those when you started!

       

      I doubt I'll ever have the need to use either myself - but the linked quote time stamp I certainly will.  

       

      Loving your work as always.


      I look my best blurry!

        You take great care of us. Now it is time to take care of you. $$$
        Ojo


          Thank you thank you!  As one of the streakers I love the changes!  You are the best!

           

          PS  I need to get through January and will be donating in February.  Thanks!

          Sara

          MM #2929

            Thanks!  Wonderful updates, as always.

            Out there running since dinosaurs roamed the earth

             

              thank you Eric for all your hard work.  


              A Saucy Wench

                You rock!

                I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

                 

                "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7

                  good job ! Smile

                    I like the streak script.

                     

                    You must have changed something else (formatting of data?), because I now need to update some of my perl scripts.

                     

                    mgerwn


                    Hold the Mayo

                        Thanks for the hard work and the great site.

                        Jill_B


                        I fly.

                          Cool.  Thanks Eric! 

                          Bring it on.

                            Easy fix for my script. You changed the capitalization in your abbreviation of miles.

                             

                            Kerry1976


                            Master of the Side Eye

                              Eric, thank you so very much. This site is so important to so many of us. I can't tell you how appreciative I am of what you do for all of us.

                              TRUST THE PROCESS

                               

                               

                               

                              eric :)


                                Easy fix for my script. You changed the capitalization in your abbreviation of miles.

                                 

                                I received a message saying that the English units should not be capitalized.  They were capitalized to help discern them from the metric units.

                                 

                                What exactly are you doing with the scripts?  If you're polling data for further analysis, maybe an API would be more suitable as it's less resource intensive than generating a full page?

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