improved? 8 second refresh

Dave L · Post by **Dave L** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:53 pm

This is perhaps a minor gripe but that constant refresh on the Park Baseball home page is very annoying. Don't you think? The only reason for the refresh is for Sunday morning--to insure that the latest field condition report is shown, right? I'd suggest doing without the refresh and just posting the words, "Refresh this page to insure the most up-to-date field condition report" or something to that effect. Or just turn on the refresh Sunday morning when you post the field condition report. But to leave it on all the time really detracts from the usability and esthetics of the site imho.

TheLegend · Post by **TheLegend** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:29 pm

i agree w/ dave: it's a bit on the annoying side

Southpaw Slim · Post by **Southpaw Slim** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:57 pm

Surprisingly enough, there are actual people who are seriously impatient enough to leave after 10 seconds, yet also lazy enough to avoid the (Firefox familiar) This Frame > Reload Frame, or right-click > Reload/Refresh. It is for these few people that we have the refresh so frequent (and only on the main page).

Dave L · Post by **Dave L** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 2:21 pm

Well I still think it detracts from the site significantly enought that it's not worth it to cater to those few. Those who choose to ignore clearly stated instructions such as, "Refresh Page to obtain current field conditions" should be willing to accept the consequences.

There's a significant amount of information on that page. It's really distracting (and deterring) to try to read a page that's constantly dissappearing.

But, as i said, it's a relatively minor gripe...

Post by **retep** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:07 pm

I concurr.

Post by **gohlkus** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 11:30 pm

It's good you're no longer refreshing every 8 seconds (which is really a backwards way of achieving your aim here). I'm glad I missed that era.

Nick, I would suggest you add these tags in the <head> area of the homepage:

Code: Select all

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1">

This will (in most browsers) ensure that the browser reloads the page every time you go to it, rather than relying on a cached version. (Someone using AOL is beyond help, but you already knew that.)

I would also suggest creating a little javascript button rather than just telling people they have to refresh. Use this:

Code: Select all

<p><font color="lime">Don't be lazy.</font> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- Begin
document.write&#40;'<form><input type=button value="Refresh this frame." onClick="history.go&#40;&#41;"></form>'&#41;
//  End -->
</script></p>

(Look, a valid use of the [ code ] BBCode.)

Dave L · Post by **Dave L** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:24 am

Hey thanks for the code Jason. That will work nicely. And thanks (is it Nick?) for removing the auto refresh. It's much better now.

However, while we're on the topic of seeking web perfection...one more gripe...In my browser the page delays in showing itself for a good couple of seconds. I believe this is due to the inbedded Oakland weather thingy, which is a nice touch but is it really necessary? A simple hyperlink would allow easy access to the weather but wouldn't cause a noticable page display delay. What do you think, Jason?

Again, minor gripe. Thanks again for removing the refresh.

Post by **gohlkus** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:21 am

Oops, I just realized I had a missing quotation mark in the code above. If you use it as it was, it will probably break your page.

The post above has now been edited to be correct.

Post by **gohlkus** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:25 am

In my browser, the whole page loads except for the weather thing, which loads a couple seconds later. It's kind of a nice touch but there must be a less resource-intensive way to do it.

Also, why is "News" blinking? That's not cool, not cool at all.

Post by **gohlkus** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:28 am

But let me add that it's very cool you keep the site up to date and have developed it up to this point, Nick.

I wouldn't have thought of bringing up any of these minor criticisms without having been asked.

Post by **Baseball=Life** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:09 pm

The "News" section of the website does not get updated very frequently, because most of the changes and issues facing the league are discussed in the Forum.

When the "News" section is rarely updated, we set it to blink, so people know to check it. Otherwise, people would never check it, what with the rare updates.

It is generally designed to reflect non-baseball issues, such as reformatting the statistics section, posting new photos, etc.

The key thing we need to do is remember to stop it from blinking, a week or so after an update occurs. And as for the Oakland weather issue, I agree it causes a slight delay in the page load, and would also like to see if there's another way we can state the weather outlook.

Southpaw Slim · Post by **Southpaw Slim** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 2:38 am

News no longer blinks. Thanks for the kick in the ass.

Dave L · Post by **Dave L** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 12:31 pm

As far as the weather widget slowing up page loading, I'd suggest just using the following link (that the user would click on to easily check the Oakland weather):
http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USCA0791.html

(and a similar one, if you want, for SF weather)

and remove the existing code:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="http://data.geo.yahoo.com/geo/v1?w=f,94 ... CRIPT>

But echoing what Jason said, these are very minor gripes. Overall, brilliant job, Nick!

Dave L · Post by **Dave L** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 12:35 pm

The actual code for the link would be:
<a href="http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USCA0 ... l">Oakland Weather</a>

Southpaw Slim · Post by **Southpaw Slim** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:34 pm

Thanks for the code, guys. All changes proposed have been made.

Oakland Park Baseball

improved? 8 second refresh

The 8-second home page refresh:

improved? 8 second refresh