multi-day events in progress

[Joe Cohen]

Multi-day events may (temporarily) display in an unexpected way.

The 12 July 2008 code sprint (and follow-up) changed the test for
whether an event occurs within a time range.

Old test: Is the *start_time* within range?
New test: Is *any part of the event* within range?

The reason for the change is to improve handling of multi-day
events.

Consider OSCON, which starts July 21, ends July 25.

Under the old test, if you viewed the Calagator overview page on July
22, 23, 24, or 25, OSCON would not appear.
Under the new test, it will appear under Today's events, but display
in an unexpected way. For instance on July 22, you will see a group
of events listed under "Today". It will then list events that started
earlier than today, including their start times. So it will look like
this:

Today
Monday O'Reilly Open Source Convention
Jul 21 2008 7:30am through Friday, July 25 at 2pm
Oregon Convention Center

This is unexpected because Today is July 22.

This *not* a issue with *which* events are listed. But it is an issue
with how the times are described on the Overview page. There are
similar issues for the Browse Events page (and for the filtered events
on that page).

A ticket has been created documenting the issue.

[Igal Koshevoy]

Thanks for the write up and work on this task, Joe.

Suggestions for better displaying the text to indicate that these are
in-progress events are welcome.

-igal

[Joe Cohen]

I added screen shots with proposed solutions at
http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-tech-calendar/web/multi-day-event-screen-shots

[gabrielle]

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 9:15 AM, Joe Cohen <jdc...@stoel.com> wrote:
>
> I added screen shots with proposed solutions at
> http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-tech-calendar/web/multi-day-event-screen-shots

I like the looks of option #2.

gabrielle

[Bill Burcham]

Thanks for presenting alternatives Joe. In all three cases (current and alts 1 and 2) the "Today" label is redundant and confusing. We have a "Today" section followed by an item with a past date, followed by an item labeled "Today".

I suggest keeping the current (r 957) layout with "Today" and "Tomorrow" headings but moving the dates up to the "Today" and "Tomorrow" lines e.g. "Today July 23, 2008" with the date part muted visually (giving "Today" precedence). Similarly we could have "Tomorrow July 24, 2008". That would eliminate the dates in the left column.

With the dates out of the way the space formerly taken by the dates could be reserved for displaying the start dates of multi-day events.  So on the 21st, the Google seminar might have "starts today" in the left column. On the 23rd it might display "started July 21, 2008".

Using specific tense has value (starts vs. started) since it draws attention to the multi-dayness of the event and immediately orients the reader (is the event underway or is it just starting?) without requiring her to do mental (date) arithmetic.

[Joe Cohen]

gabrielle & Bill:

Thanks for looking at the layouts and for taking the time to
comment.

Bill: I tried to draw a picture based on your thoughtful comments.
See Calagator_overview_r957_burcham.png
Did I get it right?

-- Joe

[Bill Burcham]

joe: I can't see the attachment for some reason (I'm on gmail)

[Joe Cohen]

Bill:
Sorry. It wasn't an attachment -- just a link to an uploaded file.
I always have trouble getting to them via links, so you may need to
navigate around the group. I tried to make it more accessible by
creating a new page.

Look for
a *page* named "multi-day alternative 3"
http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-tech-calendar/web/multi-day-alternative-3
or
a *file* named "Calagator_overview_r957_burcham.png"

--Joe

[gabrielle]

I like that a lot. The way everything lines up across the top of the
"Today" and "Tomorrow" sections is very tidy.

gabrielle

[Bill Burcham]

Yeah Joe. That design uses the starts/started language and also
eliminates some of the confusion associated with the (previously) dual
meaning of column 2.

Though I don't know if the redundant element for "Tomorrow July 24
2008" is necessary. Was its inclusion just an oversight? From a visual
balance perspective I can see why we would want that redundant
element. On the other hand, removing the redundancy and then
rearranging might be preferable.

[Joe Cohen]

Bill:

At today's code sprint, we made a start on this issue by implementing
the 1st alternative. We did this simply because: (a) it was easy to
implement (a 5-minute fix), and (b) good enough for present purposes
to let us deal with other problems we must solve before OSCON.

But we've left the ticket open; we'll revisit this later when we have
time to deal with the more complicated logic to implement a different
display.

Joe

[Bill Burcham]

Good show. Thanks for the update.