My new project went live today

[sourceninja]

I work for a college that recently launched an new website. It still has a few things to work out, but for the most part it is finished.

You can check it out here.

But that's not the part I wanted to talk to you all about. The biggest part I contributed to this website was the calendar app. I turned it from a rough idea on a piece of paper into what I feel is a really usable nice web application.

I had never done any ajax work before and I really wanted to get into it. So this was my first real 'ajax' project. It uses jquery for all the heavy lifting with a php backend that creates and sends json objects. I also use a few jquery plugins such as ui.dialog, blockUI, etc.

I wanted to get some feedback on any areas I could improve in my next project, or any bugs that might of been missed.

Also, if you do play with it, don't forget to play with the options. I supplied two ways of getting event detail, one modal, one just windowed. I think the windowed one is much nicer as you can open more then one event at a time.

So I look forward to your input, good or bad. You can find it at http://www.swmich.edu/calendar

 

[aceO07]

Looks nice and simple in a good way. Seem to fit in perfectly with the rest of the website.

Here are my thoughts
1. Consider having the cell clickable instead of just the event title text inside the cell. The title might be shorter or longer, so sometimes you would have less area to click on or more.
2. Each time it reloads a new category section, it averages between 3-5 seconds to load. I suggest looking to see if the database queries could be optimized or maybe it is something else that could be sped up.
3. You probably don't need to provide such a wide range of years to pick from..
4. It would be good to have a visual indicator to let you know when you have selected day/week/all. Perhaps highlight the select word, or highlight the day(s) on the calendar.

 

[ngvepforever2]

It looks ok, but I have noticed that the Today button on the calendar does not work after you have gone to another date. Sometimes the application takes a lot to load and the loading pop up stays there doing nothing (so it gives the appearance the browser has crashed). This might be due to the long time it takes to retrieve the information. It is more likely, though, to be caused by the javascript. Some tables can get too big. I would consider putting a pager so if the result is more than 10 or 20 records, the user can choose how many to show per page.
This was my short test using IE7.0.

ng

 

[sourceninja]

The categories by default search 365 days of data. It is a bit slow and I am working with our DBA on getting a faster way of getting the data. I wanted to set the default to 60 days, but the big shots disagreed. Changing the default to under 100 days dramatically speeds up the loading. I am also playing with cached queries to speed up the reloading.

I do like the ideas presented. I have actually been working on some of them already. Mainly the clickable table row. The today button is a huge pet peeve of mine. I am using the ui.datepicker plugin for jquery to make that calendar. I can't for the life of me figure out how to make a function fire when you click today. If anyone knows how, I would send them my thanks. I also really like the idea of paginating the table. That shouldn't be too hard to do, I'm not sure if it will speed up the loading though because the problem is on the server side (testable with firebug, click the link and see how long it takes for the json data to show up). However, the paginating table would allow the display to be cleaner and not require so much scrolling for lower res users.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Markbnj]

I like it. Nice, clean design. Visually appealing. And it loads fast. Good work .

 

[KB]

Well made. Because I am used to Outlook, I think that the days with events should be bold in the calender.

 

[tranceport]

Could not create database connection. "MDB2 Error: connect failed"

 

[sourceninja]

I'm guessing you were trying around 11:30pm -12am ish EST. Our database goes down for backup around that time on the weekends.

 

[sourceninja]

I added the clickable row and in the process streamlined some poor coding I had in there. It's a nice change. I hope to get the other suggestions implemented soon as well.

 

[troytime]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
I'm guessing you were trying around 11:30pm -12am ish EST. Our database goes down for backup around that time on the weekends.

your website goes DOWN for backup??
ick

 

[sourceninja]

no our oracle database goes down, a side effect is anything that needs it is also rendered useless.

It only happens late at night and only during offline database backups. Mostly we do online database backups, but offlines are still needed.

 

[troytime]

why the NEED for offline backup? is it an oracle thing?

 

[JACKDRUID]

nice work! I like it! love the coloring / ajax usage.

would be nice if there is a button to setup a appointment in outlook calendar.

 

[sourceninja]

Originally posted by: troytime
why the NEED for offline backup? is it an oracle thing?

I have no idea, Our DBA rocks though, so I trust if he didn't need to do it, he wouldn't do it.