Bugfixes and tweaks
- Guestbook configuration doesn't fail, so the link from the home-page
works
- POI info works even when the map isn't displayed (the lat/lng was only
being provided for maps, because until yesterday, POI display used X/Y instead)
- When there are no sub-menus in POIs, a header (with icon if available) is
displayed to explain what you are seeing
- The gazetteer main screen doesn't load unnecessary Javascripts
- I've improved the build process for POIs to only rebuild when necessary
(building the tree is painful)
- Sort for place name suggestor puts shorter forms first (locks etc still
sorted alphabetically rather than arithmetically)
- Credits in POI work better
I'm aware that the backlog of new places is growing. I'll have a good bash
at them sometime soon.
This is a particularly messy upgrade, where I've changed several internal
data structures and names of files - please be enthusiastic in reporting any
odditries or outright bugs you see as a result
RSS feeds, icons, POI improvements, others
The new gazetteer is mature enough that I'm now going to report changes to
it here
- Tags are now sorted in decreasing order of specificity - this is less
confusing, and makes the safest suggestion when a new link-by-tag is
added - good thinking Steve
- "Find Nearest" works for things with more than one space in them (like
"Fish and Chips")
- A workaround for a caching problem on the POI structure has been
added
- The buttons to change a position are only there when they should be, not
when looking at a place that someone else has already suggested moving
- There is a new "reset map" button that restores the original view even if
you've scrolled miles away using a POI
And there is a lot of other stuff as well
- I've stopped convoluted spam strings from breaking moderation (if they'd
got past they'd have been OK!)
- all Javascripts are now compressed
- The main menu has icons - a bit of fun, but rather pretty
- The anti-guestbook-comment-spam technique has been improved
- There are RSS feeds for news, photos and guestbook entries - in the future
they'll be available for comments and for the moderators as well
- POI stuff has been extensively reworked to use a new database and tree
structure. See an article coming to the blog soon for more on this
- Machine specific "smart"-quotes and other silly characters in pasted
comments no longer blow up the XML
- Starting a "furthest place" on an excluded waterway now reports what has
gone wrong
Tweaks, feedback for gazetteer, more POI
A few tweaks, including a feedback link on the new gazetteer, and another
huge bunch of POIs
Efficiency changes, gazetteer/POI stuff
- Tags now build a lot quicker (only really of interest to me)
- A bug that made some "find nearest" fail has been fixed
- The index files for find nearest have been rationalised for
efficiency
- You can now chose the range within which you want to see POIs
- The new gazetteer is further enhanced, again see the "to-do list" for detaukls
Patch for tags
A patch to fix errors when adding links through tags that referred to more
than one page
Patch for Tags. Browser compatibility work
- Tags now include structures (tunnels, aqueducts, lock flights)
- Lots of Javascript tweaks made to suit other browsers
Release 8.17.17.1 - 3 Feb 2007
- Fixed a bug in guestbook moderation
- Fixed - I hope - a bug for old users of the new guestbook
- Added a lot more POI
- Collected POI statistics and put them on the home page (now 15,500)
Release 8.17.17 - 3 Feb 2007
- Fixed a bug where tracking information was upsetting the guestbook
moderation
- Fixed a major and longstanding bug where any attempt to use the gazetteer
to select the second place in "move photo" confused everything horribly
- Equals signs in cgi parameter values were being dropped (an ancient bug
dataing back to at least 2001). This broke references to urls that themselves
contained parameters
- The drop-down place suggester has been recoded to show initial matches and
then internal ones
- Lots more in the new gazetteer
menu - see the todo list there. As the blog suggests, this will be
becoming the default very soon
- Added more POIs - all supermarkets
Release 8.17.16.6 - 20 Jan 2007
A couple of little tweaks, but the main thing is that there are a lot of
new places in the database
Release 8.17.16.5 - 8 Jan 2007
Some nice enhancements to the new gazetteer
menu - see the todo list for
infomation. Notice how it still seems to be getting longer!
Release 8.17.16.4 - 30 December 2006
Fixed a bug where changes to the interpreter to facilitate the new "find
nearest" feature for the new gazetteer had broken the "ring starting off the
ring" feature (there really is a connexion, but it's too much to go into here).
Release 8.17.16.3 - 30 December 2006
- Quite a pile of pending new places added - bringing the place total from
6968 to 7023
- Some new statistics for those checking coordinates
Release 8.17.16.2 - 20 December 2006
Just some more tweaks to the new gazetteer
menu - see the todo list for
infomation. Notice how it is getting longer despite me fixing stuff!
Release 8.17.16.1 - 20 December 2006
Just some tweaks to the new gazetteer
- Select boxes in options are slightly wider, so they don't do silly things
when "information" is moved across
- See the "to do" list on the new gazetteer
menu for details of all the others
Release 8.17.16 - 17 December 2006
A huge amount more on the new gazetter - hence the increasing level 3
version number. When I go live it will be as 8.18, whatever the size of the
actual changes
- Options - very neat options, and allow more configation than anyone
could want.
- Maps - still pretty basic
- You can check what is still to be done on the to-do list; as you see, I'm
still a bit off making this the default version!
Release 8.17.15 - 16 December 2006
- More characters escaped in photo text, preventing them failing on reading
(as was happening with pound signs)
- The new gazetteer now displays photos in tabs - it's getting closer to
full functionality
- When the shortened "what's new" page is made, links are tweaked so that
they still work
- Dates on latest contributions fixed (done as a patch)
- A message about the October users database corruption has been added
- When you register to add photos you don't get a blank screen any more
Release 8.17.14.2 - 10 December 2006
A parcel of patches to the experimental new gazetteer
- Selector now works with Opera - so I suspect IE as well
- POI tabs now work with Opera - so ditto
- There is a "close" option on the "add link" pop-up
- Typing single match names into the search box now provides gazetteer
rather than a message
- Category names in the POI tabs are capitalised
- The new POI data has been increased
The Waterways Petition link has been restored
Release 8.17.14.1 - 9 December 2006
The new index page did look a lot better and so, to celebrate CanalplanAC's
6th birthday on 21 November 2006, I made it the live one
In prototype only there is an entirely new gazetteer page. Not only is this
newly designed - it looks better, is more structured, and shows more on the
screen at any one time - but it also supports several brand new features
discussed on the blog. If you feel like testing it, it's here
Release 8.17.14 - 19 November 2006
Lots of development on new POI stuff, a redesigned gazetteer etc, but none
of it is live. The only stuff anyone should see is:
- Some minor edits and corrections to the place data (keep them coming
people)
- The bug reporting address changed, as the spammers found it
- There is an experimental new index
page for people to test - something like this could become the main
one
Release 8.17.13 - 4 November 2006
There is some interesting new code that will support a complete redesign of
the way places of interest are handled - I'm calling it the new
POI-subsystem. None of it is properly live in this version but it is getting a bit of
a work out just by being there
- Put some anti-spammer stuff (including a tarpit) into gazetteer
- Made [tab] work better with autocomplete (it doesn't put the selected item
in, instead it clears the list)
- If you put a '+' into a place name it would get through the verification
stage and cause route planning to fail
- Two more misrouting hiccups (alternative routes with particular options)
fixed
Release 8.17.12 - 1 October 2006
- I've done a lot on links - see the following blog entries for the gory details
- While I was playing around with coordinates, distances, pedometers etc, I
finally got down to sorting out Stourport, which has been something of a
kludge ever since it was cobbled in on 29 November 2000
- I've improved the Ashton Canal
- If you chose not to have links to the gazetteer, you didn't get the names
of waterways in the route list! Now you do.
- I've made several changes to the way place and link data are read into the
processing engine to aid with making moderated changes to places easier
Release 8.17.11.2 - 16 September 2006
- Fixed a bug where the Avon ring was routing up the Droitwich [credit Ed
Stewart]
- Fixed a bug where the wrong turning instructions were being given at
Napton Junction [credit Ray and Barbara Watkins]
- Lots of stuff to automate adding updates from the virtual lengthsman. All
very experimental and no doubt fragile
Release 8.17.11.1 - 3 September 2006
Some patches to the lengthsman code; fixed a bug with photo info; uploaded
the coordinate changes I'd made while testing lengthsman
Experimental "lengthsman" feature
I'm doing a lot of work on the "virtual lengthsman" feature. It's far
from finished, but if you fancy a go you'll find it here
- Some small patches to the autocomplete code:
- it now works in the first box on the input page without you having to move
out and back
- it doesn't cause stylesheet errors
- it doesn't flash larger when you scroll it up and down
- Some things vanished from the gazetteer page in the last release, now restored
- Lots of new places added, including ones that had fallen down the plusnet
mail blackhole in July - I rescued them from the server - making a total of 34
more - only 66 more for 7000
Release 8.17.10 - 31 August 2006
- In fact, I completely buggered the home page for IE users last time - I
had to do an emergency remote fix to it. I do hope that this version is still
fine
- Another "new place" bug in the placefinder has been fixed
- I've added autocomplete to the entry boxes in the gazetteer and the main
entry page
Release 8.17.9 - 28 August 2006
- I've altered the autocomplete for "quick search" to make it work in both words of a
comma separated route
- I've compressed all the Javascript files (and written make rules to make
sure this happens automatically from now on) - this should save some
bandwidth
- I've documented the sources for this on the copyrights page
- I've improved the layout rules for the new index page, so it is less
likely to stick the menu bar down at the bottom. I'm still not entirely happy
with the layout. If there are any HTML experts out there who'd like to take
the existing page source and hack it into something more elegant I'd love to
hear from them - I could then easily reverse it back to the automatically
generated one
- As no one has complained yet, I've added the new autocomplete to the main
gazetteer start page - it will slowly spread through the site
Release 8.17.8 - 27 August 2006
Yesterday I accidentally released a redesigned index page to the world.
The aim was to put this up as a prototype and let a few people try it. Ah
well, it seems to work well enough. This formal release improves the
formatting slightly - in particular the borders between columns.
The "quick search" index box at the side is prototyping an AJAX based
database searcher for place names. Give it a go (it doesn't kick in until you
have typed three characters - experiments showed that was about right). If
this works and is popular I'm going to extend it to the main input screen and
the gazetteer - so please let me know what you think of it (by email from the home page)
Release 8.17.7.3 - 22 August 2006
Release 8.17.7.2 broke route planning for many people. This was patched
last night but has now been fixed properly, the code tidied up, and some extra
little bits to do with new places added
Release 8.17.7.2 - 22 August 2006
I've found out what the bugs were - they were all consequences of allowing
new places to be searched for - the program was then blowing up when trying to
calculate routes through them! I've activated some code that was meant to
check for this, but failing miserably. Let's see if it's any better.
I've also added another quote from Steve Haywood. Well he did ask
Release 8.17.7.1 - 21 August 2006
- There are two or three very strange bugs since I upgraded the placefinder,
that are sneaking past all my debugging traps (I cannot reproduce them from
the data dumps I get). I've put some experimental code in to keep a few more
details before things crash, to see if that helps me debug them. In the
meantime, sorry for this - and my thanks for your patience
- Gazetteer options no longer crash
- Another quote
Release 8.17.7 - 16 August 2006
- Four tweaks that had been implemented pre-release have been
integrated:
- POI icons show on maps on first appearance, not only on switching type
- Preferred zoom is correctly implemented
- Preferred zoom range increased
- Moderated new coordinates are shown on the map
- If you drag the green icon, it's final resting place is recorded, not
where it was last clicked
- Lots of piddling little bug tweaks to placefinder that you are not
concerned about the details of
- You can now add photos from the gazetteer page
- Another few places added
Release 8.17.6.1 - 6 August 2006
- You can now add photos directly from the gazetteer - just follow the link
at the end of the "... is on the ..." text
- I've made some improvements to the "suggest a new place" code, hopefully
to avoid some very strange results that have been working their way into the
data from time to time
Release 8.17.6.1 - 6 August 2006
The new placefinder was too enthusiastic and tended to produce places off
the waterways when it could have matched somewhere on them. Eg "upton" or
"whaddon". Thanks to Steve for spotting and reporting
Release 8.17.6 - 6 August 2006
- By presorting I've reduced the time taken to merge POI data from 3 minutes
to 12 seconds (a 15 fold speed-up). It also doesn't work the machine so hard
that MP3 playback hiccups! No benefit for the users (except for reducing
the down-time during a rebuild) but a lot nicer for me.
- I've written a lot of code to make adding new places easier
- I've added a heap of (well, 43) new places - it's still slow work, but probably about
as fast as it can be. And don't let that put you off - the K&A is a lot
better as a result of this work.
- When you suggest changed coordinates for a place, the green marker is
draggable which makes it easier to tweak
- A bug that caused "look up" (from the drop-down menu) to fail if the place
had an alias has been fixed. This also fixed a bug where changeplace would
sometimes fail
Release 8.17.5 - 5 August 2006
- Most of the unknown place facility has been internalised, speeding it up
enormously. Some tweaks have been made to the scoring - let's see how it
works from now on
- New places can now found - part of the above
- A link to a recycling facilities page added
- A few general typos fixed. One more quote
Release 8.17.4.2 - 3 August 2006
Some lock adjustments made to Lapworth and Hatton. Credit to Bob Wood and
Captian Beeky
Release 8.17.4.1 - 1 August 2006
A quite remarkable bug has been fixed - see the blog for more details
Release 8.17.4 - 31 July 2006
Improvements to the gazetteer options - you can chose the default map
display and scale (which should be very useful for those who adjust
coordinates) and also select if you want poi icons on each sort of map
Release 8.17.3 - 23 July 2006
- Thanks to a lucky bug I discovered I'd made a logical error when adding the
daily virtual cruises - there was a better, and easier, way to do it. Now implemented
- More POI data added - it's getting time I started allowing people to
select which of this they want to see
- Alternative and Complementary Medicines and Therapies
- Roman, Iron Age, Prehistoric, Early Churches, Crosses, Castles and other Ancient Sites
- Attractions
Release 8.17.2.2 - 23 July 2006
- Another attempt at that pling fix - it helps if you type the code
correctly, you know
- More places added
Release 8.17.2.1 - 23 July 2006
- Tweaks to browsephoto and browseinfo to try to resolve a long standing
problem reported many times by Peter Stockdale of stray plings getting into
place references
- Circum-Birmingham Ring renamed to "Round Birmingham Ring"; removing the
'-' was necessary for technical reasons, and it now actually works
Release 8.17.2 - 22 July 2006
Recent emails and a discussion on uk.rec.waterways have convinced me that
work on a more flexible scheduler, that allows manual adjustment of the
predicted stopping places, is the next big piece of work that is called for.
With luck I'll have it by the end of the year. Before I get properly down to
that, the decks need clearing of lots of little bits that are lying around
waiting to be done. Here's a start
- Assorted typos fixed [thanks for Peter Stockdale for nagging]
- A bug where "quickest" routes crashed out with a bug report has been
fixed
- You can produce a virtual cruise for any day of the itineraries [based on
a suggestion by Richard Deeley]
- Some lock flights (those with no intermediate places) failed when entered into the placefinder (eg, putting
"Foxton Locks" in failed).
- A distance on the Chesterfield fixed, thanks to Phil Lamb
- A very short "turn round here" in the Warwickshire Ring fixed [thanks to
Peter Stockdale]
- The most extreme N,S,E and W places on your route are mentioned in the
itinerary
- A few new places added
- A typo in the quotes fixed
Release 8.17.1 - 16 July 2006
More POI data sets added:
- Food: McDonalds, Bakers
- Chains: Halfords, Argos, Borders
- Misc shops: Autioneers, Antique shops, Book Shops, Chandlers
- Others: Wireless hotspots, Railway Stations
Release 8.17.0.2 - 30 June 2006
Added Cinemas, Post Offices and Chemists to the POI data sets
Release 8.17.0.1 - 30 June 2006
- Lock count at Bank Newton fixed - credit Terry Streeter
- Lots of submitted places added - particular thanks to Mike Askin for many
of these
and for patience
- Browse photos now automatically bug reports. A bug in it (to do with
logging on) now fixed
licensed POI data
This release marks a step change in the amount and quality of local data in
CanalplanAC. I have entered into (for one year at least) a licensing deal to
add geographic Point of Interest data. This appears in the gazetteer maps and
in the gazetteer text. I've got plans to use this to enhance the Itineraries
as well.
In this release I've started to add a few of what I expect to be the most
popular types of data (OK, I admit it, it's some of the pubs, plus some
shops). Over the next couple of months I'll add all the data, and enhance the
functionality (allow you to select what sort of places you want shown, and to
decide how close they need to be for you to be interested for example -
currently the cut-off distance for each set is defined at build time)
I'll also add functions to allow people to report duplicate entries, and to
enhance any of my original data so that it too is shown on the maps
In other work, I've tweaked, yet again, the unknown place code to prevent
places off the waterways outranking aliases