Sneak peek at the new Competitions Time

MSE_Stephen

Hi Compers,

We're working right now on the new version of Competition Time. The plumbing work is mostly done, now we’re choosing the taps and tiles.

Below are some screenshots of the new functionality along with some early designs.

⚠️ All subject to change and not guaranteed!

The main index

Below the title, the Closing Date will be shown (possibly shortened to "Ends" or "E"). The Skipped and Entered design is still being worked on. Here we have circles!

We're also trying out excerpts from the start of posts, if we can squeeze it in…

Sorting

You will be able to sort any board with some great new options. With Competitions Time there will be 'Closing Soonest' and 'Closing Latest' as additional options.

Filtering

There will be a 'Content' filter on all boards. On Comps time, this will let you quickly filter the Comps list (with Entered/Skipped buttons still shown).

Under the main Filter button on the right, you can filter even more (and in combination with the above filter) by tag and by Entered/Skipped status!

So, in theory, you could ask Comps Time to…

Show me Competitions Time discussions sorted by Closing Soonest, posted by users I follow, tagged with Instagram, and previously marked as Skipped

Importantly, the results will still have changeable Entered and Skipped buttons on every entry.
Just like in the first screenshot in this post, but with just the entries you filtered for.

Please let us know what you think of these specific changes below, or contribute to the wider discussion: Have your say on the future of Competitions Time.

LizB62

Will it ever be possible to do the following:

"Show me Competitions Time discussions sorted by Closing Soonest, NOT tagged with Instagram, and with no Participation Status so far"
i.e. show me the non-Instagram comps that I haven't looked at yet?

pate-ci0

Looks promising. I like the

changeable Entered and Skipped buttons

cos it is a real pain when I inadvertently click Entered or Skipped when I mean to leave the comp until later to decide… oh oh, just realised that what I am looking for is the ability to UNTICK, because the current buttons can be SWAPPED between Entered and Skipped, but not reverted to blank. Is that possible?

MSE_Stephen

(Sorry, retyping this post)

We've request the ability to be able to return to an unchosen state for Enter/Skipped, but that isn't confirmed yet.

Yes! you'll be able to filter by the unchosen Entered/Skipped state!

libra10

Sounds very good.

I don't suppose you will be able to hover over a thread title and see the post?

That would be excellent.

MSE_Stephen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82146146#Comment_82146146

I don't see much chance of that coming back. It isn't a standard on any modern site - forum or otherwise - and was more of a special thing our old provider vBulletin did.
The best we could do is give excerpts as above.

One-Eye

1. The 4th thread in your example has a comment but does not show who commented or when - it should. I hope this is just an oversight when creating the illustration.
2. Like the reverse contrast end date and its position first on the line. "Ends" would be best.
3. HATE having the tags 2nd on the line as it results in other info such as "started by" not being aligned vertically (especially with multiple tags - compare the first and second threads in your example). I would prefer tags to be last, or even better if they were always on the 2nd line (below the end date).
4. Like the entered/skipped buttons appearing in and being active in search results and filtered lists.
5. Please press hard for the ability to deselect entered/skipped. If possible, it would also help if we could select both entered and skipped giving us four states OFF/OFF, ON/OFF, OFF/ON and ON/ON.
6. Good to see that we should be able to filter with all these states of entered/skipped.
7. Agree with LizB62 about the ability to filter by NOT Instagram etc.
8. I hope that search results and filtered lists are expressed as URLs so we can save/bookmark our favourites without having to set them up from scratch each time.
9. Although not shown in your example, I assume the existing "Search subcategories", "Author" and "Date Range" filters would continue - they are important.
10. I love excerpts - but some users may not. Could it be user selectable whether or not they are shown? If they lead to excessive scrolling then a user selectable number of threads per page (we used to have this) would help.

MSE_Stephen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82146200#Comment_82146200

Hi,

I won't be able to answer every question in this thread, but I'll quickly go through some of these…

The 4th thread in your example has a comment but does not show who commented or when - it should. I hope this is just an oversight when creating the illustration.

This is an older screenshot. In the end result those will be present - unless we get more feedback that most Compers prefer those not to be present.

Like the reverse contrast end date and its position first on the line. "Ends" would be best.

That's the way it is in my newer mockups, Along with some ides about having the expiring soon a different colour. E.g. burgundy colour for ending in next 3 days

HATE having the tags 2nd on the line as it results in other info such as "started by" not being aligned vertically ( especially with multiple tags - compare the first and second threads in your example). I would prefer tags to be last, or even better if they were always on the 2nd line (below the end date).

We can investigate but that might be difficult. The Closing Date can be moved easily because it's added in, the rest of that line comes as a standard component in a specific sequence. While we could put in a special customisation, we're trying not to do anything that would need special maintenance and could break with updates. As you've seen with the recent Closing Date issue, anything that's not where its expected to be by our provider can cause issues.

Like the entered/skipped buttons appearing in and being active in search results and filtered lists.

I'm afraid they're still not going to show on the main Search page because that's outside the Competitions Time section. but hopefully the filtering can help our Compers find things more easily.

Agree with LizB62 about the ability to filter by NOT Instagram etc.

'Not' filters for tags is something we've asked for since they'd be useful throughout the forum, but there is no word yet that they might be in a future update.

I hope that search results and filtered lists are expressed as URLs so we can save/bookmark our favourites without having to set them up from scratch each time.

I haven't tested for every filter combination, but I believe that is indeed the case!

Although not shown in your example, I assume the existing "Search subcategories", "Author" and "Date Range" filters would continue - they are important.

The main Search page doesn't change at all as part of this project.

I love excerpts - but some users may not. Could it be user selectable whether or not they are shown? If they lead to excessive scrolling then a user selectable number of threads per page (we used to have this) would help.

This is something we will need to balance. It's on for everyone or not at all.
As part of the change, we could extend the number of Comps per page, but if we're also using excerpts we will have to be careful not to make the pages too big.