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A note on "competitors"

Someone recently bought it to my attention that prior to the release of the new version of this site, another site serving the same purpose has adapted their site and vastly improved it. Features such as:

- Google maps
- Events having their own pages
- Event organiser management features
- Member types (buyer, seller, event organiser)

Which appeared here in 2009 have since, or will be implemented on their site, likely along with many others. Future features such as event metrics (average buyer/seller turnout) also seem to be on the cards. In fact a lot of the problems we posted in the previous news items have likewise had a solution on another site.

At the time we started, other sites were simply lists of events en-masse. One or two sites had a forum. A couple of them had the same event posted multiple times. In all, the sites felt like they needed a serious boost in effort, and thankfully it seems over the last couple years, a few of those have improved - drastically.

We started this site because this entire concept of listing car boot events could have done with a major improvement. It also didn't look like any others were interested in keeping up the pace. Now it seems that has been disproven, and to those others, good luck with that, genuinely.

The site was not created to be a "competitor" in any way. What are we competing for, a large count of members? We intended to offer all services for free, as a service, not a business.

For anyone involved in running such events, I hope you remain successful. All it means is, I will remove this site, and hope the others remain as energetic as they now seem to be. The site will remain here for roughly a week so people have a chance to take note of this. As for me? I'll take parts of this site's framework and implement them in other projects.

So, here it is!

The new release. At least, most of it.

Registration will be enabled soon. There is just an unexpected problem with the difference between the development server, and the production server (awaiting reply from the hosts).

At the least though, the theme should be easier on the eyes. The events from before are still here, and so should be a few revision votes, map markers, etc.

Again, not all the planned features are here yet - some are half way there. But this release was to get the new system up and running ready to take on the new year.

On that note, I hope you had a merry Christmas, and will have a happy new year!

Release plan

It feels good to finally say that the biggest hurdle of the progress is over.

To be more accurate, I am looking through the data to work out the best way to port any new data to the new version of the site. There has been significant changes especially to the events system. Because registration was disabled on the current version of the site, porting the data may simply require manually adding the new events. Please note that if you are staring at a headache-inducing mix of light blue and yellows, then you are not yet looking at the new site.

Once the data is ported over, another testing phase is carried out. Multiple test users are created, and I try to anticipate any problems that may become common. As it stands, I estimate that the event form has the most probability for error, given its sheer amount of data combinations - the 'revisions' system may confuse people too, especially if they have edited an event, and find that the event still shows an older copy of the data.

New event, and progress update

Bridgend sees a new entry to the list provided directly by the organiser. I should have spotted it there sooner, as it was added way back in summer. Special thanks to the organiser for submitting it - we hope our efforts over the coming months will help spread the word!

It also backs up the point that the new version of the site needs to be released as it fixes a lot of issues which the current version of the site has. It also has a new theme which is much easier to navigate, not to mention user accounts will be enabled, eventually with all the features that come with each membership type (no one needs to pay to register, no matter what type of account they have).

It's getting there. Not quite as fast as I made out in the previous news item - shortly afterwards I was employed. It would be nice for one of the next news items to be about the big release instead of a further delay though.

Full speed ahead

A few more changes in life has meant that I can dedicate at least three times as much time to working on this project, at least for the near future. In fact it has been that way for a couple of weeks now, and all the while, progress has been made in droves.

I have decided, at least for now, that adding images requires a user account. I am undecided on comments for images, and even comments/reviews for events, but with a site that aims to create a community feel to its purpose, it seems better for people to have a clearer identity when they contribute to the richer content of the site.

The psrts completed now, are the event listings, map, documentation pages, and half of the user control panel. What remains is the rest of the user control panel, the admin panel, the actual comments/reviews system, the smart-calender, and a few remaining doo-hickeys.

As for time - before I could spend a few hours a week - now it is roughly fifty hours a week.

The biggest grey area though, is how to prove that an event organizer is who he/she says they are. There can be a number of bad situations:

- The event organizer is genuine, but someone has wrote in complaining that he/she is not.
- The event organizer is not genuine, and someone has wrote in saying that he/she is the real organizer instead.

The trouble is, finding a solution to that which respects the Data Protection Act, and is actually suitable enough - asking for solicitor notarization is an extreme case, whilst asking for someone to photocopy their driving licence and send to someone they hardly know, just won't go down very well.

The easiest, and most direct way I can think is for a staff member to actually meet the event organizer at an event and watch them sign up, or attach their account to the event. That is OK locally, but traveling across the country week after week raises a few expenses.

Time will tell I guess.

Progress and decisions

Most of the difficulty with developing the new system involves what should be kept, what should be thrown out, and what coule be thrown out but might be useful. The plan so far is to keep as much as possible, and decide based on user-experience what needs to change.

The anonymous access is one of them. The original goal is to let people use as much of the site as possible without requiring login credentials - that includes adding content in a safe manner. No problems have arisen yet but it is foolish to assume everything is perfectly fine. There are a bunch of sanity systems in place which would need implementing again, and also a few others which could do with being added too.

One thing I am researching is the ability to get the location details of an event without having to enter the country, county, and town/city. The reason all were required before, is so that people act as a quality-control - if someone had added a county to Scotland when it should be in England, then another person could correct this by adding an event for the same county, but the proper country. The admin panel would then flag up that there is a discrepancy, and the admins would be able to check and verify which is correct. The idea now, is to only provide the postcode, and the rest of the data is pulled in from a hopefully reliable source.

The new event form is dramatically simpler than the current one. It even has a good go at working out the entire annual schedule for an event based on three dates added by the user. This still needs some work, but it makes it MUCH easier to find events throughout the year, and offers some seriously powerful and useful calendar features, whether you are a buyer, seller, or organiser.

The new map now does more than show markers for each event. You can even get directions to a selected event. User markers (the yellow ones) have also been removed from the events map - there is no real need for them to be there. They will show on the event's map editor though.

I am not sure when the new system will publicly show it's face - a lot of the heavy work has been done, but there is still a lot to go. The results, especially the easier event form, will be worth it.

It's coming along!

Progress has been few and far between, but each batch has been rather productive. The new version currently has the new event listing mechanisms, the new event view page, all the user interface drafts and templates, and half of the backend system improved. I'm sure anyone who has used the event create/revise form will be pleased to know that the new version is vastly shorter and broken into more optional sections - that way you can fill in the most important parts, and someone can later help fill in the tweaks.

Yesterday saw the addition of the site's newest event -Hounslow West Station. There was an advert for this event in a few cafe windows across Hounslow, and also for another, which I forgot to jot down the details. Doh!

All event revisions which were submitted last year have been reviewed and accepted. That's actually very bad, because the current system does not notify me if anything has been submitted - except for the admin panel that lists a "revision needs to be accepted". That's yet another item added to the TODO list.

One final note - if you take photos at events, please feel free to add them to the event. The goal of the gallery is to encourage people who _might_ go to an event to see what a friendly atmosphere it is. Nothing paints a picture better than a huge turnout on a sunny field, or a rainy car park with people still smiling.

A lot of events have begun their annual season, most others will resume as April takes over. Good luck, and have fun!

A not so ironic title...

October 2009... doesn't seem that long ago despite being a year and two months difference. Either way, that is a huge gap which needs some serious explaining, especially as this site has received more attention than I actually thought it had.

I stopped working on the site shortly after the previous news message. This was not out of a lack of interest, but because my life took a drastic change. Nothing life threatening, but pace-wise, it has gone from busy to busier, to insane. I have moved cities, and changed company a couple times.

Originally this site was developed with my own PHP framework, from scratch. Thankfully that development (amongst others) allowed me to be promoted to a senior developer after one week in a new job at a web development firm. Shortly after, I was crowned the company's best developer. I left that company, was employed at another, and, in what seems like a series of good fortune, became their Chief Technology Officer. Everyone learns new tricks over time, and I hope to put any new experience back into this site, with a vengeance.

During my absence, I was always curious about this site. From a few brief looks, I didn't spot anything new, but on finally logging in and looking in great detail, people have shown an interest, and even submitted content, even so much as an accurately placed marker for some events. I hate leaving things unfinished, and this has gone on far too long - it is time this place saw more effort from the person who brought it here.

I have been working on the skeleton mockups for the new version of the site. One which is cleaner, more functional, more flexible, and overall more powerful. One which finally brings an online community to what is already a large, widespread "real life" community. No matter which purpose you sign up for, you will have something to make your experience better. Finally, you will get to see the unique buyer/seller/event organiser features I teased about before... It will take time - time I cannot currently put more than an estimate on, given that I will be working on this site on top of spending 8 hours a day coding for my job.

All I can really say is, sorry for my serious absence, and thank you to anyone who has had what must be the most impressive patience imaginable.

Still Alive

This is a quick update to re-assure people that things are still going well - it's been a busy few weeks, but we have certainly not abandoned you!

In development at the moment is the promised features to make registration worthwhile, primarily to people who organise events, and those who sell at them. That's still all the detail we are willing to give until the features are ready. Anything that is currently anonymous-accessible and usable will remain - these features are additional ones which do not suit anonymous access.

A few apologies too - We have noticed some people have been using Internet Explorer 6 to view the site. This site was built primarily with Internet Explorer 7 and above, and other browsers which support the web standards more accurately. IE6 is HEAVILY out of date, and far more limiting than it's successors. We are trying to support IE6, but this does add to the length of time it takes to develop the site, as very careful attention has to be paid to the design side of things to ensure that it works for a browser that seems to want it's own rules.

Another mis-anticipation is that people have been viewing the site through Sony mobile devices and iPhones. We did not anticipate such traffic so early in the site's lifetime, but with the rise and rise of mobile products, we should have expected this. The smallest device we can test on is a 10.1" Asus Eeepc, which is large in comparison to an iPhone. Perhaps users of smaller browsers should be provided with a "mobile" version of the theme so they can see the main content more easily.

Another Internet Explorer related error - the various help bubbles around the site are supposed to display a message when someone hovers the mouse cursor over them. This has not been happening in Internet Explorer, and should be fixed with the next update.

The final observation is that every event listed so far has had a number of repeat hits. For the sake of the events, I am pleased each event has _some_ interest, especially as this site is not widely known about. I hope it is an indication that events are running rather successfully.

Thanks for the interest!

Colour The World

...One site at a time.

The theme has been overhauled and modernised. Not much has really changed considering - corners are no longer sharp, and details have been thrown in. A few colours have been changed, and overall, the new theme is a bit more lively than the old one which had a more dull feel to it.

The old theme has been kept around in case anyone who registers wants to use the 'retro' theme. If we see that people are fond of the old theme, then we will strive to keep them both updated as the site develops further.

This is not the major feature development I mentioned before - that it still recieving the heavy graft. All I can do is promise (and hope!) it will be useful. It certainly won't be the highlight of the site, but will compliment the functionality very well.

Registration is still currently disabled - I am aware of a few people who tried to register - sorry for the delay! I honestly thought any interest would not come this way until another month at least. The site is still poking around a few search results and no effort has been made to make people aware of us. There are just a few problems with the user functions, but certainly nothing we cannot sort out. The 'new features' will be a big part of the registered user experience, so the idea is to factor this in before people can register.

The problem so far is that users, registered or not, cannot interact with the site as much as the final plan. Whatever your interest is in boot sales, we want you to have something to do here - something important. Something worthwhile. No one knows a boot sale better than the people that attend it - other than the people who organise it...

More updates

The UK's county situation makes it hard to correctly organise the locations of towns. With this, the town/city, and county system was overhauled. This also saves someone data inputting hundreds of towns across the country, and making sure they are in the correct county.

With the new system, when someone adds an event, they specify, as text, a town. They also select a county. When the event is submitted, the system checks whether the town exists, and uses that. If it doesn't exist, the system provisionally adds the town. The site's staff must then check the city actually exists where specified. This is then accepted, or, if the user made an error, corrected, before the event is accepted.

The result is that events are organised into the correct towns, whilst saving considerable problems.

As for counties - so far, the idea is to stick with the historic counties. People in Swansea will find their events under Glamorgan rather than Swansea county, but note this is not the only way to find an event, and not likely the most efficient way anyhow. It is only a guess due to lack of evidence, but people are possibly going to search for events via their town, or even the event name.

This does not mean this problem is entirely sorted, just that the priority is a lot lower than other features. One day we will have a system in place smart enough to solve the problem for a location between any system of counties.

There were numerous other changes, a lot of which were to do with admin functionality. An important change was the use of "unknown" in feature drop-downs of events. Previously, I assumed people would know for sure whether, say, dogs were allowed, or where to park. It is better to specify "unknown" than to specify incorrect information.

A couple of updates

A few improvements have been made since the launch. These are mainly bug fixes, and feature includes which should have been here since the launch. It did not seem absolutely vital at the time considering that, as I type, this site is yet to be discovered by the masses.

Here's the changes:

- Drop-down boxes for City now also displays the county in which the city was added to.
- Anonymous submittable forms now requre a CAPTCHA test.
- User markers for maps can now be set to the most accurate for the event.
- Maps which load markers for a particular event will now focus on "accurate" markers if one is available.
- Fixed bug with cookies where cookies would not set path-wise.

Note that a large feature update is planned to be included soon. This will make it vastly more worth while to register (note that currently registration is disabled).

The Launch

Hello, world! More importantly, hello visitors. Welcome, at long last to the carboot archive. After a few months of development, the site is finally launched.

It's been a busy few months - mistakes have been made, and fixed. Risks have been taken, but I am yet to see the outcome. The result is the most powerful, comprehensive, yet usable and friendly website dedicated to an old British tradition, where people of all ages gather to de-clutter, or pass their treasures to willing buyers. It is an event that gathers people - likeminded, or curious, both for the time out, or to raise money for a good cause.

So find an event local to you. Check where it is, when, how to get there, where to park, and whether to bring your dog. Notify a friend too if you like. Take pictures, and by all means, add them to our galleries. Let us keep one of Britain's friendliest gatherings going strong - perhaps stronger.

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