DrinkTown Development Blog

2007-02-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody.

So far no luck with my minimum one post a week, sorry. I'll work on it.

Just wanted to let you all know that I have been working on things for the page. I added a few new features for the specials management page. Now specials which have a limited time frame will automatically expire. That will allow me to more easily add some one night events run by promoters.

Other than that I am looking for more people interested in the site and interested in working with us, either by finding specials or managing a cities worth of content.

Patrick

2007-01-30T12:44:00.000-08:00

Update!

I finally managed to get the update to the drinktown main page completed. There are several small changes, and a few big ones. I'll explain the big ones first, and then quickly run through the small ones.

I have added to the map pages four buttons in the top right corner: Standard, Search, Crawl, ?. The ? button is information about the other three, so it is easily ignored. When you click on a button it changes the way the page operates, giving you greater control over the map.

Standard - This is the mode the page opens in. It lets you search for drink specials by day, type, or zipcode. This is the traditional drinktown page, and the majority of our traffic.

Search - This is a search mode that allows you to search within the text of the specials for a word or phrase. You can also limit the search by day of the week or by the zip code. This search is pretty specific, if you search for Guinness, it won't match beer.

Crawl - This mode allows you to plan out a pub-crawl, finding the specials that are between start and stop locations you mark on the map. Click on the map to add locations. The map will draw a line between your points and find the bars near that line. You can change what the map considers near from 1/8 mile to 1 mile.

The minor changes include a few internal things that should make the system more efficient. I've also fixed the problem with opening and closing windows so no small windows pop up, and I arranged it so that windows only show the tabs for days that have specials.

And finally - I plan on updating this blog more often in the near future.

Keep emailing me with your comments, I need all the suggestions for improvements I can get.

Patrick

2006-12-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

Our apologies.
For the first week of December the Drinktown page incorrectly reported that there were no specials at any bars. This was caused by a tiny bug in the system that we were unaware of. I caught the bug early on 12/8 and corrected it within minutes. The system should be working fine now, and we apologize for this problem.

As far as we can tell the web page has been otherwise operational. If you come across any other errors in the system, please let us know.

Patrick

2006-09-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

Big Expansion in Milwaukee

Through dilligent and long overdue research, we have expanded our Milwaukee section. The number of bars has already doubled, and we hope to triple it before the month is out. October 1, I will actually be in Milwaukee helping my sister move, so if anyone wants to meet me and discuss the page, or just wants to buy me a beer, feel free to email me at drinktown[at]gmail[dot]com.

Also we could use more staff, particularly people in Milwaukee willing to spend time each day updating the map for that city. If you are interested, please let me know.

Patrick

2006-09-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

Improved Loading

Due to the size of the larger maps, the pages were recenlty slow to load, particularly in IE.

First let me say that the problem has been worked on, and we think we have an working solution.

Second let me recommend Firefox to everyone. If you don't have it, you should. It runs most of the internet faster and more efficiently. The Google maps programs work much better in FF, and I generally use it when testing code.

The changes I made should work in both browsers. I streamlined some of the loading processes, and graphics, and I simlified what I could. I also added a status window that should pop-up during the initial load and tell you how many of the bars have been loaded to the map.

Patrick

2006-09-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

Ignoring the blog

Sorry I've been ignoring the blog lately, but I've been writing so much code and doing so many design changes I forgot to update the blog as well.

As most users will have noticed most (but not all) of the page has undergone some serious design changes meant to improve the look of the page.

Additionally, Drinktown became the #1 response when googling: 'Chicago Bar Specials' or Chicago Drink Specials'. Thanks Chicago.

Patrick

2006-07-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Major IE bug fixed.

Much to my chagrin, I discovered today that the page has not been working in Internet Explorer for some time. I honestly had no idea, as the FireFox version of the page has been operating perfectly. I personally use FireFox (it works best with google maps), and no one had emailed me a notification that the page was down.

I aplogize for this decrease in the quality of service. I hope that in the future there will be no such further outages.

Patrick

2006-06-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

D.C.

Hey everybody, I would have put this in the blog sooner, but Blogger has been down.

Last week I added Washington DC to the list of cities to have a map of specials. Washington grew out of a request that I add it, and from expanding the Baltimore bars, which recently doubled.

Anyway, we now have 46 bars in Washington DC. Enjoy!

Patrick

2006-05-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

Search Pages! (Baltimore, Bloomington, Chicago, Milwaukee)

I've just added the new Search Pages. Using a text box on the page, you can enter a simple search phrase to find exactly what you are looking for.

Want Guinness? Enter Guinness into the box and the page will return only those bars that have specials with word "Guinness". Enter the word "wings" and the page will return only those bars that have specials with the word "wings". Pretty cool, no?

Just one word of warning. Specials with things like "all beers" won't turn up when you search for guinness, so if you don't like the results you get, try some alternative phrases and you might find a good alternative.

Patrick

2006-05-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

Have you checked out our new Submission Form?

On the older version of Drinktown, I had a pretty plain and ugly form by which people could submit specials for me to add to the map.

A few weeks ago I added a new Submission Form, one that allows you to tell me about a special, or a bar, that you think I should add to the map. The form allows you to submit the name, address, phone number, and any specials you know of. It also includes a handy little map window that lets you click on the map to tell me where the bar is located. Check it out, send us specials, or tell us which bars we are missing.

In the meantime, I'm wrapping up Law School, and will be updating the pub-crawl pages as soon as I am done.

Patrick

2006-04-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

New Version Finally Up

Finally. And in good time too, since I am about to go through my last set of lawschool finals and then start studying for the bar. That doesn't mean I don't want people to point out typos or errors for me though, so send in your comments.

Patrick

2006-04-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

Slightly Delayed

The new version of the page is going to be slightly delayed, though I did get a great deal of work done. It just took more time to move the data across to the new database than I thought. And a few other problems honestly. But I am hoping that the work I can do this week will get the system up and running, so keep your fingers crossed.

Till then, I am offering a glimps of the new design of the page: here. For now there is now data attached to the page, so you won't see any pins yet, but it will let you see the way the page will look.

Patrick

2006-04-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

Suggestions Wanted

Welcome to April. After much research, consultation of the auguries, and study of our options, we finally have started moving on a big update of the back-end code for Drinktown. This means that we will be updating the site as a whole over the next few weeks. However, much of the research already having been done, it is safe to say that the page will be getting a major revision on the upcoming weekend.

So, we are soliciting comments, begging you few faithful users to let us know what you think is the best way for us to improve the page. What would make the page: look, work, and feel better? What features do you, the user, want added?

Suggestions submitted to us by the weekend of the 8th of April will be given the most attention. I have long passenger car trips on the next three weekends, so I have the time to make changes, now is your chance to get involved in them.

Peace and Thanks,
Patrick

2006-03-20T09:52:00.000-08:00

New front page - Broken Stuff

Over the weekend, as part of the effort to improve the design of the page, I updated the look and content of the front page of the site. I hope you all like it, but if you don't feel free to email me with your comments and complaints. The front page now features our new logo, which will soon be gracing every page of the site. As soon as I get time to put it up there.

And in the process of the redesign, I discovered that the pub-crawl pages for the three non-Chicago pages do not work. I don't know why. UPDATE: I've gotten the pub-crawl function working again for every city. It was a tiny bug, which apparently shows up only in a city other than Chicago, but the code now has a miniscule difference that makes it work.

Patrick

2006-03-15T14:01:00.000-08:00

Store!

After much monkeying about with logos, and files, and images, our Drinktown store is now available at cafepress. Go there to sport our wares, and support our site. Drinktown gets very little advertising revenue right now, and is an entirely free service, so this is an awesome opportunity for you to support a site you use.

Those of you with keen observational skills will notice that out store features clothing with our new logo, despite the fact that our old logo is still prominently displayed on the site. This is because we have yet to finish the page designs, but the logo work is done.

Peace, and happy shopping.

Patrick

2006-03-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

Emailing
I've added a new feature allowing people to save pages (and therefore specials) that they like on their favorites, or to email them to friends. Right now it is only up for Chicago, but I will update the other 4 cities soon.

Up on the top right of the map page there are two new links. One reads Email this page to a friend, the other link to this page. The email link does exactly what it sounds like. It opens up an email with a blank address and a complicated url in the body. That url will tell each page exactly where and what you were looking at when you hit the email button.

The link to this page function allows you to save a special in your favorites, or in some other way save a link to this page. It uses the same complicated url that the email does, telling your browser and the web page exactly where you want to go.

Enjoy!

P3040027

2006-03-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

P3040027
Originally uploaded by vander77.

Chiditarod
This weekend a team sponsored by Drinktown competed in the first annual Chiditarod.

The Chiditarod is a charity race in the style of the famous Iditarod. But instead of dogs pulling a sled, you have costumed people pulling a shopping cart. Sound crazy? It was. But I am pretty certain that everyone involved had an awesome time. I know our team did.

We did moderately well. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, got the Drinktown name out, and donated over 40lbs of food to charity. It is my opinion that we should have earned honorable mentions for most wired cart (we had gps, laptop maps, ipod, and camcorder) and for best wipe-out (I had two excellent spills), but there were no such prizes awarded.

Most interestingly we were told that a few of the members of the planning committee had used Drinktown to try to find bars near the course of the race. I hope they found the site useful and keep using it.

More pictures of the race are available at Flickr

Patrick

2006-02-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

MySpace

Check out the drinktown account on Myspace and add us as your friend.

Our account.

2006-02-09T16:55:00.000-08:00

Pub Crawl

The new, and long anticipate Pub Crawl feature has just been added.

The new page has just passed through a week of debugging, and should be 98% bug free. Its the best we can do for now. Speaking of for now, for thursday night and part of friday the pub crawl feature will be available only on a Chicago version (sorry). We plan on getting the other versions up and running in the next day or two, hopefully, it will be ready for the weekend.

There is a short how to on the map, but let me give you a quick run down. In order to use the map you must click on the map on at least two different locations. When you click a yellow marker will pop up, and a line will be drawn between the lines.

As soon as there are two points the page will look for any pub special that matches your filter selections that is on a line between those tow points. You can set the width of that line using the "Deviation from path" setting on the right.

The deviation is limited to the leg of the map you draw at that moment. There was some suggestion that it should be retroactive, changing older legs, but I think that its possible you might want to set the changing widths (more direct line as the night gets late for example).

To clear the map and start again, just hit the "Reset Map" button on the right.

Feel free to send us any bugs you can find.

Enjoy!
Patrick

2006-02-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

Welcome Farkers

How do and welcome to the visitors from Fark.com

Feel free to comment, suggest, and pass our page along to your friends.

Patrick

2006-01-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

Baltimore
We've added a new city! Pass it on to your friends!

After a few days of working on finding bar specials, we decided that the city we would get next would be Baltimore. It was a decision largely made by the number of specials that I could find listed online. Baltimore had the best online resources, so it was the city added.

Patrick

2006-01-19T19:53:00.000-08:00

New Features!

Howdy everyone,
After several days of debugging the system we have added several new features. First, the obvious sidepanel, which allows you to see a list of the top ten bars. When you click on an item in that list, the name of the bar appears on the screen, and the marker turns green. Which leads me to the second new feature, that when you move your mouse over a marker, the marker gets lit up and the name shows up along-side. Third, the page now shows more specials at any one time, as there was a duplication bug in the old code. I also repaired the color of the Chicago-Orange Line, but thats more of a fix than a feature.

There are several new features that are going to be added in the next week or so, keep your eyes open. In addition, if there are any features you would like to see, please feel free to suggest them.

Patrick

2006-01-19T18:05:00.000-08:00

Chicago 200

I am pleased to report that Chicago now features over 200 bars, and somewhere over 700 specials. Months of effort have given us an excellent list, which has been created through newspaper reading, in bar research, some submissions by our users, and a few submissions by bartenders and bar-owners. Keep it up, and thanks!

I suppose that his means I could spend more time on Milwaukee . . .

2005-12-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

Front Page Repair - Upcoming updates

Some of you may have noticed that the Drinktown main page was not working. To be honest, I never did till yesterday. But checking the page on my parents computer last night I noticed that while the individual cities would come up, the introduction page did not.

So as a Christmas present to the page, and to myself, I spent ten minutes late last night revising code so that the page would work. Why it didn't work on their computer I'm not really sure, but I never noticed because it was working on the computers at my library, and on my laptop. Anyway it works everywhere I can find now.

There will be some updates coming shortly. Hopefully a full restructuring of the database to make the searching easier, definitely more ways to plot out the specials.

If there is anything you would like to see in the New Year, let us know.

Patrick

2005-12-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

Work when no work was promised.

I said I was going to take a break from the site, and focus on finals. Yeah, that didn't happen.

I had been planning to eventually add the Chicago CTA data to the page. Thankfully Ed Knittel at tastypopsicle.com gave me permission to use his data. That meant that with a small code patch pulled word for word off one of the tutorials allowed me to load this upgrade in an hour.

It was an hour where I wasn't studying, I admit, but even I need a break immediately after each final.

Patrick