As some of you might have noticed, from either the Entropia Tracker group on facebook, The thread on Planet Calypso Forum or from chatting with me on skype/ingame - Entropia Tracker has in the last 8-9 months been working on a new version of the website. In short, the new website will completely change how Entropia Tracker works and what is possible with Entropia Tracker. The current website is focused on "stats" more than anything else. Basically, just an interface to the database in a "nice to look at" way. With the new website, I have been looking at various social media sites such as facebook, google+, forums, twitter and the likes and figured out what could be used of those features to take Entropia Tracker to the next level. As im sure many of you have noticed, Entropia Tracker isent exctly running smooth on the current server, which is also why we will change servers once we launch the new site. The servers will no longer be a shared hosted server run by 711, but instead it will be a dedicate server only hosting Entropia Tracker. Stats of the server is top of the line with Windows 2008 Server Datacenter edition, and MS SQL 2008 Datacenter edition databases. The server is located on a 50/50 mbit line which should ensure enough bandwidth for a website - if need be, we can upgrade to 100/100 mbit. "A while back" I made an update to the client so it will feed the new database with globals as well - and the initial benchmarks of the site looks VERY promising. On the old server, the system would respond to the clients in anywhere from 300 to 600 ms each time they reported a global. On the new server this is consistent at about 60-70 ms. A very good improvement. This is just to give you an idea that the server is much more powerful. Part of the reason for having the clients already feeding the new database as well, was to stress test the server with "real usage". And so far I have seen no lag on the server even at peak hours. So, with the better server we are also implementing a lot of new features. Mainly we are shifting focus from a purely "stats gathering" site, to a more social site - infused with stats and the unique possibilities Entropia Tracker data can add to an Entropia Universe site. The front page of the new site is now showing your "Friend stream", instead of the hof board. The friend stream is like the news stream on facebook. Here you can see whatever your friends are doing - be it globalling, posting comments, using site applications, uploading pictures.. and so on.. Friends stream: We have also moved the maps from the Entropia Tracker client, into the website. While doing this we discussed to use Google Maps API like entropedia does, but we decided on making our own map system for Entropia Tracker... Map showing feffoid globals: Using this new map system we can create all sorts of maps.. A new map type is something we call "Mineral area maps". Those maps show you the dencity of minerals anywhere inside Entropia Universe. Mineral dencity: The mineral density maps consist of data gathered from people running the Entropia Tracker client, who has also said "yes" to send their mining location data to Entropia Tracker. Once the data is sent to Entropia Tracker, you will be able to see your mineral finds as a gradient polygon on the site. Depending on your profile security settings, your data can be shared with your friends/soc so as to improve the accuracy of their maps as well. You data will NEVER be used for all maps.. The map I show above this, is the mineral dencity for Kaz Stones on Arkadia. The more red the area is, the more "Kaz Stones" has been found in that area. As I initially mentioned, we have looked a lot towards sites such as facebook and google+ while working on this site. It quickly became clear that we (read: I) could not program "everything we wanted" on the site so looking at the social sites, we found a solution to this problem. The solution is something we call "Site Apps". Site Apps is a way for external developers to create new functionality to Entropia Tracker, without the need for us to "copy & paste" their code into Entropia Tracker. We have created a system much like facebook apps to cater for those who would like to implement new "Apps" on Entropia Tracker. As the app can gain access to your profiles data (when signing up for the app developer program, the developer has to state what his app would like access to - then this is all the app will be able to read) you will need to click "Accept" to an install notice once you install an application on "your" Entropia Tracker. Please see picture below: By creating a system as complex as this - from scratch, we are even making it in a new programming language compared to the old ET site, we have opened up for a lot of questions and people asking for help. This is why we have also created a support system - which we call "Help Center", much like the one MindArk has. This consists of a case system, as well as a FAQ system. It is our hope that the new site will be able to launch before Q3 this year, but as we are not using any "3rd party API's" .. such as google, facebook or the likes - it takes time to create this site. We do however feel that we can provide a customized and tailored experience if we create our own system instead of running "off the shelf" systems and then putting skins on top of those systems. If you have any suggestions for the new site, would like to see the "beta site" in your browser or anything else.. please feel free to post here/PM me. If you would like to create an app for the new site - also, please let me know. The app can be anything from a forum to a radio station or your own "system" (Ido's pilot thingy for instance)... Woop woop..
Hi, I don't really care about the global stats, I run the tracker client for it's possibility to map my mining. (And to help the global stats fiends ;-) ) I'd expect to have a way to export my claims. In the way I allow to see them - if I allow my claims to all, I'd love to be able to export "all data", if I'd only allow my friends to see 'em, I'd only be able to export my friends data. The "mining info" interface you made is excellent - it's the fastest and easiest way to add non-global finds I ever experienced, and it works awesomely well. We don't need depths and stuff when we just want to know where's what resource. We already know that you'll rarely find Dunkel with a rookie finder. The mapper you provide is quite useful, maybe "all enmat" or "all ore" would be nice. But I'd not go further - leave this for other people, better. You don't have to do all for yourself, right? For instance, Oceanic. Why not find a way to display the data you have collected in Oceanic? You're very good in collecting data, Oceanic is very good in displaying data. I'd love when ET would download a dump at startup, that I then could visualize in Oceanic. Or process otherwise. Depending of the info I'd be ready to share. This would make the use of ET much more useful, for other ppl then the global hunters too. Thx for reading, have a good time! PS & Edit: And thx to post here!
Hey Xandra. Yes, I do believe I will make it so you can "export" the data. How the export will be, I need to figure out.. but I will aim for the data to be exportable to Oceanic. Just a quick update on the map thing.. I have changed how the "single marker" maps work. Now they work 99% like google maps - with a "drop marker" instead of a dot on the map. All done in CSS + JavaScript .. took a while to code.. but this is better.. and it makes for a better interactive map... Also.. made a very small video for the new site: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqusDAQgdZA
More and more apps are developed for the new ET site.. if you want to develop an app.. please let me know.. :)
