Hi filbo,
good to see also your opinions on this topic (which are, in fact, not too far away from my own).
Some general comments about the public web interface of the API server: I have some ideas how it could or should look like to the public, but it is not that important for me, as it looks different when logged in anyway (so I can have things just how I like them for administration purposes, and use something else that might fit better for the public web interface).
So if you have some ideas or wishes how it should look like, just let me know, and I will try my best to make it look that way (so that most people who wrote here are happy, hopefully). It's only server-side programming, so it's quick and easy to do lots of changes, and also to change things back if more people better like it as it was before.
- Use 00:00:00 type times; 'h m' are ugly and English-specific
Yes, I also think that "12m 34s" looks uglier (and harder to read) than just "12:34" (less characters, that is: better signal/noise ratio) -- because people who come to the API server's web interface also see it exactly as "12:34" in R'n'D.
BTW: Do you mean is it English-specific in a way that "12m 34s" is a format mainly used in the US or UK, or just because "m" and "s" are appreviations for the English words "minutes" and "seconds"? I tried to google this, and nearly only found "12:34" displays (like on the displays of old VCRs, which R'n'D's tape recorder is modeled after, but also on modern devices and software like smartphone camera apps, or video players like VLC).
Then: Do you think it should be "07:30" (as used in R'n'D) or "7:30" (as used on most CD booklets) for a seven-and-a-half minutes long tape file?
- Don't worry about showing dates.
I also think that dates without exact times should really be no reason to worry, but if a majority thinks otherwise, I think I should follow this.
So just let me know about your opinion here.
Anyone in one of those situations has lots of worse exposures (e.g. poking around in a grabbed cellphone)
Well, that's exactly what I try to prevent in R'n'D.
BTW: I've added an additional request dialog before sending the first score and tape to the server after playing and solving a level, to ask if you want to send it to the server. But maybe I should only ever use it if the initial question for uploading all tapes was rejected (if it was displayed, which only happens if you have local tapes at all).
- Dates shown *absolutely* should be when the tape was created, not when it was uploaded!
I agree! The date shown (before I removed it) was the tape upload date, but I should really use the tape date (which could also be from the year 1995, for example). It's stored in every tape (even the oldest) anyway. And I really think that the date is good enough here -- even if I add the time by looking at the tape file timestamp (as the tape only stores the date), this still has a -24/+24 inaccuracy (just as you described it), as I don't know the time zone. (OK, I could also try to determine it from the user's system in the client, and/or the user's IP address on the server, but I do not want to do this.)
In any case, I think most people may only be interested in the tape year for older tapes, maybe in the month and day for newer tapes, but most probably not if the tape was recorded in the morning or in the evening.
Or, just use the embedded date and don't even think about time.
Yes, sounds reasonable to me.