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A little something I've been working on that might be useful

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 11:53 am
by acp
Hey all,

A bit of a plug, I know, but I did check with Sub before I posted this :)

So I've had a little side-project going on since October last year, and as of today I've decided it's stable enough to show off and let people in on. Basically, the idea is that the site brings together all the park opening hours and show times from all the Disney resorts and puts them into a single, easy to use site.

The result is parkhours.info. (cue fanfare ;))

As of right now, it only shows today's times (although the back-end support is there for past and future dates, the front-end is on the to-do list). As an added bonus, it should be usable on mobile phones too (with a streamlined layout if you're looking at the pages on a smaller screen), which is helpful if you want to check while in the parks.

Anyway, let me know what you think :) I'll keep an eye on this thread, or there's the Feedback page on the site itself. Any and all feedback is welcome, I am still tweaking things and adding bits, so do let me know if you've got any ideas or comments about it - I'm open to any and all suggestions! :) It's been my little pet project since October, and bits of it have been re-written more than once in that time!

Cheers,

Andy.

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 11:58 am
by subsonic
Awesome job man. Now it'll be even easier to check if I need an impromptu drinking fest at Mad T-Party!

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 3:18 pm
by MmeLeota
The site looks really cool! What a fantastic idea! :D

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 3:35 pm
by subsonic
He forgot to put at the footer, "Part of the Subsonic Radio network"

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 7:43 pm
by Amy
Neat ~ looks good on my mobile :D

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 9:30 pm
by TTA Traveler
That's actually a pretty cool idea! I'll definitely be using this over Disney's own site.

My suggestion would be to take all the parks off the front page and instead make a directory for each resort - where you click on the resort you're staying at and it drops down with the park(s) + opening/closing hours. Then if you're interested in ride & attraction hours you can click on the park itself for further drop down information. My thinking is that since I'm not vising those resorts and/or parks I wouldn't be all that interested in that information. That said I think it's great the way it is.

Do you plan on expanding to other non-Disney amusement parks?

Also really dig the domain name. Simple, straight to the point and easy to remember.

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 10:00 pm
by cy1229
Someone post after me so it pops up as unread the next time I'm using my laptop instead of my Kindle, please. :)

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Fri 22, 2013 10:05 pm
by TTA Traveler
Sure thing!

woohoo! 10 free points!

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Sat 23, 2013 3:08 am
by acp
TTA Traveler wrote:That's actually a pretty cool idea! I'll definitely be using this over Disney's own site.

My suggestion would be to take all the parks off the front page and instead make a directory for each resort - where you click on the resort you're staying at and it drops down with the park(s) + opening/closing hours. Then if you're interested in ride & attraction hours you can click on the park itself for further drop down information. My thinking is that since I'm not vising those resorts and/or parks I wouldn't be all that interested in that information. That said I think it's great the way it is.
You can already show just one resort by clicking on the resort logo or name on the homepage. I thought about making the homepage a list of resorts, but quite liked the idea of having an overview of all the parks and showing that no matter what time of day it is there is always a Disney park open somewhere in the world :)
Do you plan on expanding to other non-Disney amusement parks?
It's certainly possible because of how the site has been written, although it's not something I've given much thought to yet.
Also really dig the domain name. Simple, straight to the point and easy to remember.
Yeah, I was quite surprised it was available :)

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Sat 23, 2013 7:23 am
by Amy
TTA Traveler wrote:Sure thing!

woohoo! 10 free points!
:lol: Right place at the right time! :lol:

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Sat 23, 2013 9:56 am
by horizons1
Andrew, this is pretty cool. At first I was thinking "is it really that hard to find park hours elsewhere?". In other words, do we need a site like this? (playing devil's advocate). Then I remembered how difficult Disney makes it to check just the four WDW parks using their mobile site and native app. They make you click through to each.

So, in short, this is great and I think I will find it quite useful,medically when you are able to show future dates. Nice work!

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Sat 23, 2013 3:19 pm
by Goofyfan
Awsome job. I was looking for a site like that in our last planning stages. Very well done and Very user friendly. :D :goofy:

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Mon 25, 2013 1:28 pm
by subsonic
I think you should leave it as is, (all parks on front page), just add other dates.

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Mon 25, 2013 4:12 pm
by Len90
I like it a lot. Seems pretty easy to navigate and straightforward. A lot easier to use than Disney's own sites and apps.

Only thing I noticed is when you click resorts, everything open and closed is showing up in red, while parks slated to open are in orange. I personally think if things at the resort are currently open it should not be displaying in red.

Re: A little something I've been working on that might be us

Posted: Mar Mon 25, 2013 4:53 pm
by acp
Len90 wrote:I like it a lot. Seems pretty easy to navigate and straightforward. A lot easier to use than Disney's own sites and apps.

Only thing I noticed is when you click resorts, everything open and closed is showing up in red, while parks slated to open are in orange. I personally think if things at the resort are currently open it should not be displaying in red.
That's how it's supposed to be.. I only wrote that code this morning, and apparently I did something wrong :)

<fx: time passes>

Ah, I see what I did. That's what happens when you forget to paste stuff over properly :lol:

It's fixed now. :mrgreen:

For what it's worth, it's supposed to be green if all the parks at the resort are open, gold if some of them are open and red if all of them are closed. Shanghai is set up as a special case, and just shows up gold all the time.