OFixtures

[dkr]

As a fun project for my retirement, I’ve created a site to browse O fixture list (based on Ollie O’Brian’s classic site), with a view to making it easier for people to find events and hopefully somewhat increase attendances.

It’s now reached a point where think it’s worth sharing more widely.

Its hosted at http://www.ofixtures.co.uk.

Currently it supports:

• Location-based filtering based on grid ref/postcode/area/nominal club location (see comparison).
• Access to the information you need to decide to attend an event – OS/Google maps, previous O maps, club website etc.
• Save fixtures of interest
• Desktop and mobile friendly views

Work is in progress that I hope to complete over the next few weeks to:

• Support other events sources (MBO, Army, mountain marathons, international events).
• Multi-day events and league support
• Map reservation for local events

The source is at here for anyone interested.

I would welcome any feedback/suggestions.

Dave

[Atomic]

Looks like you've been having fun! In terms of it being used, I have a gut feeling that experienced/regular orienteers already know where to look; its our occasional or new people who might benefit most, but they are least likely to find your site. Would it be easy to embed this within a club website?

It also feels like there's a need for a tiering on the map which I didn't notice. e.g. I'll travel 20-30 miles max for a level D, ~80 miles for a level C, but 100-150 for level B and anywhere in the UK for level A. I suspect others are the same?

My other pet hate - which I doubt you can solve is knowing when closing dates are happening. Given the BOF website doesn't list them for a lot of events I presume you don't have the data - but "events in 3 weeks" might actually be "entry required by Friday"...

[dkr]

Thanks. I think ‘Event tier’ filtering you mentioned is supported already via the ’Event grade filter’. This filters events by distance from postcode and time ahead for each grade. A toggle switch is available to enable/disable the filter. Does this meet your needs?

Closing dates are not available in the BOF API but I agree they would be useful if they were available. Maybe BOF can expose them. I’m not sure how many clubs would be interested in embedding. Maybe a link showing clubs events would be preferable and trivial to implement.

The principal advantage of it above other presentations from my POV is that it offers more complete/accurate distance filtering and easy access to other key info (previous maps of area etc). It’s certainly highlighted to me events to me that I would not have previously considered. I never knew before that there were events on the Isle of Mann for instance.

[Atomic]

Thanks. I think ‘Event tier’ filtering you mentioned is supported already via the ’Event grade filter’. This filters events by distance from postcode and time ahead for each grade. A toggle switch is available to enable/disable the filter. Does this meet your needs?

Ah so it is. It may just be dumb user who didn't realise that would be there.

Its a shame that BOF data feed doesn't include the closing dates, or even if EOD is available? I don't think we are only interested in club events - and actually those ones are easy to predict the closing dates as we have a pretty clear cadence and promoted in newsletters etc. Its the other clubs or bigger events where you need to be better at guessing.

You don't know if there's a European equivalent (not for major events but just for local events). I often find myself in some random city for a week and am sure there must be O somewhere to fill my time but I've not found an easy way to know.

[dkr]

OFixtures now supports users adding:

• additional fixtures and
• league/multi-day event series

Ive added the BAOC current events and major leagues. Feel free to add any club leagues or multi-day events.

@Atomic. Yes it would be good if the BOF feed was richer. Closing date/EOD would be good as you say and event type (forest long/short, urban etc) as Id certainly like to filter on that. I will contact BOF and see if this is an use to them or if the feed can easily be enhanced.

[ricardito]

OFixtures now supports users adding:

• additional fixtures and
• league/multi-day event series

Ive added the BAOC current events and major leagues. Feel free to add any club leagues or multi-day events.

@Atomic. Yes it would be good if the BOF feed was richer. Closing date/EOD would be good as you say and event type (forest long/short, urban etc) as Id certainly like to filter on that. I will contact BOF and see if this is an use to them or if the feed can easily be enhanced.

Nice work!

I’m not sure BOF even hold all the details one might like to expose in a fixtures app (or web app), closing dates being a case in point. Obviously it would also need club fixtures secretaries to be on top of providing the information (and updating it when deadlines are extended, as happens sometimes). Also some events have “early bird” entry prices that have cut-off dates that aren’t strictly closing dates - be nice if that stuff could be handled…

One point from a personal perspective: I’d like to see the (apparently little known) JSON feed made equivalent to the HTML event list that I presume you’re scraping - currently it only gets data up to 12 months ahead … and it would be a shame if it got left behind in terms of the data items it contains as well. (Full disclosure: I’ve had a iPad/iOS app “in development” for longer than I care to remember- maybe this is the year for the final push to get it published!)

[Auld Badger]

This is very useful, and I'll be bringing it to the attention of my clubmates.

The only slightly negative feedback that I'd have is that the filters for "club" and "local" events seem to be transposed, so that (when I ran the search with all filters on) it showed local "events" for my area which are registered at activity level and many of which are closed club training opportunities, which are only registered for insurance purposes.

It's also not 100% accurate on location, e.g. it thinks that Coasts and Islands 2023 is within 24 miles of my location, when it's significantly further away than that, but that's likely down to the way the event has been registered, and not the code on your site.

I'm merely picking nits, and, as I say, most useful - thanks!

[Scott]

Also some events have “early bird” entry prices that have cut-off dates that aren’t strictly closing dates - be nice if that stuff could be handled…

The British Orienteering fixtures list can handle different entry dates with different closing fees, although as you say it does require some investment from the fixtures secretary to enter information that (speaking as a club fixtures secretary) I'm not convinced that anyone is currently looking at.

[oo_wrong_way]

The British Orienteering fixtures list can handle different entry dates with different closing fees, although as you say it does require some investment from the fixtures secretary to enter information that (speaking as a club fixtures secretary) I'm not convinced that anyone is currently looking at.

I think the point is that the more data included in the JSON feed the more useful apps such as OFixtures would become. If we take the closing date for entries as an example, you're right in that few people look at the BOF fixture list for that probably because it's such a faff, but an app can take that data and turn it into useful information. This could be an indicator on a map pin to show that the closing date is approaching or even reminders pushed out to those subscribed to automatic event calendars such as oevents.info (shameless plug).

[Scott]

The comment I was replying to began "I’m not sure BOF even hold all the details one might like to expose in a fixtures app (or web app), closing dates being a case in point". My point was that that is true, but only because nobody is currently populating those details.

It's a little bit chicken-and-egg - it would be hard for British Orienteering to justify paying the web developers to make changes to the API in order to expose a load of mostly empty fields, but equally it's not worth the time investment from fixtures secretaries to fill out fields that nobody is likely to view while they're only accessible via the British Orienteering website.

Ideally, rather than tinkering with the existing system, I would like to see the British Orienteering events database given a complete overhaul to a more unified Eventor-like system, with APIs available for both app developers and third-party entries providers. The current situation where the fixtures list, event details, results, tracking, ranking lists etc are dispersed across multiple different domains is just silly. But that is unlikely to be a small investment.

[dkr]

Thanks for the feedback.

@Auld Badger OFixtures applies a mapping between BOF and OFixtures event grades that is the root cause of your comment. I added this at a time when I was thinking it should not be UK specific so aligned with Eventor grades. I suspect I should remove this. The current mapping is:

Activity -> Local
Local -> Club
Regional -> Regional
National -> National
Major/International -> International

As you observed, In some cases where little information is available then, the location is only approximate - as a last resort, a nominal club location is used. This does not work well in some cases, particularly Scotland.

Options that come to mind are:

• not show the location on the map if it is only derived from the nominal club location
• allow users to report/correct erroneous data

@Scott I would imagine that making the feed richer would be (or at least not limiting the feed to the first 100 events) would be a relatively small enhancement. For larger enhancements. Does BOF have the option of making portions of its web source public and accepting PR's? Is Eventor a possible long-term solution?

[srocmapper]

I once asked them for a small change to how event results are provided and got nowhere, I don't think they understood the question. Good luck

[miklcct]

Hello this is a good project to find O races I want. I can now filter the races I want to minimise noise.

I wish I can see the following improvements:

• Distance in standard units rather than miles
• Ability to filter the type of race, e.g. forest, sprint / urban, TrailO

[dkr]

OfFxtures now supports displaying previous maps of the area from Routegadget and Race-signup, SIEntries and Fabian4 entry links.

I’d also like to add filtering on event type (urban, sprint, forest) but the current feed does not include the relevant data. I tried contacting BOF but did not receive any response.