one more change to search engine

Gene, I noticed that the same information shows up whether you select "commonly used fields" or "all fields." Was that the intention? If so, shouldn't we do away with that button?

BTW, thanks for rearranging the order of the data fields - I feel it is MUCH easier to read now.

Thanks Jim as I had both removed.

Gene,
Seems that currently there is no "sort order" in the results listing.
I am thinking that it would be nice to have the
results sorted by certification number in decending order by default.

Ken, the list is in order of the cities in a specific order by alphabet.

Hmmm. Two threads regarding the layout of the search results. So, I will re-post my thoughts here, in case someone misses the other thread:

I like what I see at 20:32 MDT Aug. 31. I see all the fields, and no "Less" or "More fields" button.

I would ask, pretty-please, if they would add a second sort - Course Name, after the City sort is completed. That makes it easier to find a course if a city has many of the same length.

Or, to add more elegance, after the City sort, and after the Course Name sort, sort by cert number. This way, if a course has more than one active cert, you can see all of them together, in chronological order. Just a suggestion.

Good points, but one can search by what's suggested by entering city name plus distance.

There have been many changes and more will be done in the future.

Gene, I especially like how the Record Eligible field has been made into 2 lines of type - it keeps the other columns closer together, and makes overall readability better.

Gene, what I was thinking about is, in a metropolitan area, one may not know the "city" the course was registered with. Denver has many suburbs, but someone new to the area may not know where "Joe's 5k" is run, but has been told they should run it.

Just saying, sorting is a matter of a couple more words in the html or php, or whatever they are using to drive the search results. Even if I say "Denver" and "5k", the results are not alphabetical. If elegance is easy, why not include it? Just a thought on how to tweak it to be more user-friendly.

Same problem in NYC. Some courses labeled "New York," others "Brooklyn" or one of the other 4 boroughs.

Guys,

I don't get it? Sort by cert number will accomplish a list of certs in numerical order, how does this help find a course in Denver?

Gene, I am thinking about the average runner, looking for a course. If they have something close to the name of the race, but are not sure, then a sort by city (which it does now) is good. If I don't know the length, I can only filter generally.

I don't believe anyone has asked to sort by cert number. It has been length, and Race Name.

For instance, there is a Runnin' o the Green, (a 7k), in Denver. I'm ("I'm" representing a runner) not sure how long it is, but I think it is at least a 5k. So, I filter "Greater than 5k", in "Denver". (I already put in "Running of the Green", as that is all I could remember, as a runner just hearing about the race. Nothing shows in the results, because the race is entered as "Runnin' o' the Green". Unless I enter it exactly as the Registrar has, I will get no result.)

So, I get all the courses in Denver that are 5k or longer. If they were sorted by length, then by name, I would have a better chance of finding something similar to Running of the Green.

I'm just saying that, if a runner doesn't know the exact name, or the exact length, if we sorted the results on more than City Name, it would be more user-friendly. It is simple as including "Order by Distance", "Order by Course Name", I would imagine. We cannot assume everyone using the db is one of us, or knows as much as we do about searching for a course.

I don't see how you can do both sorting by distance and race name at the same time. You would have to pick one of these.

I feel the example you have given can happen. I will look into this.

I don't see how you can do both sorting by distance and race name at the same time. You would have to pick one of these.

I feel the example you have given can happen, but what is the real problem with looking down a column and finding what your looking for. You would like the following to happen when we do a search for a race greater than a 5k in Denver to list the race names in alphabetic order. Is this what you want?

The first sort is by city, as it now sorts. Then, within each city, it would sort by length. Then, within each distance, it would sort by race name.

So, Denver 5ks would be together, with them ordered by race name. Just an organized way to show results.

Got it. I will see if this is possible.

Thanks for clarifying this.

Before when you did a search with the search engine for a course without using the certification number, but when you use one of the following:
1. State
2. A Particular Distance in that State
3. The Name of the Race in that State
The results were given in alphabetical order according to the city.

Now the results are given as follows:
1.The first sort will show the cities in alphabetical order as before.
2. Next, within each city, it would sort by distances(in increasing order).
3. Finally, within each distance, it would sort by race name in Alphabetical order.

There is one problem that we can't overcome. The search doesn't handle distances of different units well. That is it shows 3.5 miles to be less than a 5k.

Great! 5k is mixed with 5 mile, and 10k with 10 mile, but this is a big improvement! Thanks for making it happen!