Free Company Tracker Page

Hi!

I had created a page to track progress of our FC not so long ago. To see who joined, who changed their FC rank, see promotion suggestions and stuff like that. I even uploaded it to GitHub. I just updated it to turn it into a service.
You can go either by this link to get there. You input some valid ID for a company in the "search field" and after some wait you will get a tracking page of your own like this one. It may seem like a vanity, but with proper configuration setup (not yet available for public) it can (and does) become a relatively useful tool.

At the moment you can't change anything to personalize your page, but I am thinking of ways to do it. If you have any suggestions for it - just tell me.

There was a small bug, which caused page to refresh even when it was not required to grab new data resulting in infinite loop. It was fixed. Cache for all previously registered Companies was refreshed accordingly.

As a temporary solution to allow some extent of user customization, I've added links to each company's "cache" files, which are used for creating the page. Just load the page and check the footer. Download the files you need, modify them, send them to me, I will check them and upload. Some description of the fields is available either in the files or on GitHub, but feel free to ask here, in case of questions.

A more permanent solution will be done with introduction of a new main page for my site (https://www.simbiat.dev/fftracker that is), which will have registration system. It will be used to allow selected members to get authenticated as masters of the company. Such authentication will give access to special page(s), which will work as an editor of the settings. I hope, that some ground work for this will be done by end of the month, but... Well, I'll keep you posted (= I have a custom authentication system, but will need to review/update since and security is important.

I have a question: I'd love having a visual progress depiction like that, but... How does registering work? I tried looking for some kind of ID as the site asks for numbers only but I can't find something like that anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Rakiria

I have a question: I'd love having a visual progress depiction like that, but... How does registering work? I tried looking for some kind of ID as the site asks for numbers only but I can't find something like that anywhere.

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Thank you for the question. If you go to Lodestone you will see that company links have the following structure: http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...1035923213559/ . Notice the numbers at the end. This is a Company's ID. You use those numbers to register a Company on FCTracker. I thought about finding a way to use names, but, from what I see Lodestone has significant limitations so I can't grab the whole list of existing companies to allow such functionality. I won't stop looking for possible solutions, though.

BTW, GitHub has this explained, as well as some other stuff regarding "settings", but I will think of a way to make this all more convenient and accessible in future releases. With more customization.

Thanks to Spirit Saintly from Cerberus server a bug was identified, where going to the "main" page without a slash at the end results in 404 error when viewing Company pages. Something wrong with .htaccess, it seems. I will look into it and fix it

This is actually quite cool, a useful tool to use for recruitment. Perhaps when you enable personalisation we could add a timetable/calendar to see weekly/bi-weekly events.

Another thing to look at, maybe add an option to display the ranks on separate lines.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Genaxx

This is actually quite cool, a useful tool to use for recruitment. Perhaps when you enable personalisation we could add a timetable/calendar to see weekly/bi-weekly events.

Another thing to look at, maybe add an option to display the ranks on separate lines.

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If you mean a custom calendar, then, I guess, it will be possible. But if you mean integration of the one on Lodestone... I am not so sure here.

What do you mean by ranks on separate lines?

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Originally Posted by Simbiat

If you mean a custom calendar, then, I guess, it will be possible. But if you mean integration of the one on Lodestone... I am not so sure here.

What do you mean by ranks on separate lines?

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Yes a custom calendar separate from the lodestone.

Currently you have the player pictures 13 each row in a square. As an option to change that to 1 rank per 1 row. Potentially causing a triangle shape.

Master
Officers
Members
Newbies
etc.

My html is a bit rusty so i'm trying to think if this is even possible, due to us being able to name our ranks.

At the moment through config files it's possible to change the number of members per row. So, as at the moment, this can't be done. BUT! In new version of the site (v2, if you like, more on this below), I do plan to allow leaders of a company to make flexible pages, including the presentation of members. I will start with ability to change the text only (company description and character description), but then will think of a way to do the same with tables, as well.

Calendar is a good idea, and, in fact, I was planning on implementing a feature for my own company to set "goals". This feature could benefit from a partner named Calendar.

Now, both calendar AND convenient customization of pages and stuff like that WILL require a way to authorize proper users. So, this all will depend on how fast I can prepare a version of my new main page, for which I already planned a registration\authorization system. To facilitate this I made a decision, that I will "freeze" the code of the current version of tracker. It is a service, which does NOT rely on databases, a standalone one, and I'd prefer to keep this version like this. But a newer version will be implemented and integrated with the main page for my site.
What that means for users? It means, that for now if you want to customize the page, you are limited to config files you can download (and send to me for modification). You can still register and track companies there. As soon as new version is ready with authentication system the page will redirect to that one. All the data will remain intact, of course. Possibly, some more data will be stored, even.

Those of you that have been using the tracker may have noticed that it's down at the moment.
I am migrating it to SQL now while making some back-end (and minor front-end) improvements. At the moment the main thing for me to do is migrate rank suggestion system and do some minor improvements for data output. I hope to turn it back on by the end of the week at most.
The most important change for users: ability to track non-FC members and track levels for each class by date (that is not just current and previous values) in a graph.

I have one important question: how would you prefer the list of already registered companies? At the moment all of them are shown and search highlights matches. I am thinking of making search hide all that do not match search criteria, but it's also possible to hide all by default and search those that match search criteria. Or show only most recent and/or largest companies by default and then sort...
What do you think?

Here is how the list looks now, for those who have not seen it :D
http://imgur.com/a/XVAIW
http://imgur.com/a/XVAIW

And the site is up again! Completely on SQL! Thanks to changes done it also has quite a few new companies in its database as well. Go, check it out! And let me know if any bugs come out
https://www.simbiat.dev/fftracker

This was long overdue, but here’s an important update for the Final Fantasy XIV Tracker.
* Changed FC list representation. Date and members count is available on hover
* Changed the way members are filtered on search on FC page
* When searching member details are hidden if they were shown before
+ If textual search filters everything except for 1 FC, pressing 'Enter' or 'Register' will open that company.
+ Newly added FCs and those not updated for >30 days are now marked appropriately in the list
* Fixed "from server" being overlayed by FC name
* Fixed issue with individual level tracker, where in some cases level would not be properly updated
* Fixed showing older name in FC members' list
* Fixed some queries when moving members from one FC to another
* Fixed FC level change arrows missing in some cases
* FC rank table will not be shown if only 1 rank was registered
* When searching for members rank can be used as well
+ Added total Free Companies count

I am still open to ideas on how to represent companies list

There are 1500+ companies registered now. I am thinking, that perhaps they can be grouped by server? I am thinking about something like a map of Eorzea with servers on it showed as pictures respective of the server names, placed around the places, where the enemies/summons/weapons making the names are generally found. When searching, if a hit is found a server picture is highlighted somehow and when hovering over it you can see the list of potential hits. If there is only single hit all over the map - appropriate server icon changes to that hit for further visibility. What do you think?

Tracker functionality after LodeStone update was restored!

Pushed a huge update for FINAL FANTASY XIV Tracker ( https://www.simbiat.dev/fftracker ) to production site.

Main changes are:
Changed main page to allow search sorted by servers to fight the performance hit due to huge number of companies registered
Added support for Linkshells
Added handlers in case character/company/linkshell was removed from lodestone (with update of the text in such case)
Register button now allows registering characters and linkshells. In fact you can drop character/freecompany/linkshell from the links - server will determine what to show you
Update check is now done via communication with server on load using SSE, instead of cumbersome frame. Forcing update is also possible now.
Free Company crests now merge into one image during updates and that image can be access via links like http://simbiat.ru/frontend/images/ff...5923213559.png . Same image is used to customize og:image and favicon on Free Company pages.

Awesome work! Is it possible to search through the registered FCs? (I mean like an advanced search that allows you to find FCs of a particular size, focus, allegiance, etc.)

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Originally Posted by hiedra

Awesome work! Is it possible to search through the registered FCs? (I mean like an advanced search that allows you to find FCs of a particular size, focus, allegiance, etc.)

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I plan to add something like this: I have a proven solution used on https://www.simbiat.dev/bictracker so most difficult thing would be the interface. The way the results will be shown would probably remain the same: sorted by servers and limited to 5 hits for each (otherwise show the number of hits).
I am not sure, when this filtering will be added. I'd like to focus on updating the overall site engine, to improve its visibility in search engines among other things, and start working on login system, since I've planned to allow company pages customization for quite a long time now. But I will be updating this thread when there will be significant updates and I plan to add Atom feed to the site this weekend, so you will be able to follow the news using it as well. Or rather it will be feedS.

I've delayed feeds, but they are up now. You can even track changes to companies/linkshells/characters on the service. In the next update I will add advanced search.

Advanced filters added. At the moment, it's still required to input at least 1 character in the "name" search, though, because otherwise the query becomes too big. I am thinking of a way to allow that as well. For now, check out what is already available and let me know if other filters are required.

Hello, Simbiat. I am a software developer and will be going to a coding boot camp to finally get more training for the front-end/cloud to become a full full-stack developer. When I am done, would you like for me to work with you to convert it to angular4+? I think using that framework would allow to make things much easier to work with.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aladire

Hello, Simbiat. I am a software developer and will be going to a coding boot camp to finally get more training for the front-end/cloud to become a full full-stack developer. When I am done, would you like for me to work with you to convert it to angular4+? I think using that framework would allow to make things much easier to work with.

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AFAIK, Angular is more JS oriented, I am more PHP oriented. They claim faster JS, but I do not take it at face value: this is all about overall optimization. I also try to limit any 3rd-party dependencies and write only the stuff, that I actually need, instead of getting lots of extra code, which mean potential vulnerabilities as well. This also provides me with a general challenge to my hobby.
If you think, that Angular (or any other framework) can bring some real benefits compared to the current design, I'd be happy to share [portions] of code for you to try it out and show how it benefits in real life.

Thanks for the response. The thing with AngularJS is that yes, you need to load extra stuff that was not needed. But, with improvements such as Java 9 for Java applications and with Angular2, you can control what loads so that only what is needed is used now.

As for being JS oriented, yeah, that is true. That is your preference on things. When I am done with my bootcamp and the new languages I have to learn for the new applications I have to support later this year and next year, I will have ADF, Angular 4, Java Spring, Zend, Laravel, and Yii in terms of frameworks for front end. (Really need to stop the one school/department that keep making new applications in whatever language/framework they feel like and work with sticking with 1 or 2.)

While http://simbiat.ru/fftracker was updated for Stormblood just now, during previous Lodestone maintenance around 50 companies and around 4000 players were marked as deleted erroneously. Now everyone in affected companies is shown as "new". Since data was lost... We just need to wait for that to change.
Otherwise it should generally work now. We are still looking into issues with the parser, but they should not affect tracker.

BTW, "lost" data was restored.

Hi.
Is there a reason only part of an FC's members would be registered in the interface? We have over 400 members but when looking at our FC in the interface it only shows 295.

Also, it would be suuuper helpful to have a different view/sort option on the main screen. Perhaps also a way to see instantly who is up for a promotion as according to the amount of time they have been in the FC (rather than clicking into each individuals profile to see their join date).

Thoughts?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KaoruOda

Hi.
Is there a reason only part of an FC's members would be registered in the interface? We have over 400 members but when looking at our FC in the interface it only shows 295.

Also, it would be suuuper helpful to have a different view/sort option on the main screen. Perhaps also a way to see instantly who is up for a promotion as according to the amount of time they have been in the FC (rather than clicking into each individuals profile to see their join date).

Thoughts?

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What's the FC ID (or name, at least)? I will check.
As for promotions, there is, actually a logic for that, used on http://mogstkids.eu and members up for promotion are highlighted. As well as those, that were promoted/demoted or are suggested to be kicked. I still have not gotten a chance to "open" it to customization in any way, though. It will require registration and linkage to Lodestone. It is in the plans.

GitHub for older non-SQL version has some info on what you can provide me, so I can manually set you up with promotion suggestion system - https://github.com/Simbiat/XIV-FC-Page if something is unclear or needs explanation - let me know.

Also, any idea, why am I not getting mail notifications on new posts?..

I've found your company - https://www.simbiat.dev/fftracker/fr...0298434883220/
Most likely it did not get all members because... Someone did not bother to wait. Unlike XIVDB, I am not actively parsing character pages, even though we are using the same parser - I parse companies/characters/linkshells either when it's not registered, considered outdated or forced to be updated (by clicking the green arrow near the server name). Big companies take a lot of time to update all characters, especially if there are "leavers", who joined over companies, especially if they are big. With current logic it is required to parse all of them, but I am thinking of ways to improve it.
You can check status of the update by hovering over the icon near server name.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Simbiat

What's the FC ID (or name, at least)? I will check.
As for promotions, there is, actually a logic for that, used on http://mogstkids.eu and members up for promotion are highlighted. As well as those, that were promoted/demoted or are suggested to be kicked. I still have not gotten a chance to "open" it to customization in any way, though. It will require registration and linkage to Lodestone. It is in the plans.

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Thank you for the response. The FC is Scarlet Heaven. Our list/interface updated today to display the correct amount of members (I guess it took a few days to kick in). I'm excited to hear abbout the ranking updates soon to e available for the interface! Thanks~ I'll keep an eye out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KaoruOda

Thank you for the response. The FC is Scarlet Heaven. Our list/interface updated today to display the correct amount of members (I guess it took a few days to kick in). I'm excited to hear abbout the ranking updates soon to e available for the interface! Thanks~ I'll keep an eye out.

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it did not "kick in". I explained above why there was a discrepancy. and I did not say it will be "soon" :D It is planned, but I can't give any timeframes now, especially, since there is still Stromblood to complete :D

The site has been updated significantly. Here are the changes, besides redesign:
* Now tracking not only weekly rankings, but also monthly ones and members count and show all three on one graph
* Search results can now be accessed by appropriate page
* If a company has defined rank levels, members will be visually divided by them to show hierarchy
* For characters new minions, mounts, achievements are tracked, as well as any other changes. For minions, mounts and achievements only last 10 entries of each are stored (purge is done on weekly basis). If update detects more than 10 changes for minions or mounts, only 10 of them will be registered
+ Added maps for companies, that have plots
- Removed advanced filters, since they are not really used
- Removed tracking of individual class levels, wrongly assigned ranks, alternative ranks as not used
- Removed class diversity check for suggestions, since covered by minimum class levels

Added character silhouettes to character pages on tracker, since LodeStone sometimes loads them a bit too slow. Check https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/3721771/ for links

Nice....is there a possibility of an API to port to an external site or some other platform?

Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

Nice....is there a possibility of an API to port to an external site or some other platform?

Thanks.

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What exactly do you want to "port"?
I plan to add some API(s) and with login system (currently in the active work!) it will be possible to customize pages for linked characters/companies/linkshells. And company/linkshell/character cards. And company/linkshell chats. And lots and lots more is planned further down the road. Let me know what you want/need and I'll look into it.

Very cool. I have wanted to create something similar but as a phone app.
Alas i am not a coder, haha

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Originally Posted by Maero

Very cool. I have wanted to create something similar but as a phone app.
Alas i am not a coder, haha

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Well, the website is as mobile friendly as I could get it so far, but there are plans to have a mobile app in the future, as well. In a far off future, though, doubt I will even start it this year: there is too much other stuff to do on the website. But any ideas or comments on interaction with the site on mobile (or desktop) are welcomed.