Great Western Coffee Shop

EDIT .... I have split off responses on browser and compatibility into this thread, leaving  http://www.passenger.chat/24775 for the architecture at Bristol Temple Meads. 


Customer response - that works well for me Grahame!

Edit to clarify this is a split topic and where it came from - grahame

YMMV, but for me they're permanently expanded...

No worky for me on desktop or mobile Chrome.

Yeah ... is it filling them in fully every time, or never filling them in?  It's limited in what / where I'm testing it with as it need to be tested across a variety of places and lots of debugging to do!

On Chrome it's not working as a mouseover, instead it's adding the full bracketed name automatically.

Tried Microsoft Edge and Firefox too. They both work as a mouseover.

Appreciated.   Noted.  I WILL be working on it but not right away; I need to do so when (a) the forum is quiet and (b) I have some time and am not asleep.   Which probably means "overnight in a few days time". There is a danger of doing more harm than good for a period of several hours ...

Permanently expanded on iPad with latest Safari...

Paul

Same for me

Works correctly on my Windows 10 PC in Firefox, Chrome and Edge.

Links are expanded on my Android phone I only have Chrome.

No response with Safari running on a Mac.

I now see it is there, but permanently not mouseover. 

Thanks, Tony ... I'm going to have to go through loads of compatibility tables, scour our home for forgotten devices, cross Lisa'a palm with chocolate and Pistachios and a promise of a trip on the Orient Express to have her look on all the technology she's surrounded with.    My usual rule is "keep the HTML simple to render anywhere" but in this case some mucking about with CSS can bring significant benefits to many, provided it does not screw things up for a few.

I should have had the wit to realise that it might be helpful to say that I'm using Chrome 89.0.4389.82 (Official Build) (64-bit) on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS / Gnome 3.36.8 / X11

Have you switched the test off?  I can find no mouseover events using the latest build of MS Edge.

No - it's done as follows:

    #parent #popup {
      display: none;
    }
    #parent:hover #popup {
      display: inline;
      background-color: yellow;
    }


<span id="parent">CSS^▸ <span id="popup"> (Cascading Style Sheets)</span></span>

On which I would be sensible to ask if any experts have suggestions

I've not seen it do anything, and that's in Firefox. My immediate thought was that I've disabled a bell or whistle that this relies on, since I prefer to not enable clever stuff unless I know it's useful.

On a Windows 10 PC
Chrome & Edge: Shows the abbreviated meaning in brackets without mouseover
Internet Explorer: It works. Mouse over shows the abbreviated meaning with a yellow highlight

I'd forgotten Internet Explorer was still on my computer!

Aha! CRTL-F5 and it works for me!

Obviously time to get out the rail topic replacement bus...

I think there may some fuzzy terminology.   "Mouseover" is Javascript but I am hoping to be able to use a lighter weight "hover" from CSS . Time will tell.

Tongue noted in cheek. Sorting out the pickle (which is getting worser by the hour) in the morning.

And for me

I have now split off all the responses on browser and compatibility into this thread, leaving  http://www.passenger.chat/24775 for the architecture at Bristol Temple Meads.  The testing / changes for the most part are to be seen / tested there.  I have also added a new switch for members to switch the resolution 'service' off and on, and an information page for it.

For the sake of having a example here for you to try ... MKM should resolve but without a link and MRUG should resolve and additionally provide a link to explore further.

I now have it working, following CTRL-F5 - presumably not logging out means something outside page content never got loaded (the stylesheets?). The turn on/off switch, however, doesn't do so reliably.  Yet - I'll assume that's work in progress. Some combination of full page reloads (not CTRL-F5) and switch poking seems to be required.

More fundamentally, the pop-out link for MRUG appears, but on the next line of text. It vanishes before the mouse can reach it. Playing cat and mouse, but in reverse! Resizing the window obviously does overcome that, though, if you can.

Ah - YES - there is new stuff in the style sheets that will have been cached


Oh - that's a good'un.  I will need to play. May be better if I switch a space to a none-breaking space ... 

Errrr...*not* working here on Edge with Windows 10. Permanently expanded on Edge (and it's a right pain when there are a lot of them)
However, working perfectly on Firefox. Don't have Chrome installed.

Thanks, ChrisB - have you done a "shift reload" on Edge to pull in the new style sheets?   Agreed it can be a pain - hence the "turn off" option - but I would much rather you didn't have to!

Was permanently expanded for me on Opera. Used the Ctrl-F5 trick upthread and it now works. Also to note that turning the function on and off kicks me off the thread I'm looking at and sends me back to the home page.

Yes, Caching.

From the documentation on the new facility ...


... one of those things that looks and sounds so easy to fix until you / I get into the code.

I have now used Ctrl F5 and it is working, thank you.

I'd just like to add, cos I don't think I said it before, that the aim is a good one. Thanks.

VickiS has been working on a copy of the Acronyms file and I have just moved that into place ... lots more resolution now.  Please let me know of any that are plain wrong / irritating. We know that many are still out of date and missing - please do NOT flag those up just yet.

I will write up further during today (Tuesday) and test further.   It's when I see how long the list is that I realise I'm bi-lingual, speaking both English and Railway!

Also ... and burst-through which give the wrong definition - we have tried to avoid breaking through abbreviations which have two meanings (not practical without huge work and perhaps £ investment to sort out the context)

Best way to report is personal message - to VickiS and / or myself (grahame) - the notification button is good to flag up urgent issues such as members attacking each other personally in the forum, publishing copyright material, broken threads, etc as it reaches all the moderator and will result in the whole team taking a look.  Overkill for abbreviation stuff (though I have never really explained it in the past, so member had no way of knowing just how much notify comes across as a SHOUT  :D )

I spend several hours during the night re-syncing the Acronyms page. Vicki has been adding / updating descriptions, and I went through making up those to "burst through" and I have elected to do so on around two thirds of the 750 or so definitions we have.

Philosophy ...  expand abbreviations UNLESS there is a conflict and they mean something different in different circumstances (e.g. TVM will expand as Ticket Vending Machine, but TV will not as it can be both "Television" and "Thames Valley").

Links to other pages ... so far only very VERY few of these (only MRUG and RTT) - but many,many more should be added - perhaps around 10% of the defintions, seleting those that people will want to rapidly visit in context.  So - user groups, industry data feeds, etc.  Not things that people will pass in reading for thre most part, such as train types and net-speak such as FWIW and IMHO.

Early days - but looking very good and effective.  Lots more updates to do though ...

I have already used the "report" button for one post in which an abbreviation was automaticaly mis-applied. But will avoid so doing in future.

In my view, no explanation is needed for very common abbreviations that are in very general use. Examples include,

HST
GWR
IIRC
IMHO
IET

And so on.

Thanks - the "report" button looks innocent but is rather like setting the fire alarm off!  Personal Messages, follow ups here, emails all preferred outside panic situations.


For your reading, for many members reading, agreed. For guests, I'm not so sure, and guests represent the majority of visitors to the site (by a long way) though not the majority of pages served (also by a long way). There are issues in that what is "very common" to one party might cause another party to scratch his head and scope for keeping the forum arguing over them for years to come.  We are all very different (and some of use are even more different than that!)

I am giving the matter some thought - looking for what easily-maintained practically-implemented feature we need to give us the benefit of filling in less common abbreviations only for our fuller-informed members, whilst giving a higher degree of resolution for our newcomers, guests and search engines.  Further response but not for a few days

GWR has already "gone" and I am inclined to remove HST and IET as an interim measure tonight - along with UK which as overdoing it (though look at UK v GB and you would be surprised how many people don't know the difference).  I can rarely recall what "IIRC" stands for and IMHO it should stand at least until we get more views - these things are in the daily language of many members yet other will find them ONLY on the forum as they do not frequent social media.

As someone who sometimes has struggled with some of the acronyms, I am happy if we err on the side of caution. I sympathise with Grahame's concerns about IMHO etc., and I think a substantial proportion of users and (more significantly) guests might too.

For this reason I suggest that IET remain as an expandable acronym. It is not a widely known term, and I guess that only a minority of regular commuters will know that this refers to the new Hitachi trains. Use of the term may discourage guests becoming members, as many will feel that the forum is something not for them because it assumes a level of insider knowledge they do not have (or perhaps need). We could be losing some thoughtful interested passengers that we are seeking to attract as a result.

And of course in a few years' time there will be a growing generation of passengers for whom "HST" may not immediately mean anything. The IETs certainly do not seem to have the impact that their predecessors had on the public consciousness.

I would also suggest keeping IET as an expandable, in view of the fact that most users of the site are guests.

Note that 'IET' is 'only' the GWR brand name for the Hitachi Class 800 and 802. Known as 'Azuma' on LNER
 

I thought that originally IET was the name DfT gave to the specification for the new trains as part of the IEP.  Hitachi offered the At300 as class 80x and GWR kept the IET name while LNER rebranded them as Azura.

They were SET (Super Express Train) not IET originally.

HST's were actually HSDT - High Speed Diesel Train

I am about to do some testing ... you may see some funny (peculiar) expansions for the next couple of hours

For testing purposes:
BBC
GWR
WECA
MR
FoSBR
FoSBRs
ETC
IET
GB and UK
MRUG

OK folks - the following 11 items will expand for guests but never for logged in members - idea is to help newcomers and not smother regulars: BA, BBC, EU, GB, GWR, HS2, HST, MP, NR, Oyster and UK. (So if you're reading as a guest each of those will expand if you mouse over it.    There are a further 195 items on our acronyms page which are defined but will never expand (mostly because the are ambiguous - DVT and TV for example) and 557 which will expand for everyone unless you have turned off the expansion of abbreviations at the top of the page.   Most of the expansions will be in yellow (try DSFRS, IKB and CAZ for example), but around 15% are in green and they provide you with a link on to an explanation or to the organisation's web page (examples - MRUG, NEC, TWSW). That should come up in a new frame or window.

There is work in progress here - much more to be added over coming weeks, and some corrections too. But it's coming along. Spade work by VickiS ... coding to make it work by myself.

Very useful Graham and VickiS - thanks...

Excellent idea to have differential expansion for guests and members.  :)

But I seem to have to turn the expansion on each time I visit the site. Is it meant to be that way?

I will have a play with that later.   It's supposed to stick.

Edit to test live train links too - PAD, BRI, and of course MKM and DMH  ;D ... others too!

Having turned it on earlier today, it's still on now.

I see that the acronym expansion of CCTV uses less common words to explain the 'V'

Should probably join up Tele and Vision into Television. Noted; will do in next update cycle - probably in a couple of days.


I *think* it's working ... its is "per browser" so if you uses (as I do) Firefox, Safari and Chrome on the same laptop you'll have three lots of settings.  Also to note - if the link at the top says "turn off" it is currently on, and vice versa; I am not too thrilled with that as I find it confusing, and I wrote the darned thing!

My recent post mentioning the Rail Delivery Group had to be typed in full. RDG would have confused. :P

And there you open list back the covers and reveal one of the biggest problems - where things could expand multiple ways. I mentioned TV (Television v Thames Valley) and DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis v DriVing Trailer). I cannot see a practical coding way of getting there 98% right which would be the sort of target we would need, and even then we would have the issue of them being got wrong at the very time someone wanted to understand an unusual use.  Ongoing R&D may suggest a solution but for the moment (next update to the list) I will un-expand RDG.  You will still need to explain in your posts - but at least we will not be feeding members with porkies!

P.S.  If you type not EXD but EX[I][/I]D you will avoid expansion.   Example here is NOT Reading so that its will still show up as I intend after the change above.

Also to note - expansions do not show in previews as you post, nor (I don't believe) in personal messages.  I know why; big move round of code blocks to make it work and I fear introducing significant bugs.   May do and test it at a quiet time.

Would it be possible to link RDG and others to both expansions? It should be clear from context which one applies.

I did wonder / am thinking along those lines.  Very much a question of balance and compromise without providing a mind-blowingly complex control panel for everyone, and without spewing up so much extra text ...

EDIT - I am trying some things out - RDG only at the moment.  You will see a double dagger saying that it can be expanded in 2 (or more!) ways. May add a pop-up to link to the acronyms page or part of it to resolve if people need to.

There are now 9 acronyms which have that double dagger - click on "Resolve" and it will take you - in a new frame - to the acronyms page offering just that particular abbreviation.

I'm picking up that example to highlight the compromises taken thus far with the inline expansion helper.

It is NOT easy to choose which expansions to put in; my shouting of NOT as some of our members do would come in as "Nottingham" if we expanded that. 

Adding in an extra 2500 would cause all sort of issues as the British National Party was reported at a station in North Devon, and First Great Western being seen at a station in West Wales. About thirty key stations - those which we offer as ongoing connections live feeds - are expanded; even there, we have already had an issue [Reading / Rail Delivery Group] , resolved by providing a link to the filtered acronyms page rather than a direct resolution.  My feeling is that the balance is about right as we stand; a few more code adjustments may be advantageous and significant ongoing updates to the general resolutions list (thanks, VickiS for picking this up).

Might it be (at least as a temporary expedient) an idea to encourage contributors to use the full station name in posts?

We do / always have done. But seeing your first 769 at CHO, CUM or even CUA can lead to some shortened posting in excitement which overlooks the understandability ... for guests or even members not familiar with the line in question.

Significant number of abbreviations added ... there are now 713 that resolve for members by default, and a further 40 for guests.  There are a further 199 abbreviations and acronmys in the page at http://www.passenger.chat/acronyms.html . Big thanks to VickyS for all the hard work.    There are bound to be odd cases where our expansion system is over complex or an abbreviation has multiple expansions and we have only caught one.  Please post a follow up or send a pm to Vicky or me with corrections.

I think the only amusingly wrong one I've giggled at lately was BSK (as in the CRS code for Basingstoke) suddenly becoming a Mk I Brake Third Corridor. I think I prefer Basingstoke...

Edit: I just want to say how brilliant the expansion of abbreviations is – I really appreciate it, towns in north Hampshire and old rolling stock notwithstanding!

Over 950 abbreviations and acronyms are now listed at http://www.passenger.chat/acronyms.html - an increase of over 250 in the last three months - thanks to VickiS. Over 750 of them expand inline for guests and just under 720 for members. Whilst we *have* provided an option for members to turn the expansion off, only a few have done so as far as I can see - I've taken a brief snapshot and just 63 of the last 800 pages served to members have not been expanded, and those I'm pretty sure the 63 are by 'railgeeks' who don't need them.  Over 18,000 pages have been served to guests in the same time (since 8 a.m. this morning / it's  4 p.m. as I write this) and they're a mixture of real people not logged in, and spiders which index us to feed the search engines.

VickiS jumped in to the deep end with this project and as well as adding the hundreds of new clarifications has updated links and desciptions of others. Just about all recent acronymns / abbreviations are now listed - though those of "archive" age may still contain the occasional "what's that?" - so it's a completed upgrade, with a much lower key care and maintenance into the future.  And so onwards and upwards to further projects.

Congratulations and thanks to VickiS.

Yes, thanks for your hard work, VickiS.  Bloody good work, or BGW as I like to say.  ;)

As long as you don’t list the “rail geeks” then Grahame… ;D

Paul

I was just trying to post a link to Raildar to land on Reading's junction map, which would be https://raildar.co.uk/map/RDG. But that gets garbled by a failed attempt to resolve RDG., and isn't a live link (as you can see). The fix of putting a null escape string into RDG breaks the link. Having found an alternative, I shall leave that as an observation.

Yes - I know the issue.  It's only come up occasionally and there's work to do to fix it - with a danger of replacing one "undocumented feature" by others.  For the moment, I'm suggesting members mention the code that's causing the problem a bit earlier in their post so it won't expand in the link