Character Index

Need to talk about the day's episode of Wapsi? This is the place to do it. Play nice! ^_^

Moderators: Bookworm, starkruzr, MrFireDragon, PrettyPrincess, Wapsi

Forum rules
When two threads are posted for a day's comic, the thread posted first becomes the starting post. Please delete the second thread and add your post to the first thread. When naming the thread: Comic Name YYYY-MM-DD
Thanks guys! This keeps the forum nice and neat.
User avatar
TazManiac
Posts: 3701
Joined: Fri Nov 29, 2013 6:53 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by TazManiac »

Go Go Gadget!

Image
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

The Wapsi character index now covers from start to early 2010, just past the end of the Calendar Machine story: 2085 pages tagged, 703 tags.

I’m trying out appending -m to a tag for a significant mention or reference of the tagee as opposed to an actual appearance. Means going back and checking 2k pages for consistency so I may drop the idea as too burdensome – feedback welcome as to whether it is an important distinction.

(Also tagged: July 2014 – present.)

1079 untagged pages to go.
User avatar
Thor
Posts: 604
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2013 1:45 am
Location: Looking for an opening

Re: Character Index

Post by Thor »

louisxiv wrote:The Wapsi character index now covers from start to early 2010, just past the end of the Calendar Machine story: 2085 pages tagged, 703 tags.

I’m trying out appending -m to a tag for a significant mention or reference of the tagee as opposed to an actual appearance. Means going back and checking 2k pages for consistency so I may drop the idea as too burdensome – feedback welcome as to whether it is an important distinction.

(Also tagged: July 2014 – present.)

1079 untagged pages to go.
It's a nice distinction, but not a critical one. Unless someone else here has strong feelings about it, I'd not worry about it, or leave it for later.

Thanks for this and keep up the good work!
Warrl
Posts: 1723
Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:44 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by Warrl »

Make up a character named "I started using a new tag here". Whenever you start using a new tag that you kinda wish you'd been using all along, that page includes a reference to this imaginary character - and that reference gets your new tag.
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

Warrl wrote:Make up a character named "I started using a new tag here". Whenever you start using a new tag that you kinda wish you'd been using all along, that page includes a reference to this imaginary character - and that reference gets your new tag.
Run that one by me again, a little slower — I’m losing you at “reference” I think: there are pages and there are tags; pages can have tags, tags can have descriptions, maybe with links, but I’m not grokking how you are using reference in this context?
Warrl
Posts: 1723
Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:44 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by Warrl »

Sounds like the data structure doesn't go deep enough for what I had in mind. Sorry.
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

Warrl wrote:Sounds like the data structure doesn't go deep enough for what I had in mind. Sorry.
No problem, all interest is appreciated :)

The data structure, such as it is, is fully visible in the index page’s html source, but in summary: comic pages are represented as html paragraphs each with a unique id attribute taken from the original comic’s own url.

This comic page paragraph is also given class attributes for the relevant tags for the comic. The show/hide selection stuff is just JavaScript smoke and mirrors to show/hide the paragraphs which do or don’t match the selected tags.
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

The Wapsi character index now covers from start to early 2011, just before Shelly gets sphinx’d: 2312 pages, 789 tags.

(Also tagged: July 2014 – present.)

857 untagged pages to go.
User avatar
Dave
Posts: 7584
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Mountain View, CA, USA

Re: Character Index

Post by Dave »

I bow in deep respect and appreciation at the magnitude of the task you have taken on, and the effort you are clearly putting into it.

This is, and will be a very valuable resource for us Wapsi addicts.
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

Dave wrote:I bow in deep respect and appreciation at the magnitude of the task you have taken on, and the effort you are clearly putting into it.

This is, and will be a very valuable resource for us Wapsi addicts.
Cheers!
User avatar
GlytchMeister
Posts: 3733
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:52 pm
Location: Central Illinois
Contact:

Re: Character Index

Post by GlytchMeister »

This is a leap forward for the archive crawlers and trawlers among us. When we reference a specific event, sometimes we have to defer to someone like Jwhouk to find the link. Now, people like me who aren't that good at remembering things can figure it out ourselves much faster.

Thank you so very much, this is well deserving of the following label:

AWESOMESAUCE.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

GlytchMeister wrote: AWESOMESAUCE.
:blush:
User avatar
Dave
Posts: 7584
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Mountain View, CA, USA

Re: Character Index

Post by Dave »

Just a heads-up...

The current page structure for displaying tags and pages seems to be capable of delivering a very large page under some circumstances.

I clicked on "T", scrolled down and clicked on "Timekeepers (2)". Chrome froze - nothing new was displayed and the window's scroll function would not work. A few seconds later, Chrome put up a warning that the page had caused a brower lockup. I told it to kill the page, and received a second warning that Chrome had run into an out-of-memory condition. This was on a high-powered Linux workstation.

So, it's possible that the logic which serves out tags and pages is going to need some tighter limiting on "how much it hands out in one swell foop" in order to avoid flattening peoples' browsers.
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

Dave wrote:Just a heads-up...

The current page structure for displaying tags and pages seems to be capable of delivering a very large page under some circumstances.

I clicked on "T", scrolled down and clicked on "Timekeepers (2)". Chrome froze - nothing new was displayed and the window's scroll function would not work. A few seconds later, Chrome put up a warning that the page had caused a brower lockup. I told it to kill the page, and received a second warning that Chrome had run into an out-of-memory condition. This was on a high-powered Linux workstation.

So, it's possible that the logic which serves out tags and pages is going to need some tighter limiting on "how much it hands out in one swell foop" in order to avoid flattening peoples' browsers.
Under all circumstances. The page is the database, if you like. All I'm doing is showing and hiding stuff that is already downloaded.

I suspect the JavaScript used for the text selection isn't perfect, rather than the simpler show/hide basics. I have noticed that after a few letter filters the show/hide tends to get confused and I may have to reload the page, but that is on this iPad... I haven't noticed similar behaviour in Firefox on the desktop Mac, but on the larger screens I just scroll to find tags, not use the text filtering.

Unfortunately the .js is contributed – I do js hardly at all, so there is little likihood of me being able to fix anything in there. If text filtering is the problem Now the pages are over 1MB I may gave to go to a jump to 'tags starting with "T"' rather than a filter :(
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Browser performance

Post by louisxiv »

Testing the sequence Dave mentions:
I clicked on "T", scrolled down and clicked on "Timekeepers (2)". Chrome froze
On OS X, Chrome is by far the worst performer of my browsers. It certainly pauses for 30+ seconds at the click on {Timekeepers} — didn’t crash for me though.

Safari is <1 sec, and Firefox about 1-2 sec.

I get similar performance with the Misfile index, which is about the same size as Wapsi, but for the Gunnerkrigg index — half the size — Chrome only takes about 6 seconds to return the selected pages.

On each index I selected a T and the clicked on a two instance tag, but the T selection appears irrelevant: Chrome still takes 32 seconds to select {Timekeepers} if I just scroll down to the tag.

Unscientific testing, but it looks like a Chrome issue.

I’m open to suggestions as to what I can do about it?
User avatar
Opus the Poet
Posts: 2455
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:24 am
Location: Surrounded by Hell
Contact:

Re: Character Index

Post by Opus the Poet »

Report it to Google, their development team want to beat every other browser out there. This is a challenge to them.
I ride my bike to ride my bike, and sometimes it takes me where I need to go.
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

Opus the Poet wrote:Report it to Google, their development team want to beat every other browser out there. This is a challenge to them.
Good point.
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

Opus the Poet wrote:Report it to Google, their development team want to beat every other browser out there. This is a challenge to them.
One of the guys on the Misfile forum has identified this as a known issue in Chrome 41, not present in 40, fingers crossed for 42 – which will be the answer to everything.
Grantwhy
Posts: 424
Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2013 11:25 am

Re: Character Index

Post by Grantwhy »

you could try it on a portable version of Chrome 42 (or 43, or 64-bit 41 :))

over on the (very trustworthy) PortableApps site, they've got portable versions of Google Chrome

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/g ... e_portable

disclaimer: Google seem to be designing Chrome to NOT portablise(sic) well
Passwords Not Saved Between PCs By Default: Google Chrome stores passwords in such a way that they are encrypted in a way tied to current PC. While the passwords are not kept or left behind on the PC itself, they won't be retrievable when you move to a new PC. We've added password portability as an advanced option, though, which you can enable by reading the help.html file.

Certificates Not Portable: Google Chrome has no certificate manager. It uses Windows' certificates manager. So, any certificates you install through the Google Chrome interface are stored on the current local machine and will not travel with you. Thus, you should not use any private certificates with Google Chrome except on your own PC.

Some Settings Locked Per PC: Google Chrome now locks specific settings to a given PC. Details are included in this post. This new behavior is by design by the Chrome team. If you would like this changed, please file a bug with the Chrome team. A suggested workaround is to sign in to Google to restore all settings and extensions and to use an extension such as Session Buddy to maintain your session state as you move PCs. Note that PortableApps.com has not evaluated this extension.

Note that other portable browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition do not have any of the issues mentioned above. These issues are specific to Chrome due to Chrome's design and not something we can work around without fixes to the base app by the Chrome developers.


No such problems with Firefox though, so it's a weird Google thing :(

however, it should (hopefully) give you an easy way of testing how upcoming versions of Chrome interact with the Character Index.
As a CareBearAnarchist I believe in the destruction and overthrow of the perils of society through random and senseless acts of consideration and kindness
Growing older is compulsory, growing up is optional
Dumb things happen to smart phones
User avatar
louisxiv
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Character Index

Post by louisxiv »

Completed 2014.

2011, 2012, 2013 to go — 767 untagged pages remaining

Then there will be the great tag rationalisation...
Post Reply