New Online Log UI

[Jay]

Hello everyone,

The online log has been a troublesome aspect of Radio Toolbox for a while. I am looking to improve it. I have a slate of things I want to do but for now the largest improvement has been implemented which allows it to work off of an api in the background. This means the page will load quickly, however your data will accumulate slowly. The reason this aspect of radio toolbox is troublesome is all of the large data sets. We could improve things by implementing caching layers and utilizing better time series backend technology. However I want to stretch what we have as far as it will go first. The new UI is now available at:

https://www.radiotoolbox.com/services/log/view

It should look similar but feel faster. You will notice that the time window of the log view will expand as you sit on this page. It will also maintain sync with your radio toolbox installation without having to refresh the page which has been taxing on our backend. Additionally, I have now introduced a new horizontal view graph on the top of the station views. This graph will show you the last 12 hours or track and listener data.

Some things to look forward to in the new view:

• Date range selection (a much wanted feature)
• Improved graph views, (doughnut charts for server stats on all widgets, time based metadata/listener log option, song distribution pie chart)
• Library performance view (see how your entire song catalog performs in the given time period.
• Day by day comparison charts for track performances
• Download your data, hey, it's yours right?

For now we have restricted the view window 1 month into the past. Historically we have allowed 1 year but that has been static and not very useful.

If there is anything else you would like to see or if you have any issues using the new view, let us know.

[hdprene]

Hi Jay!

Need to think about a thing or subject answering your last line. But first of all; this is a great/big improvement! Thank you for your time doing this!

Regards,
René

[Jay]

Hey all,

I have now released the new UI. Please start using it asap and let me know if you are experiencing any issues. This view has been heavily tested in Chrome and Firefox in both desktop and mobile views. If you are using anything else and experiencing any problem let me know your browser information and what kind of device you are viewing it on.

Further, to keep things somewhat predictable, new work on the ui will be done at:

https://www.radiotoolbox.com/services/log/beta

If you want the latest I am working on even if it is somewhat broken, feel free to check it out and give any feedback.

If things are catastrophically broken for you on the new view you can go back to the old report view. However at some point this will go away but hopefully that will be because no one is using it anymore.

Thanks!

[hdprene]

Hi Jay!
Could the tracks plus the number of listeners set to vertical? Or maybe switchable? Horizontal is unreadable for me.

[Jay]

Number orientation will definitely be changed, just did that for now to get around the funkiness of really long numbers. As for the track listing, the idea is to put those at a 45 degree angle to make them legible. I am mixed on whether they would be better above or below the graph.

Timescales I want to show for the graph going forward will make a vertically traversing graph odd to use, hence why you can now scroll the graph horizontally. I am certainly open to ideas to make it more readable I just worry that a vertical scroll on both the page and graph will be weird. nested scrolling is troublesome on small devices.

[Jay]

Hi Rene,

I have updated the graphs in the hopes that it improves their legibility. Please note that now song titles angle 45 degrees to the left. You can also now mouse over the color zones for each title and your browser should render accessible text giving you the song title for that zone. This doesn't include graph zones yet, but I have plans to add accessibility text to the graph so that you can hover a region and see clearly counts and track info.

Thanks for your input so far. I look forward to hearing from anyone who has any concerns about the new panel.

[PlayRadio]

Hey Jay! We really miss the unique listeners count in the new UI. Is there a way or any chance you can implement that again?

[Jay]

Yep, I am re-engineering several things regarding measurements. Along with re-engineering measurements and adding new metrics. I am working on documenting the measurement process to provide transparency to the community on how these things are calculated.

One thing that I have determined, you will need to provide detailed listener stats by logging into all your servers through the Radio Toolbox app (Your server credentials are securely encrypted on your local computer so we will never have access to those credentials) so that we can properly count Uniques. If you have already done this then you are good to go, as soon as the next release of the panel hits, you will see Unique counts again. If any of a station's servers are not authenticated the Unique count will be held back. Also, keep in mind that we can only count unique listeners if the session is within the check range. So if you have Radio Toolbox setup to poll your servers every 30 seconds, and a listener shows up and disappears within that 30 second window, we won't be able to count it. This detail along with other measurement details will be revealed in the new help documentation.

Thank you for your feedback.

[PlayRadio]

Thanks for the detailed answer Jay! All the servers always have their credentials in the program so we are good to go

BTW... there's a thing that needs to be fixed in RadioToolbox app. Whenever we add a new server and insert the credentials, they are not recognised. We have to install an older version, insert the credentials and after that update to the new version over the old one so that the program recognises the new server credentials.

Looking forward to the updated panel.

[Jay]

Thank you for your bug report. Can you install this beta version and let me know if you are getting that same behavior?

https://www.radiotoolbox.com/downloads/ ... -1-103.exe

If you do, please open a new thread and report it there, easier for it to not get lost and I can follow-up easier in the new thread.

Thanks!

[Jay]

Unique listener counts have returned. The count will show your unique listeners for the past 1 month. You will only be able to see this stat if all your servers for a given station are authenticated with Radio Toolbox.

The count starts from this post date so give it until Dec to be accurate.

[hdprene]

Thanks Jay the online GUI is very fast!!
Question. Just installed rtb 2-3-1-10. Is there a logfile of the changes since beta 3?

[Jay]

Mostly bugfixes and HTTPS support.

[PlayRadio]

Thanks Jay! Great update! I've been waiting for it for a while

[DirtySkeMe]

thank you for the work and that update