Auction Layout

[Eric Nalbone]

What is the likelihood that we could get "Breeder" added as a column in the auction layout? It's great right now, but when I see an auction from "Random Player I Don't Recognize" and am trying to identify horses bred by "Experienced Breeder", it might be helpful. Nothing against those I don't recognize off the bat, but I find that as I get more busy in the real world and less tied in with newer players in the SIM, the harder it gets for me to identify potential horses of interest in auctions. If I had some other way to at least TRY to find horses in auctions, it might help both me (by being able to buy stuff) and the players holding the auction (by having someone with money notice and bid on their horses).

If this is tricky or unpopular, not a big deal of course... just a random thought I had as I was looking around tonight trying to spend money.

[Bradley Davis]

I'm all for anything that helps Eric spend money!

[Ronnie Dee]

My concern with Eric's suggestions is that adding an extra column may require reducing the font size displaying the auction information. For some of the older players (including me), small fonts cause big problems.

[Anna Leroux]

Eric I've always wondered why that column wasn't there specially since it's now on race entries.

Ronnie just change the screen resolution and then make the font as big as you want to fit your computer screen!

Eric's got a great idea. Because there's SO MANY auctions I'd love to simply sort by breeder so I can look through horses bred by names I recognize. When there's 10-15 auctions by 10 new players sorting by breeder would actually help me consider sending money their way.

[Ronnie Dee]

...Ronnie just change the screen resolution and then make the font as big as you want to fit your computer screen!

Right now, the auction information fits across my screen without scrolling which I think was done by design by the programming team. If additional information is added, either the font will have to be made smaller for the information to fit across my screen or I will have to scroll to see all the information for each horse. Either option would require additional effort on my part so I would then be less likely to even look at horses in an auction by less advanced players.

If there is major interest in adding an additional column for breeder to the auction format, I suggest that the columns be reordered so column 2 would be "Bid" and column 3 would be "Bid By" so at a glance (without scrolling), one could see the horse, current high bid, and bidder. In fact, I think this column reordering would be beneficial even if no additional column(s) are added.

[Anna Leroux]

we could also remove state bred in the horse's listing. To me (don't know about others) but it's not really a huge deal. I'd rather have a horse's breeder listed then the state.

[Laura Ferguson]

You could possibly make up some of the other space, in addition to removing the state bred column, by narrowing the earnings column. An auction with a $1m earner runs to about the "E" - we haven't had a horse earn more than $10 million in forever, and even if we did, I doubt he/she would end up in an auction any time soon., which would leave a little bit of space to the left of the "E" in earnings to play with. I'm not sure those two changes quite get you there - since I assume the breeder column would be as wide as the high bidder column, but it would be close. Maybe a hair from the bid column - since I haven't seen an auction bring anywhere close to $1 billion, would make up the last bit of room needed for such a column.

I do like this suggestion, but I really don't want to make the overall table any wider, or make it more columns overall - which is why I like the removing the state bred column. I wouldn't want to risk making a Steward-bred auction longer to refresh, particularly in those last few minutes.

[Eric Nalbone]

1) Trim the "Horse Name" column to fit at minimum ~20 characters
2) Change the "Breed" column to TB, ARB, PNT, TRTR, PCR, QH, APPY and make that a nice short colum
3) Trim the "Sire" column to fit ~20 characters
4) Trim the "Dam" column to fit ~20 characters
5) Trim the "Type" column to fit ~9 characters
6) Trim the "Earnings" column to fit ~10 characters
7) Trim the "Stats" column to fit ~12 characters
8) Trim the "Bid" column to fit however much I'm realistically ever going to pay for a horse
9) Trim the "Bid By" column to fit however long the longer names in the gamer are
10) Eliminate the "state bred" column (has anyone ever specifically purchased a horse at auction because it's a NY bred?)
11) Find something to fill half a page of white space.
11a) See suggestion above.

I don't realistically think that space on the page is the biggest concern. There's plenty of space there. If you want proof, start shrinking your browser window and note that the columns automatically resize down to a certain point. Then the scroll bars appear, but you can scale it down CONSIDERABLY from where it sits on my screen and it'll just automatically adjust. To the extent that there does appear to be a "minimum grid size," the first 10 suggestions above can probably get you most of the way to where you need to get to.

If Laura's concern about time to load the page is true, then I'd be a little more hesitant, especially if removing "state bred" doesn't fly with people. Anyway, as always - this is just a suggestion. If people like it and the Steward likes it, awesome. I definitely recognize that I may be in the minority though, in which case I'd be completely ok with the change not being made. Just tossing ideas out and seeing what sticks!

[Eric Nalbone]

If there is major interest in adding an additional column for breeder to the auction format, I suggest that the columns be reordered so column 2 would be "Bid" and column 3 would be "Bid By" so at a glance (without scrolling), one could see the horse, current high bid, and bidder. In fact, I think this column reordering would be beneficial even if no additional column(s) are added.

I think this is actually a good idea too - I can't quite tell on the face of it whether I'd prefer it to the current layout, but without seeing and trying it I'd be hard pressed to make a call. If it's something easy to experiment with, it might be worth a few trial runs by the Steward to see what people prefer and what works for people.