{"id":1013,"date":"2021-03-12T12:23:14","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T16:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2024-04-09T15:27:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T19:27:40","slug":"progress-with-my-places-to-eat-web-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/12\/progress-with-my-places-to-eat-web-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Progress with My “Places to Eat” Web Application"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over five years ago, I blogged about starting my “Places to Eat” web application<\/a>. Then about the “Places to Eat” application’s progress<\/a>. I still work on it now and again, mostly adding new restaurants or city\/states. You can find my list of restaurants at Gotta Eat Here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, I have been playing around with the accessibility and usability of the application. I did this to make sure the restaurant information worked for everyone.<\/p>\n

\"Leftover<\/p>\n

The above photo was an excellent snack that I had while starting the research of iOS applications related to finding a place to eat, drink, attend an event, etc.<\/p>\n

I still haven’t completed all the research on other applications that you can store places to eat. I need to do the research\u00a0again and see how the applications have changed when I start over two years ago on this post.<\/p>\n

But I have asked people I know or meet at conferences if and how they keep track of where they want to eat when traveling. I have\u00a0used their feedback in my process to build something easy to use. Along\u00a0with\u00a0getting them the restaurant information quickly and easily.<\/p>\n

10k Apart Contest<\/h2>\n

Years ago,\u00a0An Event Apart<\/a> and Microsoft put on a contest to build a web-based application in under 10 Kb. It was called 10K Apart<\/a>. The contest was an easy way to code a light-weight mini-application to display all the places I liked. I have gotten other recommendations from people I know in a given city, or from blog posts\/articles, or TV shows.<\/p>\n

The plan was to build the main HTML and CSS template in three to four kilobytes. So I had six or seven kilobytes for the content. I used PHP to read in JSON files for each city that contained all the restaurant’s information.<\/p>\n

I spent about eight or ten hours building the responsive template. The beautiful thing is there was no primary navigation, so I didn’t have to worry about that. I simply created a drop-down list of cities and states that you could choose. Then people could find out where I recommend they eat n those locations.<\/p>\n

10K Apart Entry<\/h2>\n

The 10K Apart version was only ten restaurants per city, so when the page rendered, it was under 10 kilobytes. I wasn’t sure if the 10K Apart contest would count each page towards the total kilobyte count.<\/p>\n

So I built the PHP code to refresh the page with the content back to itself with a full-page reload. At first, I used POST for the form, which hid the location information from the URL. Later on, I changed it to a GET. So I could send people a link that had a city parameter ( slct<\/strong> ) in it to save them having to look things up themselves.<\/p>\n

After the 10K Apart Contest<\/h2>\n

I used the 10K Apart contest entry as my starting point for a much larger version. I built a more comprehensive individual city and state JSON files of places I ate or wanted to eat. I started it to have an easily accessible list for myself, or if people wanted recommendations, I could send them a link.<\/p>\n

Since the contest ended, I have added more restaurants, cities, states, etc., that I forgot about previously. Or new places I have tried and would recommend to others since then.<\/p>\n

Over time I have even removed a few restaurants because the last few times I went, the food was not as good as it used to be. I have also removed places that have closed. I have removed more spots during the pandemic than at any other time.<\/p>\n

With over 75 cities\/states and close to 1,000 restaurants. It’s not an easy task to check broken\/redirected links. So every few months, I check each city or state using the W3c’s Link Checker. Short blog post to come on how I do that.<\/p>\n

This reminds me that during the pandemic, I should do it more often.<\/p>\n

Future Plans<\/h2>\n

Long term, the plan is to start posting every two weeks or so. A handful of places I recommend you should eat at in a given location or for a type of cuisine. I think a newsletter would be a reliable way to do it too. But first, I need to look into newsletters, etc. I did create a MailChimp one that I haven’t used yet that I need to find again.<\/p>\n

I’m doing this, so I will have a shortlist for a location to share with people in the future. When they ask for recommendations for a city or places I have already been. Along with maybe a bonus place I’m looking forward to going to when it’s safe to travel.<\/p>\n

Future Posts<\/h2>\n

Over time I plan on writing multiple posts for some of the following locations and other locations:<\/p>\n