Drama-Fest Winners

[John C Lyons]

that's a sweetass rig! great prizes!

 

[Gordon JL]

The random generation of the list is definitely possible, and using cookies to make sure a particular visitor gets the same "random" list every time is also possible.

However, many of the people I've talked to don't watch the films straight through in the order they appear on the list (I know I don't). Instead, many enter the viewing phase with a mental list of films they are looking forward to seeing first. They start by watching these, then the rest they watch either by what seems more intriguing, or by going down the list.

I don't know if the value added by creating a re-creatable random list would offset the complexity of designing/implementing it.

I was planning on providing the list (in future fests) in tabular format allowing you, the viewer, to sort the list on user name or title, so you can more easily find the films you are looking for.

I could also add a "randomizer" button to shuffle the list into some random fashion. It wouldn't remember the order it shuffled to if you re-visit the page, but it would be a simple matter to store the "films downloaded" and mark them, so if you re-shuffle them you could still see which films you have left to watch.

I'll have to give this some more thought...if you have any other thoughts/ideas, pass them along.

Peace,
Larry

Larry, I like your tabular format idea since it helps simplify things and gives people easy access. One thing you can do is to have the initial list that pops up when someone opens it be completely random; because the people who do go down the list (and are too lazy to view everything first) probably won't need to sort by author or title, etc.; they'd simply open the list and start viewing from top to bottom. So by randomly generating the list when you initially open it (and still allowing those who want to to be able to sort by category) is sort of melding the idea of randomization with your easy-sorting idea (the random part really only matters when the page is first opened anyway).