Atlas Quest: New feature! Linking AQ and LbNA accounts!

Before you get too excited.... this is just the first step in a longer process. I know a bunch of you are excited about the idea of being able to record finds on a box that is listed on both AQ and LbNA at the same time, and that's not what's happening here.

So now that I've thrown a bucket of water on that idea, what have I done? =)

This hearkens back to the fundraiser for LbNA when I wrote:

So I have something of a goal to raise $2,000, and once that goal is hit, I would start working on a way to link the two websites a bit more closely. Allow recording a find on one website to record the same find automatically on the other website, for instance, so the last found date on both websites is current and up-to-date. Whether the goal is hit this year, or if it takes five years of fundraising to hit it, once I hit it, I can justify the time and effort required to implement such a feature.

No, I did not hit that $2,000 goal--but it did raise about $1,500 which is quite a bit better than I really expected. So... a partial victory! And while I wrote that I would "start" working on such a feature when the goal was hit, I figured the goal was close enough that at least I could start working on it--which is what I did. =)

I knew that recording finds on both websites at the same time would be a multi-step process to implement. First, AQ and LbNA needed a way to "talk" to each other. A way for AQ to whisper into LbNA's ears about what needs to be done, and vice-versa. They can't really cooperate with each other if there's no way for them to talk to each other, after all!

So I created a messaging system of sorts that let's AQ and LbNA talk to each other and share requested information between them.

But.... as much as I could test it on my development machine, the real test would be seeing it work on the live website.

But to do that, it needed to whisper something, and that was step 2: Creating a way to actually let people point their AQ account to their LbNA account (and vice-versa), so AQ knows you have a corresponding LbNA account (and vice-versa).

So I set it up so the two accounts could be linked, which can be done from the Account Info page on AQ or the Member Services page on LbNA. You only have to create the link from one site--it'll automatically be set up to work correctly in both directions. So it doesn't matter whether you link your AQ account to your LbNA account or your LbNA account to your AQ account. It's all the same in the end.

I actually find it strangely satisfying to log into both websites, creating the link on one of the websites, then refresh the page on the other site and see it automatically change! =) Then you can also break the link, and refresh the other page to watch it break there too. It's a strangely fun thing to watch. *shrug* =)

But I decided to take it one step further.... because it seemed weird to have a feature that would link the two accounts but then not have them actually DO anything! Completely and utterly pointless, right?

So that was the third step: I updated both websites so you if update your trailname, password, real name, or email address, you can select an option that would allow you to update the information on the other site as well. You don't need to use the same values on both websites, but most people do and this makes it a little bit easier.

Strictly speaking, this may not always be successful. For instance, if you try to change your trailname on AQ to something that is available on AQ but is already in use by someone on LbNA, it'll let you update the name on AQ, but you'll get an error message warning you that the trailname is already in use on LbNA and therefore it cannot be changed there. At least not changed to your preferred trailname. Whether you decide to tweak it to get something that's available on both websites is up to you.

Anyhow, linking accounts isn't especially useful right now--just for a few house-keeping tasks regarding your account details--but it's there and hopefully the linked accounts will become increasingly more useful over time. =)

This is a good place for me to stop for now. I want to do some more behind-the-scenes work on LbNA to make maintaining the code that handles finds a bit easier which is likely to take quite a bit of work before I even get into the actual feature people really want of recording finds on both websites at the same time. But it's a good first, second and third step that I've already implemented on the way to the longer-term goal! =)

Enjoy!