Site Updates Vol. 6

Whenever I make a visible change to the site, I jot down a note in my "Write next Site Updates article" task. This habit helps me keep track of updates I might want to share and makes writing these articles much easier. A few days ago, I added a new feature and realised how many updates I hadn't shared with you yet. It's been a while since the last update, so let me walk you through some of the sweetest changes.

Social Links

One frequent request I received was to include links to Vivino or shops where wines could be purchased. To address this, I introduced social links for wines. Not every wine entry has this data, but I try to attach links to every newly added wine.

Currently, the feature supports Vivino, Sabotage, and WineWine. Why Sabotage? Because their SKU-based system made it easy to integrate links---I'd already been recording SKUs for most wines. Goodwine, on the other hand, requires hardcoding each link, which is less efficient, so for now, I've only added WineWine in addition to Sabotage.

A cool feature of these links is that I can extract data, such as prices, directly from the shop's websites. This automation gives me a handy overview of price trends, though there are quirks (e.g., shared SKUs between releases occasionally skew prices).

Price Simplification

Previously, wine prices were buried in the description and displayed as a list---useful for tracking price changes or my personal expenses, but cumbersome when calculating QPR or performing some automatic actions as I often needed a single price. But what should I pick? Min? Max? First? Last? To simplify things, I show only one price, prominently displayed in the wine header.

Hovering over the price reveals additional details, including the date the price was recorded. This "public price" excludes discounts, delivery fees, and other variables, ensuring a consistent reference point.

Additionally, wine prices in event summary tables are now fixed, so historical data remains accurate even if wine prices change.

Bottle Size

Different bottle sizes can affect a wine's evolution, pricing, and characteristics (e.g., disgorgement dates or ageing periods). Previously, I lumped all bottle sizes into a single entry, but I've now separated them. Bottle size is clearly displayed in the wine information block and inside event summary tables.

QPR Redefined

One of the biggest changes is to the QPR (Quality-Price Ratio) formula. While my earlier formula accounted for the steep price increases at higher scores, it still didn't fully reflect how much more expensive wines become past certain thresholds.

In addition to that, my new formula also accounts for the price I'm ready to pay for a wine rated 4.0. Most importantly, the resulting QPR is easy to read - everything above 1.0 is considered to have a good QPR. But to make QPR even more user-friendly, I've introduced emoji indicators:

• 🤢: Below 0.5
• 😐: Above 0.5
• 🤔: Above 0.8
• 😊: Above 1.0
• 😍: Above 1.5
• 💎: Above 2.0

These indicators are now displayed wherever QPR is mentioned. The formula also accounts for bottle size, ensuring a fair comparison.

Event Summary

Event summary tables have seen several updates:

• Bottle sizes are now included.
• QPR reflects bottle size.
• Prices no longer fluctuate when the wine's price changes.
• Bonus and welcome drinks are clearly marked.
• As it was already told, we now include bottle size in the list of bottles and QPR takes the size into consideration. Also, prices are now fixed, and do not change on the event page whenever actual price changes on the wine page.

Consumption Frequency

Inspired by GitHub's heatmaps, I've added a widget to track wine consumption frequency. Found on the front page and individual convive pages (if you don't have your own page, you should ask me for a link ASAP), this widget shows the last 365 days, with darker colours indicating more activity. Hovering reveals the exact date and number of wines tasted.

This is just the beginning---I plan to make it clickable so you can view wines tasted on specific dates. And many more interesting things.

Other Minor Updates

• Dynamic sugar display: Only visible when available.
• Improved wine header visuals: Enhanced font, colours, and padding for clarity.
• Unified rating display: Consistent design across the site with a new rating component featuring stars.
• Refined rating details: Dates now stand out, and unnecessary duplication (e.g., "Wine #X on Y event") has been removed.
• Event page consistency: Ratings, QPR, and other details now align with the wine page's style.

Last Words

I hope you enjoy these updates as much as I enjoyed building them! As always, feel free to share your thoughts or requests---I'd love to hear what features you'd like to see next. Cheers!